Hidden in the detail of the UK’s carbon capture and storage scheme are unlimited financial liabilities and huge environmental costs. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 11th October 2024 This will be Keir Starmer’s HS2: a hugely expensive scheme that will either be abandoned, scaled back or require massive extra funding to continue, after […]
climate breakdown
Why do the mass killers of the fossil fuel industry walk free while the heroes trying to stop them are imprisoned? By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 1st October 2024 The sentences were handed down just as Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina. As homes were smashed, trucks swept down roads that had turned into […]
The bodies meant to protect us from floods are unaccountable, self-serving and feudal in character. No wonder they keep failing. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 18th September 2024 Labour’s first stage of government resembles a vast forensic excavation. As it works through the Conservatives’ midden of horrors, it discovers an ever greater legacy […]
How to create an appearance of progress while doing nothing. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 12th September 2024 Let’s talk about perceptionware. Perceptionware is technology whose main purpose is to create an impression of action. Whether it will ever work at scale is less important, in some cases entirely beside the point. If […]
It’s ridiculous that governments leave it to people like me to communicate the need for environmental action. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 28th August 2024 There are several services and assets I would like to see nationalised. But at the top of my list is neither water, nor trains, nor development land, much […]
The mega-droughts in Spain and the US are a portent of a gathering global water crisis. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 4th March 2024 There’s a flaw in the plan. It’s not a small one: it is an Earth-sized hole in our calculations. To keep pace with the global demand for food, crop […]
Here are the big green policies Labour should adopt. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 20th February 2024 I’m as likely to be selected for the national gymnastics team. But bear with me awhile, to imagine that, like David Cameron, I’m about to be wafted by the UK’s fairytale political system from my garden […]
How economic power leads inexorably to environmental destruction. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 29th November 2023 Don’t they have children? Don’t they have grandchildren? Don’t rich and powerful people care about the world they will leave to their descendants? These are questions I’m asked every week, and they are not easy to answer. […]
The structure of the climate summits ensures that the most lethal interests prevail, by design. Here are some better models. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian Let’s face it: climate summits are broken. The delegates talk and talk, while Earth systems slide towards deadly tipping points. Since the climate negotiations began in 1992 more […]
It’s because the climate crisis is now visible to everyone that governments are giving the fossil fuel industry everything it demands. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 1st August 2023 To understand this moment, we have to recognise that there is an existential struggle on both sides. While environmental scientists and activists fight for […]