All That They Can Leave Behind

Just be sure that you’re doing your part to save the planet because it’ll help offset U2’s carbon footprint of their 2009 tour.
___________________________

While Bono’s attempted hug dodge of then-president George W. Bush is becoming the talk of the Internet, I’m more amused at how Bono’s celebrity status somehow exempts him from criticism from many U2 fans, given that his image seems to be a bit of a façade. Consider these:

Bono is famous for preaching to governments, asking them for debt-relief of third-world nations. In order to recoup those losses, these governments would then have to raise taxes on their own people.

But when it comes to taxes for Bono and the other three guys in U2, it turns out that they’re not too interested in paying them if they can get out of it. Financial Website Bloomberg.com reported:

[Adviser to the Tax Justice Network Richard Murphy] points to the band’s decision to move its music publishing company to the Netherlands from Ireland in June 2006 in order to minimize taxes. The move came six months before Ireland ended an exemption on musicians’ royalty income, which is generally untaxed in the Netherlands.

“This is somebody who’s exceptionally rich taking the opportunity to shift his tax burden to somebody else, but then asking governments around the world to spend that tax take in the way that he would like,” Murphy says.

U2’s move to the Netherlands is wrong, says Dick Molenaar, senior partner at All Arts Tax Advisers, a Rotterdam-based tax consulting firm for artists and musicians. “Everybody needs to pay his fair share of taxation to the government, and therefore we have roads and education and everything,” he says.

During the 1990s, U2 used nonexecutive directors who were resident in an offshore tax haven to limit the amount paid by the four band members—in addition to Bono, they’re lead guitarist The Edge, 45, whose real name is David Evans, bass guitarist Adam Clayton, 46, and drummer Larry Mullen, 45.

Another thing that Bono is famous for is his stance on helping the planet and putting an end to global warming. He once remarked that “[c]limate change will most effect the poorest people: the people who do not have the resources to deal with the coming changes.” These changes, say the climate-change-awareness people, are undoubtedly due to human beings (you know, never mind that the Earth was actually warmer than it is now until around the year 1300). And as such, one of the biggest culprits is carbon dioxide.

So now that U2 is out on tour, how much CO₂ is Bono and the boys pumping into our fragile atmosphere? Let’s take a look. A Guardian story from July 10, 2009, reports:

“Looking at the 44 concerts, U2 will create enough carbon to fly all 90,000 people attending one of their Wembley dates (in London) to Dublin,” Helen Roberts, an environmental consultant for carbonfootprint.com, told the Belfast Telegraph. Put another way, U2’s CO₂ emissions are reportedly the equivalent to the average annual waste produced by 6,500 British people, or the same as leaving a light-bulb running for 159,000 years.

But, says one U2 fan, hypocrisy is okay as long as it makes us feel good:

Though U2 may yet announce that they are paying to carbon offset their world tour—they would need to plant 20,118 trees a year, according to Roberts—at least one fan has argued that the environmental damage is worth the price. “The carbon footprint of this might be quite large, but the spiritual rewards to the audience of this are those that enhance a life,” Mark Reed wrote in a review for the Final Word website. “If all life were bread and water, then there would be nothing to lift mankind above the amoeba.”

I guess as long as you give people a “spiritual reward,” you can say whatever you want to and do the opposite.

Ω