Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.

Parties are great, and raising awareness is important, but will Al Gore‘s Live Earth concerts really have a positive impact? Here are some reasons why I doubt it:

5. The livestock industry is a major contributor to global warming. Scientists at the University of Chicago have shown that a meat-eater in the US produces 1.5 tons more carbon dioxide per year than a vegan does. But Live Earth doesn’t talk about this; going vegetarian isn’t one of the little ticky boxes you can select if you want to see your name in lights during the event. (That might be controversial, you see.)

4. Pepsi is listed as one Live Earth’s official partners (and Coca Cola as a local partner in South Africa). There have been many news stories recently about the negative environmental impact of bottled water; both these companies sell this product as well as their less healthy flagship sodas. The Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs has listed Pepsi as a major polluter of water. (For more about Coke, see this article in the Nation.)

3. If you’ve ever been to a major concert or festival, then you’ve seen how much garbage such events produce (one estimate places Live Earth’s total trash at 1,025 tons). People don’t bring reusable water bottles to rock concerts (and if they did, how could they support the corporate sponsors?). While recycling helps some, it still uses energy. I’d be more willing to believe that Live Earth would encourage to people to change their habits if they had, for example, banned disposable cups and bottles.

2. I’ve always found it deeply inappropriate for the wealthy to tell people who are less well off to use less. With Live Earth, we have rich rock stars, many of whom own vast swathes of lands, flying around in private jets to encourage a global audience to conserve. Madonna alone has a carbon footprint of 1018 tons a year.

1. A rock concert is not a political campaign. I worry that people who can afford to attend the concerts in person, or even just watch it on TV, will go home thinking they’ve done something for the environment, when really all they’ve done is enjoyed a big party with a greenish theme.