Metallica’s Kirk Hammett interview: Celebrities flock to the climate cause

July 31, 2007

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Kirk Hammett is one guitar legend who cares about the planet.

“I just said to my wife earlier today this might be the most important moment of our entire career,” Hammett told an incredulous interviewer after his band Metallica performed at the London instalment of the eight-city Live Earth concert earlier this month. “You know, if we can make that much of a difference, and make that much change, by all means. Because I love the Earth, I love the environment, I love nature. And it’s so important.”

Can celebrities save the planet? Some of the performers at Live Earth seemed to think they could by converting their tour buses to biodiesel and exhorting their fans to use energy-saving light bulbs such as those made by concert sponsor Royal Phillips Electronics.

“It’s amazing! Their slogan is ‘It’s so simple,’ and just one person can use these light bulbs and change the world,” marvelled Ashley Roberts, a member of the pop group Pussycat Dolls.

But it isn’t really so simple. Preventing catastrophic global warming calls for nothing less than a complete restructuring of the global economy, and buying more efficient light bulbs isn’t going to do it.

Individuals can certainly help, but only dramatic action by corporations and especially governments can solve the problem. And the reality is that so far, those institutions have done very little.

In the last year or so the corporate world has increasingly voiced its support for doing something about global warming. This month the Business Roundtable, which represents the chief executives of 160 corporations, called for collective action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet many Roundtable members have questionable records when it comes to actually doing anything about the problem. The General Motors brand Chevrolet touted its commitment to the cause with advertisements on the Live Earth website pointing out that motorists can save gasoline - and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions - by keeping their tires properly inflated. If every car in America had properly inflated tires, the ad said, the country would save millions of litres of gas annually.

That may be. But the United States uses more than a billion litres of gasoline - per day.

Another spot by Chevy boasted that the company offers eight automobile models that get about 13 kilometres per litre or better. The spot did not mention that Chevy’s best-selling vehicle - indeed, the top-selling vehicle in America - is a pickup truck with a very low mileage. Neither did the commercial mention that auto industry lobbyists have blocked significant increases in federal fuel economy standards for decades.

This month, the automakers partially relented by endorsing a House proposal that would increase fuel efficiency to 13.7 kilometres per litre for all new passenger vehicles by 2022. But Detroit still opposes competing proposals that would boost the standard higher than that.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, it is possible to build cars, minivans and SUVs that get 17.3 km per litre within a decade - using technology that already exists.

http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=48426&sc=95