Green Plastic Radiohead

Thom is featured in a new film called Eat This! which is a documentary that explores the reality behind the livestock industry, and the ethics of eating meat.
Inspired by Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine and Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me documentaries, Eat This! is a collage of vox pops, animation, guerilla reportage and interviews with experts and celebrities.
In his interview, Thom outlines the reasons he stopped eating meat: “A list of things I guess. First thing was Meat is Murder, The Smiths. The second thing was getting sick all the time every time I ate meat -just getting sick a lot and the third thing was I started going out with this girl and I wanted to impress her so I pretended I’d been vegetarian all along and I immediately felt a lot better, a lot healthier. I was concerned, as many people are, about that you’re not going to get all the things you need in your diet, you’re going to get sick all the time, but the exact opposite happened to me, so I never looked back, it was never a problem straight off.”
Asked whether teenagers should care about factory farming, Thom retorts, “Yeah, they should care that society deems it necessary to create this level of suffering in order for them to eat food that they don’t need, they should care about that. There is enough suffering in the world and if you choose to physically ingest it, then you should at least be aware of what you’re doing rather than assuming that that’s your right as a human being to do it.”
You can view a clip on Thom’s interview at http://www.eatthis.org.uk/star_veggies.html.

Radiohead front man Thom Yorke is today (May 25) calling for thousands of people across the country to back The Big Ask, a new national climate change campaign to make the Government legally responsible for reducing the UK’s impact on global warming.
It comes as a NOP survey shows that nearly three quarters of the public believes the Government is not doing enough to tackle climate change.
The UK is failing to meet its climate change targets and The Big Ask campaign, launched by Friends of the Earth, challenges the Government to bring in a new climate change law. The law would force the Government to take responsibility for the UK’s contribution to global warming by reducing carbon dioxide emissions by three per cent every year.
The Big Ask campaign is backed by a new report by Friends of the Earth which shows how the Government can meet carbon dioxide reduction targets without nuclear power. Carbon dioxide emissions have risen under Labour.
The new law would force the Government to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, by three per cent every year. This would make it easier and more affordable for the UK to meet its target of cutting 1990 carbon dioxide levels by 60 per cent by 2050, and avoid the need for more expensive and drastic action in the future.
The public can back the campaign by logging onto www.thebigask.com (live from May 24).
A NOP survey for Friends of the Earth, published today, confirms that the public wants the Government to show leadership on climate change. The poll revealed that:
– 73 per cent do not think that the Government is doing enough to tackle climate change;
– 55 per cent think that the Government should be taking the lead on climate change – 26 per cent said individuals; 13 per cent plumped for business.
Friends of the Earth director, Tony Juniper said:

“Climate change is the biggest threat the planet faces. Urgent action is desperately needed. But despite Government promises to cut carbon dioxide levels, emissions are continuing to rise. The Big Ask campaign aims to make the Government legally responsible for tackling climate change. We want a new law requiring ministers to cut pollution by three per cent each year, making it easier and cheaper to meet to the UK’s carbon dioxide reduction targets. But we also need the public to help by asking the Government why it isn’t acting on global warming, and asking their MPs to back the Climate Change Bill. It could be the most important question you ever ask.”

You can read more at:
Radiohead’s Yorke in climate call (BBC News)
Thom’s greenhouse nightmares (Radio 1)
Thom Yorke On ‘Big Ask’ Campaign (Xfm Online)
Yorke Unperturbed by Gallagher Criticism (Contactmusic.com)
Radiohead star backs climate change law (ITV)

Okay, maybe we did. It’s been busy, okay? Anyway, we want to wish a very happy birthday to Phil Selway who celebrates his 38th birthday today.

The Chicago Tribune recently interview U2’s Bono and the subject of Radiohead was brought up:

Kot: You said the other day, “We’ve ‘Kid A’d’ ourselves to death.” It was a funny line, but I’m disappointed to hear that. [A reference to Radiohead’s 2001 progressive-rock album ‘Kid A’].
Bono: Radiohead just looked at the pop machine and the machinations of pop and just said, we don’t have it in us, we don’t have the energy, to have our way with that. I don’t hear [Radiohead’s] Thom Yorke singing on the radio. I want to hear Radiohead, extraordinary band that they are, on MTV. I want them setting fire to the imaginations of 16, 15, 14 year old kids. I was 14 when John Lennon set fire to my imagination. At that age, you’re just [angry], and your moods swing, and it’s an incredible time to be hit with something like that. I don’t blame them [for not wanting to be on MTV]. But I think, what would my life be like without the Beatles? If the Beatles had just kept going on experimenting after “Sgt. Pepper,” I’d be interested to hear it, of course.

You can read the full interview here.
Meanwhile, Coldplay’s Chris Martin has been doing quite a bit of press himself with Coldplay’s new album X&Y being released on June 7. He talked with Sound Generator and of course, Radiohead came up:

One of Martin’s favourite ever groups, labelmates Radiohead, described Coldplay as ‘lifestyle music’. “We’re like an eager dog just yapping around their heels,’ he adds ‘and they’re trying to kick us away,” he jokes. “It’s like unrequited love. I’m in love with a lot of things. Some of those things love me back. And some of them don’t — and one of them is Radiohead.”

The full article is here.
(thanks to Justin & 777att)

There is an discussion posted on Greater Kashmir between Thom Yorke and Howard Zinn, author of People’s History of the United States. Both talk about the artist’s role in making the world a better place. Here’s an excerpt:

Zinn: Back to the idea that Radiohead is not a directly political band – I know you’ve been asked this one too many times, but considering the assumptions that people made about Hail to the Thief’s title as a political reference to George Bush, and you avoiding being considered a political band – if you could go back and rename it, would you?
Yorke: Oh, god, no. We were really terrified by it. I was extremely concerned about doing it because I was just concerned with the reaction, and concerned about pinning all our hard work on to such a phrase like that. It looked from the outside like such a political phrase. But the reason I felt confident about it was because everybody else was really into it. They felt very strongly that, regardless of the consequences, this is where the record comes from, so let’s just do it. It was so obvious that that is what it should be called. Hail to the Thief is about extraordinarily damned-up jubilation, wrong and misplaced, so I think they were right.

Read the rest….