I am a child of the 80’s. When I look back on the defining moments of my childhood, it was events like the Challenger disaster, Iran-Contra, Uncle Ronnie, and Tianamen.

During this time, there was a series of benefit concerts to focus on different initiatives. There were events like Live Aid and Farm Aid, and, who can forget “We Are the World?“. (In fact, I think that my elementary school talent show performed We Are the World!)

So, with that background it was very interesting to see the announcement this week that on July 7, 2007, there will be a 24-hour benefit concert called “Live Earth” with concerts on every continent (yes, even Antarctica) featuring over 100 artists.

The event was announced earlier this week and is a collaboration between Al Gore, MSN, and Kevin Wall — who was one of the producers of Live 8.

The group is working with media companies from around the world to help get as many viewers and listeners as possible. They have already received commitments from Sirius and XM Radio to broadcast the concerts on multiple channels. They are working with NBC (and its sister channels) to broadcast the concerts in the U.S. and the BBC to broadcast the concerts in England. They have signed up over 2,500 radio stations in the U.S. to broadcast parts of the concert.

They have announced some of the line up already and it includes artists like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snoop Dogg, Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, and the Black Eyed Peas. As if that wasn’t enough, the man, the myth, the legend — Simon Lebon — and his band of friends known as Duran Duran will grace us with their talent. (We love you Simon!)

They also mentioned that they are having mayors from around the country contact them to ask if they can host “regional” versions of the concert with local artists performing.

The goal of the concert will be to raise awareness about climate change on a broader level than ever done before. They are hoping to be able to reach over 2 billion people through all of the different mediums over which the concert will be broadcast.

I think it will be very interesting to see how this develops. It could be a great way to really help create a movement related to climate change that hasn’t been seen to date.

So, mark your calendars on 7/7/07 and let’s all start rehearsing the lines to We Are the World! (I’ll be Kenny Rogers, who do you want to be?)