Thom's Big Ask

Yorke on campaign trail....again

27 Feb 08 - Radiohead's Thom Yorke is launching a campaign to get governments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

The musician has teamed up with Friends of the Earth for the Big Ask project and they want all EU countries to commit to cuts of 30 per cent in the next 12 years.

He presented the European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas with a symbol of The Big Ask on Wednesday (February 27) at the launch of their campaign.

“I’m proud to be part of the big ask virtual march, reminding my MP to remind Gordon Brown that he is committed to a bill to reduce our co2 omissions double quick time.

“And if he doesn’t – we’re gonna come down on him like a tonne of bricks.”

Talking about the Big Ask project on BBC 5 Live, Yorke said: “It’s just worked very well in the UK so we wanna try and get it going in Europe because I think one of the big issues - as we are all aware of now - is the lobbying that’s gonna come from industry against cutting of omissions.”

“We’re trying to change a myriad of things on the touring. It’s a mammoth task and what keeps coming up all the time is infrastructure issues and legal issues
Thom Yorke

When asked if current European targets are good enough, Thom said: “At the moment it’s all being discussed and there’s quite a lot of holes in it.

“Obviously the ultimate goal is if the EU leads the way in this and actually puts a legal frame work in place that we can all follow as individuals and business – and except the consequences of that – then that would be an inspiration for else where.”

Thom also touched on the subject of trying to make Radiohead more environmentally friendly. “I only fly when I absolutely have to – when I have absolutely no choice – and we had a carbon footprint study done on the tour.

“We’re trying to change a myriad of things on the touring. The way people travel to the shows, the lighting rigs, the generators – it’s a mammoth task and what keeps coming up all the time all the way down the line is y’know infrastructure issues and legal issues.

“We explore the possibilities of traveling in an old fashioned train – doing the tour on trains and so on.”

Kelly Stooke