Live Earth Fights Warming, Skepticism

Today's concert in Sydney kicks off the 24-hour Live Earth series, which puts over 100 acts on stages on seven continents to fight climate change. Along with raising awareness, the concerts are raising eyebrows at  the hypocrisy of using jet-setting rockers as role models for reducing greenhouse gases, and questions about how much environmental harm the shows themselves will create.

Organizers, spearheaded by Al Gore, hope that with TV coverage it will reach up to 2 billion viewers, making it the biggest media event ever, the Guardian notes. But counting commuting fans, performers who travel to gigs in private jets, and power-sucking stage equipment, the event's carbon footprint will make it part of the problem as well as part of the solution. (More global warming stories.)