It’s Tough Out There for a Morally-Consistent Performer

Tired of loosely-informed celebrities nagging you about global warming? It’s beginning to look like the most hard core among them could end up taking themselves out of the fame game of their own accord. The lead singer of Radiohead, Thom Yorke, has suggested that taking a band on tour is immoral because of all the atmosphere-killing CO2 that is emitted in the process – even when the hip kids on the bus have purchased carbon credits to offset their emissions.

Clearly, he’s on to something here. Anything that uses any energy is evil – taking a rock band on a world tour and flipping on a lightswitch is merely a difference of scale. Thus, performing and making music (or movies, or whatever) is itself essentially immoral. Until the alternative energy crowd brings us the magic technologies that are perenially “just around the corner,” the only principled decision for the eco-famous will be to stop being creative and find a dimly lit cave in which to wait out the cold fusion deployment curve. And definitely turn down projects like this one.