Eco-hero Sting: "admittedly my carbon footprint is massive"

Interview: The thing about Sting… | Music | The Observer

Of course, the problem with this ceaseless wanderlust is that it does rather conflict with his stated desire to save the planet. When you combine it with the fact that Sting owns several glamorous homes in various countries and travels between them by aeroplane, you have to question how it is that he squares his carbon emissions with his 20-year-long campaign against deforestation (he and Trudie set up the Rainforest Foundation in 1989). Is he a hypocrite?

"Well that's the narrative: venal celebrities preaching to the world about climate change. The fact is none of us can help but do the wrong thing. I'm assuming you didn't come here on a donkey, right? Tomorrow, I'm going to get on a plane and go to another city and admittedly my carbon footprint is massive. At the same time, I say we shouldn't rip up the forest because if you read the Stern report, all of us could stop travelling tomorrow, industry could stop tomorrow, but the largest contribution to global warming is deforestation – by a huge, huge amount. So until we do that, we might as well just carry on."