News ·
Thom Yorke lobbies Margaret Beckett by text for The Big Ask
first posted on Treefingers by Miro · rewritten for the archive
Thom Yorke's work for The Big Ask has reached the environment secretary's phone. In an interview in The Guardian on 26 May, a press officer explains that Margaret Beckett would not debate climate change with Yorke on Channel 4 News, so he has been sending her text messages instead. The Friends of the Earth campaign wants a new law obliging the government to cut carbon dioxide emissions by three per cent a year.
Yorke, wearing a “Dump Nuclear” badge, says climate change is beyond dispute and that nothing will change unless it is made law, rather than left to voluntary effort.
You have a certain amount of credit you can cash in with your celebrity, and I'm cashing the rest of my chips in with this.
Thom Yorke1
He calls himself a neurotic who likes to worry, and says he is lucky to be able to turn that outwards. Pressed on whether Radiohead ever laugh, he claims a perverse, dark sense of humour. Dead Ringers amuses him, and Have I Got News for You, and so does his own music: he found “Paranoid Android” hilarious, though people took it very seriously. Asked about Arthur, reported to be his favourite film, he praises Dudley Moore, then asks what any of this has to do with climate change.