The Brazilian leg of Al Gore's Live Earth project, which takes place this weekend of course, is set to go ahead, despite threats by a local judge to cancel the event because of safety concerns.
The Rio de Janeiro Live Earth show is the only one of the eight awareness boosting concerts that is free, and acts due to appear at the Copacabana Beach gig include Lenny Kravitz, Macy Gray and Pharrell Williams. Organisers are hoping to attract up to one million visitors to the show.
But Brazilian prosecutor Denise Tarin has expressed concerns about the event because local police are already stretched by the Pan American Games, which are taking place in the city this year, and begin on 13 Jul. Fearing that without proper security staff on duty at such a large event concert goers would be put at risk, Tarin called for the event to be cancelled.
However, the company promoting the event, Mondo Entertainments, has resisted those calls, telling reporters that it has good security plans in place, and that the Rio police has given assurances that they can, in fact, cope with such a large scale event.
Live Earth will take place in eight cities, including London, Tokyo, Sydney and Johannesburg, this weekend, in a bid to raise global awareness for the need to better tackle the causes of global warming. Organisers of the initiative remain upbeat about the venture, despite the cancellation last month of the Istanbul leg of the event, caused by a lack of local sponsorship and the latest issues surrounding the Brazil event; and also those artists who have been critical of the project, claiming that it is hypocritical to stage fuel guzzling events in a bid to persuade everyone else to stop guzzling fuel.
Despite assurances by Live Earth organisers that the event itself is being run in an eco-friendly way, there has been more criticism of that kind this week. The latest criticism comes from those Arctic Monkeys, with drummer Matt Helders telling reporters: "Since the stage lighting alone would be enough to power 10 houses, it's all very hypocritical. And also consider the long haul flights and the carbon footprint to get rock bands to the concerts". Actually, Helders doesn't seem all that convinced at all with musicians getting too opinionated about anything. He continues: "Someone asked us to give a quote about what was happening in Sheffield [the floods, I assume] and it's like 'who cares what we think about what's happening?' There's more important people who can have an opinion. Why does it make us have an opinion because we're in a band?"