The aftermath of Live Earth

Over the weekend, the Live Earth concerts took a rhetorical beating in the press. You may not like the style of reporting, but you have to admit news like this does have a point (not all the news was negative; One World has a good story about momentum being generated in China).

Now it turns out that the prime-time Live Earth package on NBC had fewer viewers than a rerun of Cops and the animated film Monsters, Inc. Really. It seems like more people wrote columns criticizing Live Earth than tuned in to it on television.

Maybe the biggest problem with Live Earth was the timing. The date - July 7 or 7-7-07 - is pleasing the superstitious numerologists but otherwise impractical. Why hold the event in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere summer, when far fewer people here are watching television, surfing the internet or following current events at all? Any buzz generated by Live Earth was destined to wilt in the summer heat. Next time, hold the concert on Labour Day.

Then again, to paraphrase the voice in Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will criticize.