Midnight Oil Battles Oil-Burners (Original article online here) With a little decorating help from environmental action-packers Greenpeace, Australian sociopolitical rockers Midnight Oil rested comfortably in arm chairs and sofas--in a makeshift living room in the middle of a downtown thoroughfare in São Paulo, Brazil. Wearing surgical masks to filter the smog, the five musicians took time out Tuesday from their world tour to sit in the middle of the road and protest São Paulo's poor air quality. "The car is the biggest enemy of planet Earth," Peter Garrett, the Oil's lead singer, told the Associated Press. "London and Milan have already adopted restrictions on car use. And São Paulo, with traffic equal to that of Los Angeles, should do the same." And he's absolutely right. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.), driving a car is the single most polluting thing that most of us do, contributing greatly to acid rain, ozone depletion, global warming, and, of course, smog. Environmental activism is nothing new for Garrett. A former president of the Australian Conservation Foundation and member of Greenpeace's board of directors, Garrett, with his band, may have provided the needed celebrity for the smog protest in South America's largest city, but it's up to Greenpeace to do the political dirty work. The organization has urged city officials to adopt a car-rotation policy to limit street traffic on São Paulo streets until cars can be brought into line with acceptable emission standards. From Wall Of Sound, by (Note: this article has not been approved for reproduction.)