Eco Rock Tourism
So, I am a Rock Tourist. Many of us are tourists, of course. Many of us like to visit different places in the world. I’ve heard it said many times that tourism is the world’s largest industry.
I also try to be a good global citizen. My prediliction for Tourism, coupled with my life as a business man, puts me in a situation that is, perhaps, familiar to many of us who try to be good global citizens: I am torn about the emissions that my travel brings about. I’ve taken the tests: despite not owning a car and embracing walking and public transportation, there’s no doubt. I leave a pretty big emissions footprint. I do my best to account for this, of course. I am a diligent buyer of carbon offsets, and I work hard, through my position in the marketing industry, to encourage corporations to adopt carbon-neutral and carbon-friendly practices. Still, though, it can’t help but leaving me feeling a tad uncomfortable.
I think many of us have this same problem: is tourism socially responsible? Is it defensible? Although I’m not 100% certain of the decision, I have, for the time being, decided that tourism is ethical. I believe that the social benefits that well-traveled people bring the world offset the carbon emissions spent acquiring this experience. I don’t profess to know the stats – I’ve heard anecdotal statements that air travel isn’t the largest emissions problem we face, and I’ve heard that tourism is only a small part of air travel. I don’t know if these are true. I do know that, for now, I have made the decision that tourism is still a good thing. I have a hunch many of you have made this same decision. I will revisit it, of course, through the years, but it saddens me to think of a world where we can’t visit other places.
Of course I am in full support of any laws and regulations that require me, along with other people and organizations, to be taxed appropriately for the emissions they cause. I believe the costs should be worked into every product. I also, of course, recognize that money doesn’t solve the problem, and the technologies don’t necessarily exist to turn that money into cleaner air. But i do believe that if incentives were aligned, and the funds existed, and the economics were calibrated so the true costs of products were built into them, the market would adjust and cleaner products would, over time, become more popular than unclean ones. Would that happen in time to save us all from certain doom? I honestly have no idea. But I digress.
If we take, then, that tourism is acceptable, then I would posit that Rock Tourism’s as acceptable as any other type. And here we come to the reason why this post is in my Rock Tourism blog as opposed to one of my others. The way I see it, we all sort of have some sort of operating principal to our tourism. Perhaps we like to getaway from it all and relax. Perhaps we like to see the world’s cultures. Perhaps we like adventure. Perhaps it’s a love of art that dictates our next vacation spot. For me, it’s rock and roll. It’s live shows. I think of places I want to go, and I go to them when there’s a rock show I want to see. I love it. It combines two things I thoroughly enjoy – rock and traveling. It lets me meet like-minded people when I travel. It allows me to do things I enjoy on my vacation rather than things I just think I should do.
It is, essentially, the basis for my travel, and the basis for my blog.
So, recently, oddly, this happy hobby of mine has become a bit of a news item. Well, let me rephrase that. It has, peripherally, come under discussion. And it’s caused me to think about the social ramifications of what I do.
Recently, Radiohead, a band that I admire very much, have started doing some soul searching of their own about emissions, carbon footprints and the like. I respect Radiohead enormously, and I have a hunch that if a respected environmental organization came to me and pointed out how bad of a global footprint my business and life was leaving, I’d be feeling pretty upset about it too. i would want to know exactly what the ramifications of me deciding to tour were as well.
I can’t claim to be 100% certain of Radiohead’s approach, but i get the sense that right now they are in research mode. I know that they are weighing environmental impact as a factor in their upcoming tour. They are considering factors like whether a gig has sufficient access to public transportation. They are thinking about whether gigs in the burbs are more or less damaging to the environment than urban gigs. I suspect, though I have no knowledge of this, it must be a very difficult decision for them. Every gig leaves a footprint. Do more small gigs leave a bigger footprint than a few big ones?
I remember the Kid A “tour” of the United States. It consisted of exactly two shows – one in New York and one in LA. I literally knew dozens of people that travelled from other cities to go to one of those two gigs. Though I combined it with another trip, I chose to see Radiohead on the Kid A tour in LA.
In the afore-linked report on the upcoming Radiohead gig in barcelona, it is hinted that Radiohead are taking into account whether or not the concert goers are coming from another city. I think the assumption is that if many people are coming from another city, those concert goers are leaving a larger carbon footprint than the concert goers who already live in the city.
On the surface, this doesn’t seem unreasonable, and I can understand why, on a per show basis, this may seem like useful information. It seems to me, however, that this brings up many intractable problems.
First, I would imagine nightmarish calculations around how many shows to do. Radiohead is hugely popular. There are literally millions of people on the planet that want to see them. How many shows, then, is the most ideal number to fill that demand? Is fewer, large shows the right approach? I’m willing to wager way more people travelled to see Radiohead on the Kid A tour in the US – where like I said, I knew dozens of people travelling to those shows – compared to the Amnesiac tour, where they played a lot of dates, and I don’t know anyone – save for a few fanatics – that travelled to see a show. Which is worse?
Of course Radiohead is right to undertake an endeavor to learn this, and I would welcome them sharing their findings. It also brings up other difficult questions: we all tend to like more intimate concerts. The bigger the venue, the less connected we feel. What if it transpires that the most efficient, least impactful tour schedule is only one show per continent, to, say 400,000 people each? How much of a drag would that be? And how would the band balance this environmental concern with their artistic ones? And would other bands be thought less of if they made different choices?
After all, this logic, extended, makes it very hard to justify touring at all. And yet live music, to me, and to millions, is one of the most rewarding, artistically soul-nourishing things out there. And to musicians it is, often, both their life blood and their artistic inspiration.
Additionally, the math becomes impossibly incalculable. Let’s take my Kid A concert-going example. I came from another city. Fair enough. But I was in LA to visit my friends. If I didn’t go to that Radiohead show, when I was already in LA, would the carbon footprint have been any lessened? Don’t these intentions matter? But there seems to be no way of knowing them.
Finally, let’s take this Barcelona example. I don’t think they’re going to do this, but say that Radiohead, or the festival, required proof of residency in Barcelona, prior to selling you a ticket. This is, of course, a burden that many people would gladly bear for a band they absolutely loved, but it wouldn’t particularly work if you just, say, wanted to see what the hubub was about for some new band. Do we then have to show our ID every time we buy a ticket? And, of course, then I’d just get my Barcelonan friend to buy my tickets for me. So presumably the whole affair would be useless unless they instigated some sort of Glastonbury-esque anti-scalping measures, putting my photo on my ticket, or only letting me pick them up at the door, with an ID. Even this might not cut it, of course, after we experienced the Arcade Fire’s endeavors in New York last year that made everyone’s life miserable but didn’t inhibit scalping, but rather just drove the prices up exhorbitantly.
In the end, though, I think it comes down to something more pure: is it wrong to travel? And is it any more wrong to travel to see a rock show, than, say, a museum, a sunset or a cathedral? Again, I don’t think Radiohead is going there – the very fact that they are touring at all indicates to me they understand environmental responsibility must be only one factor. But I confess I’m feeling a bit defensive and guilty that one of my favorite bands – who I have managed to see on every tour and in several places that, now, they are telling me were bad to see them (LA, Worcester) – is raising this for discussion.
I don’t have the answers. I suppose I’d be okay with paying a higher fee for a show out of town, provided that money went to the right source. And, of course, I buy the offsets on the flights there. Obviously the least impactful way to see a show is to walk across the street to TTs or the Middle East from my house in Cambridge or to see a show when I’m already in New York at the Mercury Lounge or something.
But it seems to me if that you take tourism is something we are still “allowed” to do, then being a Rock Tourist seems to be still okay, right?
