Live Earth and the Green Crusade

Set aside the complicated and technical debates about how much warming is going on and who or what might be causing it. Assume climate change is a real issue that needs to be addressed. Does anyone outside the event’s organizers really think that a collection of simultaneous global concerts was a vital step toward solving the problem? Is awareness the issue here? What cave would you have to be living in to be unaware of the issue?

Even if you were trying to raise awareness, this strategy was bound to fail. Let’s say you are sitting around flipping through the channels on Saturday. You see what appears to be a live concert of some sort. Out steps Al Gore to talk about the importance of addressing this pressing global scourge. How many people do you think will keep watching at that point? Is Al Gore’s riveting personality – or pontificating Hollywood personalities and rock stars - really the best hope of changing people’s minds?

I think the answer is clearly no. And the reason is the concert wasn’t a strategic event aimed at addressing a pressing public policy issue. It was a giant case of ego stroking for the participants and an easy way for greens around the globe to listen to music and party while claiming to work for a cause.

If you are a rich entertainer it is hard to be green. Jet setting about the world from one gigantic house to another uses a lot of energy. So do concerts and movie sets and practically everything else you enjoying doing. In a peer group where environmentalism is the one true faith this can produce a lot of guilt.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could put on a concert and help save the earth! You get to do what you do best (perform, pontificate, just look good, etc.) while at the same time working to save all of mankind – or at least some cute and cuddly animals you saw on cable.

The concertgoers are motivated by similar emotions. Changing people’s minds and implementing change is hard work. It is much easier to attend a concert and pretend to raise awareness. The concerts, however, were unlikely to change anyone’s mind or raise any awareness because everyone involved or watching was already a true believer.

No, the real intended message of Live Earth was “Cool people care about global warming.” Another one of the countless ironies of this event was that it failed at this as well. Al Gore and a collection of aging rock stars are unlikely to convince young people that the issue is cutting edge.

But this is the modus operandi of popular environmentalism. They are not really interested in debate or discussion; the issue is already settled in their mind. What they are seeking is to create a culture where their perspective is a given, where anyone who doesn’t conform is ostracized. Hence the constant stream of propaganda aimed at inculcating this viewpoint – everything from cartoons, car commercials and movies to public service announcements, hectoring “news” articles, and now global concerts.

This endless stream of media is thrown at us to convince us that serious, intelligent, attractive, and cool people believe that climate change is threatening the planet and only ignorant, weird, and dangerous people don’t. Sure, “science” is often used as a prop, but emotional manipulation is often the core aspect of environmental outreach.

Petra Nemcova provided a brazen example of this at Live Earth. The Czech supermodel that almost drowned in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami offered this head scratcher:

While I was there I didn't feel hate towards nature. I felt nature was screaming for help.

Lest you think this is just a stereotypical supermodel saying something silly, Environmental Defense and the Ad Council have been running ads that use “science” to convince us that climate change is real in much the same way as Nemcova. In this spot (see the ad The Question here), the melting of polar ice, shrinking glaciers, dieing coral reefs, rising ocean temperatures and extreme weather, and record breaking hit waves are all signs that the earth is trying to “get our attention.”

Now, anthropomorphizing the earth and arguing that an inanimate object like the planet is trying to communicate with the human inhabitants running around on the surface might make for an interesting science fiction movie but it is far from the scientific perspectives the greens claim to have. I am pretty sure scientists don’t believe that “Nature” screams for help.

And that is the point. A technical debate about climate change doesn’t get people’s attention, or open up their pocketbooks, but “bad people are killing polar bears” does. That is why every bad thing that happens on the planet quickly gets connected to global warming. That is why Kyoto was touted as some sort of sacred pledge. Environmentalists are on a moral crusade to save the planet and every available tool must be brought to bear no matter how tendentious its connection or scientific basis.

Live Earth was just the most recent example of green activists trying to dress up their emotional manipulation as scientific humanitarianism. As is typical, it was a mix of sloppy thinking and moral preening from the Hollywood set. Luckily, this time it seems to have failed. But I am afraid this doesn’t mean you will be left to watch your TV in peace. After all there is a planet to save.