MUMBAI: Detailing an effort to engage billions of people across the globe, Kevin Wall, former US VP Al Gore, Pharrell Williams, film star Cameron Diaz, and the MSN Network have launched Save Our Selves (SOS) – The Campaign for a Climate in Crisis. The announcement was made at the California Science Center.

SOS is designed to trigger a global movement to combat our climate crisis. It will reach people in every corner of the planet through television, film, radio, the Internet and Live Earth, a 24-hour concert on 7/7/07 across all 7 continents that will bring together more than 100 of the world’s top musical acts. Live Earth alone will engage an audience of more than 2 billion people through concert attendance and broadcasts. MSN has partnered with SOS to use its reach to make the Live Earth concerts available across the globe.

The Live Earth audience, and the proceeds from the concerts, will create the foundation for a new, multi-year global effort to combat the climate crisis led by The Alliance for Climate Protection and its Chair, Vice President Al Gore. SOS was founded by Kevin Wall, who won an Emmy as Worldwide Executive Producer of Live 8.

Wall said, “Our climate crisis is the paramount challenge facing humanity. SOS is more than a global distress call. SOS will give the world the tools we need to answer that call with meaningful action. The most important part of SOS is how individuals, corporations, and governments respond.

“Our climate crisis affects everyone, everywhere, and that’s who SOS is aimed at. Only a global response can conquer our climate crisis. SOS asks all people to Save Our Selves because only we can.”

Gore featured in a documentary about the environment An Inconvenient Truth which is the favourite to win an Oscar. He says, “In order to solve the Climate Crisis, we have to reach billions of people. We are launching SOS and Live Earth to begin a process of communication that will mobilise people all over the world to take action.

“The climate crisis will only be stopped by an unprecedented and sustained global movement. We hope to jump-start that movement right here, right now, and take it to a new level on July 7, 2007.”

MSN corporate VP and chief media officer Joanne Bradford says, “At MSN, we have the worldwide audience and the technology stage to help unite a global community around SOS and Live Earth.

“Anyone around the world with an Internet connection will be able to come to MSN to view not just the concert events, but also an extensive collection of interactive media that will entertain, educate, inspire and ultimately drive change.”

Wall has announced that 25 of the 100 top musical acts that have answered SOS’s call and are performing at Live Earth. SOS is also engaging other celebrities, CEOs, athletes, academics and government leaders to engage their constituencies. Please see that attached list of 25 artists.

Wall adds, “More than 100 artists are performing at Live Earth and they’re all headliners. That’s what it takes to engage billions of people. We’re not just engaging fans of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snoop Dogg, or the Foo Fighters and Faith Hill. We are engaging them and everyone in between.

“We have been overwhelmed by the response from the artist community and are feverishly working out the logistics for all of the bands that want to be involved. Today we are announcing just the first 25 and will soon be announcing even more headliners who, for contractual reasons, cannot be announced today.”

The campaign’s identity is based on SOS, the international Morse code distress signal: three dots, followed by three dashes, followed by three dots. SOS is the most urgent, universal message we have, and SOS will use that signal as a continuous distress call to prompt individuals, corporations and governments around the world to respond to our climate crisis with action.

Wall says, “SOS is creating an unmatched communications platform to take on an unparalleled crisis. Our message must saturate the globe if we are to succeed, and we will. In the US, we’re partnering with NBC-Universal and its networks. On satellite radio, we have SIRIUS and XM. In the UK, we’re partnering with the BBC. In Japan, we have a historic partnership with two broadcast partners. We have already secured television, Internet and wireless coverage in 120 countries, and the rest are soon to come.”

Wall announced that Live Earth concerts will take place in the Brazil, Shanghai, Japan, Johannesburg, London, Sydney, and the US. Live Earth will be broadcast worldwide on MSN, which was the first sponsor to answer SOS’s call. MSN is one of the world's most popular Internet destinations, and as such will allow the SOS campaign to have a global reach. MSN has services in over 42 markets and 21 languages, and more than 465 million people around the world visit MSN each month. Beginning today, people can go to http://liveearth.msn.com and begin participating in the global movement, and on 7/7/07, to watch the Live Earth concerts.

Live Earth is being produced by Control Room, of which Kevin Wall is the CEO. Control Room has produced and distributed more than 60 concerts since its founding a year and a half ago featuring Beyoncé, Madonna, Green Day, Dave Matthews Band, Keith Urban, James Blunt, Snoop Dogg, the Rolling Stones, among others. Its multi-partner network provides a global reach for live offerings through broadband, television, digital movie theatres and mobile phones throughout the U.S. and the world.

Live Earth will implement a new Green Event Standard that will become the model for carbon neutral concerts and other live events in the future. The Green Event Standard is being developed in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Commission to create a way for venues to be Leed-approved.