Reading material

Posted by monbiot

https://www.monbiot.com/2025/12/22/mincing-our-words/

https://www.monbiot.com/?p=7556

The absolute madness of the proposed new food rules.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 20^th December 2025

Most of what you eat is sausages. I mean, if we’re going to get literal about it. Sausage derives from the Latin salsicus, which means “seasoned with salt”. You might think of a sausage as a simple thing, but on this reading it is everything and nothing, a Borgesian meta-concept that retreats as you approach it.

From another perspective, a sausage is an offal-filled intestine, or the macerated parts of an electrocuted or asphyxiated pig or other animal – generally parts that you wouldn’t knowingly eat – mixed with other ingredients that, in isolation, you might consider inedible. For some reason, it is seldom marketed as such.

But to the legislators of the EU, a sausage can now have only one meaning: a cylindrical object containing meat. Never mind that cylindrical objects containing no meat have been marketed under names such as “Glamorgan sausage” (selsig Morgannwg) for at least 150 years. Never mind that even Germans once felt the need to call animal sausages mettwurst, to distinguish them from other kinds. Never mind that almost everyone knows what “veggie sausage”, “vegan sausage” or “plant-based sausage” mean. A recent survey of 20,000 Dutch people found that 96% are not confused by such terms, which is probably a higher percentage than those who can readily distinguish left from right. The consumer must at all costs be protected from an imaginary threat.

For the same reason, members of the European Parliament decided, burgers must also contain meat. It happens that no one is sure why a burger is called a burger. They were once called “Hamburg steaks”, but no clear link to Hamburg has been established.Nevertheless, before the term was abbreviated, meat patties were widely known as hamburgers, whose literal meaning is an inhabitant of Hamburg. If “veggie burgers” are misleadingly marketed, so is any burger not made from the minced inhabitants of a north German city.

Last week, the European Council and European Commission tried and failed to make sense of all this. They were unable to agree a common position with the European Parliament, and bumped the decision to January, when a new council presidency will have to deal with it. I can’t blame them. You cannot make sense of a senseless policy.

The parliament’s food literalism is remarkably selective. Given the time of year, perhaps I should point out that there is no meat in mincemeat, which is used to fill mince pies. Many years ago there was, but the meat component fell out of fashion. Minced meat, by contrast, is meat – I’m sure that’s not confusing. Similarly, sweetbreads are meat, but sweetmeats are not. None of these terms appear to cause any problems for legislators, though they have insisted that the only permissible definition of meat is “edible parts of the animals referred to in points 1.2 to 1.8 of Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 853/2004”, which is, let’s face it, how it’s commonly understood by shoppers across the EU.

If a vegetarian hotdog is to be ruled out, as the parliamentarians demand, on the grounds that it contains no meat, the meat version should be ruled out on the grounds that it contains no dog (hothorse should in some cases be permissible). They might also be shocked to discover that there is no beef in beef tomatoes, butterfly in butterfly cakes, cottage in cottage pie, baby in jelly babies or finger (mostly) in chocolate fingers. And don’t get me started on buffalo wings.

All this must be deeply confusing to shoppers. Like Wednesday Addams, who, when offered girl scout cookies, asked whether they contain real girl scouts, we puzzle every day over what such names really mean. Human beings are entirely incapable of pattern recognition, derived and secondary meanings, metaphor or conceptualisation. Language never evolves, and nor does food. This is why, when confronted with “pigs in blankets”, “toad in the hole” or “spotted dick”, people curl up on the floor, banging their heads and moaning weakly (OK, there might be other reasons). Everything can have only one meaning, and this meaning must be what legislators say it is.

If you are thinking “benefit of Brexit”, I’m sorry to disabuse you. If the European Council and Commission eventually decide that terms such as veggie burgers and vegan sausages are to be banned in the EU, they are likely to be banned in the UK as well, for fear of jeopardising trade agreements. Already, after a court interpretation of a previous European decision, terms such as oat milk, soy butter and vegan cheese are prohibited on UK labels, but not – because consistency is for suckers – coconut milk or peanut butter.

So what explains the selectivity? Lobbying. The decision in the European Parliament is a response to pressure from the meat and dairy industries, which have long been seeking to stamp out competition. It has no more to do with preventing confusion than a Rocky Mountain oyster has to do with a marine bivalve. It’s about protectionism. This is why peanut butter and coconut milk are still legal: they seldom compete directly with animal products.

These anti-competitive practices have a long history. In the 19th century, the US dairy industry managed first to get margarine declared a “harmful drug”, then had its sale restricted under the 1886 Oleomargarine Act. It’s reassuring to know that legislators made just as good use of their time then as they do now.

The livestock lobby is immensely powerful. Its campaigns are reinforced by rightwing influencers, who wage war against a wide variety of plant products (vegetable oil, soya, almonds, avocados, any plant-based meat substitute), often on entirely spurious health or environmental grounds, while conveniently ignoring the far greater impacts of animal products on human bodies and the living planet.

The food industry knows that words are a powerful weapon. If Moses had promised the Israelites a land of mammary secretions and insect vomit, I doubt many would have followed him to Canaan, though these are accurate descriptions of milk and honey. It knows that if plant-based foods have to be marketed under alien and alienating names, this will depress their market share.

The livestock lobby seeks to normalise and naturalise the cruel, grotesque, planet-wrecking realities of its industry, while casting plant-based foods as unnatural and wrong. As usual, it has made minced meat of European legislators. Though I should point out that I don’t mean that literally.

www.monbiot.com

https://www.monbiot.com/2025/12/22/mincing-our-words/

https://www.monbiot.com/?p=7556

Posted by monbiot

https://www.monbiot.com/2025/12/16/hatewashed/

https://www.monbiot.com/?p=7553

How a new film stitched me up like a kipper.

By George Monbiot, adapted from a BlueSky thread, 16^th December 2025

This is a note about what I see as a serious breach of journalistic ethics, in the making of Sofia Pineda Ochoa’s online documentary Greenwashed. She interviewed me for the film, but neither before, during or after was I given any idea I would be its target.

Far from it. Here’s the email she sent inviting me to take part:

Hi Mr. Monbiot, 

My name is Sofia Pineda Ochoa, I’m a physician in Houston and co-founder of the non-profit “Meat Your Future”, which raises awareness about the detrimental impact of our society’s use and consumption of animal foods. 

We are currently producing a sequel to our environmental documentary”Endgame 2050″ (I have copied the trailer below). 

• Trailer: https://youtu.be/_PTtF6btAxU 

We would like to include an interview with you. We know you’ve been an outspoken advocate for many years on these issues, and would appreciate being able to speak with you about the environmental challenges the planet is facing. 

Would you have any availability for a remote Zoom interview over the next month or so?   Please let me know, as well as any questions or further information that may be helpful.

Thanks so much, 

Sofia

Nothing here suggests it would in any way be an attack on my position. There was lots of further correspondence, but none of it even mentioned the topic of the film: population growth. Had I known, I would have prepared.

During the interview, the specific criticisms the film levels were not put to me. I was asked about population, but not challenged on why she thought I was wrong. Even in the interview, I believe (it’s hard to be sure, as it was in 2022), I wasn’t told population growth was the main focus.

There are two fundamental principles in journalism: if you are to conduct a hostile interview, first you tell the target what it’s about, then you put to them the criticisms you intend to make. Greenwashed did neither. The first I knew of its real agenda was when I started getting messages of hate on social media.

By interviewing your target, you create the impression that you’ve given them the chance to respond to the points you’re making. But if you haven’t – if in fact you’ve told them something completely different – well, there are various words for that, and none of them are complimentary.

Had I been given such a chance, I would have pointed out that, while more people compound environmental problems, residual population growth is the result of things that have already happened, which we cannot now significantly change.

I would have explained that even while birth rates are falling very fast, there’s a lag caused by a larger current base population, due to the birthrate 60-100 years ago, plus increasing longevity. Hence a residual rise before the plunge. In other words, I would have discussed the crucial issue of demographic momentum. Maybe I did – I can’t remember. Either I did and it didn’t make the cut, or I wasn’t asked. Could that be because it would have destroyed the entire thesis of the film?

Incidentally, my statement that the trend of population growth has fallen massively is correct: the growth rate has dropped from 2.1% in 1963 to 1% today. But, by decontextualising my remark, Greenwashed made it look as if it were false.

Within the constraint of residual population growth, we need to find the best ways of reducing our impacts. This is why I propose “private sufficiency, public luxury” and a maximum wealth cap. Not to enable further growth, but to accommodate people who already do and will exist.

Maybe the solutions I propose won’t work. Maybe nothing will. But that’s not because I’m an evil bastard, or, as the film strongly suggests, because I’m “not honest”. It’s because our crises are very difficult to address, and there are no sure and easy answers. I’m doing my best. I know it’s not enough.

So please be aware that this film is not an accurate representation of my views, or a fair and responsible form of journalism. Hate me for what I am, by all means. But please don’t hate me on the basis of what it tells you I am. Thank you.

www.monbiot.com

https://www.monbiot.com/2025/12/16/hatewashed/

https://www.monbiot.com/?p=7553

Posted by monbiot

https://www.monbiot.com/2025/12/14/arc-of-history/

https://www.monbiot.com/?p=7543

Immigration is the only thing that will keep wealthy nations viable.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian  12^th december 2025

I know what “civilisational erasure” looks like: I’ve seen the graph. The European Commission published it in March. It’s a chart of total fertility rate: the average number of children born per woman. After a minor bump over the past 20 years, the EU rate appears to be declining once more, and now stands at 1.38. The UK’s is 1.44. A population’s replacement rate is 2.1. You may or may not see this as a disaster, but the maths doesn’t care what you think. We are gliding, as if by gravitational force, towards the ground.

Civilisational erasure is the term the Trump administration used in its new national security strategy, published last week. It claimed that immigration, among other factors, will result in the destruction of European civilisation. In reality, without immigration there will be no Europe, no civilisation and no one left to argue about it.

Of course, we’re talking about different things. The Trump administration appears to see “civilisation” as a white and western property, threatened by Black and Brown people, regardless of whether they were born here or have recently arrived. This week, Donald Trump claimed that, with the exception of Poland and Hungary, European nations “will not be viable countries any longer”, as a result of immigration. Well, Poland has a total fertility rate of 1.2, which means a rapid slide to inviability unless it allows more immigration. “Civilisation”, as it has often been over the past two centuries, is in Trump’s case a racist and white supremacist concept. The erasure the Trump government appears to fear is of “white” culture.

There is and was no such thing. Our language, science, mathematics, music, cuisine, literature, art and – thanks to the legacy of colonial and post-colonial looting – much of our wealth, originated elsewhere. Italian cooking might be unimaginable without tomatoes but, originating in South America, they were not widely used until the 19th century. The balti might have a greater claim to be the UK’s national dish than fish and chips (a Portuguese import), as it originated here. The roast beef of Old England, from an animal domesticated in the Middle East, was enjoyed by the elite: the rest derived much of their protein from dal (pease pottage, pease pudding, pea soup). This changed only when the means were found of preserving and shipping meat from animals raised in the colonies. Widespread beef consumption in Britain required the civilisational erasure of Indigenous peoples in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, and the eradication of their ecosystems.

Some rulers once understood the power of pluralism. King Stephen I of Hungary, who reigned from 1001 to 1038, noted that the cultures and knowledge of foreigners enriched the realm, while “a country unified in language and customs is fragile and weak”. A thousand years later, Trump appears to have forgotten this obvious truth.

What I’m talking about, by contrast, is actual erasure: the literal disappearance of society. Once the fertility rate falls below 2.1, it keeps falling, and the slide towards zero looks inexorable. This doesn’t mean I’ve become a “pronatalist” (wanting to see rising birthrates). I’m neither pronatalist nor antinatalist, as both positions are equally futile. As David Runciman points out in his excellent summary of the science in the London Review of Books, the opportunity costs of having children rise with prosperity, leading inexorably to falling birthrates. In some parts of the world, this process began in the 16th and 17th centuries. No government constraint or incentive, it seems, can significantly alter the trajectory.

For years I’ve been arguing with people who want to reduce the human population for environmental reasons. I’ve pointed out that the growth rate today was established before most of us were born: as a UN report explains, “Considerable population growth continues today because of the high numbers of births in the 1950s and 1960s, which have resulted in larger base populations with millions of young people reaching their reproductive years over succeeding generations.” In other words, those who obsess about too many people are fighting a mathematical function. Global (and, in the UK, national) population will continue to rise for a while, before sweeping dramatically downwards, largely as a matter of demographic momentum.

The only thing the obsessives could do to change the peaking point by more than a couple of years would be mass murder on an unprecedented scale: slaughtering hundreds of millions of people. This is because the issue is not rising birthrates (the global rate has been in decline since the year of my birth, 1963), but a rising child survival rate and greatly increased longevity. Ironically, the person who might have caused the greatest depopulation is the self-professed pronatalist Elon Musk, whose dismantling of USAID could, according to an estimate in the Lancet, cause 14 million deaths. He wants to see more children born, but appears to care little about whether they survive.

Otherwise, if the “population control” advocates have any significant impact, it will – because of the long and compounding time lags involved – be to hasten the plunge on the other side of the curve. People have devoted their lives to this fatuity.

Why do they cling to the idea long after the evidence has departed? Partly, I believe, because population growth is a highly convenient scapegoat for, and distraction from, the impacts of consumption: wealthy people in the global north can blame much poorer Black and Brown people in the global south for the environmental crises they themselves have caused. Switching to a plant-based diet or from fossil fuels to renewables, by contrast to altering the size of the human population, are things we can do immediately, humanely and effectively. But blaming other people requires no change, and no confrontation with power.

Without immigration, there will, within a number of generations, be no Europe and no United Kingdom. Today’s racist obsessions will look incomprehensible to our ageing descendants, desperate for young people to look after them and keep their countries running. Before long, we’ll be fighting to attract people from overseas. But, as Runciman remarks, “There soon won’t be enough immigrants to go around.”

Perhaps this is why, in the new novel by the always prescient Ian McEwan, What We Can Know, set 100 years hence, the dominant global power is Nigeria, one of the few countries that today still has a fertility rate well above replacement, though it’s also falling fast.

Trump’s security strategy, like all far-right politics, is simultaneously preposterous and sinister. But above all, it is wrong.

www.monbiot.com

https://www.monbiot.com/2025/12/14/arc-of-history/

https://www.monbiot.com/?p=7543