Consumer Hell
Consumerism, Economics, Society — by George Monbiot
How do we break a system which now permeates every aspect of our lives?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Who said this?
“All the evidence shows that beyond the sort of standard of living which Britain has now achieved, extra growth does not automatically translate into human welfare and happiness.”
Was it a. the boss of Greenpeace, b. the director of the New Economics Foundation, or c. an anarchist planning the next climate camp? None of the above: d. the former head of the Confederation of British Industry, who currently runs the Financial Services Authority. In an interview broadcast last Friday, Lord Turner brought the consumer society’s most subversive observation into the mainstream(1).
Comments (0)Posted on: January 5, 2010
The Real Climate Scandal
Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by George Monbiot
Shocked by the hacked emails? Wait till you see what the other side’s been up to.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
When you survey the trail of wreckage left by the climate emails crisis, three things become clear. The first is the tendency of those who claim to be the champions of climate science to minimise their importance. Those who have most to lose if the science is wrong have perversely sought to justify the secretive and chummy ethos that some of the emails reveal. If science is not transparent and accountable, it’s not science.
I believe that all supporting data, codes and programmes should be made available as soon as an article is published in a peer-reviewed journal. That anyone should have to lodge a freedom of information request to obtain them is wrong. That the request should be turned down is worse. That a scientist suggests deleting material that might be covered by that request is unjustifiable. Everyone who values the scientific process should demand complete transparency, across all branches of science.
Comments (1)Posted on: December 8, 2009
The Knights Carbonic
Global Warming/Climate Change — by George Monbiot
The conspiracy which proves that manmade global warming is a scam
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging(1). I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.
Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released(2,3), and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request(4).
Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics(5,6), or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(7). I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.
But do these revelations justify the sceptics’ claims that this is “the final nail in the coffin” of global warming theory?(8,9) Not at all. They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence. To bury manmade climate change, a far wider conspiracy would have to be revealed. Luckily for the sceptics, and to my intense disappointment, I have now been passed the damning email which confirms that the entire science of global warming is indeed a scam. Had I known that it was this easy to rig the evidence, I wouldn’t have wasted years of my life promoting a bogus discipline. In the interests of open discourse, I feel obliged to reproduce it here.
Comments (1)Posted on: November 24, 2009
If Nothing Else, Save Farming
Economics, Food Shortages, Peak Oil — by George Monbiot
It’s probably too late to prepare for peak oil, but we can at least try to salvage food production.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
I don’t know when global oil supplies will start to decline. I do know that another resource has already peaked and gone into freefall: the credibility of the body that’s meant to assess them. Last week two whistleblowers from the International Energy Agency alleged that it has deliberately upgraded its estimate of the world’s oil supplies in order not to frighten the markets(1). Three days later, a paper published by researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden showed that the IEA’s forecasts must be wrong, because it assumes a rate of extraction that appears to be impossible(2). The agency’s assessment of the state of global oil supplies is beginning to look as reliable as Mr Greenspan’s blandishments about the health of the financial markets.
Posted on: November 17, 2009
Death Denial
Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by George Monbiot
Why the sudden surge in climate change denial? Could it be about something else altogether?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere which cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.
A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre suggests that the proportion of Americans who believe there’s solid evidence that the world has been warming over the past few decades has fallen from 71% to 57% in just 18 months(1). Another survey, conducted in January by Rasmussen Reports, suggests that, due to a sharp rise since 2006, US voters who believe that global warming is the result of natural causes (44%) now outnumber those who believe it is caused by human action (41%)(2).
Comments (0)Posted on: November 5, 2009
Arresting Blair
Alternatives to Political Systems, Society — by George Monbiot
His bid for the EU presidency gives us the best chance we’ll ever have.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Tony Blair’s bid to become president of the European Union has united the left in revulsion. His enemies argue that he divided Europe by launching an illegal war; he kept the UK out of the eurozone and the Schengen agreement; he is contemptuous of democracy (surely a qualification?); greases up to wealth and power and lets the poor go to hell. He is ruthless, mendacious, slippery and shameless. But never mind all that. I’m backing Blair.
Posted on: October 28, 2009
Are You Paying to Burn the Rainforest?
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Livestock — by George Monbiot
If you’re buying Brazilian beef, the answer is yes
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
For the past five years I have been at war with Farmers for Action. These are the neanderthals who have held up the traffic and blockaded the refineries in the hope of persuading the government to reduce the price of fuel. It doesn’t matter how often you explain that cheap fuel, which allows the supermarkets to buy from wherever the price of meat or grain is lowest, has destroyed British farming. They will stand in front of the cameras and make us watch as they cut their own throats.
But through gritted teeth I must admit that they have got something right. In January the caveman-in-chief, David Handley, warned that foot and mouth disease had not been eliminated from Brazil, and that imports of meat from that country risked bringing it back to Britain(1). The buyers brushed his warning aside. In the first half of this year, beef imports from Brazil to the UK rose by 70%, to 34,000 tonnes(2). Last week an outbreak was confirmed in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul.
You would, of course, expect British producers to throw as much mud as they can at cheap imports. You would expect them to question their competitors’ hygiene standards and social and environmental impacts, and Mr Handley has done all of these things. But, to my intense annoyance, he is on every count correct.
Comments (0)Posted on: October 14, 2009
The Population Myth
Consumerism, Economics, Population, Society — by George Monbiot
People who claim that population growth is the big environmental issue are shifting the blame from the rich to the poor
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
It’s no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: it’s about the only environmental issue for which they can’t be blamed. The brilliant earth systems scientist James Lovelock, for example, claimed last month that “those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.”(1) But it’s Lovelock who is being ignorant and irrational.
Posted on: October 1, 2009
Not Even Wrong
Global Warming/Climate Change — by George Monbiot
We need a radical new approach to cutting greenhouse gases, and it might have arrived.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
At least – until a few months ago – government targets for cutting greenhouse gases had the virtue of being wrong. They were the wrong targets, by the wrong dates, and they bore no relationship to the stated aim of preventing more than two degrees of global warming. But they used a methodology which even their sternest critics (myself included) believed could be improved until it delivered the right results: the cuts merely needed to be raised and accelerated.
Three papers released earlier this year changed all that. The first one, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in February, set the scene(1). It showed that the climate change we cause today “is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop”. Around 40% of the carbon dioxide produced by humans this century will remain in the atmosphere until at least the year 3000*. Moreover, thanks to the peculiar ways in which the oceans absorb heat from the atmosphere, global average temperatures are likely to “remain approximately constant … until the end of the millennium despite zero further emissions”.
Comments (0)Posted on: September 1, 2009
Should We Seek to Save Industrial Civilisation?
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Peak Oil, Population, Society — by George Monbiot
A debate with Paul Kingsnorth
Dear George,
Sitting on the desk in front of me are a set of graphs. The horizontal axis of each graph is identical: it represents time, from the years 1750 to 2000. The graphs show, variously, human population levels, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, exploitation of fisheries, destruction of tropical forests, paper consumption, number of motor vehicles, water use, the rate of species extinction and the totality of the gross domestic product of the human economy.
What grips me about these graphs (and graphs don’t usually grip me) is that though they all show very different things, they have an almost identical shape. A line begins on the left of the page, rising gradually as it moves to the right. Then, in the last inch or so – around the year 1950 – it suddenly veers steeply upwards, like a pilot banking after a cliff has suddenly appeared from what he thought was an empty bank of cloud.
The root cause of all these trends is the same: a rapacious human economy which is bringing the world very swiftly to the brink of chaos. We know this; some of us even attempt to stop it happening. Yet all of these trends continue to get rapidly worse, and there is no sign of that changing soon. What these graphs make clear better than anything else is the cold reality: there is a serious crash on the way.
Comments (0)Posted on: August 26, 2009
Tesco-opted
Consumerism, Economics — by George Monbiot
The fight against the superstores is a struggle for democracy
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
 Machynlleth’s high street |
I have been writing about it for years. But it’s only now, when I’m caught in the middle of it, that the full force of this injustice hits me. Like everyone else here I feel powerless, unstrung as I watch disaster unfold in slow motion.
I live in the last small corner of Gaul still holding out against the Romans. In other words, a small market town (Machynlleth in mid-Wales) which has yet to be conquered by the superstores. No one expects us to hold out for much longer. Last month Tesco submitted an application to subjugate us(1). It wants to build a store of 27,000 square feet on the edge of the town centre(2). This is twice the size of all our grocery stores put together, and bigger than our tiny settlement – 2100 souls – can support. Tesco will prosper here only if other shops close and customers come from miles away.
Over 300 people – roughly one fifth of the adult population – have sent letters of objection. The case against the store and the strength of local feeling is so strong here that if we can’t beat Tesco, no one can. But, being deficient in magic potion, we have precious little chance of stopping it.
Comments (1)Posted on: August 11, 2009
The Busybody State
Community Projects, Society — by George Monbiot
Why was the Big Green Gathering shut down by the authorities?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Is it paranoia, or are they really out to get us? Most of the time it’s paranoia. Every week I’m approached by people whispering about vapour trails from planes being used to control our minds, free energy devices suppressed by oil companies or missile attacks on the twin towers. Sometimes, as we saw at the G20 protests on April 1st or at climate camp last year, they are out to get us. The policing of these events shows that some of the UK’s public authorities really do regard political activism as a threat that must be contained or eliminated.
So what do you make of this story? Right now the last stragglers should have been packing up their tents at the end of the Big Green Gathering. It’s a festival in Somerset that attracts about 20,000 people to listen to music, plan protests and raise money for green causes. It has been running since 1994 and there has never been any significant trouble.
Comments (0)Posted on: August 8, 2009
Travelling Light
Peak Oil — by George Monbiot
Editor’s Note: With a solar powered blimp on the cards, I thought we’d visit the whole airship potential….
Is the airship a viable alternative to jet travel?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Of all the charges levelled against environmentalists, perhaps the most unfair is the accusation that we are opposed to technological change. Most of the greens I know are fascinated by gadgets (sometimes to the exclusion of better solutions), while some of the people we confront seem terrified by new technologies, and react to them – witness the campaigns against windfarms – with irrational hostility.
But because environmentalists tend to have a feeling for material constraints, we recognise that solutions cannot be conjured out of thin air. In some cases they just don’t appear to exist. There are two reasons why we make such a fuss about flying. The first is that, even as governments promise to cut emissions, everywhere airports are expanding. In the UK, the government expects the number of airline passengers to rise from 228 million in 2005 to 480 million in 2030(1). Before long, there will scarcely be a patch of sky without a jet in it. The other is that there are no alternative means of propelling people through the air which are not more destructive than burning ordinary aviation fuel. Or so we think.
Comments (0)Posted on: July 28, 2009
Subsidising the Climate Crash
Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by George Monbiot
Why have government agencies been paying to increase the number of flights?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
 The Sky is not the limit when it’s taxpayer funded |
Here’s an odd thing. Air travel to and from the United Kingdom has plummeted. Several small airlines have gone bust; British Airways has deployed its landing gear. In some respects, according to the industry, this descent could be permanent. Yet the government is still planning to double the capacity of our airports by 2030.
Between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, the number of people using airports in the UK fell by 6.4 million, or 13%(1). Convinced that its previous estimates for the growth of demand were wrong, the airport operator BAA has delayed its plans for a second runway at Stansted(2). British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair are demanding that BAA reduce the £900m it wanted to spend on upgrading Gatwick, because the business case is now “unproven”(3).
Comments (0)Posted on: July 7, 2009
Stop Building Tanks
Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by George Monbiot
Let’s divert the money spent on arms to addressing the real strategic threat.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
What would we be doing now if we took climate change seriously? Last week the government released a report on the likely temperature changes in the United Kingdom(1). It shows that life at the end of this century will bear no relationship to life at the beginning. It should have dominated the news for days. But it was too far away, too remote from current problems, too big to see.
Over the past few months, Lord Giddens, one of the architects of New Labour, has been touting the hypothesis that people are reluctant to act on climate change until it becomes visible to them, by which time it will be too late(2). This thought, which has been common currency within the environment movement for at least 20 years, has been christened by this shrinking violet “Giddens’s Paradox”. It ranks among his other major discoveries, like the Giddens Postulate (people wear fewer clothes when temperatures rise) and the Giddens Effect (the earth goes round the Sun). But despite his outrageous expropriation, the point remains a valid one. We will resist taking radical action until we have no choice, whereupon it will have no effect.
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