A celebrity crowd and 12,000 competition winners gathered in LA last Thursday to watch a special live performance by the Rolling Stones, with no less than Bill Clinton as MC. The gig was organised by the Natural Resources Defence Council, a non-profit activist group, with the aim of raising awareness on global warming. To hammer home the message to the most oil reliant of nations many of the celebrity audience arrived at the gig in an electric car.
In his intro to the gig the former president said it was up to average citizens to "stop the planet from burning up".
"The reason this concert is important, is that the old energy economy that's cheating us as a planet is very well organised, highly centralised, rich as can be and very well politically connected. And the new energy future is decentralised, entrepreneurial and needs people like you to say 'Give me a clean car, give me solar shingles to put on my roof - give me a clean future'."