Thom Yorke dons the green eye-shield

Today's Observer magazine has been guest-edited by Thom Yorke; it's a climate change special and in his introduction he suggests that his larger-than-average global footprint is a help, rather than a hindrance, in spreading the message:

At first I told Friends of the Earth that I was absolutely the wrong person to be associated with their campaign. I've based my life on touring and the rock industry is a high energy-consuming industry. But they persuaded me that that was exactly why it was a good idea for me to be involved, that they didn't want to present a holier-than-thou message.

That's true - and makes a certain degree of sense - although how far would you take that? There's a sense that this is the environmental equivalent of those times when Keith Richards tells pop stars to not take drugs, isn't it?

But, for a whiskey priest, Yorke is pretty passionate and takes well to his brief - interviewing Ken Livingstone about plans to bring bike rental to central London, for example. Sadly, he doesn't get his hands dirty with testing alternatives to bin liners.

Johnny Borrell stands alone to save the planet

Johnny Borrell of Johnny Borrell and the Johnny Borrell Experience Band has dumped his backing blokes for a single in aid of saving the planet.

Funeral Blues is equally notable for having been recorded in the only solar-powered studio in London. It's for Friends of the Earth's big ask campaign, but has nothing to do with it, says Borrell:

"It's a song that I wrote a little while ago, and I've been really looking forward to recording it, but it has nothing to do with the ecological concerns whatsoever."

Well done, then.

Johnny, apparently, is so thick he needed Al Gore to stand in front of him and point out the global warming problem:

"I went to the cinema with a friend. We watched An Inconvenient Truth, that film by Al Gore, and we walked out and were like, 'blimey' so that was it. I just got on the phone the next day. I said, 'I'm Johnny. I'm in a band called Razorlight. Can I help you?'"

It's lucky, we suppose, that Al didn't simply dedicate his movie to the cause but use some old footage that had nothing to do with the ecological concerns whatsoever.

Still, just imagine how much energy can be saved if we all pledge to not buy the single, never download it, never play it, and switch the television off every time Borrell pops up on it. Making a difference already.