George Monbiot Quotes

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Climate Change Energy Environment Fossil Fuels Global Warming

In motivating people to love and defend the natural world, an ounce of hope is worth a ton of despair.

George Monbiot

People, Despair, World

"For more wonder, rewild the world". TED Talk, www.ted.com. July 2013.

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Soil is an almost magical substance, a living system that transforms the materials it encounters.

George Monbiot

Encounters, Substance, Soil

"We're treating soil like dirt. It's a fatal mistake, as our lives depend on it" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. March 25, 2015.

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Progress is measured by the speed at which we destroy the conditions that sustain life.

George Monbiot

Nature, Progress, Speed

" After this 60-year feeding frenzy, Earth itself has become disposable" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. January 4, 2010.

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When you warn people about the dangers of climate change, they call you a saint. When you explain what needs to be done to stop it, they call you a communist.

George Monbiot

People, Climate, Saint

"This crisis demands a reappraisal of who we are and what progress means" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. December 3, 2007.

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Almost all systems of economic thought are premised on the idea of continued economic growth, which would be fine and dandy if we lived on an infinite planet, but there's this small, niggling, inconvenient fact that the planet is, in fact, finite, and that, unlike economic theory, it is governed by physical and biological reality

George Monbiot

Business, Reality, Ideas

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Faced with a choice between the survival of the planet and a new set of matching tableware, most people would choose the tableware.

George Monbiot

People, Choices, Survival

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So, if you don’t fit in, if you feel at odds with the world, if your identity is troubled and frayed, if you feel lost and ashamed - it could be because you have retained the human values you were supposed to have discarded. You are a deviant. Be proud.

George Monbiot

Odds, Identity, World

"Sick of this market-driven world? You should be" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. August 5, 2014.

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If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.

George Monbiot

Hard Work, Would Be, Wealth

"The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. November 7, 2011.

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Do we want to be remembered as the generation that saved the banks and let the biosphere collapse?

George Monbiot

Generations, Want, Climate Change

"The planet is now so vandalised that only total energy renewal can save us" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. November 24, 2008.

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The corporations are powerful only because we have allowed them to be. In theory, it is we, not they, who mandate the state. But we have neglected our duty of citizenship, and they have taken advantage of our neglect to seize the reins of government.

George Monbiot

Powerful, Taken, Government

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August 28th 2012. Remember that date. It marks the day when the world went raving mad.

George Monbiot

Bad Day, August, Mad

"The day the world went mad" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. August 29, 2009.

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Acknowledging our love for the living world does something that a library full of papers on sustainable development and ecosystem services cannot: it engages the imagination as well as the intellect. It inspires belief; and this is essential to the lasting success of any movement.

George Monbiot

Ecosystems, Imagination, Inspire

"Why we fight for the living world: it's about love, and it's time we said so" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. June 16, 2015.

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Change arises from conviction. Stop voting in fear. Start voting for hope.

George Monbiot

Voting, Conviction, Arise

"Follow your convictions – this could be the end of the politics of fear". www.theguardian.com. January 28, 2015.

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Development which has no regard for whom or what it harms is not development. It is the opposite of progress, damaging the Earth's capacity to support us and the rest of its living systems.

George Monbiot

Opposites, Support, Progress

"Is protecting the environment incompatible with social justice?" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. February 13, 2012.

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The angry men know that this golden age (of fossil fuels) has gone; but they cannot find the words for the constraints they hate. Clutching their copies of Atlas Shrugged, they flail around, accusing those who would impede them of communism, fascism, religiosity, misanthropy, but knowing at heart that these restrictions are driven by something far more repulsive to the unrestrained man: the decencies we owe to other human beings.

George Monbiot

Hate, Heart, Men

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If global warming is not contained, the West will face a choice of a refugee crisis of unimaginable proportions, or direct complicity in crimes against humanity.

George Monbiot

Refugee Crisis, Choices, Humanity

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Why is it so easy to save the banks - but so hard to save the biosphere?

George Monbiot

Easy, Biosphere, Hard

"Why is it so easy to save the banks - but so hard to save the biosphere?" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. December 16, 2011.

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Deregulation is a transfer of power from the trodden to the treading. It is unsurprising that all conservative parties claim to hate big government.

George Monbiot

Hate, Party, Government

"This Tory bonfire of regulations lets the rich foul the poor with impunity" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. July 12, 2010.

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The Christians stole the winter solstice from the pagans, and capitalism stole it from the Christians.

George Monbiot

Christian, Winter, Atheism

"Why vegans were right all along" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. December 23, 2002.

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We are often told we are materialistic. It seems to me, we are not materialistic enough. We have a disrespect for materials. We use it quickly and carelessly. If were genuinely materialistic people, we would understand where materials come from and where they go to. But, at the moment, the entire global economy seems to be built on the model of digging things up from one hole in the ground on one side of the earth, transporting them around the world, using them for a few days, and sticking them in a hole in the ground on the other side of the world.

George Monbiot

People, Disrespect, Digging

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Nobody ever rioted for austerity.

George Monbiot

Austerity

George Monbiot (2007). “Heat: how to stop the planet from burning”, South End Pr

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We would do well to ask why governments seem to find it so easy to raise the money required to wreck the biosphere, and so difficult to raise the money required to save it.

George Monbiot

Government, Wrecks, Easy

George Monbiot (2007). “Heat: how to stop the planet from burning”, South End Pr

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Thinking like ethical people, dressing like ethical people, decorating our homes like ethical people makes not a damn of difference unless we also behave like ethical people.

George Monbiot

Home, Thinking, Differences

George Monbiot (2007). “Heat: how to stop the planet from burning”, South End Pr

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The schedules are crammed with shows urging us to travel further, drive faster, build bigger, buy more, yet none of them are deemed to offend the rules, which really means that they don't offend the interests of business or the pampered sensibilities of the Aga class. The media, driven by fear and advertising, are hopelessly biased towards the consumer economy and against the biosphere.

George Monbiot

Mean, Media, Class

"Civilisation ends with a shutdown of human concern. Are we there already?" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. October 29, 2007.

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There is enough oil in the ground to deep-fry the lot of us, and no obvious means to prevail upon governments and industry to leave it in the ground.

George Monbiot

Mean, Government, Oil

"We were wrong on peak oil. There's enough to fry us all" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. July 2, 2012.

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Born: January 27, 1963
Occupation: Writer
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