Wrapping up
Thank you everyone for taking part in a fascinating debate - we’ll be closing the comments shortly.
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ToddFlach asks:
George, if you could “convert” one climate skeptic to become an active spokesperson for climate change mitigation, who would you “convert”, and why?
Guardian contributor I would hesitate to recommend anyone who claims that man-made climate change is not happening and is not a major problem,as the degree of self-deception and wilful ignorance required to take this position means that they wouldn't be a very useful ally. Who would want to recruit someone with those qualifications?
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'How can we live without destroying the ability of others to live? '
robinhillier asks:
Can we survive without economic growth?
Guardian contributor This is a key question and it is under explored. It should now be the central issue in economics. How can we live without destroying the ability of others to live? Does that mean an end to economic growth, and if so how can that happen without harming the prospects of the poor, and while achieving democratic consent? No other issue in economics is anywhere near as pertinent and important as this one.
Jonny Marshall asks:
I think it’s great that you talk about the environmental impacts of animal agriculture, but, as someone who campaigns for the restoration of wildlife, presumably on the basis of being a lover of animals - I’d like to know what you think to the ethical questions about eating meat, dairy and eggs?
Many people argue that if we don’t need to eat these things, then if we are serious about animal welfare, then on the basis that we do not need to eat them in order to live an optimally healthy life, then we should eliminate them altogether on those grounds alone.
I feel that this is the cognitive shift that we need in order to move to plant based diets, as the reductionism that will result from the environmental argument is not enough to offer a real shift. What are your thoughts on this?
Guardian contributor I believe that moving towards plant-based diets is one of the most important shifts of all. I am an almost-vegan (I estimate my diet as 97% plant-based) and I would like to see this becoming the norm.
RudolfRocker asks:
As someone who works for an environmental NGO, investigating illegal forest clearance in Latin America and advocating for its conservation through a variety of strategies, I find myself traveling almost 6 weeks of the year. I love the job I do, but find it increasingly difficult to justify the long haul air travel I do in order to do it. I try and minimise the amount of travel I do as far as is possible, and do not own a car and do not eat meat. Must I quit the job I love in order to retain ethical consistency regarding each of our carbon footprints?
Guardian contributor It sounds as if your job demands it, and I imagine you are doing considerably more good than harm. But wherever people can cut it out, I feel they should.
Dave Clarke asks:
Hi George. Given that these issues are so pressing, why is it, do you think, that they are not in the mainstream? And how do we get them there? I’m always a little surprised that climate change or mass extinction aren’t raised as questions on Question Time for example. Especially this week with the release of the State of Nature report.
Guardian contributor It's a constant struggle to ensure that these issues get any mainstream coverage at all. What is salient is not important; what is important is not salient. The media has a culture of its own: metropolitan, closely connected to wealth and power, detached from the way the great majority of people live and from the realities confronting much of the planet. It is hard to think of a worse position from which to inform people about what is happening.
Within the mainstream media, there are ever fewer islands of resistance. The BBC, with the exception of just one or two journalists, is now more or less a write-off, utterly obsessed by political and economic trivia, almost incapable of seeing the bigger picture.
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Budanavery asks:
From battery technology that will store and deliver the clean power of the future to healthy lab-grown meat and other food, to the advancement of education against the traditions that, in particular, hold back the empowerment of women who ultimately control our populations, isn’t the truth that the future is full of exciting potential for greener and ethical living? Please tell us more about the cutting-edge technological advances that will actually deliver better outcomes for life on Earth, and the ones you are most excited about?
Guardian contributor There is plenty of room for hope, though destruction is happening so rapidly that sometimes it seems quite remote. I think smart grids offer tremendous potential for the widespread deployment of renewables and the closure of thermal power plants, especially when coupled with high voltage DC cables, that can transport electricity from renewables over large distances.
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laihra14 writes:
Today the EU ‘repurposed’ the higher ambition coalition (formed in Paris to push for 1.5 degrees target) for the international civil aviation organisation (ICAO). ICAO’s deal, that will be decided on at their next general assembly (27th Sep-7th Oct) is based on QUADRUPLING emissions and offsetting them. But ICAO’s offset proposal (especially at this scale - 1.8GT by 2050) undermines the very purpose of the higher ambition coalition (i.e. to achieve 1.5). What can we do to raise awareness about this insanity?
Guardian contributor Offsetting aviation emissions is simply not going to work. It demands that every other sector of the economy has to cut its own emissions even more than under the existing targets. And why should the sector that most favours wealthy people (who are overwhelmingly the major users of aviation) be allowed to dump its impacts on everyone else?
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timbono2 writes:
Hi George I work for a major Christian Relief and development NGO. What are your thoughts on balancing the development needs of some of the poorest in the world with care for the environment and climate justice?
Guardian contributor I think the best exposition of the way in which this balance can be struck is Kate Raworth's doughnut economics model. Do take a look at it.
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trsr writes:
I’m writing in from India where consumerism is on the rise, but the impact of most consumers is probably much smaller than a person in the West. Do you believe that worrying about our own individual consumerism is more important than challenging large-scale governmental or industrial appropriation of resources such as land (mining), water (agriculture, factories), and air (pollution)? If a large fraction of water use goes to feed industry or a particular crop like sugarcane with state subsidies, say, is it still important to focus on reducing individual household water use? Or do we recognise that this will make only a small dent and should we instead challenge powerful state and industrial actors more?
Guardian contributor We have to do both. As your great countrymen said, we have to be the change we want to see. We become far more morally powerful if we live by the demands we make of others. If we live as hypocrites, we weaken our political impact. Of course, all of us are hypocrites to some extent, apart from those with no moral code against which we can judge their actions (cynics, in other words). But we can reduce the extent of our hypocrisy while simultaneously campaigning for collective action.
ChoosySusy says:
I’m Vegan, child-free, don’t drive, don’t fly, buy organic & local where possible, consume a lot less (clothes etc) than most people and consider each purchase carefully.
Am with a renewable energy company, don’t use pesticides in my garden.
As long as people like me are considered ‘weird’ by the mainstream - simply for refraining from the most obviously damaging activities we have a long way to go.
Guardian contributor You are right. Our main effort when it comes to behavioural change is to make choices such as yours appear mainstream. At the moment they are marginalised and often the subject of mockery. In fact it often seems to me that the principal effort of many media outlets (particularly papers such as the Mail, the Sun, the Express and the Telegraph) is to try to knock down attempts at ethical behaviour.
I get pretty tired of having to explain why I have gone vegan. I would love to be in a situation where other people feel they should explain why they have not.
Frederick Smith asks:
Obviously a vegan diet significantly reduces our environmental impact. But some specialist vegan foods which would encourage a lot of people to convert are too expensive for the average customer. Do you think there is a growing cultural elitism when it comes to ethical lifestyles?
As well as this, what is the environmental impact of for instance, soya? I sometimes am concerned that these products might be just as bad.
Guardian contributor On the whole, vegan diets are cheaper than diets that are heavy in animal products. Pulses and beans etc are a really inexpensive way to get protein. Nuts and seeds on the other hand can be quite pricey. Remember that the world's poorest people are on the whole pretty close to being vegan most of the time. However, there is also a cultural veganism that can look and sound elitist. That is a perception vegans should counter, in the hope of making this choice more widely acceptable.
On the issue of soya, paradoxically, if you want to eat less of it, you should eat soya. The reason is that the great majority of soya is fed to livestock, in order to produce milk, eggs and meat. And that production process is highly inefficient by comparison to eating it yourself. If you eat it directly, you can choose soya products that are grown without rainforest destruction and other such impacts. That's much harder if you are eating it indirectly, through animal products.
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greenwichite asks:
Do you think journalists need to change their mindset, given their tendency to evaluate governments almost exclusively on their delivery of “GDP growth”, regardless of the environmental impact?
Guardian contributor I think this is a big issue. GDP is an entirely inappropriate yardstick for measuring the health of society, and attempts to maximise GDP often lead to environmental destruction and the marginalisation of the poor. Yet both the media and politicians remain obsessed by it. Changing this is a major challenge but it appears to me to be essential.
Leen Hintjens writes:
Hi George Monbiot I want to take you to another part of the planet - Rwanda. That country has been trying very hard to save the environment, knowing how precious it is to the future of the country’s many inhabitants. Whilst the government has a very ‘tight’ political hold on the country, there are undoubted strides in environmental protection, and Rwanda is the first country in the world to outlaw plastic bags. What do you think? Is this the way forward for other small countries? Should citizens tolerate ‘strict’ governments so long as those governments can deliver environmental protection and reduce poverty?
Guardian contributor This is very interesting. I don't know anything about Rwandan environmental policy, but you have prompted me to look into it. Thank you
jsayles asks:
Currently the onus on recycling is on the consumer but time and time again we see non-recyclable materials threaded throughout products which make it extremely difficult for people to easily know what to recycle and may lead them to just shove it in the household waste bin.
At what point do you think that the manufacturers need to assume the mantle of responsibility to use, if possible, up to 100% of recyclable materials?
As well as this, what would you estimate recycling levels in the country to move to if the entire system was streamlined?
Guardian contributor The question which occurs to me time and again is: why hasn't this already happened? It's so easy to do, yet the lobbying power of manufacturers ensures that it hasn't materialised. It's a classic example of regulatory capture, of corporate power thwarting sensible decisions by taking over the levers of government.
'I find hope in the remarkable empathy and altruism humans are capable of'
Mark Paterson asks:
George, knowing what you do why or how do you not lose hope?
Guardian contributor Sometimes I do. But then I come across an amazing initiative or campaign and I regain it. There are some astonishing, dedicated, inspiring people doing great stuff all over the world, and they give me hope. I also find hope in the remarkable degree of empathy and altruism that human beings are capable of, that far exceeds anything you will find elsewhere in the animal kingdom. We are an astonishing species, and we can turn this remarkable capacity to good, though that requires constant resistance to the forces wrecking both the living world and the prospects for humanity.
'I don't believe that the problem lies with intensive farming alone'
willowarch asks:
Should I be sceptical that the State of Nature report has honed in on intensive farming rather than say climate change as the problem because conservation organisations are more concerned with influencing post Brexit subsidies than challenging consumerism?
Guardian contributor Farming is the world's principal cause of habitat and species loss. Of course, we need farming, but that should not blind us to its impacts. So of course we should discuss those impacts. However, I don't believe that the problem lies with intensive farming alone. Extensive farming often causes far greater destruction per unit of production. Especially livestock ranching. But curiously we generally seem to attach the word intensive to any critique we make of the farming industry.
'Universities have a moral duty to resist'
unequivocal writes:
Dear George,
We are not only complicit in our consumption but also in our jobs. I was lucky and/or persistent enough to find a job in atmospheric physics, but many talented individuals have no choice but to work for a company which actively -- however subtly -- destroys the natural world.
I would like to hear your view on how to combine one’s principles with a job. Gotta pay that rent, after all.
Guardian contributor One thing that really gets to me is a total failure by universities to defend their graduates from the love bombing, using techniques identical to those deployed by cults, by big banks and corporations. These companies manage to extract the most able graduates in order to use them to advance their business. By striking just at the point that students are most vulnerable and worried about the future, they push people into decisions that they might not otherwise make. Universities have a moral duty to resist this. Instead they assist the process. They should be ashamed of themselves.
'The simplest solution to almost all environmental problems is government intervention'
Lynthatsit asks:
As a couple we have chosen not to drive. About 10 years ago we decided not to take flights every holiday. Helped by a lack of money for a number of those years. We have taken flights to New York & Lisbon in that time. We eat meat but is under ration, Buy sustainable fish. We have recently built a small extension ( less impact than moving) we have improved insulation to house.
We consider ourselves normal doing what we can do. In reality we are a tiny drop as a family even if we lived off grid zero emissions type lifestyle it wouldn’t make a difference. We can only tackle it as a nation, as a world United. Our politics is not fit for purpose to tackle climate change.
What are the best things we can do, to deliver politics that can combat climate change?
Guardian contributor The simplest solution to almost all environmental problems is government intervention. But as a result of neoliberal ideology and regulatory capture (the first in service to the second) the self-hating state refuses to intervene on a wide range of issues where it could quickly make a difference. So we're left with the far weaker leverage of consumerism: changes in diets, habits, buying patterns etc. it's not enough, but on many issues it's about all we have. Of course we have to be political as well, and do everything we can to precipitate wider change, but on issue after issue, the state is not your friend.
Rams65 says:
I vote Green as they offer the most positive policies to me. I drive and sometimes still enjoy it. I do eat some meat though have reduced my intake. I support many animal/ enviro charities. I like most am not perfect. My point George is would you never contemplate joining The Green Party? Caroline Lucas is always the most eloquent on QT. You’d make a great team I’m sure!
Guardian contributor I feel that journalists should not be members of political parties. It's essential that we have sufficient distance to be able to write about politics without following a party line. So while I am sympathetic towards much of what the Green Party stands for (though critical of a few aspects), I have never joined either them or any other party.
ClareLondon writes:
Hello George
Re: climate change, I’d like the Guardian to not run any holiday advertising which includes flights. Or, indeed, leisure crusiing which, if anything, is worse still.
I expect it’s not possible financially. But I wonder whether the Guardian couldn’t focus entirely on holidays within the UK, by train and be so specialist that they attract more advertising and make more money than from the general pool of advertisers?
Has this ever come up in discussion in editorial meetings at which you’ve been present, I wonder?
Guardian contributor I have had this debate myself, both within the paper and externally. I would really like to see that too.
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'The hiatus in global warming is a myth'
Sue Bidrose asks:
Hi George. I am the CEO of a city council, and get questioned about the ‘hiatus’ in global warming, as proof that it is not occurring. Can you explain this hiatus in words non-scientists can understand?
Guardian contributor The hiatus is actually a myth. The past decade has been the warmest in the instrumental record, and the warmest years ever recorded are 2014, 2015 and, it now seems, 2016. There was a slowing in the rate of surface warming, which appears to be explicable by the absorption of heat by the oceans: heat that will be slowly released into the atmosphere. But there was no hiatus in warming.
LesterUK says:
We, as a population, absolutely will not change our behavior if it involves any form of sacrifice on our part. We’re too greedy, ignorant and lazy.
Given that humans aren’t going to change their nature, will anything short of top down ‘environmental Stalinism’ bring about real change in the long term outlook of the natural environment?
If the answer is Environmental Stalinism, how do we avoid the needed absolutism getting subsumed and perverted by other political interests?
Guardian contributor Quite aside from the ethical issues, I just don't believe that will work. I have never come across a benign dictatorship. Authoritarian or absolutist power is in all cases a racket. The corruption of power allows governments to favour special interests. The more extreme and corrupt that power becomes, the more those interests are favoured at the expense of everyone else. And you can place a big bet that the favoured interests are not going to be wildlife and living systems. They are going to be fossil fuel companies, banks and other powerful forces.
'Those who obsess about population render themselves politically impotent'
mrkfm asks:
Hi George.
Population seems to me to be the biggest problem in regards to these issues.However I can’t see any possible solution to this problem as it seems to be our reason for existing.
I have chosen not to have children mainly because I can only think of selfish reasons for having them but it’s the one subject I can’t discuss with anyone without people getting upset so I don’t.
Is this the one problem we’ll never face?
Guardian contributor Population is certainly a major issue, but I do not believe it is the biggest one. Consumption rates have been rising much faster than the human population rate. Livestock populations are rising at twice the rate of the human population, and, if calculated by weight, three times.
Consumption and diet are things that we can address immediately, through both personal and political action. But population growth rate is almost intractable, as a result of demographic momentum. So those who obsess about population render themselves politically impotent. In some cases, though I'm not including you in this, I believe this is strategic. If you can't do anything about an issue, you needn't do anything about it. So by concentrating on that issue, rather than one where you do have agency, you excuse yourself from the moral imperative to act. By saying that population is a major issue, we are basically saying the problem lies with other people rather than with ourselves.
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CountingSheep asks:
Following a tweet of yours about recipes, what standards do you think chefs should have when publishing recipes? I’m assuming you wouldn’t expect them just to vegan, do you mean avoiding certain fish species? I suppose the Guardian could have a similar ‘style guide’ (but probably wouldn’t, it still accepts advertising from Shell unfortunately).
The second is what do you think of the argument that it’s unhelpful to focus too much on individual guilt and responsibility and we should look at the wider system instead? (Because it turns people off and leads to a focus on e.g. the minutiae of recycling) What do you think the balance should be?
Finally with food there are lots of different aspects to sustainability - less meat and dairy, buying local, less packaging, organic. Do you think that moving away from meat and dairy is the most important, assuming that time, money and dedication are limited?
Guardian contributor I'm very glad you asked this. It's been an issue for me for quite a long time. Every newspaper does it, including the Guardian and the Observer. There seems to be a complete disconnect between the issues we highlight in news and opinion, and the recipes we then publish. I have written about this before, but don't seem to have got much traction. I don't think we should publish any recipe for fish that is either threatened or whose capture threatens other species. Whenever we publish a fish recipe, it should be accompanied by advice to buy only sustainably certified fish.
I also think we should publish fewer recipes for meat and more for good vegetarian and vegan options.
Otherwise you end up sanctioning and normalising environmentally destructive behaviour. If even the Guardian and Observer are advising you to cook threatened species, the assumption you make is that it must be okay.
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The webchat has begun!
Good morning everyone. Many thanks for your questions. I won’t be able to respond to all of them, but I will go down the thread picking out the ones that I might be best able to answer. Apologies in advance if I don’t get to yours.
Morning. George will be online from 10am BST to take part in a live Guardian Q&A. He’ll be discussing the issues he raised in his column on Wednesday, which tackled pollution, environmental destruction, mass extinction, and our complicity as consumers in this crisis.
On Wednesday, George wrote:
We cannot wait for governments or schools or the media to deliver a new environmental ethics. Join the groups trying to defend the living planet; learn about the consequences of what you do; demand – from friends, from parents, from yourself – a better way of engaging with the world. By living lightly we enrich our lives.
But how do we achieve this? What are the practical solutions, and what are the ethical compromises?
Please post your questions for George below.
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Thank you everyone for your great questions and comments. Sorry to have been able to answer only a few. I enjoyed the process, I hope you did too.