The Lifeboat News
[ Message Archive | The Lifeboat News ]

    Mobbs: 'George Monbiot’s Multi-Level Marketing of Ecomodernism' Archived Message

    Posted by Ian M on December 12, 2022, 7:03 pm

    Long read but plenty of zingers, a decent critique of GM's latest too-good-to-be-true advocacy of 'precision fermentation' and a good general critique of how the environmental movement got co-opted by capitalists and privileged liberals. Another damning response to the excuse that Monbiot is 'good on the environment'.

    cheers,
    I

    *****

    George Monbiot’s
    Multi-Level Marketing of Ecomodernism…
    where’s the evidence?

    The environmental debate in Britain is maintained by a few unaccountable figures elevated to the role of eco-gate-keepers – which is why the ecological debate fails to make any real progress

    We should be holding the political establishment’s feet to the wild-fire on ecological issues. Instead, a handful of ‘reformers’, promoting schemes or proposals which don’t radically up-end the ideological landscape, are given preferential access to the public debate; to peddle, ‘multi-level marketing-style’, demonstrably wrong ideas about how to solve the ecological crisis. How do we hold these media-constructed pundits, who claim to represent our interests, to account? It’s all about the evidence.

    This is a necessarily long and detailed dive into the role ‘green pundits’ have in the ecological debate – and whether that role is truly representative given the available evidence. To be clear, this isn’t just about George Monbiot specifically. By its nature, this also a discussion about the overwhelming class divide1 in the ‘English’ environmental movement2 (since it’s the London-centric English media and campaign groups which dominate this space).

    As a Guardian columnist3, George Monbiot essentially states opinion, not facts. The problem is, in the public debate which then ensues from those opinions, his narrowly focussed articles are cited as if what is said were wholly true – when in fact the wider evidence base is being strategically ignored.

    Monbiot is not alone: I could equally cite journalists such as David Shukman; ideological media constructs such as ‘Countryfile’4; pundits like Mark Lynas; or ‘green’ entrepreneurs such as Dale Vince. As these figures overwhelmingly embody the affluent middle class values5 of the establishment, that debate not only downplays the trends6 which are the result of that lifestyle; but also fails to connect to the people who stand to benefit7 the most from this debate – the ‘average’ person8 living within the increasingly precarious9 UK economy.

    Instead, what passes for10 ‘radicalism’ in English environmentalism are groups like Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil. But these groups are not ‘radical’11: They are once again dominated by the middle class; their metropolitan focus alienates them12 from the rest of Britain; and they have no specific project other than that governments ‘tell the truth’13 and take action14 on climate change.

    Therein, like the media’s green pundits, the groups considered to be ‘radicals’ in the public debate are ‘statist’15: Their unwillingness to look beyond the ideology, structures, and lifestyle created by Western affluence and consumption, cannot encompass – in terms of it’s original meaning of, ‘from the roots’16 – any truly radical solution to the ecological crisis.

    [continues at link...]

    Message Thread: