Digital technologies could be used to destroy democracy, or to save it.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 7th March 2017
Has a digital coup begun? Is big data being used, in the US and the UK, to create personalised political advertising, to bypass our rational minds and alter the way we vote? The short answer is probably not. Or not yet.
A short, simple factsheet on the impacts of traffic pollution on children’s health
By George Monbiot, published on monbiot.com, 5th March 2017
I wrote this short factsheet for a local school suffering high levels of air pollution, that are caused in part by the parents, sometimes driving their children just 100 metres up the road. Part of the problem is that many people are unaware of the link between pollution and health issues.
For some of those immersed in virtual worlds, everything loses its meaning – even racism and fascism.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 1st March 2017
Everything is possible. Nothing is possible. Nothing hurts any more, until the consequences crash through the screen. Immersed almost permanently in virtual worlds, we cannot check what we are told against tangible reality. Is it any wonder that we live in a post-truth era, when we are bereft of experience?
My (very controversial) column on the lives for which the schooling system prepares our children.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 15th February 2017
In the future, if you want a job, you must be as unlike a machine as possible: creative, critical and socially skilled. So why are children being taught to behave like machines?
This is how to stop demagogues and extremists: rebuild community.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 8th February 2017
Without community, politics is dead. But communities have been scattered like dust in the wind. At work, at home, both practically and imaginatively, we are atomised.
Kayaking with basking sharks provides a glimpse of the wonders we could experience if our seas are rewilded.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 4th February 2017
I believe we possess a ghost psyche: a set of capacities that helped secure our survival in more dangerous times, but that are now vestigial. I picture this as a seam of intense emotion, buried so deeply in our minds that we can seldom find it.
How a dark money network is taking power on both sides of the Atlantic.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 3rd February 2017
It took corporate America a while to warm to Donald Trump. Some of his positions, especially on trade, horrified business leaders. Many of them favoured Ted Cruz or Scott Walker. But once he had secured the nomination, the big money began to recognise an unprecedented opportunity.
Our democracies are broken, debased and distrusted. Here are some ideas for restoring them.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian, 25th January 2017
Dirty industries spend more on politics, keeping us in the fossil age.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 19th January 2017
Make America Wait Again. That’s what Donald Trump’s energy policy amounts to. Stop all the clocks, put the technological revolution on hold, ensure that the transition from fossil fuels to clean power is delayed for as long as possible.
Brexit could wreck the British countryside – or it could save it. It depends on getting our voices heard.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 11th January 2017