by Michael Smith
India will host the next Live Earth concert in order to raise funds for lighting homes with solar energy in places where people do not have access to electricity, the organizers stated.
The event in December will see rocker Jon Bon Jovi share the stage with Bollywood's biggest superstar, Amitabh Bachchan, and is described by the organizers as one of the biggest events held in India.
The concert will be held in India's financial capital Mumbai on December 7, so Kevin Wall, the founder of Live Earth said in Mumbai.
Jon Bon Jovi is just one name and Mr Bachchan is just one name, but there will be a lot of international artists on stage at this event, so it has been said.
Wall, who organized a series of concerts last year with the former vice-president Al Gore, said the event in India would be telecast live in more than 100 countries.
Gore, who spoke via satellite this week during a news conference held in Mumbai said that India could provide the leadership required to bring about changes in world policies on climate change.
The proceeds from the concert will go to the "Light A Billion Lives campaign," supported by Nobel Prize-winner Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the United Nation's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
At least 1.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to electricity, Pachauri said, adding that the campaign would target villages in countries like India, Myanmar, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Malawi.
Organizers said they would set up giant screens and distribute televisions in remote villagers for the concert.
But, erm, there remains but one question, or may be two. The first one is how are the TVs that will be distributed to the remote villagers are powered and two what about the carbon footprint of such an event.
What would be a much better ideas would be to create a virtual stage, with every artist being in his or her country and studio and being linked via a network in such a manner that they all could work as if they would be in one location.
While I must say that those events, those concerts and such, all sound great especially in that they are supposed to benefit all those poor people without electricity or food or whatever, there remains but the problem of the high costs of logistics for such an event and especially the environments and carbon footprint of such events.
This seems to be the one thing that appears to overlooked and forgotten when it comes to such events, in the same way when there is one conference after the other on Climate Change and such, whether organized by the UN or other bodies to which scientists and other travel from all over the world.
Maybe following what one preaches would be nice.
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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Live Earth show to help advance solar energy
