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Africa: Live Earth Vs. Africa

allAffrica.com - July 11, 2007

I will admit it, I am cynical of Live Earth. Even though I write on global warming daily in this site, I feel there are far more important things that can and should be done to ease human suffering than trying to change our climate trends. The human suffering in parts of the world is pretty extreme and, while global warming will make this worse, there are other things that can be done TODAY to ease much of that suffering.

While I am still in internal debate about the cause of any climate change, I have no doubt that we can save thousands, if not millions, of lives very quickly if we would give simple things like malaria more attention.

VIEW: Live earth, deaf to reality

Pakistan Daily Times - July 4, 2007

This is not a news story. Rather it is an op-ed that discusses the various trade-offs that must be made if we are to adopt radical changes for the sake of global warming control.  I have made similar comments before (read article here) and I differ from Mr. Lomborg in that I feel that if the case for global warming can be scientifically made, we should invest in solutions. If the definitive case for human induced climate change cannot be made though, it is far better to save lives in some other way.

Live Earth London’s Glacial Pacing

Washington Post - July 8, 2007

I tried to do the math on the big quote from this article and couldn’t make it work. John Buckley of Carbon Footprint says that it would take 100,000 trees to offset the effects of the Live Earth concert from this weekend. While I am not sure on his math, I am sure that it is a big number.

The problem with saying this is that I don’t think carbon offsets are effective. To say that you can buy your way out of pollution by planting trees is, at best, a short term consideration. The trees are barely carbon negative over their entire life and death, even though they can have a big impact in their first years of fast growing. 

Wembley Urged To Take Meat Off Live Earth Menu

LifeStyleExtra - July 5, 2007

It seems that the organizers of Live Earth are a little closed in their thinking.  Methane is one of the largest greenhouse gas components and animal production is one of the largest contributors to methane overproduction.  It seems that Live Earth is selling meat products which is sending the wrong message.

Organizers of the Live Earth concerts should not sell burgers or hot dogs at the high profile gigs, an animal rights group claimed


PETA activists said that Wembley should take meat off the menu after a recent UN report found that the meat industry creates more greenhouse gases than all the cars, trucks, ships and planes in the world combined.

Rock Stars Against Live Earth

New site that I just became aware of.  Check it out if you are interested in learning about Live Earth and the various musical groups that are supporting or not supporting the effort.

http://www.rockstarsagainstliveearth.com/

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Live Earth Pledge

Live Earth

I have no problems with people pledging to do better, I am just cynical that it will happen.  Most Americans make “resolutions” each New Years (the most popular are to lose weight and stop smoking) and by the Super Bowl, these pledges are broken.

I do have some concerns about the details of this pledge.  By pledging to the first one, 2-7 are pretty much moot. The first item, if implemented, would effectively prevent all the others from ever happening.  In the US, to reduce CO2, H2O, and methane by 90% in 18 years (time for the next generation to be born) would be a gigantic burden on the economy.  I mention this in a previous post: Wanna Pay $7 a Gallon?