The music industry: climate focus
We live in a world where there are more microplastics in our oceans than animals themselves; where cars are expelling poisonous gases; where we sacrifice our ecosystems; where we endanger our planet's future; where it takes a 15-year-old girl to stand up to be the voice of our planet for the leaders of the world to change; where only a few people will ever explore the entire world! For the sake of our children's future, we must change our way of life, be more sustainable, and educate people! But how do we start when it's such a big problem created by the people before us?
Firstly, we could reform the way gigs, concerts and festivals are run. The extent to which they damage the natural world is incomprehensible. In the UK alone the music industry is responsible for approximately 540,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum. While this is not as carbon-intensive as many other industries, it remains a significant challenge to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050 in line with national and international targets.
But how big actually is this problem?
In 2018 58.15 million tickets were sold worldwide, given that many of these concerts would have been in places where many fans would have to get a plane to catch a glimpse of their favourite band. When you consider the transport needed for the band themselves with all their equipment, entourage, makeup artists, etc, this issue goes beyond just the performance itself. Planes pollute our atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, this process of incomplete combustion releases copious amounts of greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide. Inadvertently, this contributes to global warming. If by our actions and by natural disasters the temperature of the earth increases by 1-degree celsius this will threaten the rich biodiversity of our blue planet! Even the tickets themselves are made of paper, to produce the paper we have to cut down trees. This threatens habitats and increases the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Furthermore, fewer trees mean limited photosynthesis, this is a process that takes the carbon dioxide from our atmosphere and water to produce glucose and oxygen. If there is less oxygen in the atmosphere we can’t respire and so humans have to adapt and adaptation takes millions of years, and so life as we know it will never be the same.
The aftermath of fans flocking to areas all around the world to watch their favourite group perform in a sea of litter… In particular, bands like Coldplay, like to use lots of colour, bright lights, smoke machines, fireworks, and confetti to create an atmosphere like no other. This unwittingly expels lots of pollution for example light and noise. Especially, fireworks which distress animals and can even indirectly kill them when they run in a state of panic towards danger. This week, I watched my dog shake in fear histrerally after my neighbours set up extremely loud fireworks. As well as this, they contribute to climate change as they release carbon dioxide and particulates, causing global dimming and in turn heat our planet. Even just the running of the festival or concert itself requires an extensive amount of energy. The electricity bill must be an uncomfortable read!
Litter damages our environment beyond all recognition, if a single bottle ends up in a water source it would flow into the great garbage gyre where a plastic island is formed in the ocean. This attracts the animals and when they eat the microplastics, mistaking it for food. After even just eating a few grams of the plastic they think they are full but they are not and they starve and die. The UK alone throws away 4490 pieces of plastic annually which means that on average 86 pieces each week or in 12 days not much? Consider breaking down a milk bottle into its components like the cap, bottle, label, seal and the other parts of the bottle that are a lot of plastic that could end in our oceans. . Many tents that the festival goer’s camp in are left behind as they are described on the packaging as disposable. At Glastonbury, last year thousands of people abandoned their tents, just waiting for a magical fairy to turn up and miraculously clear the tents away. The average tent is mostly made of plastic - which is equivalent to 8,750 straws or 250-pint cups. The worst effect is when plastics enter the ocean and enter ecosystems. This is also a humongous factor of why coral bleaching is happening even in the most sustainable coral reefs in the world like the Great Barrier reef that has been truly flourishing in recent years. This isn't just a threat to animals and the sea life but a serious threat to us. We could kill ourselves by digesting plastics when eating food that has microplastics in them which can be poisonous if ingested. Plastics can also obviously trap animals as in Sardinia last week a pregnant sperm whale was found washed up on a beach with fifty pounds of plastic waste inside of her which killed her and her unborn calf. Why should manmade objects devastate the natural world?
After a long evening of dancing and jumping up and down to your favourite song, you will need feeding!
With only 14% of the UK’s population vegetarian, the majority of food trucks will offer meat products. Farming and agriculture massively threaten our way of life. Cows, when they flatten they expel methane; methane is a greenhouse gas that causes various health problems for the population when it is in high concentration in the atmosphere. Also, cows and other livestock need space to graze on grass and this means that land has to be set aside instead of it being a forest teeming with life.
Not only do they affect astronomically, our planet but they also are a hive of criminal behavior. Irrefutably, if you are enjoying yourself you are unlikely to notice someone stealing something from your hand bag or spiking your drink, are you? Of course not, which is why if you are inclined to commit opportunistic crime, a gathering of delirious, entranced and often drunk people are the perfect target. Along with petty theft, substance abusers are commonplace at festivals and lots of drugs are sold at these events because people lose their inhibitions and liberate themselves from day to day life! Furthermore, some music seniors like Grime, drill music and other rap, glorify violence and drug taking. Last year there were 43,516 knife crime offences in the 12 months ending March 2019. This is an 80% increase from March 2014, when there were 23,945 offences. The phycological impact of listening to grime music is a violent one as it talks about drugs, murder and hatred. It has become a part of youth culture with deprived teenagers not knowing what the music represents and as a result, it glorifies violence. An artist whose popularity is increasing is called MC Abra Cadabra who talks of machetes and a “rambizzy” – slang for a large blade – on his biggest track, Robbery, he dismisses the accusation that he glorifies actual violence. Surely the listeners of this type of music can interpret what the lyrics mean and submit themselves to the kind of culture that condemns knife crime and drug-taking. In particular, at concerts where these types of artists perform the fans are most likely to be angry, violent and oftentimes violent. When you mix all of these people together in one field or arena invariably there will be criminal behavior. Surely there is a way to police and prevent crime at concerts? Well, I would argue not! Simply, there are too many people to police and the police are already underfunded and understaffed and so they are more likely to go to the scene of violent crime.
““The music industry has the opportunity to lead here. It can become the exemplar of a green recovery, and help the public to understand and support what that idea means.””
Perhaps there are ways of running festivals and other events but doing it in a more sustainable manner; perhaps we could enforce rules about not leaving tents behind; perhaps we could use less plastic and use products derived from plant material instead; perhaps we could encourage people to report suspicious behavior. The incontrovertible truth is that going to festivals are for many a once in a lifetime experience. The atmosphere is like nothing else on this earth! What could be better for our mental wellbeing than being surrounded by friends and family singing along with your favourite singer who is only a few feet away? They bring communities together despite our differing political beliefs, way of life, values, and attitudes, people bond through the emotions that are evoked by listening to music. Concerts inspire people to share their talent. Often they even raise money for charity and shine a light on important issues like child poverty, in the 1980s with the concert Band-Aid where influential artists gathered to sing and raise an awareness of starvation.
Imagine waking up at 5 AM, making a morning coffee weary-eyed, staring at your ever-growing to-do list, sending those last-minute emails before you arrive at work. You jump in the car and make your way to work, a day filled with stress, anxiety and overwhelming pressure . Then you realize that you have a festival booked in your calendar on Saturday. A much-needed break isn't it?
Absolutely! Did you know that 18-33 years old suffer the highest levels of stress in the nation, these people are meant to be enjoying their youth but instead they are stuck with the world on their shoulders in a dead end job! Shockingly, a life of stress will shorten your lifetime by 10 years!
Going to gigs and immersing yourself in the atmosphere is not only good for you but it is also very important for the economy. From roadies and makeup artists to light technicians and DJ's they offer a multitude of job opportunities. They also bring tourism to less economically developed countries. The hospitality industry for many countries is a major generator of profit and so with some festival-goers preferring to camp in luxury, they may opt for a hotel or yurt. Even down to the food required to feed all of the fans creates many jobs for budding chefs and restaurateurs. Our highstreets are in Dire Straits because they are no longer a cornerstone of daily life, people opt to shop online because its a much more tailored experience and undoubtedly the effects of the Coronavrius has threatened beyond all recognition our way of life!
With scientific and technological advances being made daily to enable a harmonious relationship between modern life and nature, we could still have our beloved concerts more sustainable and evolved. Coldplay, a very infamous pop-rock band, has already begun to reform their concerts. Chris Martin, the band lead singer, said in an interview with the BBC in 2019 that he and his band are serious about climate change, “If you’ve had the privilege of travelling around the world, you know we’re all from the same place… In a very gentle British way, this record is us saying we don’t feel different from any human on earth.” He and his band are planning to make several changes to the logistics of their performances. For example, they are touring less and having carbon neutral shows that run on solar power. Despite the music industry's efforts more needs to be done to salvage our planet from dilapidation. I think that concerts for them to be sustainable have to be carbon neutral, transport to run on biofuel, e-tickets used instead of paper ones, no confetti and above all cut down on meat consumption and plastics.
Music is part of our DNA, what we enjoy listening to is part of our identity and it makes us who we are. Music can be the mouthpiece of our planet and of the people who call it home, it's never too late to make a difference.
