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George Monbiot

George Monbiot Quotes

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Famous George Monbiot Quotes

“I doubt I'm the only one in this field exasperated by people who claim that their variety of farming is the best of all possible systems in the best of all possible worlds. I've seen farmers who set out with high ideals gradually becoming hucksters, overlooking the drawbacks of their practice, exaggerating the advantages, subordinating their intellects to their interests. The people I'm drawn to are those, like Tolly, with a capacity for self-correction, who recognize the flaws in what they do and seek to address them.”

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Book:Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet
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“The problem with gross domestic product is the gross bit. There are no deductions involved: all economic activity is accounted as if it were of positive value. Social harm is added to, not subtracted from, social good. A train crash which generates £1bn worth of track repairs, medical bills and funeral costs is deemed by this measure as beneficial as an uninterrupted service which generates £1bn in ticket sales.”

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Author:George Monbiot
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“[Agribusiness Conglomerates'] growth relies on ripping down circuit breaking, back-up systems, and modularity, and streamlining a system whose major nodes are already too big and whose links are already too strong. It's an accelerating cycle that inexorably destabilizes the system.”

GrowthResilienceEfficiencyFragilityAgribusiness
Book:Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet
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“cultural cringe which prevents other people from challenging them. the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci used the term ‘cultural hegemony’ to describe the way in which ideas and concepts which benefit a dominant class are universalised. they become norms, adopted whole and unexamined, which shape our thinking”

PhilosophyCultureMoralityManipulationOpinionsSuperficialityHegemonyDisinterestCopying OthersLack Of Motivation
Book:Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life
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“most human endeavours, unless checked by public dissent, evolve into monocultures. money seeks out a region’s comparative advantage, the field in which it competes most successfully, and promotes it to the exclusion of all else. every landscape or seascape, if this process is loosed, performs just one function. this greatly taxes the natural world”

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Book:Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life
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“Like many people, I like to imagine that I find my own path. But we are all influenced, to a greater extent than we are usually prepared to admit, by social consensus. We think along the lines laid down by others, follow paths already trodden. We see what others see, and ignore what they ignore. We might argue passionately about the small number of issues on which the spotlight falls, but, implicitly and unconsciously, we agree to overlook other topics, often of greater importance.”

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Author:George Monbiot
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“Governments are deemed to succeed or fail by how well they make money go round, regardless of whether it serves any useful purpose. They regard it as a sacred duty to encourage the country’s most revolting spectacle: the annual feeding frenzy in which shoppers queue all night, then stampede into the shops, elbow, trample and sometimes fight to be the first to carry off some designer junk which will go into landfill before the sales next year. The madder the orgy, the greater the triumph of economic management.”

YearsFirstsWellsCountrySometimesGovernmentPurposeNightFightingNextGreaterFailingEconomicDutySucceedRegardManagementSacredRoundsMaking MoneyTriumphDesignerShopsFeedingAll NightNext YearJunkAnnualsElbowsFrenzyQueuesShoppersLandfillsStampede
Author:George Monbiot
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“The angry men know that this golden age (of fossil fuels) has gone; but they cannot find the words for the constraints they hate. Clutching their copies of Atlas Shrugged, they flail around, accusing those who would impede them of communism, fascism, religiosity, misanthropy, but knowing at heart that these restrictions are driven by something far more repulsive to the unrestrained man: the decencies we owe to other human beings.”

KnowsMenHumansHeartAgeHateHuman BeingsGoneKnowingAngryDrivenGoldenCommunismFuelCopiesFascismFossilsDecencyRestrictionConstraintsFossil FuelGolden AgeMisanthropyAtlasAccusingAngry Man
Author:George Monbiot
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“We are often told we are materialistic. It seems to me, we are not materialistic enough. We have a disrespect for materials. We use it quickly and carelessly. If were genuinely materialistic people, we would understand where materials come from and where they go to. But, at the moment, the entire global economy seems to be built on the model of digging things up from one hole in the ground on one side of the earth, transporting them around the world, using them for a few days, and sticking them in a hole in the ground on the other side of the world.”

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Author:George Monbiot
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“Is the divine presence a Republican? Or is He/She/It running an inter-galactic fossil fuel conglomerate?...whatever the explanation may be, the Paraclete appears to be as determined as any terrestrial corporate frontman to prevent a successful conclusion to the climate talks. How I know? Because every time anyone gets together to try to prevent global climate breakdown, He swaths the rich, densely habited parts of the world with snow and ice, while leaving obscurer places to cook.”

KnowsWorldTryingMayRunningTogetherEnergySuccessfulRichEnvironmentDivineRepublicanClimateLeavingClimate ChangeDeterminedSnowWeatherConclusionIceCooksCorporateExplanationFuelFloodFossilsBreakdownFossil FuelDrought
Author:George Monbiot
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“Almost all systems of economic thought are premised on the idea of continued economic growth, which would be fine and dandy if we lived on an infinite planet, but there's this small, niggling, inconvenient fact that the planet is, in fact, finite, and that, unlike economic theory, it is governed by physical and biological reality”

IfsIdeasFactsRealityWould BeGrowthBusinessEconomicPlanetsTheoryFineEconomicsInfiniteManagementFiniteEconomic GrowthInconvenientEconomic TheoryDandy
Author:George Monbiot
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“The problem is compounded by the fact that the connection between cause and effect seems so improbable. By turning on the lights, filling the kettle, taking the children to school, driving to the shops, we are condemning other people to death. We never chose to do this. We do not see ourselves as killers. We perform these acts without passion or intent.”

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Book:Heat: how to stop the planet from burning
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“The schedules are crammed with shows urging us to travel further, drive faster, build bigger, buy more, yet none of them are deemed to offend the rules, which really means that they don't offend the interests of business or the pampered sensibilities of the Aga class. The media, driven by fear and advertising, are hopelessly biased towards the consumer economy and against the biosphere.”

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Author:George Monbiot
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