December 4th, 2007 · No Comments

By Tom Kessler

Live Earth – the Concerts for a Climate in Crisis arrives in stores today as a 2 DVD/1 CD highlights package of last July’s historic global event that brought together entertainers for concerts in eight international cities. It captures many inspirational performances, particularly those from Linkin Park (pictured), Foo Fighters, Melissa Etheridge, Madonna, The Police, Keane, Keith Urban and Alicia Keys, Bon Jovi and Corinne Bailey Rae and John Legend. And there is the considerable star power of emcees Leonardo DiCaprio, Kevin Bacon, Cameron Diaz and, of course, Al Gore.

Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis (Warner Bros. Records); $27.98; $19.59 at Amazon.com

But beyond a one-day mega-event to raise awareness, Live Earth was always envisioned as a starting point for an ongoing movement to address problems that sometimes seem inconceivably complex. This is all intended to make us think – and that it does very well.

“Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” – Corinne Bailey Rae and John Legend teamed for a cover of Marvin Gaye’s 1971 lament for a battered Mother Earth. The saddest thing is how much more relevant the lyrics seem now than when the song was written:

Radiation in the ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain’t what they used to be
What about this overcrowded land?
How much more abuse from man can you stand?

It makes you stop and ask: What have we been doing since Earth Day was founded in 1970?

“Bleed It Out” – As Linkin Park snarl “I bleed it out/digging deeper just to throw it away,” it’s hard not imagine scores of Chinese workers – many of them children – working in unsafe conditions to feed the world’s need for ready, cheap goods. If it’s not safe for us to handle that stuff, what about the people who have to spend all day making it? Isn’t it a sure sign that we consume too much that America’s cities are routinely blighted by new storage facilities so we have some place to keep all the crap that we can’t fit into our already over-large homes?

“I Need to Wake Up” – Melissa Etheridge’s anthem to the still emerging Al Gore-led green initiative sounds an alarm that we all should hear. Yet it also is a mea culpa that empowers all of us to be free of “green guilt” and instead focus on being a better, smarter person going forward. Movements can become divisive, but this one only succeeds by keeping everyone at the party.

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