Raising awareness of climate change can only be a good thing. It is something i have been twittering on about for longer than i care to remember so the Live Earth concerts that went on around the World yesterday can get the message out louder.
The message is sound but the delivery is open to ridicule for every critic of environmental issues who have been queuing up to bash us over the head with the carbon footprint of those chosen to lecture us about reducing our carbon footprints. The sad thing is, they do have a point.
Apart from the fact that i do have a natural tendency to stick two fingers up to anyone who doesn't practise what they preach, the practise of getting together a bunch of musicians to perform for a cause is getting, dare i say, boring?
Back in the 80s, Live Aid did a great job of raising money to save lives in Ethiopia but since then we have had concerts for anything and everything and i couldn't help think that as we were being urged to turn our TV's off standby when we go to bed, i would need to leave millions of TV's on standby for hundreds of years to equal the amount of energy the Red Hot Chilli Peppers took to fly to the concert to tell me it.
Al Gore was behind the whole shabang and he has the chance to do more good than any amount of environmentally friendly concerts he can conceive by running for President and using the weight of the most powerful office in the World to make real, far reaching changes on a global scale.
13 comments:
Oh my, it looks like you and I are singing from the same hymn sheet though you are more forgiving!
I am all for the cause but think that worthy concerts are getting boring. And who needs to raise awareness on climate change?
The obvious question for me is : If I want advice, why would I take it from the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Or any heroin user, for that matter?
I rarely listen to the critics, though. So what if Bill O'Reilly isn't impressed with Gore's carbon footprint? He isn't bringing it up to expose a hypocrite, he's bringing it up to provide people with a weak excuse to not care about it, and continue wasting resources for his Masters.
We all agree that the cause is worthy, but the whole being lectured to by pop singers taking the high morale ground is growing weary.
They really need to come up with a new concept when they have something to push and hopefully it won't involve genesis this time.
"We all agree that the cause is worthy."
Well... not quite. As Little Cheese quite rightly argued, how much 'awareness' raising on climate change can take? Especially from hypocrites like Madonna and the multi-millionaire David de Rothschild who think they can tell little people like me how to live a carbon neutral life.
The real message from the Live Earth concerts is 'the planet is fucked - so let's have a huge party', it's perfectly fine because it's for a 'worthy' cause.
I don't know about you guys (and gals), but I'm not having the likes of David de Rothschild telling me to grow my own tomatoes, or put a £5 jumper on instead of turning the heating up - if you ask me, it's high time we enlarged our carbon boot-print up their hypocritical green arse - and that's putting it mildly.
"Especially from hypocrites like Madonna and the multi-millionaire David de Rothschild who think they can tell little people like me how to live a carbon neutral life."
Oh, what a pile of self-serving bullshit. "I don't like the messenger, so the message is worthless." We know that things have to change, and news ratings and magazine sales show over and over and over and over that people will pay far more attention to pop stars than they will scientists. So people who want to get a message out use the people that we all listen to the most to do so. What is so hard to figure out about this? They're trying to raise money for a cause. Well, what a surprise! People will pay to see Genesis but they won't pay for a lecture from an Oxford professor.
And who SHOULD be spending all this time spreading a message otherwise? Someone who is NOT wealthy, and thus needs to spend 40+ hours at a job, instead? No, perhaps it's rich people who have the time for such things. This is similar to criticism that Edwards is getting from the Right. "He's running on a platform of helping the poor, but LOOK AT HIM!!! HE"S RICH! He gets nice haircuts! What a hypocrite, wanting to help the poor but not being poor himself!!!!"
Well, no one can force anyone to listen, but if you choose not to, don't try to hide behind the Red Hot Chili eppers. Just admit you don't want to listen.
If you can think of a more worthy cause then saving the planet and all that live on it Courtney, love to hear it.
The cause is worthy, of course, but it is the lifestyles like those of the rich celebrities that are really screwing up the planet.
Just look at London - the poorer boroughs have an excellent record of recycling whereas the boroughs where those same celebrities live (Madonna being an example) are letting the side down. It is them that need that 'message' that you speak of Joe...
Well, let's not pretend that painting all the poor with a nice broad brush and all the rich and famous with the bad broad brush means anything. Let's also not forget how outnumbered the rich and famous are. So an entire poor neighborhood recycles more than Madonna does - that's good. Does the entire poor neighborhood use less electricity than Madonna? Less water? Breathe less?
I'm not buying the idea that the millions are okay and only the relatively few rich and famous folks are the problem that they themselves preach about.
I do buy the idea that people resent the rich and famous for being rich and famous, though.
Joe, just because I am making a point that they do not lead by example does not mean that I resent them for being rich and famous. I just resent them for being hypocrites, that is all.
They're NOT our LEADERS, LC! THAT'S the point! They're spreading a word because the people who want the word spread know that we will listen when they speak, and more importantly PEOPLE WILL PAY TO SEE THEM PERFORM. That's it. Doesn't anyone get that this was a fund-raiser? They don't have to lead by example, they're not our leaders.
In fact, I wish the word "leaders" would go away. We might have better luck with our politicians if we stopped expecting them to be our "leaders".
Who the hell would want to be led by a guy named "Flea" anyway?
I would also like to know how everyone can be so certain about the private lives of the performers, anyway. What proof that they don't walk the walk? Does anyone here know how Madonna lives once the mansion doors are shut? If so, how? Does the papparazzi, always mindful of truth and accuracy, really serve you that well?
It still sounds to me like guys like O'Reilly are giving people an excuse to ignore the issue, and some folks are just sucking it up.
Joe - as far as I'm aware this wasn't a 'fund' raiser, it was an 'awareness' raiser - as if we need any more awareness raising on the issue of global warming. The pledge was more about people giving their word that they would comply and obey petty environmental demands.
Lucy - I can think of a couple of causes that are far, far more pressing than the hypothetical problems relating to climate change - like for example, the fight against malaria.
Or the struggle for peace, and the fight against war.
Come now Joe, you need to calm down with the hysterics - I never said it was a crime to be wealthy. What I find objectionable is the affront of celebrities like Madonna telling ordinary people to drive less, or fly less, or recycle more to somehow 'save' the planet. None of these celerities practice what they preach, so why should anyone bother to listen to them?
All of this malarkey reminds me of 'The Simpsons' episode in which Willie Nelson invites Homer and the gang to make a presentation at the hilariously-named 'New Awareness Awards'.
Marge says: "When we heard the goal was to promote awareness, we couldn't say no!"...
Courtney -
Is it possible you weren't here a month ago, and thus don't know what I do with strawman arguments?
"Come now Joe, you need to calm down with the hysterics"
Yeah, calm down with the rhetoric, Courtney. I wasn't at all hysterical. All those questions I wrote which you're trying to ignore by accusing me of hysterics were reasonably stated. I capitalize some words to accent their meanings, not because I'm shouting. If I were shouting I would capitalize ALL the words.
"I never said it was a crime to be wealthy."
And I never said that you did.I said that "people" resent them, and I think your commentary about them makes that a statement of the obvious.
"None of these celerities practice what they preach"
I've already asked you once how you know that as a statement of fact, rather than an easy to make and convenient assumption that makes you feel better about not caring yourself. You haven't answered THAT, so I tend to think it's the latter.
Not that I'm telling you you SHOULD care. I'm not here to raise awareness. I'm just saying that the "I'm not going to care because I don't think Phil Collins is sincere enough" argument is woefully wuss. If you're going to go around saying that it isn't important, cowboy up and accept that it's YOUR choice to ignore global scientific consensus and the lack of an alternative habitat for humanity. I mean, the scientists COULD be wrong, and some people do feel luckier than others do, and enjoy a good gamble.
I could also point out that cutting electricity and gas use is good financial advice, too, but since I don't REALLY live under a bridge, I guess I wouldn't be qualified to tell you that.
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