Live Earth ... will it last?

So Live Earth reached people around the globe yesterday. It was pretty cool, especially with NBC's finale featuring John Mayer, Kanye West and the Police (see Sting above). My question is will anyone care in a few weeks? I'm somewhat skeptical because I think Americans (I only say this because I'm American and can't really speak for other nations) won't change their habits unless they can actually see the end of the world.

The public transportation where I live is basically non-existant. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I've never been on the city bus system in Grand Forks, ND. Unfortunately, the routes have never catered to my schedule. I used to work until 3 or 4 in the morning and the busses shut down much earlier. Now, I need my car because my job requires me to drive around town.

I guess I'm somewhat down on the good old US of A right now because I really do feel like we've become content with the status quo. We have the world's highest standard of living, yes, but other countries are catching up. I just read an article in Newsweek about how the United States is lagging far behind other nations in the development of broadband infrastructure. Everyone knows the Internet is driving the global ecomony. The U.S. is lagging. The Newsweek article cited a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which ranked the high-speed broadband adoption of 30 developed nations. The U.S. ranked 15th in April. That's not acceptable for a nation that prides itself on being a world leader in innovation.

It's too bad things like this and this are taking away from other imporant issues at the national level. Oh well, I guess I'm just waiting (waiting); waiting on the world to change.