Volume 04, Number 16
Music
By Danielle Tate-Stratton
Live Earth
On July 7 of this year (07.07.07), Al Gore took his climate change campaign one step beyond his movie An Inconvenient Truth and partnered with Kevin Wall (a producer of Live 8) and MSN to put on the Live Earth Concerts, a concert series held around the world in a 24-hour time period. Concerts occurred in New York, London, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Hamburg, Sydney, Shanghai, and right here in Tokyo. In all, over 100 acts performed, including Madonna, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Keane, Black Eyed Peas, Duran Duran, and dozens of other topclass performers.
As hundreds of thousands gathered in the key cities around the world, literally hundreds of millions tuned in to a live streaming broadcast on MSN and to live TV broadcasts around the world.
Along with the music, concert goers in Chiba and around the globe were able to experience a built-in environmental fair that featured locally produced, allnatural food, energy information, and all the other trappings of an Earth Day-type event.
However, there were questions as to how beneficial such an event could be. The massive scales of such concerts requires not only that bands and their entourages fly in, but that fans come as well; and with flying contributing extensively to carbon emissions, some raised concerns over the legitimate values of the concerts. Arctic Monkeys rocker Matt Helder told the Associate Free Press "We're using enough power for ten houses just for lighting...It'd be a bit hypocritical [if we played]." (The group did not take part in the event.) Even Tokyo event organizer Yu Nakajima admitted "It's very obvious that any event like this is not environmentally friendly...It's probably better not to have an event at all."
However, she, like other proponents of the event, stress that the benefits to the environment gleaned from the awareness raised over the course of these as-environmentally- friendly-as-possible concerts outweighs the short-term negative impact of Live Earth's rather large carbon footprint. Some of the awareness raising initiatives include multimedia information on the website, such as a series of podcasts in partnership with The Alliance for Climate Protection, which they say will "provide information and resources to help individuals make real, meaningful, and measurable changes to their life to help address the climate crisis." http://admin.climateprotect.org/node/200. See below for more podcasts about the environment.
Podcasts
Podcasts are a fantastic way to learn about a topic that interests you—like a radio show but without the commercials or need for reception, you can listen to them as you (environmentally!) travel around town on your bike, the train, or on foot. Here are just a few to get you started on the road to reducing your carbon footprint.
From The Greening of Burning Man (the yearly interactive arts festival, temporary international community, and overall ‘experience' in the Nevada desert each year), to water issues, the ‘greening' of WalMart, or a conversation with actor and environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr., the treehugger.com podcast series is a weekly look at current environmental issues.
www.treehugger.com/treehugger_radio
The Watt offers a fairly regular podcast about energy news and sustainability. Several Queens University graduate students have a hand in running it, and the 30-minute podcasts have included topics such as off-grid living and hydrogen fuel cells. The website also includes news and more.
www.thewatt.com
Learn about no trace eco travel (along the lines of ‘take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints' but to a greater extent) with the Wilde Beat.
www.wildebeat.net.
Living on Earth is a weekly podcast brought to you by NPR (National Public Radio) in the US, providing a high-quality look at the environment in an easy-tolisten to news magazine style. Recent shows have included topics such as cicadas, smog, and the feature of robotics. The comprehensive website (www.loe.org) has shows dating back to 1992, as well as transcripts and supplementary learning guides.
For a more comprehensive listing of podcasts, visit http://tinyurl.com/2skab, or www.naturepodcasts.com.
Earth Celebration at Sado Island
While it's not overtly environmental the yearly KODO Earth Celebration still supports living in harmony with the earth, and upholds principles of environmental sustainability by celebrating individual cultures, some of whom, according to the founder of the event, "are closely connected to the characteristics of the land and society, each setting encompassed by its own unique spiritual world."
The weekend long celebration, on Sado Island, is headlined by world-famous drum group KODO, who have been impressing audiences worldwide with their taiko drumming since 1981.
Along with daily concerts on this island accessible only by ferry, the festival includes a Fringe Festival, Harbour Market with local food and products from Sado Island as well as sustainable products from around the world.
Although tickets for this year's event (the 20th) are already sold out, this is a fantastic weekend away from the city to pencil in for your day timer next year.
You can camp on the island and stay nearly right on the beach, just fifteen minutes away from the event site. There are hourly shuttles to the event, which run all day Friday–Sunday and plenty of other ways to get to the event, including ferry, plane, and high-speed ferry, but the most convenient is probably the Earth Celebration Bus with travels overnight from both Tokyo and Osaka.
For detailed information about the event, including where to stay, how to get there, who is playing, the KODO drummers, and Sado island, visit www.kodo.or.jp/ec/index_e.html.