Live Earth, Dead Earth, but at least we have tunes

I had no urge or need to see the "Live Earth" concerts this weekend. These charity concerts have become mundane exercises in feel-goodery: let's put on a show to boost environmental awareness and teach folks how to reduce their carbon-footprint. Any ideas on how much gas, electricity, and waste a concert of that scale generates?

"[...] the only way I could achieve a larger carbon footprint than Live Earth would be to drop an asteroid on Australia. " - Warren Ellis,
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I'm only guessing, but I give the performers the benefit of the doubt that they believe they were doing the right thing. But isn't it a bit hypocritical to have a rock star telling us that we can make a difference, that we have to change, when their highly consumptive lifestyle creates a carbon footprint the size of a small town? Several cars and houses, the CO2 produced by travelling back and forth in jets and buses. I believe more in the performers who refused to play, like The Arctic Monkeys, who couldn't justify playing a show for the environment, "especially when we're using enough power for 10 houses just for (stage) lighting."

Several performers elected not to participate, based on the counter-productive nature of such a show. As Vinay Menon (Toronto Star) pointed out, you can always tell the legitimacy of a charity concert by who doesn't show up: Radiohead, Coldplay, U2. You literally could have Live Earth be for any "insert charity here" cause, like some Simpsons joke. It just fills my cynic cup up to the brim.

"Forgive me, but did we really need to burn a sickening amount of fossil fuel flying rock stars to every continent – to say nothing of the environmental toll created at each venue by local traffic and a spike in consumption – to impart such mundane wisdom?" - Vinay Menon, Toronto Star