By Harold
The Daily Triangle took a road trip to visit friends and family in Washington D.C. this weekend, and a trip to the most powerful city in the world wouldn’t be complete without a big rally. Sunday was Earth Day 2010, which meant a concert on the National Mall featuring The Roots, John Legend, Sting and more (I also heard Joss Stone and Bob Weir) in honor of comprehensive climate legislation.
Climate change is probably the most perfectly-designed problem of all time, in that you’re asking people to sacrifice now, with the likelihood that they will die before they get to see the benefits, which are undefined. The science is complex enough that it’s easy to confuse people, and even if you agree there’s a problem, there’s a lot of competing solutions. And it basically requires the cooperation of the big powers, which spend most of their time competing against each other.
Fortunately, with all the breaks between the music there was a lot of time to think about that, helped by speakers like James Cameron and Jesse Jackson. It was also cool that the forecasters predicted rain all day, but instead it was a sunny afternoon, almost like the Earth approved of this concert.
I’m not sure how much of an effect a concert can have on climate legislation. On the one hand, health care was passed without a concert. The last rally I went to, which was against the Iraq war, certainly didn’t have an effect. On the other hand it can’t hurt, and it was invigorating to sit alongside tens of thousands of others on the National Mall, with the U.S. Capitol Building as a backdrop, and feel like you’re a part of the democratic process. It was definitely the perfect way to cap a weekend in Washington D.C.
Laura
Harold
