"The last thing the planet needs is a rock concert"

So said rock patriarch Roger Daltrey of The Who regarding erstwhile American Vice President Al Gore's Live Earth concert set to start tomorrow.

I haven't said anything about anthropogenic, anthro-centric global climate change in quite a while. Not that there haven't been oodles of news stories; it's the quantity that gets to me. I'm juicing up for a couple, three reviews of the news here shortly.

But this story about pop stars expressing doubt about Live Earth roused me enough to laugh, at least. Here's what some of them are saying besides that gem by Daltrey. Bob Geldoff, organizer of Live Aid and Live 8:

"Why is he (Gore) actually organising them?" Geldoff said in an interview with a Dutch newspaper in May, adding that everyone was already aware of global warming and the event needed firm commitments from politicians and polluters.

Rock group, Arctic Monkeys

have become the latest music industry stars to question whether the performers taking part in Live Earth on Saturday are suitable climate change activists.

"It's a bit patronising for us 21 year olds to try to start to change the world," said Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders, explaining why the group is not on the bill at any of Al Gore's charity concerts.

"Especially when we're using enough power for 10 houses just for (stage) lighting. It'd be a bit hypocritical," he told AFP in an interview before a concert in Paris.

Bass player Nick O'Malley chimes in: "And we're always jetting off on aeroplanes!"

Large parts of the band's hometown of Sheffield were flooded at the end of last month after a deluge of mid-summer rain that some blamed on global warming. Two people were killed.

But the band wonder why anyone would be interested in the opinion of rock stars on a complex scientific issue like climate change.

"Someone asked us to give a quote about what was happening in Sheffield and it's like 'who cares what we think about what's happening'?" added Helders.

"There's more important people who can have an opinion. Why does it make us have an opinion because we're in a band?"

The Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant,

attacked the arrogance of pop stars who put themselves forward as role-models.

"I've always been against the idea of rock stars lecturing people as if they know something the rest of us don't," he was reported as saying by British music magazine NME.

OK, it isn't all that humorous. All of these folks taking themselves way too seriously about an event that is the modern equivalent of a rain dance.