George Monbiot



George Monbiot is an environmental columnist for The Guardian with a fondness for most forms of green advocacy. Unlike valerian, a regular dose of his columns stands a fair chance of actually putting you into a coma. He's usually factually on the ball, though.

Views
He particularly dislikes global warming deniers and takes a special delight in slapping down Christopher Monckton whenever the latter raises his voice. Despite that, he's notorious in the climate change blogosphere for his reaction to "Climategate" — instead of waiting for the initial dust cloud to settle and verifying and investigating the allegations, he immediately tore into the scientists, in a manner that suggests he thinks science works like politics, which is unfortunately fuzzy-minded for a widely-read environmentalist.

Unlike a lot of journalists and commentators, he is actually capable of admitting when he's wrong when faced with evidence, which is nice. In one case, he abandoned his view that veganism is "the only ethical response to what is arguably the world's most urgent social justice issue," refining it into a more rounded view of efficient and ethical food production. In another, he was astounded by false claims of the anti-nuclear movement (such as the completely unsubstantiated claim that Chernobyl killed nearly a million people directly) and, particularly, the responses of some campaigners when he asked them about it.

In March 2013, he agreed to do £25,000 worth of unpaid work in recompense for saying something rude (and completely untrue) about someone falsely accused of a crime.

His polar opposite is James Delingpole.

Monbiot on 9/11 conspiracy theories
After writing a harsh review of Loose Change, Monbiot revealed his true identity in a subsequent column: Having spent years building up my left-wing credibility on behalf of my paymasters in MI5, I’ve blown it. I overplayed my hand, and have been exposed, like Bush and Cheney, by a bunch of kids with laptops. My handlers are furious.