Barenaked & Green
While I certainly can’t claim to be a serious fan of the Barenaked Ladies (I assume one would have to own at least a single album to fall into that category), I do in fact really enjoy their music.
Also, as a proud fellow Canadian I have been very pleased to see them become so successful south of the border over the years.
It’s funny thinking back to when I first saw them on ‘Speakers Corner’ (CityTV) when I was in highschool - back before they even had a record deal in Canada.
Oh nastalgia - gotta love it!
Anyway, I just came across an interesting article in the Toronto Star tonight all about how the ‘Ladies’ are making serious efforts to reduce their impact on the environment.
Here are a couple interesting exerpts:
…members of the multi-platinum-selling Canadian band are serious about their environmental concerns and are making deliberate choices to green their concert tours and their lives in an effort to lessen the impact they have on the environment.
The band pitches in by fuelling their trucks and buses with biofuel, setting up an information eco-village they call Barenaked Planet, recycling and composting backstage debris and buying carbon offsets. And they’re asking fans to join in as well.
“A lot of fans are not only dedicated to the band, but dedicated to the environment, too,” says singer and guitarist Steven Page.
“They’re excited by what’s happening. A lot of people are fans of the band and then realize that we share common values, common ideals. That’s what really gets people passionate.”
And they’ve got to be a pretty passionate Barenaked Ladies fan to being willing to haul the band’s recyclables and compost materials home in their cars, which is exactly what some volunteers in Washington and Texas did during the fall Barenaked Ladies Are Me (B.L.A.M.) tour when recycling pickup services weren’t available at the venues.
For many of the ecologically minded fans, and for the five guys in the band itself, something as simple as getting to the concert site becomes a concern.
With passenger cars and light trucks alone accounting for about 12 per cent of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions, automotive fossil fuel emissions are an important environmental issue.
So on their fall tour, the Barenaked Ladies ran their vehicles (typically four trucks and four buses) on biodiesel – specifically B20, a blend of 20 per cent biofuel, derived from waste oil products or plants such as soy or canola, and 80 per cent diesel.
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According to the Barenaked Ladies website (www.bnlmusic.com), during the B.L.A.M. fall tour, fans neutralized more than 1.6 million kilometres of driving by participating in the band’s offset program, where the purchase of a $5 Barenaked Planet Offset Stickers neutralizes about 135 kilograms of CO 2 or the equivalent to driving a car 480 kilometres.
“In the States, we use NativeEnergy and here in Canada we’re using a company called Zerofootprint to do our travel offsets, and Bullfrog Power will be offsetting our electrical stuff,” says Page. The band itself neutralized 272 tonnes of CO2, he adds, by offsetting the power consumed at the fall concerts.
Still relatively new and unregulated, carbon offsets are somewhat controversial, with critics questioning the veracity of some data, as well as the value of some alternative energy and energy-conservation projects.
Preferring conservation and prevention, critics of offsets believe that since it’s often cheaper to purchase carbon offsets rather than to eliminate emissions, offsets simply encourage guilt-free consumption.
“The offsets ease the conscience a bit, but it’s more about the kind of consumption we use; what we’re trying to cut back on,” says Page, who recently installed a solar panel system in his own home and has an interest in the WindShare co-op that operates the wind turbine at Toronto’s Exhibition Place
It certainly sounds like they are quite serious about their eco-efforts and its fantastic that they are getting their fans involved as well!
Be sure to check out the original article to learn more: Barenaked Ladies go for the green
Technorati Tags: barenaked ladies, bnl, earth friendly, environmentally friendly, carbon offsets, environmental, global warming, biodiesel, biofuel, toyota prius, hybrid, tour, concert
Written by Bentley on February 4th, 2007 with
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