…and a political fraud to boot.
The groovers like Madonna will fly about a quarter of a million miles between them—mostly on private jets—to get to their concerts. And that’s the tip of the iceberg.
Live Earth is promoting green to save the planet – what planet are they on?
Last updated at 15:42pm on 7th July 2007
As Madonna bounds on to the huge Wembley stage to save the planet, how the assembled Greenies will cheer.
The superstar is today fronting the massive Live Earth event, with nine concerts played over 24 hours across seven continents before an audience of two billion.
The much-hyped bid to save the world is being masterminded by former U.S. vice president Al Gore – who helped focus attention on the environmental movement with his Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth – and features artists including The Police, Red Hot Chili Peppers, UB40 and Metallica.
No doubt to rapturous applause, Madonna will call for mass global change to reduce carbon emissions and to tackle ‘climate crisis’.
Watching the veteran star lap up the adoration, her entourage could, however, be forgiven for exchanging slightly jaded glances – having witnessed her jet in for the concert from New York.
For her 2006 World Tour, she flew by private jet, transporting a team of up to 100 technicians and dancers around the globe. Waiting in the garage at home, she has a Mercedes Maybach, two Range Rovers, an Audi A8 and a Mini Cooper S.
Hypocrisy: Madonna will strut on stage today preaching at her viewers to save the planet – yet she herself produces more than 100 times the average amount of waste produced by Britons in a year
Indeed, Madonna’s carbon footprint is dwarfed only by her ego – she has vowed that she will ‘speak to the planet’ at Wembley. In fact, an apology might be in order – for the superstar’s energy consumption is only the tip of the iceberg in this epic vanity-fest.
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.
Matt Bellamy, front man of the rock band Muse, has dubbed it ‘private jets for climate change’.
A Daily Mail investigation has revealed that far from saving the planet, the extravaganza will generate a huge fuel bill, acres of garbage, thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions, and a mileage total equal to the movement of an army.
The most conservative assessment of the flights being taken by its superstars is that they are flying an extraordinary 222,623.63 miles between them to get to the various concerts – nearly nine times the circumference of the world. The true environmental cost, as they transport their technicians, dancers and support staff, is likely to be far higher.
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.
The concert will also generate some 1,025 tonnes of waste at the concert stadiums – much of which will go directly into landfill sites.
Moreover, the pop stars headlining the concerts are the absolute antithesis of the message they promote – with Madonna leading the pack of the worst individual rock star polluters in the world.
Sepermodel Kate Moss, another profligate polluter through her use of private jets, is producing a T-shirt for the event. Yet, Gore is touting the concerts as ‘carbon neutral’. So how can that be?
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