Late last month, Radiohead singer Thom Yorke added to his already impressive résumé by helping to launch an international campaign in order to raise awareness about climate change. The Big Ask Europe took off (without fuel) in Brussels last week, with Yorke as spokesman, aiming to convince the European Union to approve annual cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Seventeen countries have come together under the umbrella of Friends of the Earth groups, each proposing legally binding emission cuts in their respective nations. Yorke first helped launch the UK branch of The Big Ask in 2005, and since then, the group has been responsible for pushing the Climate Change Law through parliament, with the legislation likely enacted by summer, and making Great Britain the first country in the world to have legally binding emissions targets.
Yorke had this to say in a press release:
We will never wake from the nightmare of climate change unless our national governments and the European Union act. They are the only ones who can put the structures in place that will help us tackle climate change. That is why we are launching The Big Ask in seventeen countries across Europe. By committing to annual cuts in our emissions at a national and European level we can play our part in tackling climate change, and set an example for the rest of world to follow. Hundreds of thousands of people want to see their governments doing more about climate change. If you are one of them you can find out more about The Big Ask campaign in your country at www.thebigask.eu.
Never the hypocrite, Yorke's Radiohead have declined an invitation to play this year's Glastonbury festival because of the lack of public transportation to the concert site, the singer told British paper The Sun. He also shared his plans to build a natural heating system for his home and Radiohead's strategy for minimizing their ecological footprint. "That has included buying two lots of equipment and keeping one in Europe and one in America so we never have to fly our kit around the world again," he said. "We also use new technology for our lighting rig. One of the interesting things we discovered is how people get to our big shows. A lot of the time people are driving with one or two people in a car, and that’s an ecological disaster.”
A nice thought, indeed, but I suppose the air is already clean up there on that tall, tall horse.
