In parts of the country, as some grass and riverbeds turn brown and skies a hazy yellow, 2007 promises to be a green summer; it certainly does  at MSN.com.

You may have noticed, MSN is hosting Live Earth, a 24-hour concert series on July 7 that will span seven continents, involve more than 150 A-list artists and reach 2 billion worldwide via the Internet, TV, radio and mobile.

Those are some kind of figures, contrasted with numbers that elicit growing concern, like rising ocean temperatures and declining oil production, among others.

Live Earth is not seen by producer Kevin Wall as just another cause concert like Live 8 in 2005, though he is the brainchild behind both. July 7 will be what Wall called, in an April interview, the "tipping point of behavior to get government, corporations and consumers to change the way they live and treat the environment."

And he's tackling that task through music, with MSN as the exclusive online partner.

As described by Lisa Gurry, MSN's senior director for Live Earth, the online content is conceived to engage, connect and inspire global action to solve the climate crisis.  She says Live Earth presents MSN with a great opportunity to reach its 465 million monthly visitors with a rich, interactive media experience – featuring in-depth video, photo galleries, tools and services, content and more.

At the February press conference to announce the concert was actress Cameron Diaz, who snubs a glamour car to drive a Toyota Prius. "It's the start of awareness of our planet and our climate crisis," said the comedic star who will host one of the concerts.

A few years ago, Wall attended one of former vice president Al Gore's slide shows about global warming, which later spawned the Academy Award-winning movie "An Inconvenient Truth." The documentary spurred Wall's concerns about the planet "for my children, and my children's children."

Moved by the presentation, Wall delivered himself a challenge: "Kevin, you've produced major global live events. You should really think about trying to mount a global cause."

He decided to leverage his expertise as a music producer and CEO of Control Room, a provider of digital entertainment. Having become close to Gore, having contact with many of the world's leading musical artists and with Control Room as MSN's streaming partner for online concerts, an alliance was born – but one with a purpose that extends beyond July 7.

SOS, which is Live Earth's Save Our Selves campaign, intends to extend a global message of helping people to understand the urgency of addressing climate change. Proceeds from the concerts will help to fund the Alliance for Climate Protection. The ACP blends representatives from existing U.S. environmental groups and interacts with the Climate Group, a separate worldwide entity of business and government leaders concerned about global warming.

Wall founded Live Earth and SOS; Gore is chair of the ACP; and Joanne Bradford is Microsoft's chief media officer who gave the green light to leveraging MSN's producers and editors to help the cause.

"I am not an environmentalist by nature," said Bradford at the February kickoff session, though she recycles, refills her water bottle and outlaws printing of presentations for team meetings. "The passion from our employees is unbelievable. … We really believe that we can be the global Internet provider to tell this story. People will watch it on television, but then they'll want to do something."

The online strategy is to integrate MSN's video, content, community and interactivity to produce an engaging, educational and innovative media experience. On the Live Earth site you can learn about  fuel-efficient cars, energy-saving homes and eco-friendly travel, among other topics. You can also explore video and galleries, download screensavers and ask questions of a climatologist.

"Everything on MSN will have a point of view that can tell people about how they can take action in this," Bradford explained. "This isn't just one day for us. This is about creating a change – and giving people the education to be able to change."

Mark Pawlosky, MSN's editorial director for Live Earth, says interactive elements such as a carbon calculator, Q&A robot, interactive map and screensavers are just a sampling of the range of content created for the initiative. "No one else has combined the call-to-action programming component with a worldwide concert," said Pawlosky, who has also written about the initiative. "The global scale is truly unique."

On the Saturday of the concert, the seven venues across the world will present a varied slate of music, from rock to rap, with certain artists sure to thrill (for one, Bradford is excited about Madonna, and her children are pumped for James Blunt, both performing at the sold-out London concert; tickets are still available elsewhere, including for the U.S. concert at Giants Stadium, outside of New York City).

The concerts will run simultaneously on various NBC properties, including the network, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, Telemundo, Sundance and HDNet as well as on BBC in the U.K. and on NHK and Fuji TV in Japan). Between acts, 60 movie shorts, commissioned specifically for the SOS campaign, will air, some created by major directors. Plus, people away from their TVs or computers can catch the concert on satellite radio carriers Sirius and XM.

As Wall says in an April interview with Billboard magazine, "Music engages people in a way that nothing else does."

Not everyone is on board with the bands, so to speak.

In the past week, Anthony, an Orlando resident, wrote to say he's seeing too much green around MSN. Apparently he doesn't consider himself an eco-sexual, a term recently applied by Wired magazine to people concerned about their carbon footprint.

"I know that going 'green' is the trendy thing right now, but I am discouraged to see that MSN has fallen prey to the leftist environmental movement. I think I see a 'green' article on the homepage every day. Do some real research on global warming and you might be surprised by what you find. You just have to open your mind."

Many users see global warming, not as a green issue, but a blue one, inferring that it is indeed left or Democrat. Admittedly, Al Gore's involvement further colors the debate.

"We’re striving hard to deliver objective and thought-provoking coverage about climate change, with the goal of engaging people in the discussion. This topic has been embraced by the masses and engaging our users in discussion is one of our top goals at MSN," Gurry said. "Live Earth presents us with an amazing entertainment experience that will reach millions around the world, while also opening the door to introduce people to a wealth of rich content that will educate and encourage people to share their thoughts with others."

To its originators, the SOS campaign, integrating the long and short taps of the old distress signal, is symbolic of all of us on Earth, each of making a big or small impact – or contribution.

A recent Quick Question associated with this column indicated that nearly 90 percent of MSN users believe global warming presents either a major or minor threat, with the remainder undecided or perceiving no harm.

Many people are on the bandwagon, but others not so much. Global warming debates aside, none of us should disagree that each of us makes an impact on Earth, deep or shallow, through consumption alone. There are just so many more millions of people in the world this decade, not to mention last century or the previous millennium that it's a situation of numbers and math.

Doesn't it make sense to be careful where we can?

Check frequently on the Live Earth site, its blog, climate community and boards. And contribute your comments above right.