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Shooting itself in its carbon footprint IT’S all
Bob Geldof’s fault. He started it with Live Aid. Now it seems anyone
with a cause to champion and a bit (well, a lot) of influence immediately
reaches for the telephone and stages a star-studded concert or three.
Which is why the weekend served up the unedifying sight of over-paid
(and in some cases over-the-hill) rock stars jetting around the world
to warn everyone about the dangers of global warming and lecturing us
on what we should be doing to prevent it.
In case you didn’t know these include taking less flights, avoiding
the use of the car and switching-off lights when not needed.
Which is obviously why London’s Wembley Stadium was lit-up like
the spaceship from ET while various artists flew in and out from across
the planet to get this simple message across. As they said: We all have
to do our bit.
And, to be fair, many of them made the point that they are meticulous
in making sure their energy-slurping world tours are officially carbon-neutral
achieved by getting someone, somewhere to plant trees for them.
Environmental experts have already estimated it would take the planting
of 100,000 trees to offset the emissions of carbon gas caused by the Live
Earth extravaganza alone.
Very soon it’s going to hit home that if we all went down the road
of planting foliage to offset our own carbon emissions then 70 per cent
of the planet will be covered by trees. David and Victoria Beckham could
probably create a mini-Amazon rainforest within a year.
But while Madonna a woman with a carbon footprint the size of Luxembourg
was telling everyone to: “Jump up and down to save the planet”
and other superstars were urging us to get our lofts insulated some other
issues were conveniently being pushed into the background.
After all what does climate change matter to the billions of people who
are starving, living with HIV/AIDS or without clean drinking water? What
does it matter to the millions living in war-torn countries who have no
idea whether they will live to see tomorrow? Or to the millions who have
no place to live?
How much good could be done for them with a relatively small amount of
money?
A recent project called the Copenhagen Consensus brought together several
leading thinkers including four Nobel Laureate economists to examine what
we could achieve with a £24billion investment designed to do good
for the planet.
They examined the best research available and concluded that projects
requiring a relatively small investment getting micro-nutrients to those
suffering from malnutrition, providing more resources for HIV-AIDS prevention,
making a proper effort to get drinking water to those who lack it —
would do far more good than the billions which could be spent reducing
carbon emissions to combat climate change.
That isn’t to say global warming is not an important issue. It is.
But even as Kasabian were asking everyone to turn off a lightbulb now
and again millions were facing death and starvation across the world from
problems that can be solved right now.
Which is perhaps why the creator of the global concert-for-a-cause phenomenon
Bob Geldof himself was so dismissive about Live Earth.
As he said: “It’s just an enormous pop concert or the umpteenth
time that, say, Madonna or Coldplay get up on stage. We are all conscious
of global warming.”
Which we are. And we all know what has to be done in the long-term.
But how much more productive would it be if the global superstars of today
got together to try to solve some of the suffering which could be banished
much more simply and much more quickly?
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