Environmental impact of touring concerns Radiohead frontman

Radiohead singer Thom Yorke told U.K. newspaper The Guardian this week that he is reconsidering the way the band tours in order to lessen its impact on the environment. Yorke explained, "I think it's a necessary part of what I do, to tour or play live, but I find it unacceptable what the consequences of that are. Some of our best ever shows have been in the US, but there's 80,000 people there and they've all been sitting in traffic jams for five or six hours with their engines running to get there...The way that tours are structured now and the way it works is a ridiculous consumption of energy."

Yorke said he'd even consider refusing to tour "if nothing started happening to change the way touring operates."

The British singer said he had considered traveling by ship instead of plane to the U.S. until he discovered it would cause just as much carbon usage, and was also investigating taking a train to Japan. He added that some of the other band members were against alternate means of travel.

Yorke is working with U.K. environmental organization Friends Of The Earth on a campaign called The Big Ask, which is aimed at getting the British government to make reducing carbon emissions into law.

The vocalist wrote earlier this week on the official Radiohead site that work was "properly" underway on the band's seventh studio album.