Live Earth: An Aggressively Stupid Endeavor

I don’t mind that celebrities have their little pet causes. I really don’t. A number of them do a great deal of good. Because of their public persona and the cult of celeb-idolatry that has overtaken the world they are often able to raise awareness and funds that would be impossible for the average citizen to match.

But periodically celebrities’ self-delusional perceptions of grandeur go too far. They start to envision themselves as the saviors of humanity. They start to believe that all thoughts passing through their perfectly quaffed skulls are somehow revolutionary, genius, and ought to be thrust upon the huddled masses (us). They become like monkeys hurling their (pseudo-intellectual) shits at eager zoo patrons.

Occasionally we are confronted with a perfect storm of pet causes and celebrity narcissism in which large swaths of self-righteous, smug camera mongers converge simultaneously on one seemingly important issue. The swirling skies of half-baked global concerns collide with swelling ego-clouds, and we (the victims) are then subjected to a hellish awareness-raising event so illogical in its concoction, so blinded by its own presumptuousness, so satisfied by its own grandiosity that we have no choice but to accept, without question, that these celebrities must be accomplishing some great feat for humanity.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Live Earth.

Saturday’s 24 hour bonanza of concerts and celebrity speakers, spanning all seven continents, was a disgrace to environmentalism. Al Gore, we deserve better.

Think about the premise: to raise awareness of climate change we will bring together major musical acts (Madonna, Dave Matthews, Kanye West, Ludacris, Keith Urban, the list goes on) and high profile celebrities (Leonardo Dicaprio, Cameron Diaz, Kevin Bacon, etc.) to sing songs and tell people that they should recycle?

I hope (though I’m not optimistic) that even the most sniveling of the dunderheaded twits attending these concerts (or watching them on TV) could see the inherent idiocity. Putting the controversy of climate change aside (I personally think the jury’s still out. Climate shifts are not unique to this era if you take the whole of Earth’s history into account. Regardless, pollution is a major problem), but putting all that aside, to encourage people to take environmental action, these celebrities jumped on gas-guzzling, carbon-emitting airplanes, plugged into energy consuming sound and light equipment, drew crowds that produced enormous amounts of paper and plastic waste (and coincidentally also burned through untold quantities of fossil fuels to get there), and then had the balls to tell US how WE could change the environment?

And let’s think about who the message is coming from. How eco-friendly is it to own multiple mega-mansions on sprawling estates? Tell me Madonna, I’m curious. And Luda, does that Hummer come in a hybrid? Don’t think we’re forgetting about that whole dumping your feces in the Chicago River incident, Dave Matthews.

I could dedicate my entire life to polluting, emitting and all-inclusively raping the environment, and (presuming I never become fabulously wealthy) not leave a fraction of the environmental footprint that these people leave.

So pardon me, celebrities, if I tell you all to go f&#@ yourselves.

Let’s be honest: Live Earth was not so much an event to manifest eco-consciousness as it was an exercise in ego-consciousness. It gave these people another opportunity to inflate their own sense of worth, to delude themselves into thinking they are worthwhile, nay, indispensable human beings, and to self-righteously parade themselves as goodwill incarnate.

The saving grace was Bono’s conspicuous absence. Normally the headliner in celeb-advocacy events, whatever shred of dignity the celebrosphere maintains rests on his shoulders as one of the few able to see the megalomaniacal hypocrisy that was Live Earth.

Thanks for reading.


P.S. A tangent to the discussion of the last two days: I don’t know if you all have heard, but the Pope issued a proclamation declaring that Catholicism is the only “true religion” and that no other denomination “holds the means to Salvation”…So it looks like we’re all screwed anyways.