Update: Good news–it looks like Akon didn’t throw anyone from the stage. But this was noteworthy via an account from The Nation: “Interestingly, Senegalese-American hip-hop artist Akon admitted to not really knowing what “green” was before showing up at Live Earth to perform. But now he knows, and when asked about how important an issue addressing climate crisis is in Senegal or Africa, the rapper deflected the question, alluding to the fact that they may have bigger fish to fry — like poverty, if you’re listening, Mr. Geldof.”

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Who are these people and what on earth are they doing? Why, they are Australian aborigines hopping around half-naked and waving leafy green things to ward off the Eeevils of Modernity! You know–the same Eeevil Modernity that allows you to access photos of the aboriginal performers online, text your friends about it, and videoblog your eco-solidarity with the natives and their concert sponsors. Yes, friends, the global Gore-basm is underway. And there will be no shortage of cultish spectacles like this one to showcase eco-sanctimony.

Sydney kicked things off:

The Live Earth global concert series kicked off Saturday with an aboriginal group dancing and singing a traditional welcome at the first venue in Sydney.

Tribal leaders with white-painted bodies and shaking eucalyptus fronds were the first of more than 150 performers at the eight concert, 24-hour series to raise awareness about climate change.

The performance was immediately followed by a video greeting from former Vice President Al Gore, whose campaign to force global warming onto the international political agenda inspired the event.

“Shaking eucalyptus fronds.” A new form of eco-friendly transportation, perhaps? Jet-setting Madonna, take note.

Australian blogger Tim Blair is keeping tabs on the Sydney concert follies.

One Australian Live Earth supporter pays lip service to going green, but he isn’t giving up red meat anytime soon:

Retired five-time Olympic champion swimmer Ian Thorpe was among the high-profile supporters of the event, though he told an interviewer on Saturday his efforts to help the environment stopped short of becoming a vegetarian.

“I’ve thought about it,” Thorpe said. “But I like steak. I figure that we’ve got to the top of the food chain … and I’m going to enjoy my time now that we’re there.”

Eat, drink, and buy some guilt-assuaging carbon offsets, for tomorrow we shall fry. Or freeze to death. Or whatever eco-apocalpyse is the latest fad this minute…

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Good thing Mr. Thorpe isn’t in London. PETA has demanded that Live Earth organizers there take meat off the menu:

Organisers of the Live Earth concerts should not sell burgers or hot dogs at the high profile gigs, an animal rights group claimed today.

Peta said that selling meat at a concert for the environment would be like selling cigarettes at an anti-cancer fundraiser because of the amount of greenhouse gas emitted by the meat farming industry.

And Peta activists said that Wembley should take meat off the menu after a recent UN report found that the meat industry creates more greenhouse gases than all the cars, trucks, ships and planes in the world combined.

Wembley Stadium is set to host the London Live Earth on Saturday, and will see acts including Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Duran Duran, Damien Rice, James Blunt, Razorlight and the Pussycat Dolls perform to draw attention to global warming.

The concerts, championed by former US presidential candidate turned green campaigner Al Gore, will take place simultaneously across the globe, with a live audience of one million, and another two billion watching on TV or tuning in on the radio or internet.

However, Peta campaigner Yvonne Taylor said that it would be “hypocritical” if the damage caused by the industry was overlooked at the concert, and said that the group had written to the managing director of Wembley Stadium, Alex Horne, urging him not to sell meat at the event.

She said: “There’s no such thing as a meat eating environmentalist.

No steak for you, eco-celebs! I hear eucalyptus fronds are edible, though…

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Uh-oh. Akon is a scheduled Live Earth performer. Watch out, girls and boys.

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John Berlau, author of Eco-Freaks, watches global warming hysteria jump the shark.

Stay tuned for more eco-freak show updates…

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Allah’s got vid and pics.

Update: The Times of London offers its music criticism of the Wembley leg.

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