George Monbiot is a serious guy. He’s an eco-activist at the cliff face of climate change, challenging greenwashing, fossil fuel marketeers and political/corporate corruption at the highest levels. I managed to make him laugh while he signed my copy of Regenesis at the Byline Festival for social change (2023, Dartington Hall, Devon). “Don’t say cheese, George, say Save The World!” He is, of course, vegan.
His impassioned pleas to protect our soil and to move urgently to plant-based diets were fodder to the eager ears that filled the beautiful hall at Dartington. His book ‘Regenesis – Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet’ (Penguin) is essential reading for everyone who cares about Planet Earth. Inspiring, insightful, challenging, it’s a page-turner that is a call to action.
The articles on his website and in his newsletters – ‘Silence of the Lambs’, for instance, explaining that livestock farming is responsible for more greenhouse gas pollution than all of the world’s transport, yet governments will not dare to go there – are no-holds-barred, carefully-researched journalism.
He throws down the gauntlet to everyone who wants to make a difference to the environment and to nature’s intricately enmeshed systems. Now it’s our turn to run with it.
