Monbiot

[ollie989898]

Seriously now. Why does he get such large amounts of air time in the media? Please explain it to me.

He knows nothing at all about agriculture or the countryside from what I can see.

Did you read his twattle in the yellow peril? Apparently upland sheep grazing is about the most environmentally damaging facet of modern agriculture, and it is sheep that are the reason no trees grow in upland areas of Britain. I even seem to remember him making comments about sheep and trees being the cause for all the flooding a couple of years ago.

I'd pay good money to be able to sit and educate the bloke.

 

[Tarw Coch]

Seriously now. Why does he get such large amounts of air time in the media? Please explain it to me.

He knows nothing at all about agriculture or the countryside from what I can see.

Did you read his twattle in the yellow peril? Apparently upland sheep grazing is about the most environmentally damaging facet of modern agriculture, and it is sheep that are the reason no trees grow in upland areas of Britain. I even seem to remember him making comments about sheep and trees being the cause for all the flooding a couple of years ago.

I'd pay good money to be able to sit and educate the bloke.

I'd like to be a fly on the wall watching you try to educate him!

 

[caveman]

You best start writing to and getting published in the guardian fella.
You never know.
If you go down well with the punters..... they might start paying you to send them regular copy.

 

[Muck Spreader]

You will never educate people with their own agenda and blinkers, goes for some farmers as well.

 

[JP1]

Seriously now. Why does he get such large amounts of air time in the media? Please explain it to me.

He knows nothing at all about agriculture or the countryside from what I can see.

Did you read his twattle in the yellow peril? Apparently upland sheep grazing is about the most environmentally damaging facet of modern agriculture, and it is sheep that are the reason no trees grow in upland areas of Britain. I even seem to remember him making comments about sheep and trees being the cause for all the flooding a couple of years ago.

I'd pay good money to be able to sit and educate the bloke.

He'd take your money and he'd likely publish the money he received on his personal website where he declares all earnings

He's a word smith. He gets paid for writing controversial journalism - mostly in the Guardian

He's made mincemeat of Meurig Raymond in a live radio interview. He also made mincemeat of David Bellamy - which was very unedifying TV to watch

He is careful with the arguments he picks

He backs his claims with research references. Skewed probably, selective yes but still referenced.

Every counter debater I've ever seen put up against him never learns and never arms themselves adequately

I think farming has had the lobby too easy in the past and that farmers have disregarded the need to have the best on side. The energy industry, car sector, the retail sector have recognised the need for good lobbyists for years because they've had to.

 

[Farmer T]

This ^

Alongside the BBC feel obsessed that everything has to be a 'debate' these days.

If you listening to Vine on Radio 2 they'll have an expert who has spent 40 years in an industry and give them the same air time as some unemployed lazy inbred who shouts their mouth off.

At the end of the interviews Vine declares both points are interesting and move on straight away. Drives me mad!

 

[Jungle Bill]

"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" - Simon and Garfunkle in The Boxer from Bridge Over Troubled Waters keeps haunting me at the moment

 

[David.]

As above.
I do not hold G.Monbiots opinions against him, I blame our industry for not employing the best PR, and putting them up to get our message across, every time that Jeremy Vine (or whoever) gives George an open door to push against.
Listening the other day to M.Batters floundering in his wake was painful, and demeaning to our industry.
People want to hear real facts about what the BPS etc achieves; presented concisely, not the same old "But we keep the countyside nice, and don't complain with your mouth full" line, weakly trotted out from a position of being on the defensive. It is as though our representatives have never heard the arguments that are thrown at us before in their lives.

 

[Tim W]

Seriously now. Why does he get such large amounts of air time in the media? Please explain it to me.

He knows nothing at all about agriculture or the countryside from what I can see.

Did you read his twattle in the yellow peril? Apparently upland sheep grazing is about the most environmentally damaging facet of modern agriculture, and it is sheep that are the reason no trees grow in upland areas of Britain. I even seem to remember him making comments about sheep and trees being the cause for all the flooding a couple of years ago.

I'd pay good money to be able to sit and educate the bloke.

Many people are bound to see the ''countryside and agriculture'' from a very different perspective than many contributors to this forum
Many of them have very valid and good arguments for these views
We (farmers) will obviously have our views skewed by our financial interest

George Monbiot raises some very good points in some of his writing and I think it would pay farmers /landowners to try and climb outside their boxes and try to see the issues from a wider perspective ---- I am not saying that he is right about everything but I do know from experience how easy it is to become blinkered by my own circumstance

 

[CornishTone]

As infuriating and rediculous as GM is, you're all right. The industry needs to cultivate an arch rival and nemesis to him, an Anti George Monbiot. I nominate @ollie989898!

 

[PSQ]

George Monbiot's trade is to tell half a story; the half that most fits his prejudices.

A more honest writer would delve more deeply into the subject and explore the real issues. But Monbiot wilfully goes out of his way to deceive with his very well rehearsed and often voiced tirade against farmers when he tells the media that "farmers are using subsidy to buy racehorses and helicopters".

Really? Either I must be mixing in the wrong circles, or George Monbiot is mis-representing tens of thousands of people, and being encouraged by an ignorant lazy uncaring media (Vine / Guardian) that really should know to look deeper at the whole issue.

 

[David.]

But he only gets away with it because the might of UK Agriculture can't come up with somebody to go head to head with him and expose these half truths and prejudices.
And when there are multi hundred thousand pound CAP beneficiaries out there, who undoubtedly do own helicopters and racehorses, and indeed the racecourses upon which they run, he is no more wrong than when the comfortable middle classes assert that "all benefit claimants are scroungers".

 

[Nithsdale]

I see this name mentioned on here, alot.

From what you lot write, I'm pleased to say I have no idea who he is, or what/where he writes.

If he pisses you off so much, you have 2 options. Do something about it and spread the truth. Or bin him and the paper/publications he writes for. Because if they (papers?) allow him to write such tosh, their own opinion of us will be no better.

 

[caveman]

It's not all toss though.
Probably a lot more tosh comes from the ag side.

 

[Muck Spreader]

Farming is a very easy target for Monbiot and his like simply due to it's size and diversity. You only have to look at the arguments that rage on this forum between things like intensive and extensive animal production, organic and and Gm, subsidies and free markets, big business and family farms and how one or the other will eventually ruin us or the countryside. So if we can't agree, how is the public ever going to know, except though people like Monbiot who peddle their own version of a utopian countryside. This I suspect is often greatly exaggerated by him in order to develop the headlines and media attention he requires to be successful. And the more he has to exaggerate the less credible he and his arguments will become.

 

[RobFZS]

He's becoming too radical for his own good, other than the occasional spot on country file/ the Jeremy vine show, i only hear of him on here, other than that, he has his little following that are usually nut's, the sort of person that follows 'natural remedies' aswell, ie using baking soda to cure cancer, the kind of politics he represents is dying but no doubt, he will go down with the ship until the next one comes along.

keep fighting the good fight, use facts to dispel myths and if he has a good point, listen to it and then exploit it, no matter how hard these people try, they never cover every base, he is a master of confirmation bias.

 

[Tarw Coch]

Farming is a very easy target for Monbiot and his like simply due to it's size and diversity. You only have to look at the arguments that rage on this forum between things like intensive and extensive animal production, organic and and Gm, subsidies and free markets, big business and family farms and how one or the other will eventually ruin us or the countryside. So if we can't agree, how is the public ever going to know, except though people like Monbiot who peddle their own version of a utopian countryside. This I suspect is often greatly exaggerated by him in order to develop the headlines and media attention he requires to be successful. And the more he has to exaggerate the less credible he and his arguments will become.

Most of the public aren't stupid so the more he goes on the less credible he becomes. The one thing that does give him credibility is someone arguing with him but is way out of their depth, take the example someone posted earlier of Meuirig Raymond, comes over badly in a head to head so all people see is GM winning an argument rather than looking at the issues. It would be far better to put up no counter argument to GM than put up a poor argument as that is what he thrives on.

 

[Qman]

When I saw the title of this post I got very excited, I thought Moonbot had died.

 

[Cowabunga]

It's not all toss though.
Probably a lot more tosh comes from the ag side.

Most comes from cave-dwellers it seems to me, and other subversives.

 

[caveman]

You could be right.
Come the revolution.........