44. George Monbiot on environmentalism and climate activism

Challenging Climate

George Monbiot is a renowned British author, The Guardian Columnist and environmental activist. George is the author of more than a dozen books, the most recent of which is Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet, and he was awarded the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2022.

In this episode, we discuss topics of his insightful and provocative articles such as de-throning GDP, radical climate activism, the ‘wealth curse’ and contentious technologies such as nuclear energy, GMO and SRM.
Links:

• George Monbiot's profile
• Monbiot's article, The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People
• Monbiot's most recent book, Regenesis

Related articles by Monbiot:

• On the extreme wealthy, Here’s a question Cop28 won’t address: why are billionaires blocking action to save the planet?
• On climate and politics, The hard right and climate catastrophe are intimately linked. This is how
• On UK climate politics
• On radical climate activism (and another one)

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1. 44. George Monbiot on environmentalism and climate activism (00:00:00)

2. Intro and background (00:00:22)

3. How is the UK doing on environmental and climate policy? (00:01:13)

4. What does the UK need to change to do better? (00:04:38)

5. Climate activism: how far should activists go? (00:11:41)

6. Striving for a 'green world' (00:14:50)

7. Tricky technologies: GMOs (00:23:46)

8. Tricky technologies: Nuclear power (00:27:41)

9. Tricky technologies: SRM (00:32:30)

10. Is it wrong to tackle the symptoms rather than the root cause? (00:34:45)

11. Fetishization of economic growth (00:35:57)

12. The role of the ultra wealthy (00:41:31)

13. What gives you hope for the future? (00:44:51)