George Monbiot is a British journalist and public intellectual, who is also known for his environmental activism. He co-founded the group This Land Is Ours, whose purpose was to try to revitalise public engagement in decisions about how the land is used. The group waged a peaceful campaign for the right of access to the countryside and its resources in the United Kingdom. His latest book, Out of the Wreckage: A new politics for an age of crisis (August 2017) followed on the heels of How Did We Get into This Mess? (February 2017). His other best selling books are The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order (2003) and Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain (2000). Monbiot has written a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper since 1996. Visit his website at www.monbiot.com.
Wheel of Fortune
By George Monbiot, Monbiot.com
Wealth and power concentrate not because those we confront are wicked (though there are one or two). Their escalation, in the absence of a political movement to restrain it, is an intrinsic feature of complex human societies. It occurred even in the world’s first cities, in southern Mesopotamia.
The Town that’s Found a Potent Cure for Illness – Community
By George Monbiot, The Guardian
It could, if the results stand up, be one of the most dramatic medical breakthroughs of recent decades. It could transform treatment regimes, save lives, and save health services a fortune. Is it a drug? A device? A surgical procedure? No, it’s a newfangled intervention called community.
Stepping Back from the Brink: The Patterning Instinct
By George Monbiot, Monbiot.com
Jeremy Lent’s The Patterning Instinct was published a few months ago, but it has taken me this long to process, as almost every page caused me to rethink what I held to be true. Bringing together cultural history with neuroscience, Lent develops a new discipline he calls cognitive history.
Monbiot: ‘We Need that New Political Narrative’
By Nick Dowson, George Monbiot, New Internationalist
Prompted by the sense that we are living through a moment of transition, George's latest book, ‘Out Of The Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis’, attempts to sketch a way forward. Most important to this project, he argues, is a political ‘narrative’ that can gain traction as the new ‘common sense’, carrying within it our values and the society that we want live in. But the book is also full of practical proposals, from land value taxes and community land trusts, to democratic reforms and ‘Big Organizing’.
The real ‘struggle of our generation’ is not terrorism
By George Monbiot, Monbiot.com
A new “struggle of our generation” emerges every six months, and all around us existential crises are ignored. In the longer term, climate change, antibiotic resistance, soil loss and nuclear proliferation by states (including our own) are orders of magnitude more dangerous than Islamic extremism.
Stop using China as an excuse for inaction on climate change
By George Monbiot, The Guardian
Invoking Yellow Peril tropes over China’s carbon footprint fails to recognise the fact its energy use is tied to our consumption, the country’s coal demand is dropping and Chinese people care more about climate than we do
A maverick currency scheme from the 1930s could save the Greek economy
By George Monbiot, Guardian
An astonishing money creation scheme from the 1930s that could help to save the Greek economy.
The short, happy life of climate change enlightenment
By George Monbiot, Guardian
The collapse of the talks at Copenhagen took away all momentum for change and the lobbyists are back in control. So what next?