And yet, here we are, thinking about it, talking about it.
It’s almost as if the concerts raised people’s awareness of global warming. 
If playing music doesn’t help fight global warming, what will we try next? Sports tournaments? Chess? Perhaps Nathan’s Hot Dogs can sponsor a professional eating contest. That should help, no?
Part of the problem is there’s still a good amount of Global Warming deniers out there. Regardless, these concerts are a waste of time. Leave the problem to science and we’ll do our micro part.
That’s all great stuff and it needs to be done, sure. Its certainly better to do those things than not. Hell, I hold on to my empty Starbucks coffee cup until I can find a garbage can, just like the next guy.
Meanwhile, over in Asia, a huge proportion of the world’s population is not doing a lot of those things. The are too busy grinding out the raw framework for economic and industrial revolution. I think it is all going to be about growth and production. I imagine they have scarce mindset to focus meaningfully on pollution and resource consumption. And what happens over in Asia will impact the globe. While we are sorting polystyrene from polypropylene and washing our hemp underwear. While we are behaving morally. While we have resigned ourselves to thinking and acting locally.
I’m not an economist, sociologist, or whatever. But I would welcome any explanation that illustrates how/when India and China are going to temper and hone their newly-developed nations after the massive growth we are witnessing. And I’d like to see estimates on how much environmental and other damage will be done in the interim.
Yes, of course, that’s good. There won’t be any success without it. But that doesn’t mean there will be.
So, perhaps these concerts will help raise awareness over there. A concert was held in Shanghai.
Oh, they’re aware all right!
Satellite data reveals Beijing as air pollution capital of world
shamozzle The difference is we can’t do a damn thing about China and India, but we can do something about ourselves.
Yes, I got that that is what you are saying.
What I’m saying is that I have this idea that while it is better to have concerts and recycle and whatever than not, it won’t be enough in global terms and that the future of the globe hinges on Asia and not on what we do here in NA or Europe.
Both having concerts and recycling are wasteful and pointless. The only real solution is for the individual to decrease consumption.
The little triangle is in order of importance.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Actually, there’s very little to be done here in terms of individual lifestyle choices. You won’t stave off global warming through carpooling or bicycling. The only real solution is for the individual to get politically active and demand the introduction of more energy-efficient alternatives for daily personal transportation, etc. E.g., high-speed rail.
How is it better to have concerts? Beyond entertainment value, what good is done?
They stir up political feeling on the issue. That is the whole point, and it is more than anything you could do by writing your congressman or whatever, and way more than you could do by recycling your newspapers or going to work by bicycle.
Well, really, I don’t know that it is better. But simplistically, I think that all other things being the same it is technically better to talk about the problem than not. But ultimately, yea, I think they’re pointless.
I think that’s BS. Getting politically active usually involves MORE consumption. Let’s print out 5000 4x6 glossies, we’ll do it on 100% post-consumer paper dude, it’ll be rad, we’ll get the word out. Meanwhile most of those cards will end up in the gutter. Individuals in aggregate taking responsibility for their own consumption will have the most dramatic impact. If you don’t use paper plates they don’t have to be produced or transported. Millions of people already work to reduce their individual consumption, that aggregate does make a difference. Personally I think always relying on a nanny state solution IS the problem because the nanny state is one of the largest sources of waste. It is big centralized inefficient bloat that brings about so much pollution. Plastic is made from petroleum, use fewer plastic bags and plastic forks and you have reduced our dependency on foreign oil. Sure it’s a drop in the bucket, but one drop from every person every day is 300,000,000 drops. Eventually it adds up.
The problem is that we don’t take personal responsibility for anything. We blame ‘the system’ in an abstract way, and meanwhile it keeps chugging along doing what it will do, while we keep busying ourselves printing up 4x6 color glossies and distributing them to people who drove to a concert to hear Madonna play on a 100,000 watt sound system while drinking their beer from a plastic cup that they will later toss on the ground for the groundskeepers of the stadium to clean up.
I would absolutely love to see a high speed rail go in, but to present it as a dichotomy and try to talk people out of doing things on an individual basis is counter-intuitive IMO.
I don’t think much of Gore as an environemental crusader, mostly because he was Vice President for EIGHT YEARS and did practically nothing of value that I know of (or that, more important, the general public knows of) to advance his cause. It was a huge wasted opportunity, and I’m still kinda steamed over it.
ETA: I also find the concert kinda pointless, for two reasons: people tend to go overboard at these kinds of events and display bad decisions and weirdness that only fuels political opponents, and I find they (appropriately enough for a concert) preach to the choir. Worse, they preach to the choir and do little to nothing to get anyone, EVEN THOSE WHO AGREE WITH THEM, to do anything of substance. It’s a waste of time.
He was vice president, a traditionally (and constitutionally) functionless office, and he lacked the unprecedented arrogance of Dick Cheney necessary to turn it into something more. I imagine he spent eight years making plans to do something after he became president in 2001, which he had every right to reasonably expect.
But he did have the power to influence Administration policies, and even with a Republican Congress (which was actually a DEMOCRATIC Congress for a few years), I didn’t see much evidence that the Clinton Administration cared any more about the environment than any other before or since.
Even if they tried, half of politics is being seen by the public, and my ignorance of any effort on their part says something (I mean, says something about more than my ignorance :)).