[Note: it seems like some subscribers to this blog are receiving repeats of old posts - sorry! I'm working on fixing it asap.]
Live Earth concerts are happening around the world today. The Australian one is in Sydney, featuring the John Butler Trio, Crowded House, Missy Higgins, Wolfmother and other music acts (news.com.au has the entire line-up online).
G Magazine interviewed some of the artists appearing: some told about what they were doing to make their tours greener (Missy Higgins buys green power for the venues and uses hybrid vehicles); others said that they hadn’t previously done much for the environment but saw this as an opportunity to change the way they usually worked (Rob Hirst from Midnight Oil and the Ghostwriters, Neil Finn from Crowded House).
The Sydney event has hired a green consultant, Michael Molitor, who is working with the ACF, WWF, Greenpeace, Origin Energy and Ticketek to create new environmental standards and guidelines for mass events.
The Sydney event asks people to sign a 7-point pledge, which includes:
- asking politicians to join international treaties to stop climate change;
- taking personal action to reduce their own CO2 emissions;
- calling for a moratorium on new coal plants that don’t have capture technology;
- working to get greater energy efficiency in all products;
- asking for laws and policies that support renewable energy while reducing support for fossil fuels;
- planting new trees and protecting existing forests; and
- buying from environmentally-friendly and humane businesses.
The pledge is wider-ranging than I expected - I thought it would be more of the usual “change a light-bulb” stuff. I’d like to know if the pledges are different in different countries, as European countries have already signed Kyoto, and I imagine the average person in Brazil has less to do to reduce their carbon emissions, but maybe more to worry about from the destruction of the Amazon rainforests.
The concerts are being shown on cable tv today, but I’m not sure if any of it will be shown on free-to-air channels.
