Live Earth Hypocrisy

It looks like the Live Earth concerts were not a total bust at focusing attention on how humans generate carbon. It turns out that the attractions are generating it at a monumental rate.

The Live Earth event is, in the words of one commentator: "a massive, hypocritical fraud". For while the organisers' commitment to save the planet is genuine, the very process of putting on such a vast event, with more than 150 performers jetting around the world to appear in concerts from Tokyo to Hamburg, is surely an exercise in hypocrisy on a grand scale.

Yeah, I thought so, but some of the numbers are revealing.

The total carbon footprint of the event, taking into account the artists' and spectators' travel to the concert, and the energy consumption on the day, is likely to be at least 31,500 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to John Buckley of Carbonfootprint.com, who specialises in such calculations. Throw in the television audience and it comes to a staggering 74,500 tonnes. In comparison, the average Briton produces ten tonnes in a year.

In comparison, my household of three produces approximately 29 tons per year. (Yeah, yeah, we're talking British tonnes versus American tons, but you get the drift. COnverted to metric tonnes, I get a household figure of 26 tonnes per year, which is still under the average.)

When the folks who say it is a crisis start living and acting like it is truly a crisis, then I'll start worrying. As long as they're jet-setting around, trying to get me to reduce my carbon footprint then their whole career looks to me like one huge narcissistic hypocrisy.