Gen-X owes apology for Live Earth

This letter is in response to Andrew Austin’s piece on Live Earth (“”We Could All Live Without Live Earth,”” July 11). Mr. Austin laments Live Earth as a festival of hypocrisy for the previous generation. Well, I’m a 35-year-old guy, and I’m offended! I’ve hated vacuous charity paloozas since before he was born.

Mr. Austin correctly blames the 1980s as the beginning of this despicable trend. It started as a naive but sincere movement, but rapidly became a new way for megastars and corporations to get massive publicity for very little investment of time. A crap song, inane politics (“” We’re taking a stand against starvation””) and an afternoon in the studio … done!

And I wish I could resist the charges that this generation hasn’t done anything on the environmental issue. Mr. Austin is probably hitting that early-20s moment of realizing exactly how screwed we are. Well, our moment came in 1990. There was a huge wave of environmental awareness, and suddenly Earth Day was an event of major proportions. But then it faded away. I’m not sure why or how. And while the science has gotten more certain, Al Gore isn’t saying anything we didn’t know about in 1990.

You are owed an apology from our generation. I’m sorry. Personally, I know I did more than many people did, but given the magnitude of the problem, they were all token gestures.

The only thing I ask: don’t call Bon Jovi and Genesis “”my”” generation’s music. Or I’ll thrash you with my cane.

-Neil Kandalgaonkar
San Francisco