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  Straits Times 11 Jul 07
10 things I acted on after watching Live Earth
Letter from Gilbert Goh Keow Wah

Straits Times 9 Jul 07
Singapore pitches in through fringe event
Live Earth's global concerts didn't include Singapore. But an event at One Fullerton alerted people about environmental problems
By Michelle Tay

Today Online 6 Jul 07
Watch the concert, contribute to global warming?
Letter from Tan Chee Sean

I cannot help but wonder about the objective of the Live Earth concert.

It is an excellent initiative to raise awareness about global warming and climate change in the hope that individuals, governments and corporations will help save the environment. Beamed across eight cities, this concert will be watched by more than 2 billion people.

At the same time, millions of television sets will be turned on for up to 24 hours, so viewers can watch their favourite artistes.

Ironically, wouldn't this contribute to even more global warming?

Straits Times 9 Jul 07
Singapore pitches in through fringe event
Live Earth's global concerts didn't include Singapore. But an event at One Fullerton alerted people about environmental problems
By Michelle Tay

WHILE two billion people over seven continents watched Live Earth last weekend, 2,500 Singaporeans turned up at One Fullerton for Earth Fest. Altogether 1,200 pledges to care for the environment were signed.

Earth Fest was an effort by Briton Tim Alden to raise Singaporeans' awareness of dire environmental issues today.

The 38-year-old land banking manager, who has lived here for 19 years, said: 'The lack of awareness is a syndrome of living in a city where you have to consume a lot.' He was spurred into action after watching An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary on former US vice-president Al Gore's global warming slideshow.

Asked why it was important to educate an island state like Singapore, Mr Alden replied: 'Singapore is such an important city in South-east Asia and should be involved. Once Singapore propagates an awareness, it will spread to Malaysia and Indonesia and penetrate that corner of the world.'

It might seem a pity, then, that Live Earth organisers - Gore and global broadcast producer Kevin Wall - did not seem to share Mr Alden's view and did not stage a gig here.

Asked why the country was not chosen, the Singapore Tourism Board confirmed it was not approached by Live Earth.

However, that does not mean Singapore is ill-equipped to stage live big-scale concerts.

Industry players say that while it has always been a top Asian destination for many international acts, it may simply be too small to stage an event for global reach.

'Where do we put it? We have no track record of staging major music festivals on the scale of, say, Australia's Big Day Out,' said Mr Michael Roche, director of concert promoter Lushington Entertainment.

However, Ms Lynette Pang, director of cluster development (events & entertainment) at STB, said: 'We are always on the lookout to host world-class events. Notably, we hosted the Good Vibrations Festival for the first time this year.'

Mr Roche agreed, pointing out that Singapore, outside of Japan, attracts more gigs than other Asian cities like Hong Kong or Kuala Lumpur. Others argue that the issue at hand is bigger.

'This is not about the glory of individual countries,' said Ms Laurietta Alabons, director of concert promoter LAMC Productions. 'It's a much bigger picture - to create global awareness of environmental problems. At least, Asia is represented by Tokyo and Shanghai.'

Straits Times 11 Jul 07
10 things I acted on after watching Live Earth
Letter from Gilbert Goh Keow Wah

I WAS impressed with the recent Live Earth 24-hour concerts conducted at eight sites across the world. It was an effective way to spread the message about global warming and the impact could only be positive. Mr Al Gore made up for his loss to current US President George W. Bush during the presidential election by spearheading the global environmental campaign which may make him to be the most influential individual in the world right now.

Personally speaking, I am not much of an environmental friendly person on Earth and I think many of us here are not.

After watching Live Earth, I must say that I took some pretty quick decisions to save the environment:

1. I switch off my power plug which connects to the hi-fi, water heater and cooker immediately after use.
2. I carry an environmentally friendly bag to the supermarket now and refuse to have plastic bags to carry my groceries.
3. I try to bathe in cold water after my regular jogging, especially when the weather is so warm these days (this is a bit difficult to adapt to as I am used to bathing in warm water).
4. I will switch off all fans and lights in the room when I leave my PC for a while to attend to some other thing.
5. I will switch off my office laptop when I go for lunch as it is always switched on for the sake of convenience.
6. I will switch off the aircon in my bedroom and use the fan if it is not too warm.
7. I will stick to public mass transport for the long term although I do not drive any personal motor vehicle.
8. I will throw plastic bottles into recycling bins and not just dump them into the dust bin.
9. I will print my reports on both sides instead of a single side to save paper.
10. I will stick to the above nine rules and try to influence others to adopt similar practices.

Join me if you can!
links
Live Earth set to rock the world on July 7
by Catherine Hours Yahoo News 4 Jul 07

Related articles on climate change
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