Live Earth on the hot ticket

Got a fancy ticket for the Live Earth concert, Al Gore's huge, all-continent simulconcert whose mission was to "create a movement" to stop doing all the things we're doing to make the world hotter, wetter, stormier and generally a lot less welcoming. Although I watched the concert from an air-conditioned skybox whose windows were open the whole time and left with pockets full of consumer dross, it was actually pretty worthy all around. Al Gore looks like his life has improved a lot since the White House. Jane Goodall did a rockin impression of chimps' greeting call. And Miss Petra Nemcova... was entertainingly dim. Talking about surviving the tsunami, she said "I didn't feel hate for nature, I felt that the nature was screaming for help!" Anyway, it was a 360 degree eco-experience. Mostly.



For example, although the recycling got a little surreal, it was super serious. Pepsi organized hundreds of volunteers (all in t-shirts undoubtedly made under appalling labor conditions with non-sustainable materials...) to manage the recycling. They were so intent on their duties that they urged people to drink up their free Pepsis immediately so volunteers could take back the cans. But they did turn Giants Stadium into a model of waste-stream management. Meanwhile, having lived in enviro-forward Cambridge for the last 2 years, I can't get it into my head that NYC doesn't think those massive, hard plastic take-out containers are worth recycling. I keep polluting the recycling bin!

Interestingly, there didn't seem to be much other major corporate sponsorship besides MSN. Although the Live Earth website says Chevrolet sponsored the webcast... which is either weird or hopeful. What does this gaping corporate absence mean? That greening is about getting people to decide what we want for ourselves (with assistance from the Alliance for Climate Protection) and demanding it, instead of waiting to be told what we want by corporations? Madness!

According to the woman who cornered me holding a binder about wind energy, the entire show was also "powered by wind energy." Presumably that means the producers bought massive amounts of wind energy credits to offset their grid usage, not that they installed temporary wind turbines along the Jersey Turnpike and ran wires into the stadium.

And the demands that the concert made weren't just to politicians, but to the concert-goers. They weren't nicey-nice things either, like "why not take the stairs instead of the elevator?" (To which the appropriate reply is "why don't you get out of my face? The stairs aren't air conditioned!") It was more like, "Don't eat so much frickin meat, for God's sake! It's the least efficient way to get food in the entire universe! And don't eat fish either because the oceans can't keep up." (See the cow poop film which played on the screen between acts.) The messaging didn't quite get to "And there's no need to be self-righteous about eating everything made of soy, either, since it's destroying farming economies, and you should really think about adopting kids instead of begetting them" but maybe that would've been beyond audacious. It was pretty amazing to be in New Jersey and watch 50,000 fairly privileged people (tickets started at $60) get gently schooled about the meaning of meat. The producers brought the meat point all the way home, too. I was in the fancy skybox and eating for free, the Nation's blog reports that Giants Stadium also served veggie burgers and not dogs at the concession stand, a great little demonstration project. But there was nothing like that in the box, where the "vegetarian dish" was crabcakes... The meaty flow of corporate hospitality is just a little harder to interrupt, I guess.

My career as a jaded doubter isn't totally in jeopardy, though... Who's the target audience for this messaging? Middle class white people? Because that's who was there. (Watching Akon work really hard to play to the crowd reminded me of the Onion story about Bob Marley returning from the grave to break frat boys' bonds of oppression...) And the instructions to the crowd about how to live green were about shopping for eco-friendly (more expensive) things, weatherizing your house, etc. -- all great advice, but practical only for a particular set of people. There was nothing about the idea that, maybe if green vegetables were subsidized like corn, people could afford to eat them... And stuff. That's a problem that the environmental movement has had for a long time, but it does seem like the Gore push is about reshaping it for mass participation. Including stars who speak to audiences that aren't lily-white or traditionally crunchy is a good start, but it's not enough to bridge the class gap.

(Separately, mass transit, hello? Finding information about public transportation was a major chore, and then it looked like a horrible option. A shuttle that only runs until the event starts, and then doesn't make the return trip till the end? At a 7-hour show? We really tried not to drive, but it just didn't work.)

Anyway, I took every piece of promo material that was being handed out, just to see how big the pile got. Which I list here not to trash the concert, but just to say... we consume an insane amount of crap, which still counts even if it says "you should recycle" or "this crap is recycled."

In my pockets:

• A flyer on buying wind energy credits (for which I actually had to beg, because the staff had been told not to give out paper at this event.)


• A neck lanyard with a card-case: 30 square inches of plastic, suspended by a metal hook on a ribbon that says "Fabric made from waste fibrous stems of grain crops -- organic and bidegradable." It advertises energy-saving light bulbs and urges people to Take the Pledge. Sponsored by... the company that sells the light bulbs.


• 10 packets of "tree seeds" labeled Seeds of Change, explaining that planting a tree helps suck up carbon and advertising the Live Earth broadcast on MSN.


• A flyer (shiny bad-for-the-earth paper) for WheatWare, alternative to plastic & wood disposable stuff (like chopsticks and golf tees, according to the flyer.)


• A flyer (recycled paper) advertising the alleged State Fair in the parking lot next door; in reality, a 5-acre aggregation of funnel cake kiosks and some rides.


• A t-shirt apparently (amazingly) handed out to every concert-goer with a packet of Sun Chips in plastic/foil, that says "Apathy is a harmful emission."


• A can of Pepsi (I didn't drink up on demand)


• A plastic bracelet apparently made of recycled Pepsi bottles (does turning old garbage into new garbage count as recycling?)

And a bunch of stuff given just to high-roller Guests of the Box, I think:

• A smart, funny and probably factual book on how real, regular people might cut down on their environmental impact. If they can afford to. If not, when Peak Oil comes, the book demonstrates how to burrow underground.


• A booklet on how to deconstruct global warming sceptics' snotty arguments.


• A pamphlet asking for tax-deductible contributions to buy shares in wind farms... or something.


• Another t-shirt from the Alliance for Climate Protection, saying "I pledged," which I actually totally believe was sustainably produced, because I don't think Gore is bullshitting.


• A cookbook from Stonyfield Farm (cute, although I don't usually need to look up a recipe for yogurt and strawberries... And technically we should probably be vegan anyway.)


• An oven mitt from S.Farm


• A canvas shopping bag from S.Farm


• A yogurt-cheese making kit, including cheese cloth and a very plastic spatula, from S.Farm


• Coupons from S.Farm


• An acai kernel bracelet "For Protection" and tribal street-cred


• A booklet on switching to energy-efficient lighting, from the purveyor of energy-efficient lighting

Like I said... a lot. But dude. It was free.