A guest on Frankie Boyle’s show has been praised after he delivered an epic rant about political shortcomings in dealing with the climate crisis at Cop26.
Asked if he was optimistic about what he had seen at Cop, writer George Monbiot appeared to be very much not, as he attacked he government for being “asleep on the job” during “their once chance” to stop the worst impacts of climate change.
He said:
“They’re just messing about at the margins on it aren’t they? This is their one chance to stop the collapse of our life support systems... the planet turning from being habitable to being uninhabitable and yet they’re just literally asleep on the job.
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“The fundamental problem we’re facing here, by and large we’re good people, most people have really good values... we’re a society of altruists governed by psychopaths.
“They don’t care in the way that we care and the one hopeful aspect is that a lot of them also have a messiah complex and if ever there is a time to exercise it, it is now.”
I was on Frankie Boyle's New World Order this week, expressing the fury many of us are feeling about #COP26
— George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) November 11, 2021
You can watch the rest of the show here: https://t.co/ZdyD1rKHWw pic.twitter.com/1ewIWCwWVE
It comes as leaders meet on the last day of Cop26 to finalise key pledges aimed at stopping the climate crisis. While, there has been progress – the countries are expected to sign a document strengthening emission cutting plans in the next year to keep a goal to limit warming to 1.5C within reach and 100 world leaders have signed up to a pledge to end and reverse deforestation by 2030 – there have also been some cringe moments including world leaders allegedly falling asleep and other political figures becoming utterly confused by geography.
With this in mind, Monbiot implied the government weren’t interested enough in the issue to sufficiently tackle it. He continued:
“When they tell you ‘oh, we’re just a government, there’s nothing we can do’, that’s bulls**t. There’s no economic barrier standing in the way, there’s no technological barrier standing in the way, the only thing which stops them from doing what they need to is the lack of political will and so we, we have to get together in our millions to demand that they show that political will and defend our life support systems.”
The speech went viral when Monbiot posted it on Twitter, with more than 214,000 views and 1,818 retweets at the time of writing.
Reacting to it, people thought he had hit the nail on the head.
"there's no economic barrier standing in their way, there's no technological barrier standing in their way....."
— Jan van der Schalk (@SchalkJan) November 12, 2021
Yup.#makebadbetter https://t.co/DgnUy0r2IG
A powerful few minutes!
— Shastina Free (@ShastinaFree) November 12, 2021
⚡️🌍⚡️ https://t.co/ALnl5pL5WM
George is spot on https://t.co/HJohueXQSG
— Sue Taylor (@nutleykid) November 12, 2021
Speaks for many. https://t.co/LXrCd0qH1R
— Keith Clarke #FBPE (@clarke_keith) November 11, 2021
New World Order is always fantastic and thought provoking, what an excellent contribution by @GeorgeMonbiot; I never fail to be blown away with how powerfully, succinctly and eloquently he is able to articulate climate change issues. We need more of him on TV.
— ESutters (@e_sutters) November 12, 2021
We just hope the government are doing enough.
