Saving the planet, one chord at a time

Kevin Wall has a convert’s fervor, a concert promoter’s Rolodex and a firm belief that music can change the world.

He’s seen music’s power close up over the years, helping organize some of rock’s biggest charity events, including the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert (to fight AIDS) and the anti-poverty fundraiser Live Aid.

These days, the Emmy-winning producer has a cause he says eclipses all others: bringing awareness to the dangers of global warming. “We have got to put up a red alert to the planet,” he said recently in an interview at his vast office overlooking a busy Beverly Hills intersection.

Wall and a team of young techno-gurus are putting together what they say will be the biggest day of concerts in the world’s history: Live Earth, to be held July 7, is expected to bring together more than 150 artists, including Madonna, the Police, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Black Eyed Peas -- for 24 hours of music at nine concerts across seven continents, including Antarctica, where scientists have formed their own band.

Proceeds from the concerts will be used to create a foundation to combat climate change. The nonprofit organization will be led by former Vice President Al Gore, who inspired Wall with his global-warming slide show and subsequent Oscar-winning movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“Thousands of people saw Al Gore’s slide show, millions of people saw the movie,” said Wall, who at age 55 looks the part of a Hollywood hipster with spiked gray hair and faded jeans. “We’re hoping the concerts will reach 2 billion people.”

Along with raised awareness, however, comes criticism. Britain’s Daily Mail called Madonna a hypocrite for owning a “collection of fuel-guzzling cars.” In the United States, some conservative lawmakers and bloggers have called global warming a “hoax” and Republicans blocked plans to hold a Live Earth concert this year in Washington D.C.

Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) used the website for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to criticize Gore and others who champion the cause. He posted a challenge to Hollywood celebrities, urging them to sign an agreement saying they’ll reduce their own energy use before they start preaching to others.

“I’m issuing an Earth Day challenge to Hollywood’s global warming activists who talk the talk to walk the walk,” Inhofe said in the posting.

Wall said his organization is helping celebrities to do just that. He has set up an educational program showing people how they can make changes in their lives to conserve energy. He also has a staff working to make sure the concerts remain “carbon neutral.”

“We want to send a message that can carry across borders and become a global language,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll move the needle and see the launch of a behavior change.”

Countdown to showtime

Wall’s headquarters in Beverly Hills have become a bustling nerve center of organized chaos: video screens playing music videos, computers streaming concerts, a giant map of the world covered with hot pink Post-it notes, marking locations of outreach efforts. A digital clock on the wall counts down the minutes remaining until the first chord is played in Sydney, Australia, at 2 p.m. on July 7.

Earlier this week, Wall announced that they would be adding a show in Istanbul, Turkey. Gore, meanwhile, traveled to Rio de Janeiro, unveiling plans for a free concert on Copacabana Beach, where up to 1 million people are expected to attend.

Madonna released a new song on Wednesday called “Hey You,” available for download on Microsoft’s home page. The first million downloads of the song, which Madonna will perform at the Live Earth concert in London, will be free. Microsoft will donate 25 cents for each download to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

All this started less than six months ago. Wall said he saw Gore’s movie at a premiere in Los Angeles. He called Gore and proposed the idea of holding a worldwide concert. Gore said he believed Wall had the “skills and experiences that make him the ideal person to pull this off.”

These days, Gore is often on the phone with rock stars urging them to participate. “Hardly a day goes by that I’m not talking to an entertainer in some part of the world,” he said in an interview Thursday.

Gore said he had been talking with members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers about joining the show. They told him they would have to change their schedules to make it. On the night of the Grammys, after Gore announced that the group had won the award for the best rock album, several members pulled him aside backstage. “They whispered, ‘We’re in!’ ” Gore said.

Part of the plan for the event -- to be streamed live on MSN.com -- is to offer viewers a menu of solutions they can pursue themselves. The program will also include a variety of short films and public service announcements. More than 60 filmmakers, some of them Oscar winners, have agreed to participate.

Director Rob Reiner reconvened members of faux-rock band Spinal Tap -- from his 1984 mockumentary -- to make a short film for the world concerts; it’s currently up for viewing on www.liveearth.msn.com. EBay, meanwhile, is working on a series of high-profile charity auctions to raise money for Gore’s foundation.

Generally, reaction to the effort has been positive outside the U.S., said Wall, who got his start in music working as a DJ at his parents’ roller-skating rink in Indiana. In the U.S., however, global warming -- like evolution -- has become a politically charged issue. When Republicans blocked Wall’s plan to hold the U.S. concert on the mall in D.C., he opted for Giants Stadium in New Jersey instead.

“I was shocked at how politicized it was in the United States,” he said. “Nowhere else in the world is it political like this.”

In recent weeks, the right-wing blogosphere has been alive with global warming denial, as if it were something Gore’s staff had dreamed up as a talking point.

Wall isn’t worried about it.

He realizes that on July 7, he and everyone who steps onto a Live Earth stage will own the biggest megaphone around.

tina.daunt@latimes.com