Well, I just got back from the Transformers movie (mini-review: pletely ridiculous, but it has Peter Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime and lots of stuff blowing up, so it’s worth at least the matinee price, if you’re into that kind of thing), mowed the lawn (sorry – not carbon-neutral), and now I’ve stumbled upon the broadcast of Live Earth on Bravo. According to Al Gore, the concerts are not about fundraising, but are occurring simply to “raise awareness” of the issue of climate change.

A couple of points here: first, does awareness of climate change really need to be raised? Am I the only one that notices the ridiculous amounts of coverage that this issue gets every time a member of the IPCC so much as clears their throat? Is it possible for any reasonably informed person to be unaware of the issue? I tend to think that if you’re not aware of the issue at this point, no amount of awareness raising is going to do much good.

Second: isn’t it a bit odd that this big spectacle on behalf of the planet is going to end up needlessly causing a whole lot of damage to the planet, at least by the standards of the organizers?

It has been estimated that between the actual concerts, web streaming and television broadcasting, the Live Earth concert series could produce as much as 200,000 metric tons of carbon, after the conversions from electricity have been calculated. In other words, the Gore concerts could produce more carbon dioxide than was produced by all of Afghanistan in 2006.

Or put another way: “The concert will produce more CO2 in one day than the total daily fossil fuel emissions for Austria, Chile, Finland, Greece, Iraq, Kuwait, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Sweden, the Virgin Islands, and a dozen other bined“.

As for what I’ve seen so far of the music – John Mayer is Waiting on the World to Change, Melissa Etheridge is making the musical statement that “Truth is of the people, by the people, for the people” and praising Al Gore as a great truth teller, and Shakira reminded us all that Hips Don’t Lie. (I’m sure her performance raised awareness of something, but I’m almost positive it wasn’t the climate. Yusuf Islam – the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens – is performing at the same Hamburg venue; I wonder if he caught that performance?)

Well, perhaps raising awareness isn’t such a bad thing after all, considering that the people that already know about the “climate crisis” think it’s a pile of crap – literally:

The public believes the effects of global warming on the climate are not as bad as politicians and scientists claim, a poll has suggested.

The Ipsos Mori poll of 2,032 adults – interviewed between 14 and 20 June – found 56% believed scientists were still questioning climate change.

There was a feeling the problem was exaggerated to make money, it found…

The survey suggested that terrorism, graffiti, crime and dog mess were all of more concern than climate change.

Hmmm. I just saw Al Gore introduce the Foo Fighters. I think that might be a sign of the apocolypse. I’m off to take shelter as best I can…