Consuming our live earth

I attempted to comment on Matt's post on Live Earth, but have given up on Typekey, so decided to make a post of my own with thoughts regarding ‘Live Earth’ this past weekend. Yes, I will admit that I did listen to series of concerts from Duran Duran to Bon Jovi (as studying background noise only) and as the day progressed, the more ludicrous I found the whole thing to be. I fail to see how a bunch of selfish celebrities who offset their enormous carbon imprint by sponsoring tree plantings on some uncompensated subsidence farmers land are now experts on climate change or are making any real difference in solving the problem. Especially since the event was just an opportunity to boost record sales (I don’t blame them as it was great publicity). I am tempted to send Tanya Kim hate mail, especially after her and her equally dizzy co-hosts musings on how cool of a city Tokyo is and how we should all travel there … the conversation seemed a little oxymoronic within the context of event. Too bad Sheryl Crow wasn’t featured promoting her 1 square for #1, 2 squares for #2 rule, although that probably wasn’t ‘cool’ enough for the star-studded line up. One of the most annoying things about the event was cell phones. From Enrique Iglesias snapping shots of himself with fans with their cell phone cameras during his performance to encouraging people to text pledges in order to see their name on international television, the emphasis on cell phones demonstrated what I think is the underlying problem causing climate change. Consumerism, the need to buy, the need to do or the need to see is the source of irresponsible use of resources. I think cell phones are the perfect example of it as they are the most disposable electronic devices available. Out of all the performers over 26 hours, only Melissa Etheridge even mentioned that societies mind set needs to change regarding our needs versus our wants. I guess what I am trying to say is that most celebrities are the epitamy of the underlying reason for climate change thus are the most undeserving heroes. It seems ironic that society needs a bunch of hypocrites to tell us to use common sense in our everyday life styles.