'Woodenstock' Shows Hypocricy

July 7, 2007

 

Tried, as I did, to stay away from Al Gore's recent ‘Woodenstock' concerts, I was unable to avoid the media love fest with the legions of misguided dirt people who thought burning mega-watts of electricity in order to lecture the rest of us was somehow helping the planet. There were bands jetting all over the world so they could demonstrate just how green they were and how wasteful the rest of us are.

 

I loved what Matt Helders of the group Arctic Monkeys had to say as to why they refused to participate. “When we're using enough power for 10 houses just for lighting, it'd be a bit hypocritical,” he said after a recent concert in Paris. Indeed. He also wondered why anyone cared what these artists thought about anything, much less global warming.

 

But the queen of conspicuous consumption has to be Madonna. Her entourage of make-up people, hair dressers, roadies, sound men and musicians gives her a carbon footprint like Sasquatch. David Kuo, head of personal finance at fool.co.uk, surveyed the public on who at Live Earth was least green. Guess who? Madonna was far and away the winner. Kuo said, “Wouldn't it be refreshing if all the artists turned up to Live Earth on their bicycles?” Of course, that didn't happen.

 

Marina Hyde's newspaper column in The Guardian on Saturday was entitled, “The artists formerly known as huge carbon footprints.” The irony of such carbon belchers singing to save the planet was not lost on at least some in the mainstream press.

 

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. encouraged the crowd at Giants Stadium to “get rid of all those rotten politicians we have in Washington, D.C.” Could we start with Uncle Teddy?

 

Of course, the organizers plan to have themselves audited to make sure they were “carbon neutral.” If not, they plan to buy “carbon offsets,” probably from Gore's company. Why not? The profits from Woodenstock are going to another Gore-headed venture, the Alliance for Climate Protection.

 

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to acid rain on this parade just because Gore is involved. I'm simply pointing out the hypocrisy because the whole notion that carbon dioxide is evil is completely wrong. I'm all for clean air and clean water. In fact, I've participated in protests in order to help clean up both. But CO2 has nothing whatsoever to do with air pollution.

 

Let me explain. Smog is comprised of ground-level ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and a range of tiny particles called particulate matter (PM). This includes things like road dust. The principle ingredients of smog are ground-level ozone and PM. Smog got its name as a combination of fog and smoke. In other words, it's a low-hanging cloud of junk in the air. Nowhere in that combination will you find CO2. Nowhere! That's because carbon dioxide is what we exhale. It's what plants take in to make oxygen for us. In fact, studies have shown the more CO2, the greener and healthier the plants.

 

This is why it drives me nuts that so many gullible people are falling for this CO2/global warming nonsense. Now we have Spotted Al going after the minds and hearts of our youth and every network falling all over itself to report it. Had this been a concert to stop abortions no network would've touched it. Yet they've all fallen in, lock-step, with Al and his political agenda to defy science and logic and brainwash the masses.

 

It's time those of us who truly care about a clean planet band together and expose Al for what he really is.