Coldplay have announced that they will not be touring their new album until such time as they can find a way to make their gigs carbon neutral. Now, ladies and gentlemen of The Afterword, do not slide lazily into a smug rejoice, just because Coldplay aren’t, you know … they just aren’t very Afterword. What is the real significance of this announcement?

I take the warnings of the academics and experts seriously. I fear that most of us haven’t yet comprehended the ways in which our lives are going to have to change if we are not to cause irreversible damage to the climate. And, of course, I am a hypocrite, because there are countless ways in which I could do more to consume less. As the crews swap between acts on festival stages, I ponder the cost to the planet of my hedonism. There’s the electricity, for starters, just to pump up the volume, even for an ‘acoustic’ act. There’s the methane skull and crossbones lingering in unsavoury fashion above the burger van, the excess consumption going on in the beer tent. Meanwhile, on the campsite, all those Boomer campervans have each guzzled diesel to get there, but that » Continue Reading.