Let's look at this concert for what it is: an advertisement (or PR stunt) for the green movement. The question is: does it work?  And is it a good thing?

At this point, advertising only works in one context: materialism and vanity. If you are trying to sell someone on a certain religion (the green religion), worldview, or type of lifestyle, you cannot do it unless you appeal to a person's vanity, sense of identity, need for fulfillment, etc. In other words, sell them something first. "That car is green?  I want one! Then everyone can see that I am that type of person."

Rock concerts like this one are no different. They are selling an identity to the audience, and the audience wants the identity - not the ideas being praised, but the identity that comes with the ownership of the ideas. Greenness is now a material thing to be had: just as Bono's (RED) campaign plays off of rampant materialism and peoples' vanity, so Live Earth manipulates rock fans into adopting an image that reflects "greenness."  

So, yes, this concert is successful advertising.  But is advertising a good thing?

Unfortunately, all advertisments are successful only in the short term. Advertising is based on an industrial system that values quick profits and efficiency instead of sustainable profits and effectiveness - its method of persuasion must be quick, neatly packaged, and simplistic. Our culture, now saturated with advertising and materialism, has come to function in a way that reflects this ethic: we can fight global warming by campaigning against it, by appealing to your need to define your identity, by using simplistic, packaged solutions. And, like advertising, you will forget about these ideas just as quickly as they came.  

Truely convincing someone cannot be done with advertising tactics. It cannot be done by appealing to their materialistic nature. Truely changing one's mind and lifestyle is a process, not an event. It takes challenge, not fundraising. It takes a conversation, not a rock song. And, most importantly, it takes action - real action: personal action. This is to say, nothing about a rock concert or a pledge gets people to begin a new routine. One simply has to start living differently - not just think about it, sing about it, pledge about it, or go to a rock concert about it!  Even small steps, if employed, are better than backwards steps and big thinking.

Let's be skeptical for a moment and consider this event for what it is: just a show.  

I am wanting to start a worrld wide effort to promote pro-life ! We could call it "Life Yes Life or something".
Anyone out there feel the same?
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