Wired this month features an interesting conversation between Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and musician David Byrne. In it, Yorke, a longtime vegan whose 2006 solo effort focused on global warming, mentions his carbon-related guilt about touring. Here's the relevant clip:
Yorke: ... [At] the moment we make money principally from touring. Which is hard for me to reconcile because I don't like all the energy consumption, the travel. It's an ecological disaster, traveling, touring.
Byrne: Well, there are the biodiesel buses and all that.
Yorke: Yeah, it depends where you get your biodiesel from. There are ways to minimize it. We did one of those carbon footprint things recently where they assessed the last period of touring we did and tried to work out where the biggest problems were. And it was obviously everybody traveling to the shows.
Byrne: Oh, you mean the audience.
Yorke: Yeah. Especially in the U.S. Everybody drives. So how the hell are we going to address that? The idea is that we play in municipal places with some transport system alternative to cars. And minimize flying equipment, shipping everything. We can't be shipped though.
Though Yorke doesn't offer much in the way of solutions, he does seem educated about the fact that biodiesel buses aren't necessarily the answer. But it brings up an interesting quandary: What are we supposed to do, as fans? Give up seeing bands entirely (unless they're local, of course)? Having had the thrill of seeing Radiohead live a few years ago, I wouldn't want to have to make that call.
On a semi-but-not-really-related note, the issue's cover story is about the X Prize race to build a 100 mpg car.
Climate Citizen: Mary Stuart Masterson
Friday music blogging: Here We Go Magic
Comments
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Mikensfl Posted 8:57 am
09 Jan 2008
Our goal is to partner with a company who is familiar with the process and methodology that we can work with to get our algorithms certified in order to generate carbon credits. Once certified, the credits would be sold into the markets.
The transporation industry is one of the largest contributors to GHG so we beleive this would be a viable project...if we can locate the right partner.
I would appreciate if anyone here could point me to someone and/or a company who can help our company locate a well established company in this field to help move our project forward in 08.
Thanks in advance!
Mike
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Delay And Deny Posted 9:48 am
09 Jan 2008
Every suburban town in the Free World has a few whining, morose nihilists that look and sound like Radiohead. There's no reason for the originals to tour.
All they have to do is use an AP Wirephoto or some other new fangled gizmo to send their mall-bred Doppelgangers the lastest tablature and let them wail away (literally) in the subdivision.
My Log
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JMG Posted 10:59 am
09 Jan 2008
Meanwhil, yes, you need to make that call. -- As will we all. Last week I turned down a really nice week-long training opportunity in February in Albuquerque NM because the expectation is that I would fly to and from said training (to be with many other people who have flown from all over the country to partake). No support for taking the train, which would add several days on each end (although they would be very productive days, as there are few better places to catch up on work than a sleeper car on a train).
Ironic/Sad postscript: the training that many dozens of people will fly to attend is on environmental damage assessments.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Sam Wells Posted 3:44 pm
09 Jan 2008
Have any of YOU thought about that? The audience?
Onward through the fog
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caniscandida Posted 7:42 pm
09 Jan 2008
Thom Yorke's observations are very good. But is it time to abolish all concert tours once and for all, save to venues where the audience promise beforehand to ride bikes or take public transportation? After all, concerts are rare and unrepeatable cultural experiences. To say that attending such an event is "not strictly necessary" may be true, but that seems not to get the whole picture.
JMG's event in Albuquerque is another matter. It would be interesting to know how many other people questioned the travel implications as he has done, and of those who did, how many could justify it, and why.
In his not unexpectedly catty and unpleasant end-of-year cluster-bomb essay, equipped with liberal-seeking warheads, in Newsweek, George F. Will made at least one good observation, that the airport at Bali was packed to overflowing with small jets, during the conference. I had been asking myself, in fact, how much jet travel to Bali there had been, from North America and Europe, on the part of NGO people and other environmentalist activists -- and to what effect?
One form of discretionary driving somewhat comparable to driving to a concert is driving to church on Sunday. Has anyone calculated how much gasoline is consumed by church-goers in the US on any given Sunday?
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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spaceshaper Posted 8:54 pm
09 Jan 2008
Lotta miles.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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JMG Posted 11:43 pm
09 Jan 2008
About ten years ago the church we would otherwise attend moved itself from an older downtown neighborhood and built a gorgeous new building on land that had been farmland just on the county side of the city/county line, about three miles out of the downtown area -- so they put a big old parking lot in front, and that fills up so they have overflow parking across another street as well.
Many of the greenest people in town attend, and they have a Social Concerns Committee that urges people to write letters to support action on climate change after the service.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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zacaroni Posted 4:47 am
10 Jan 2008
On discretionary travel: why not blame time, too? The religion of time has brought us to this mess! Time is abundant, not limited. We talk of time like it is a commodity - as though biking to Texas instead of flying is a waste of time. We could do everything-as-much-as-possible-as-fast-as-we-can. But why should we?
And for Thom: I live 2 hours from Chicago, and would take the bus to come see Radiohead play - if I could get tickets. Perhaps I would justify the travel by offsetting...
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