Stars performing
at a concert Tuesday honoring Nobel Peace laureates Al
Gore and the United Nations climate panel said they hoped to
draw attention to global warming.
Gore and the U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the
Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to document and spread
the word about what the former vice president calls
the planetary emergency of global warming.
Performers at the
annual concert included Kylie Minogue, Alicia Keys,
Annie Lennox, and Melissa Etheridge. Etheridge won an Oscar
for the song ''I Need to Wake Up,'' which was featured
in Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
Etheridge said Gore had asked her to write the song.
''I was deeply
honored, I was deeply moved, and then I had to write a
song about global warming, which is not easy,'' the
46-year-old singer said, adding that Gore's efforts
gave her ''a great amount of hope for our Earth.''
Keys said the
Nobel Peace Prize underscores how the efforts of one
person, such as civil rights leader the Reverend Martin
Luther King Jr., can make a difference.
''For me, the
Nobel Peace Prize is an extremely distinguished award for
people who truly do serious work to make major change in the
world,'' the 27-year-old singer said.
Kevin Spacey and
Uma Thurman were cohosts of the concert.
''The whole point
is to raise awareness and communicate with everyone
else in the world and share our concern for the planet,''
Thurman said at a news conference ahead of the show.
''What we are hearing is that everyone needs to get
very much involved with climate. It's coming to us.
It's coming to a theater near us, very, very near us,'' the
37-year-old actress added.
Spacey, who is
artistic director of London's Old Vic, said the theater is
starting a project next year called ''Go for Green'' to
create a play to teach children to be more
environmentally aware.
''I think that
showing up at an event like this is important because
there are going to be so many young people tuning in to this
concert,'' said the 48-year-old Spacey.
Lennox said the
question should really be about what the world's leaders
can do.
''Can celebrities
save the world? It rankles. What kind of place are we
in when people are looking to Hollywood or celebrities to
save the world?'' the 52-year-old singer asked.
''Where are the
people who really should be stepping up to the plate and
leading us? Where is the leadership? Red light. Emergency.
Help. This is something that has been flashing for the
past 40 years,'' she said. (AP)