Tag George Monbiot

Entries 7 Total

Help arrest Tony Blair

Feb 2, ’10 1:17 PM

Great piece by George Mon­biot on the cam­paign to arrest Tony Blair:

Already the cam­paign has borne fruit. Out­side the Chil­cot inquiry a woman called Grace McCann, inspired by the web­site, tried to appre­hend Mr Blair, before she was restrained and removed by the police. She qual­i­fies for the first bounty: one quarter of the total pot at the time of her attempt. She has pledged to give the money to rel­ev­ant char­it­ies. The fund will remain open until Blair is offi­cially pro­sec­uted, and we will keep pay­ing out to those who fol­low Grace’s example.

You can donate here.

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Weather is not the same as climate

Jan 8, ’10 1:56 PM

George Mon­biot attempts to mop up the mess made by some of the idi­ots claim­ing the cold snap we’re hav­ing some­how dis­cred­its global warm­ing and cli­mate change.

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Oil lobby behind climate change denial

Dec 8, ’09 8:43 AM

Cli­mate change deni­al­ism fas­cin­ates me. How does one become a deni­al­ist in the face of sci­entific con­sensus? Hav­ing talked to people who exhibit vari­ous levels of denial and scep­ti­cism my hunch is that it’s an inherit psy­cho­lo­gical defect of humans. People can’t bring them­selves to accept that they might be partly respons­ible for a crime of such enorm­ity, so they deny. A clas­sic psy­cho­lo­gical response.

But while this might explain why so many are ready and will­ing to be duped into think­ing man-made cli­mate change is a con­spir­acy, it doesn’t seem to explain why so many are duped. Turns out there’s an explan­a­tion for that:

Think envir­on­ment­al­ists are stooges? You’re the unwit­ting recruit of a hugely power­ful oil lobby – I’ve got the proof.

I have placed on the Guardian’s web­site four case stud­ies; each of which provides a shock­ing example of how the denial industry works.

Remem­ber this the next time you hear people claim­ing that cli­mate sci­ent­ists are only in it for the money, or that envir­on­ment­al­ists are try­ing to cre­ate a com­mun­ist world gov­ern­ment: these ideas were devised and broad­cast by energy com­pan­ies. The people who inform me, appar­ently without irony, that “your art­icle is an ad hom­inem attack, you four-eyed, big-nosed, com­mie sack of shit”, or “you scare­mon­gers will des­troy the entire world eco­nomy and take us back to the Stone Age”, are the unwit­ting recruits of cam­paigns they have never heard of.

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Climate change denial spreading like a contagious disease

Nov 7, ’09 12:13 AM

George Mon­biot spec­u­lates on reas­ons for the spread of cli­mate change denial.

There is no point in deny­ing it: we’re los­ing. Cli­mate change denial is spread­ing like a con­ta­gious disease.

There are some obvi­ous answers … But there might also be a less intu­it­ive reason, which shines a light into a fas­cin­at­ing corner of human psychology ..

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God these people are loathsome

Jun 3, ’09 1:12 PM

In a dev­ast­at­ing inter­view with George Mon­biot Hazel Blears pulls this lovely com­ment out of the bag, regard­ing the decision to invade Iraq:

Des­pite the fact that hun­dreds of thou­sands of people have died — and that is a tragedy — I still believe that it was the right thing to do.

If there was a hell Hazel Blears would surely burn in it.

The whole inter­view is worth watch­ing. She’s a good example of the kind of spine­less per­son who makes their way into the major polit­ical parties simply to be in power.

Her state­ment on Iraq reminds me of Madeleine Albright, who in 1996, then the U.S. Sec­ret­ary of State, was asked by Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes what she felt about the fact that half a mil­lion Iraqi chil­dren had died as a res­ult of U.S.-led eco­nomic sanc­tions. Albright replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”

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Detox quackery

Mar 16, ’09 9:07 AM

Prince Charles detox ‘quack­ery’, BBC

“Noth­ing would, of course, be easier than to demon­strate that detox products work. All one needed to do is to take a few blood samples from volun­teers and test whether this or that toxin is elim­in­ated from the body faster than nor­mal,” [Pro­fessor Ernst] said.

“But where are the stud­ies that demon­strate effic­acy? They do not exist, and the reason is simple: these products have no real detox­i­fic­a­tion effects.”

Earlier this year the char­it­able trust Sense About Sci­ence pro­duced a report seek­ing to debunk claims made about detox products.
Its research­ers reviewed a series of products, from bottled water to face scrub, and found the detox asser­tions to be over­whelm­ingly meaningless.

“It seems out­rageous for com­pan­ies to be mak­ing money selling mean­ing­less products but for the heir to the throne to be doing so, at £10 a pop, is even more inap­pro­pri­ate,” said Tom Wells, who helped carry out the ori­ginal research.

We must break link between green issues and altern­at­ive medi­cine, The Guard­ian, George Monbiot

Envir­on­ment­al­ism is, or should be, a move­ment led by sci­entific find­ings. I see the role of envir­on­ment­al­ists as being to explore and explain the implic­a­tions of what the sci­ence – whether on cli­mate change, hab­itat loss, biod­iversity, fish­er­ies, pol­lu­tion or resource deple­tion — is say­ing, and how this should trans­late into pub­lic policy.

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Must-read from George Monbiot

Feb 11, ’09 9:15 AM

hezel_blearsIf you read noth­ing else about polit­ics today read this:

George Mon­biot: Just what exactly do you stand for, Hazel Blears — except election?

For some con­text in the lead up to this piece check out No Right Turn’s links on the mat­ter.

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