How Britain’s oldest animal welfare charity became a byword for cruelty on an industrial scale. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 18th June 2024 How does it happen? How does an organisation end up doing the opposite of what it was established to do? This month marks the 200th anniversary of the foundation of […]
farming
What we want to believe and what is true are seldom the same thing. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 15th April 2024 We draw our moral lines in arbitrary places. We might believe we’re guided only by universal values and proven facts, but often we’re swayed by deep themes of which we might […]
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 […]
What led the Prime Minister to join a protest against his own government’s policies? By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 28th February 2024 Step back a pace to see how weird this is. Last week, the prime minister of the United Kingdom joined a protest against one of the UK’s four governments. Farmers had […]
Farmers’ protests are being embraced by the far right. The precedents are chilling. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 19th January 2024 When environmental activists calling for less pollution sit in the streets, across Europe they are now abused and attacked, arrested and handed extreme and draconian sentences. When farmers contesting pollution rules block […]
Toxic chemicals deliberately added to sewage are being spread across a vast area of farmland, with potentially catastrophic effects. We’re suing the government to stop it. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 18th November 2023 It’s an experiment with 8 billion test subjects, no controls and no endpoint. What happens when you release thousands […]
The astonishing story of how a movement’s quest for rural simplicity drifted into a formula for mass death By George Monbiot, published on monbiot.com, 4th October 2023 Tourism sells to you the story of what it has taken away. It markets the “traditional” and “unchanging” and, in doing so, changes it. As the old joke […]
Why do we put up with daily assaults on our health? It has everything to do with corporate power. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 22nd September 2023 There are some things we rightly find intolerable, such as the possession of poorly trained, aggressive dogs. There are other things, whose impacts are many thousands […]
The spectacular implosion of a popular delusion about livestock farming. By George Monbiot, published on monbiot.com, 2nd August 2023 Every industry has its apparatus of justification. The more damaging the industry, the greater the effort spent constructing it. Few if any industries are as damaging as meat production, especially meat production from ruminant animals, such […]
Bucolic fairytales are a threat to life on Earth. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 26th May 2023 No issue is more important, and none so shrouded in myth and wishful thinking. The way we feed ourselves is the key determinant of whether we survive this century, as no other sector is as damaging. […]