Friday, February 16, 2007

Gore's Increasing Carbon Footprint

In his quest to against global warming, Al Gore is hosting “Live Earth” concerts on all the continents, “including the first ever rock gig in Antarctica.”

Apparently Gore feels that burning who knows how much fossil fuel and increasing his carbon footprint is a good way to lower emissions. My question is how many people will watch the concert and say “Hey, now I’ll stop burning so much gas since Mr. Environmentalist burned through untold barrels of oil to go to one of the most desolate and undeveloped places on earth. Now I’m convinced that wasting energy is a bad idea.”

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

God, if you're gonna make fun of something, at least know what you're talking about:

Live Earth says it will implement a new 'Green Event Standard' that will become the model for carbon neutral concerts and other live events in the future. This will include:-

All electricity that powers the shows will be from renewable sources, either through utility supplied renewable energy, biodiesel generators, or renewable energy credits
Concessionaires will be encouraged to use and directed to suppliers of agricultural / biodegradable plastics (i.e. made from corn). Also, concessionaire waste will be minimized through a comprehensive recycling system organized at the venue.
Venue offices, walkways, etc will be retrofitted with compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs, where possible.
The entire production design will follow sustainable light design principles. Production lighting will include the use of LED light bulbs and production/artist trailers will be incorporate low impact technology in areas such as air conditioning units.
SOS staff and artist air travel will be offset through carbon credits.
Ground travel will be hybrid or other clean fuel where possible.
Hotels will be directed to change light bulbs to CFLs, use nontoxic cleaning products, and have recycling containers present in the rooms.

So... what was your point again?

Stop drinking the Kool Aid, try some Green Tea for a change - healthier and tastes better.

David said...

What Warren, I think, is getting at is that no matter what you do, airplanes emit CO2. It would be more consistent if Gore & Co. bought the carbon credits and then held them, favoring a concert venue in New York or no concert at all. The pollution is not being "offset," unless they are buying twice as many credits are they are using. I doubt that's happening but even if it is, it's only for SOS staff and artists. No guarentee that every one of the estimated one million participants are going to do that.

Warren said...

David pretty much said what I was going to. Even if they use biodegradable plastics and CLF light bulbs, they are still going to be creating superfluous pollution in a protest against pollution. Holding the concert in NYC instead of Antarctica would be more environmentally friendly, regardless of how much they recycle.