Remember Live Earth? It wasn't that long ago, but to be honest I don't remember all that much about it. My recollections were that most of the bands were poor and the sound was abysmal (Special mention to Fall Out Boy in USA who were woeful). The day wasn't about music though, it was about raising awareness of global warming. In that respect it succeeded. However the TV coverage of the event failed to show us ways we could help out, the only tips I remember hearing was to turn the TV completely off over night rather than on standby, and turn off the taps whilst brushing your teeth. The BBC filled most of their time interviewing celebrities who either knew very little about climate change or just made jokes about how little they recycle or about how great a warmer world would be. Hardly the message Al Gore was looking for. My other gripe with the BBC coverage was that they cut the final songs from both Metallica and Spinal Tap (two of the three bands I had an interest in) to provide more coverage to the aforementioned celebrities.

We were told that the money raised was going to deserving charities, however, unlike other events like Live 8 and Comic Relief we were never made aware of the projects the money was to go to. Another source of revenue was a special deal set up between Live Earth and iTunes, all the performances were recorded and available for download off the site. Of course the artists involved weren't paid, however the exposure would surely compensate, why else would eco-crusaders like The Pussy Cat Dolls play? One main gripe of the event was that most of the bands that played weren't from the country they played in (Pussycat Dolls, Foo Fighters, Beastie Boys in London alone) requiring planes to fly them half way across the world to tell people not to fly so much!

One thing the Foo Fighters probably were made to do was to offset their carbon footprint made by the trip. My understanding of this growth industry is that for every trip made (or anything you do really) you work out how much carbon dioxide has been released and plant enough trees to neutralise that amount. It's supposed to help save the world, but it is just justification for abusing the planet, purely there to ease people's conscious. Where are the trees planted? Not in the offendors back garden thats for sure! There's probably a forest somewhere with loads of saplings called the offset forest. The process is daft as well. The trip from New York to London and back causes a carbon footprint of x cubic metres, which requires 3 trees say. Now obviously you can't plant a full grown tree as the tree population of the world has not increased, so they have to be either seeds or saplings. So for the first few years these trees aren't going to be absorbing much carbon dioxide, so this x cubic metres is offset over a long period of time, rather than instantaneously as you'd expect.

The simple way to stop carbon dioxide emissions is simply not to do it. Offsetting your carbon footprint is like murdering someone before slipping back to your house and impregnating your partner. The murder is OK because you've offset the loss of human life by creating another one!

Of course, all the global warming ties in with the fact that fossil fuels are running out, especially with countries such as China going through an industrial revolution and a seeming reluctance of governments to use renewable resources.

I can't be the only person who thinks that geothermal power is the future? There's obviously something wrong with it, for example it might be massively inefficient. But in my view we're sitting on a furnace that can be exploited for our energy needs. In Britain in particular I also think tidal power is a must. As the sea levels are rising, surely we can use this to our advantage, and with the recent floods it becomes apparent that this source of energy isn't going anywhere fast. As for rising sea levels which apparently will be the death of us, why do we not dig up underwater mountains, this will have the duel effect of lowering sea levels and rasing land levels (where the land is dumped). This would definitely be a hugely expensive job, but if rising sea levels are such a danger, can you really afford not to do it? I also remember, partially from Titanic and geography, that most of the iceberg is underwater and so a melted ice berg wouldn't raise the sea level by that much would it? I appreciate that ice is compacted water and that I've completely neglected glaciers but are the scientists sure? Perhaps we should build more canals, thus forcing more water contollably inland and having less sea water.

My final musing is a little bizarre. If we all waste water, putting it into our sewage sytems then surely there will be less water in the seas? Our drinking water doesn't come direct from the sea, I know this don't worry! But it does come indirectly from the sea via the water cycle. So, ignore Live Earth and waste water!

 

Just like to point out a small amount of hypocrisy on my behalf. I drive 20 miles to and from work daily on my own. I know that my carbon footprint is larger than most but needs must. I try to recycle as much as possible and not waste energy. 

 

The above title is the name of a Fall Out Boy song (giving them a double kicking today, despite the fact I like them), if you can't work it out it means Thanks For The Memories, and it just sums up nicely what I want to say here. This sort of language is far too common, it started on mobile phones where there was a need to restrict the number of characters in order to save money. However poor educational standards have meant this sort of language is now commonplace. It's so commonplace that now brands are picking up on it and using it, Southern Comfort is now SoCo so now people can save about a third of a second at the bar. But then waste about five seconds explaining that you meant Southern Comfort. I also read about how many students were using text language in their GCSE exams, I seem to remember that it had now become so commonplace that most markers weren't penalising it!

I'm not so bothered about this sort of language, henceforth known as text-speak, sorry 'txt spk', as long as it is confined to texts and that it's not overused. i have been known to use 2nite and l8r if I've over-run a message. However if a message requires more than 30 seconds to read than it's not worth it. Read any internet forum post and you'll see shocking abuses of the English language, mainly txt spk examples but more often than not there are shocking examples of bad language (not swearing, far more offensive). I was watching Big Brothers Little Brother the other day and was watching the scrolling texts that go along the bottom of the screen, it gave me a headache. My favourite went something like:

'Cnt believ so and so hs gn, they shud hv wun.' Just appaling, wun isn't even shorter than won which I assume they were aiming for, at least the other abuses could be semi-justified by the argument of space-saving.

The word there is now a multi-purpose word it seems. Again using Big Brother examples:

'Charley n Nikki shud hv lost there votes' - there is being used as their for some reason.

'The twins to win, there hot!' - there is now being used as a substitute for they're.

There are countless other examples of people raping the English language, but the above are a couple of recent sightings that have aggravated me. The English language is in such a sorry state that a work colleague and I will regularly e-mail each other with good words that we've recently used, as if it's something to be proud of!

We seem to be rationing vowels as if we're in a war of words with some unseen enemy. They're not going to run out, please keep using them as they're essential! The stupid thing is, it's a general decline in intelligence that is causing the txt spk to spread, but if it continues at this rate then in a few years Scrabble is going to be pretty much impossible, even for those who have some intelligence!