Radiohead fans get climate postcards for Gordon Brown

Radiohead's British dates begin tonight at Victoria Park in London, and Friends of the Earth campaigners will be in the crowd handing out postcards to send to the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. The cards ask for the Climate Change Bill, still being debated in Parliament, to be strengthened to cut UK emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 and to count the UK's share of international flights and shipping. The postcards follow the band to a second night in the park, Glasgow Green on 27 June and Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester on 29 June.

The band invited Friends of the Earth onto the European leg, and the group announced it from Brussels in May. On a leg that opened at Malahide Castle in Ireland on 6 June, its campaigners in ten countries are asking concert-goers to back The Big Ask, which wants governments and the European Union bound in law to cut emissions every year.

Radiohead have been cutting their emissions since 2007, when they had the carbon analysts Best Foot Forward measure what their tours cost. They have switched to energy-efficient lighting, sent their equipment by train or ship rather than by air, and used recycled materials in the merchandise. They are mostly playing city-centre venues with better transport links, and fans are asked to share cars or come by public transport.

Thom Yorke launched The Big Ask in Britain in 2005, the campaign that pushed for the Climate Change Bill, and in February he helped launch the European campaign in Brussels. Its time our politicians play their part as they are the only ones who can put the structures in place that will help us.²