Check this US Carbon Footprint Map out, has United States Interactive Carbon Footprint Map, illustrating Greenest States. This site has all sorts of stats on individual State energy consumptions, demographics and State energy offices. http://www.eredux.com/states/

Here's an excellent article on the problem with the Live Earth concerts (also Live Aid, Live 8, etc.) Basically, you got glitz instead of substance; astroturf instead of grassroots.

"...For me, however, the biggest problem with Live Earth is not that it is a concert, or that rich rock stars are once again telling the rest of us how to behave. Artists and art more broadly have long been crucial to successful struggles for social change, and global warming should be no different. The problem is that Live Earth is reproducing the very top down and relatively painless notion of activism that doomed Live 8, and is refusing to make clear the obvious links between global warming and the policies of the Bush Administration and other governments of supporting war and dictatorships to ensure our access to oil. And most important, the organizers of Live Earth have left the grass roots activists at the forefronts of the struggles against global warming and environmental devastation more broadly, especially in the developing world, out of the conversation when in fact they should be leading it...."

"...ultimately they did decide to organize a show in Istanbul. But instead of working with local grass roots organizers who had a track record of doing exactly what Live Earth has said are its main goals, the producers sought out a big time concert promoter who was a convicted felon with ties to the mafia, a horrible reputation among artists, and who has no history of environmental activism. Sadly but not surprisingly, the Istanbul show was canceled because of “financial and logistical snags.” My friends have still organized a great concert, but no one outside of Turkey will know about it..."

This is just like in the book, Catch 22, where Captain Black concocts his Glorious Loyalty Oath campaign.

It’ll probably be just as effective, too.

(Nice censorship of comments here, by the way.)

I don’t have a problem with the pledge, BUT….

I saw a brief interview with Al Gore, and he mentioned a very clear policy goal: no more coal-fired plants should be built, unless they have carbon-capture equipment installed. This is good, a specific policy point that is easy to understand, and immensely do-able, with enough political will.

But then I go and take a look at the Live Earth pledge points. They are:
I will change four light bulbs to CFLs at my home.
I will ride public transit or carpool one or more times per week.
I will shop for the most energy efficient electronics and appliances.
I will forward a Live Earth email message to 5 friends.
I will shut off my equipment and lights whenever I’m not using them.

Now, don’t get me wrong– these are all worthwhile. Everyone should do them, and good on the organizers for including them. But would had it really hurt anyone to include:

I will support a world-wide ban on coal-fired power plants, and vote for politicians who support such a ban, and against politicians who frustrate it.

I fear the Live Earth message comes down to lifestyle choices, and not political arguments. Individual lifestyle choices are important, but don’t accomplish anything without major restructuring of how we generate electricity, and we don’t get that without making hard political choices.

It’d be great to see a new political activism among the two billion mostly young people who watched the concerts. Instead, the take-home was to go home and change your light bulbs. Good, but not good enough.