Features
Live Earth Dead In D.C.
Former Vice President Al Gore has elevated awareness of global warming since his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” has gained traction with the public.
That led Gore and other organizers to propose the Live Earth concert event, featuring Faith Hill / Tim McGraw, Black Eyed Peas, Bon Jovi and others, on Washington’s National Mall July 7.
The number seven was a keystone – the event would not only take place on 7/7/7 but on all seven continents, including Antarctica. So far, everything is a go except in the U.S.
Although global climate change due to carbon emissions is overwhelmingly embraced as scientific fact elsewhere on the globe, it is still presented as theory by some U.S. politicians and their media henchmen.
One of its biggest detractors is Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) who has called global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” He objected to “having any events on the Capitol grounds that are either highly partisan or politically controversial – and the proposed Gore concert is both,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Live Earth organizers petitioned Congress to hold the event in the Capitol and offered to pay $1.5 million for police so it would not cost taxpayers a dime. However, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) questioned the issue on the Senate floor March 23rd, holding up its passage, the Times said.
Organizers say the show must go on, and will, but lawmakers were upset with the decision.
“Not since former Interior Secretary James Watt tried to ban the Beach Boys from appearing on the National Mall has such a misguided effort at political censorship been undertaken by a Republican official,” Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) told the Times. “It’s dangerous enough to deny science; it’s sheer lunacy to deny song.”