On July 7, Al Gore and the “Alliance for Climate Protection” staged the multi-city, 24-hour Live Earth concert with the intent to raise “awareness” of global warming. But were the organizers and performers leading by example?

They claimed to be taking “extraordinary steps” to make sure the concerts were “carbon neutral.” This involved energy-efficient LEDs rather than conventional stage lighting, hardly a big deal. Using alternative fuels “where possible” and “encouraging concertgoers to carpool” seemed even more half-baked.

The carbon footprint of the Live Earth events weighs in at 31,500 metric tons, according to estimates of John Buckley of carbonfootprint.com, cited in the UK’s Daily Mail. Compare that to the average Briton’s carbon footprint of 10 metric tons per year. Concert organizers say the CO2 emissions generated by the event will be offset through projects such as planting trees – a nice gesture but uncertain in terms of its actual carbon offsets. It also sends a message that the best way to decrease a carbon footprint is to be wealthy enough to buy one’s way out of guilt. The bank accounts and carbon footprints of many performers, it should be noted, are astronomically larger than those of the average person.

Numerous articles note the contradiction of Madonna’s appearance, despite her nine houses, fleet of cars, and private jet. Not to worry, Madonna’s New York spokeswoman says; “Madonna's agreeing to sing at the Live Earth Event is merely one of the first steps in her commitment towards being environmentally responsible.” You go, Material Girl.

Similar concerts have deployed a dual purpose: raise awareness, but more importantly, raise money. Live Aid raised $300 million in 1985 for famine relief in Ethiopia. Farm Aid, which also began in 1985, raised money for needy US farm families. Live 8, in 2005, aimed to pressure that year’s G8 meeting in Scotland to forgive Third World debt. The true beneficiaries of these events are doubtful at best: Live Aid went a long way toward abetting a Communist policy of genocide in Ethiopia; and Live 8 produced no meaningful policy outcomes. Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the July 7 climate bash was MSN, whose chief media officer touted the concert as “the greatest day in the history of MSN.”

The Christian Science Monitor points out that the concert may not even have raised awareness for the people who were physically present, noting complaints about littering, and companies giving away “useless materials” outside the U.S. venue. Further, after incessant preaching by Al Gore, James Hansen and many others, are people really unaware of the climate-change issue? This goal either aims too low or amounts to an admission that most people in the potential audience are not “aware.” Perhaps an impressionable and uninformed audience was just the crowd the organizers wanted.

Live Earth also left a large political footprint, though billed, of course, as "not political." The Giants Stadium venue served as a bullhorn for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who suggested this solution to the complex climate change issue: “Get rid of all these rotten politicians that we have in Washington, who are nothing more than corporate toadies …” Performer Melissa Etheridge remarked about the potential of a woman president, and the whole event amounted to a global applause track for Al Gore. Some performers, however, might have been at odds with any effort to educate the world on climate change, or anything else.

The capstone of Pink Floyd's Giants Stadium performance was Part II of “Another Brick in the Wall,” containing the famous lines, “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control.” With that ethos, it remains to be seen how much awareness will ever get raised. Live Earth may not achieve its goal of protecting the climate but the concert made money, played politics, and proved rich in irony.

“Awareness works likes a vitamin," said performer John Mayer, "You go to the bathroom and 99 percent of it is gone but you hope that you retained one percent.”

With a super-size carbon footprint of 31,500 metric tons it seems that 99-percent waste is just the sort of thing the event should have been trying to avoid.