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[April 16, 2007]

TOO GREEN TO BE TRUE?

(The Express On Sunday Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) EVEN before former American Vice-President Al Gore announced the Live Earth line-up this week, there was an obvious credibility gap. VIP travel, private jets and constant touring make the average music star a huge individual emitter of the carbon dioxide (CO2) gas that scientists say is responsible for potentially catastrophic climate change. Internet bloggers are already making their anger felt. "Scientists have promised that the prototype of the first hypocrisy-detecting camera will be ready for the Live Earth concert, " joked British blogger the-spine. com in a typical example of the prevailing attitude. But Gore claims that July 7 this year will set a "green example" of how to run huge events without causing unnecessary pollution. Madonna will headline at London's Wembley Stadium along with some of the music world's top draws - Red Hot Chili Peppers, Genesis, Razorlight, Snow Patrol, Corinne Bailey Rae, Keane, James Blunt and more. The Police will steal the show in Giant's Stadium, New Jersey, USA, while Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Sydney, Shanghai and Tokyo complete the international line-up. "This will be the largest musical event in history and the beginning of the biggest change we've ever had to make, " Gore claims with the sense of drama and destiny that has engulfed him since making the Oscar-winning environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth. "But we have to really make a commitment to this change, " he adds, "and that's what Live Earth is designed to kick off." Broadcast to more than two billion people, Live Earth hopes to attract or indoctrinate viewers into leading low carbon lifestyles. But the knives are already out. "It's ill-conceived, " says one major concert promoter. "It's going to be hard to reconcile flying in all these stars with the message that the punters should be stopping climate change. It's open to charges of hypocrisy from the start." Gore and his team believe that they have beaten that tag by unveiling a Green Event Standard that the Live Earth concerts will stick to and, they hope, will be adopted as a standard for future concerts and festivals. It promises to source all electricity from renewable sources, have food and drink sellers use biodegradable plastics made from corn and use CFL (compact fluorescent) lightbulbs where possible. All staff and artists will offset their air travel through "carbon credits" (for example, planting enough trees to absorb the CO2); any cars used will be hybrid vehicles and hotels will be told to use non-toxic cleaning products, CFLs and to provide recycling containers in every room. On the site, a comprehensive recycling programme is promised. But even Live Earth's own Green guru, John Picard, has his doubts, admitting that about 100 artists will have to fly to the gigs. Picard has helped turn major companies into more energyefficient operations and made the White House greener under President Bill Clinton. "Are we going to have a carbon footprint from Live Earth? Absolutely. And is it worth it to raise awareness? I don't know, I just hope so. "We have to be honest. I'm having a really tough time with the air travel. We've been talking to airlines for them to co-operate in offsetting. We're discouraging private jets and we're making sure the planes that travel are full. "This is short notice, too - it usually takes a year to 'green' a building, let alone this. It was two months into this project that we started to look at ourselves in the mirror and there was no turning back. But without the air travel, it's not that big a deal." BUT one environmental scientist, Dr Keith Tovey at the University of East Anglia, told the Sunday Express that the carbon emitted from fans and artists travelling to Wembley Stadium for the London concert alone, as well as the floodlighting used, could amount to around 3,000 tonnes. An average Brit is responsible for just nine tonnes of carbon per year. Live Earth's executive producer Kevin Wall worked on Live 8 in 2005 and organises concerts in the US, including for the Rolling Stones. His influence on his industry's green standards can be strong but the carbon emissions he has been responsible for in the past fuel charges of hypocrisy. And Gore, a man whose political career consisted of more private jets than Clinton had mistresses, is still jetting around the world to tell others not to. Critics had a field day last month when the Tennessee Center for Policy Research carried out a carbon audit of Gore's own home and found that his energy consumption over the past two years was 20 times the American average. Of course, some scientists doubt that carbon is a significant factor in climate change anyway. Science writer Nigel Calder says that Live Earth is another distraction from the real story. "What really makes this whole business crazy is that global warming seems to have stopped, " he claims. "There's been no increase in the world's temperature since 1999. "CO2 must have some effect but it's tiny. They claim it's an emergency and a concert will spread the word, then they show you pictures of ice melting in the Arctic but never say that the ice is increasing in Antarctica - eight per cent since 1978. That makes no sense if carbon is at fault. "I'm happy for people to be environmentally conscious but they're being led a merry dance. This has become a religion, people are desperate to believe they can control the climate and critics like me are branded heretics. "Have a party by all means - but don't think you can change the world." Even for those who do believe in carbon's major role in global warming, Live Earth is still worrying. "It takes a lot of energy to light the stadiums and make the sound, " says John Buckley of Carbon Footprint, a company that calculates emissions. "Then there's all the emissions from the thousands of fans travelling to the event and the acts flying in. "Most stars travel with entourages and they own big cars - it's all bling for them. And they're going to be on stage telling the fans to change their lives? "Madonna's Confessions tour produced 440 tonnes of CO2 in four months last year. And that was just the flights between the countries, not taking into account the truckloads of equipment needed, the power to stage such a show and the transport of all the fans getting to the gigs. "The Red Hot Chili Peppers produced 220 tonnes of CO2 with their private jet alone over six months on their last 42-date world tour. It would be great for these A-list stars to stand on stage and announce, 'We're Razorlight and we're not going to fly any more', but I doubt they will." John Picard disagrees. "Please print that, " he says. "I'm not sure anyone in Live Earth knows how important that is. Their lifestyles are challenging but they're ready to put things right. I'm talking to as many as I can, transforming their houses onwards. They have the resources and they're willing to put them in the right place, they'll tell some good stories. "My contract runs for a year after the event, which includes working with the artists to ensure they keep their promises." Will artists disclose their own sacrifices? Picard's confidentiality agreements with them do not bode well. He says that the Red Hot Chili Peppers have their own green guru and The Police will play in Baltimore in August at a further all-Green event. "Up until last year, this wasn't on the radar, " says Picard, "but now my phone's ringing off the hook with major celebrities wanting to change their lives. "Discouraging private jet travel is a big deal, and no one's asked them to give it up until now." But merely giving up private jets is hardly going to impress the man in the street. "Stars telling people to change their ways does have a hypocritical air to it, " adds Trewin Restorick, of Global Action Plan, a practical environmental charity. "I'd like to see bands set out their own charters, showing people how achievable a low carbon lifestyle is." Some seasoned environmental campaigners are anxious that opportunities are not wasted. "Music is a great tool for waking people up, " says Maddy Harland, editor of environmental magazine Permaculture. "But what really matters is what we do when everyone stops dancing. Will people understand the problems?" The carbon credits used to offset Live Earth's air travel are one of the most controversial aspects of ecological action. Those polluting are able to buy credits to "offset" their CO2 emissions. "It depends how they're offsetting the carbon, " says Trewin Restorick. "Good things are investing in renewable energy projects or helping UK schools reduce their carbon footprint. "The worst is planting trees in the northern hemisphere as studies this week have shown that it might actually harm the environment by retaining too much heat in the earth." ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners are unsurprisingly enthusiastic about Live Earth and willing to turn a blind eye to the carbon the event will generate in return for the public's potential investment in their services after the event. Major campaigners such as Friends of the Earth, Oxfam and Greenpeace refer journalists to Ashok Sinha at Stop Climate Chaos for comment. "Anyone who puts on an event will produce carbon, " he admits. "But if it gives us the opportunity to talk to billions of people, the saving in carbon they will later make outweighs what Live Earth will produce. It's conceding a bit of ground to gain a lot more." But Sinha admits that he has not seen any details of Live Earth's Green Event Standard. "I've not seen the details, all we have is a commitment from them to work with the best available advice. We'll monitor that." But will this audience be sufficiently persuaded? Marcus Armes, of CRed, a carbon reduction programme, is worried that the message will not get across. "We've found that simply signing people up to a one-off pledge to reduce their carbon footprint is not enough, " he argues. "You have to commit to a long-term programme and give them feedback about how much carbon they're saving. "Unless you maintain a relationship with all the people who watch and attend the concerts, it will just be a pop stars flying around the world to an enjoyable but pointless concert - an enormous waste of effort." Live Earth are still calculating their carbon emissions. They estimate it will take up to GBP1.5million to offset them. "You'd think they'd know how much carbon they're going to produce before they decide the concert's worth doing, " points out John Buckley of Carbon Footprint. "Whether anyone watching will reduce their own footprint is not something that can be calculated." "We're doing the very best we can at the moment, " counters John Picard. 24 hours of music around the world NEW JERSEY Giants stadium 80,000 RIO DE JANEIRO Copacabana Beach 1 million+ JOHANNESBURG The Cradle Of Human Kind Maropeng Start SYDNEY Aussie stadium (below) 42,000 LONDON Wembley stadium (right) 90,000 SHANGHAI Venue to be confirmed TOKYO Tokyo stadium 50,000


Copyright 2007 The Express on Sunday. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire.

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