Live Earth Aims to Cause Lasting Change

Live Earth founder Kevin Wall, left, and former U.S. vice president Al Gore pose for a photograph Thursday June 28, 2007 in New York. Wall, an Emmy-winning concert producer who produced Live 8 and founded Live Earth, hopes Live Earth will change attitudes about global warming and jettison a larger movement. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg) (Tina Fineberg - AP)

Live Earth has been organized mindful of lessons learned from Live 8, which was planned just weeks in advance by Bob Geldof to rally support for Africa. Envisioned as a sequel to 1985's Live Aid (which benefited famine in Ethiopia), Live 8 didn't charge for tickets and generally kept to a vague message urging help for Africa.

The underlying point of Live 8 was to pressure world leaders who days later met for that year's G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. Some success could be claimed: the G8 nations committed to increasing aid to Africa from $25 billion annually to $50 billion by 2010. The leaders also endorsed a deal to cancel the debt of 18 of the world's poorest nations.

Since then, Geldof has created the Web site http://www.thedatareport.org to audit how faithfully the G8 nations keep to their Gleneagles promises.

Though Africa has now largely ceded ground to global warming as the dominant cause celebre, many of those involved with Live 8 still grind away. Bono, U2 frontman and outspoken advocate of aid for Africa, recently guest edited an issue of Vanity Fair devoted to Africa.

On the largely dormant Live 8 Web site, Bono is quoted: "Live 8 was and remains a brilliant moment but what is more important is the brilliant movement of which it was a part."

This time around, Gore says they are making particular effort to sustain any momentum gained by Live Earth.

"We've listened to the advice of Bob Geldof and others who have been such great pioneers, and we've taken their advice in designing this event as not the end in itself, but the beginning of a three to five year campaign," says Gore.

But Geldof has been critical of Live Earth. In May, he told a Dutch newspaper: "Live Earth doesn't have a final goal."

"I would only organize this if I could go on stage and announce concrete environmental measures from the American presidential candidates, Congress or major corporations," said Geldof.

At a news conference last week, Gore and Wall mapped out some of their goals for Live Earth. They unveiled a "7 Point Pledge" that concertgoers will be asked to sign. Those who sign it promise to pressure their country to sign treaties to cut global warming pollution, personally reduce carbon dioxide pollution, and plant trees, among other things.

Part of the thrust of Live Earth is to communicate what consumers can do to minimize their impact on the environment.

"The problem with it, is that it's a very complicated issue," says Wall. "When you think about yourself recycling a piece of paper, how does that connect to an iceberg in the North Pole?"