Live Earth is ambitious by any standard: eight concerts featuring the biggest names in music, playing for 24 hours across the globe, all for the cause of global warming. But like its template -- 2006's Live 8, the global concert devoted to poverty in Africa -- the mission of Live Earth is amorphous. Its aim is to "trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.
" Whatever Live Earth's accomplishment Saturday, it will be difficult to measure. Former Vice President Al Gore, who co-founded Live Earth with Kevin Wall, says the world needs to rise up as one giant vox populi to influence "a new political reality." "The tipping point in the political system will come when the majority of the people are armed with enough knowledge about the crisis and its solutions that they make this cause their own," Gore said in an interview.
"Then, you will see the entire political system shift dramatically." Wall, an Emmy-winning concert producer who produced Live 8, hopes Live Earth will change attitudes about global warming and fuel a larger movement. "This concert is not the solution," Wall says.
"This concert is providing, hopefully, that global tipping point to start to get us into empowering people, get them into the tent. Maybe we can make the noise, maybe we can be the town crier, maybe we can say, like Paul Revere, 'The British are coming.'" Tickets for the U.
S. concert are $83 to $348, and proceeds from the U.S.
concert go to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a non-profit chaired by Gore. Wall was inspired to put on Live Earth after seeing the Academy Award-winning documentary on Gore's global-warming slide show. "The question I kept asking myself is, 'What can I do?
"' Wall says. Concerts are scheduled for East Rutherford, N.J.
; London; Johannesburg, South Africa; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Shanghai, China; Tokyo; Sydney, Australia; and Hamburg, Germany. A band of scientists will perform in Antarctica, stretching Live Earth across seven continents. More than 150 artists will perform, including Madonna, the Police, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Alicia Keys.
Sixty short films and 30 public-service announcements have been produced and will be broadcast between performances. Also planned are more than 6,000 parties in 119 countries -- ranging from home viewings to museum festivals. The concerts will be broadcast in the United States on NBC, Telemundo, the Sundance Channel, Bravo, MSNBC and Universal HD.
They also will be broadcast online at http://LiveEarth.MSN.com.
Live Earth has been organized mindful of lessons learned from Live 8, which Bob Geldof planned just weeks in advance to rally support for Africa. Envisioned as a sequel to 1985's Live Aid (which benefited famine in Ethiopia), Live 8 didn't charge for tickets and generally kept to a vague message, urging help for Africa. This time around, Gore says organizers are making particular effort to sustain any momentum gained by Live Earth.
At a news conference last week, Gore and Wall mapped out some of their goals for Live Earth. They unveiled a "7 Point Pledge" that concertgoers will be asked to sign. Those who sign it promise to pressure their country to sign treaties to cut global warming pollution, personally reduce carbon dioxide pollution, and plant trees, among other things.
Live Earth is ambitious by any standard: eight concerts featuring the biggest names in music, playing for 24 hours across the globe, all for the cause of global warming.
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