And no, I don't mean the cloud of smug from all the Toyonda Piouses.

Benefit concerts, even ones held to save the planet, generate lots of trash and traffic, and eat up plenty of electricity, half of which is generated in this country from coal-fired power plants. Just don't expect the liberal media to make those points as they cover former Vice President Al Gore's "Live Earth" concerts.

Dan Gainor writes about that today over at the MRC's BusinessandMedia.org Web site today.

UPDATE (16:50 EST, 2/17/2007): Reprogram your alarm clocks (or TiVo), Dan is scheduled to appear on "Fox & Friends Sunday" on February 18 but they moved it up to 7:50 a.m. EST.

That concert was performed in nine cities, two more than
Live Earth targets, but concertgoers left mountains of trash for the host
cities. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that 135 tons of trash were picked
up just for one concert. The paper also said that one area had been “twice
cleared of acres of trash.”

That doesn’t begin to address the pollution that the left
would claim would be caused by the plane travel across the globe, cars driven
to each site and the energy used to broadcast a concert for 2 billion people.

Ordinarily, liberals and journalists complain about such
pollution. According to the eco Web site Planet
Ark, “Experts say flying is more
damaging than driving, because carbon dioxide, water vapour, and nitrogen oxide
spewed high in the air enter the ozone layer straightaway.”

A 2005 Wired Magazine article showed Gore actually
apologetic for his own air travel. “Gore and Tipper atoned for their estimated
1 million miles in global air travel by giving money to an Indian solar
electric company and a Bulgarian hydroelectric project,” said the article.

But with Live Earth, the media embraced what rapper Pharrell
Williams promised would be “the biggest party on Earth,” according to the
Associated Press.

Check here for Dan's article.

—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters