Musicians going Green
In 2007, Aussie musician Missy Higgins and her band toured the US in a Prius, participated in Live Earth and helped PETA campaign against animal abuse. That same year, KT Tunstall also jumped on the green bandwagon, touring in a biodiesel-fuelled bus and supporting the "carbon diet" campaign by Global Cool. And Moby is currently participating in the Play4Climate campaign co-created by the EU and MTV to educate people about climate change with a musical backdrop.
In today’s Irish Times, Jim Carroll takes a look at 10 green musicians and their eco-friendly ways, asking the question, “how green is your rock star?”
Among the eco-minded stars on his list are artists like Jack Johnson, Neil Young, Feist, Radiohead, and Damien Rice.
Carroll mentions that Hawaiian-born singer-songwriter Jack Johnson is “surely the world’s most eco-friendly pop star” as all releases on his Brushfire label are recorded using solar energy. And, even better, the CD's are then packaged with 100 per cent post-consumer recycled paper!
And when on the road, Johnson not only uses biodiesel-powered tour buses, he even produces a report on the offsets of any remaining C02 emissions of his tours.
Radiohead are “one of the more diligent acts when it comes to reducing their impact on the environment,” Carroll reports. “They’ve promoted the idea of city-based gigs over festivals such as Glastonbury to ensure audiences can use available public transport. They also maintain separate equipment for European and US tours to lessen transport emissions and used a LED lighting system on the road to reduce their power needs.”
And when he's not campaigning for peace in Burma, the Irish musician Damien Rice cares about trees. In 2006, he “curated the Big Tree stage at 2006’s Electric Picnic, after which 20 native trees were planted by the Native Woodland Trust for every act that performed on the stage. He has also worked and fund-raised for the Global Green movement advocating green buildings and cities.”
Read the article for the entire list of musicians and their green deeds.
Follow Greenpeace »
Comments
Combining political activism with music is an old tradition. Musicians committed to the cause of Greenpeace today make me think of African-American slaves who sang songs of liberation while working in the cotton fields for no pay. Go Greenpeace.
Posted by: Thayne Ford | November 25, 2009 2:04 AM