After opening the Live Earth concert series in Sydney via live satellite feed, Al Gore launched Live Earth Tokyo this morning in a high-tech, virtual way - as a hologram. After a stirring introduction by Lumi, the virtual-reality singer of Genki Rockets, a head-to-toe-likeness of the former U.S. Vice President materialized on stage and shared urgent yet hopeful words to the crowd gathered at Makuhari Messe.

The holographic Gore had an expression of amazement as he delivered the following words:

"What an amazing world we live in - I love it that I can stand here on this stage in Tokyo and speak to you in holographic form. It is astounding that in just these recent few decades we have invented technologies that enable us to connect and instantly communicate our ideas and intentions with people on the other side of the globe.

Because of the communication channels and technologies now available to us, this venue is, at this moment, connected to the entire world. You are all communicating to well over 2 billion people right now - including all the Live Earth audiences in Sydney, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Hamburg, London, Rio de Janeiro and New York and the broadcast audience who will be watching on television and the Internet in over 100 countries.

The human race is also connected by the climate crisis. It is a global problem that transcends boundaries, languages and cultures. The climate crisis will impact everyone, everywhere on Earth.

If we look at the Earth from space, it looks like a blue ball coated with a very thin layer of lacquer, within which the air, water, and living beings exist.

This fragile layer is all we have. It's our only home - and we owe it to our children and our children's children to protect it.

With Live Earth, we hope to connect people through the power of music and engage them with a simple, universal message: SOS. ANSWER THE CALL. The Live Earth concerts have the potential to inspire a mass audience to take immediate action and build a global movement for change. You can launch this movement today by pledging to make meaningful and lasting changes in your life. There are so many areas of our lives that contribute to the problem of global warming - and those are the very things that can we can change today and make part of the solution.

And you can commit to this pledge at LiveEarth.org.

As you are making these critical changes in your life, be sure to call on your leaders and elected officials to do the same."

[via LiveEarth.org]