Blogotariat

Protection should be the default state of the oceans.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 13th June 2025

I have been saying this a lot recently: “At last!” At last, a mainstream film bluntly revealing the plunder of our seas. At last, a proposed ban on bottom trawling in so-called “marine protected areas” (MPAs). At last, some solid research on seabed carbon and the vast releases caused by the trawlers ploughing it up. But still I feel that almost everyone is missing the point.

I try to replicate my more substantial posts on Substack here, but forgot this from a few weeks ago. So I’m now making amends.

When it comes to Magna Carta clause 39 is the one hanging in the foyer.

Keir Starmer’s attack on our planning system is an almost-perfect repeat of Boris Johnson’s disaster. Why can’t he see that?

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 15th May 2025

The precedent is uncanny, and the failure to learn from it downright mystifying. Keir Starmer is rushing gladly towards the catastrophe Boris Johnson inflicted on himself in 2020. Had he set out to stymie Labour’s chances of re-election, he couldn’t be doing it better.

Dartmoor National Park is not dying; it is being killed, and these are the killers.

By George Monbiot, adapted from a Bluesky thread, 11th May 2025.

This is Piles Copse, the largest remaining fragment of high-ground temperate rainforest on Dartmoor. It’s a tiny speck of green in a dismal, human-made desert. Prepare yourselves for a story of breathtaking perversity.