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George Monbiot is no stranger cutting straight to the point. The author, who has spent a lifetime campaigning for the environment, rarely messes around with flowery language, waffling away in poetic scenery before getting straight to the point. His words, whether in print, paper or on social media don’t hold back in being clear, articulate, and no holds barred.
This combined with a ferocious appetite for research and backing up his comments with facts and research studies has earned him a legion of fans. It is fair to say that it has earned him a legion of enemies too. He has been charged in absentia with a life sentence in prison by the Indonesian government.
Regenesis is no different. The book begins with Monbiot in his shared orchard allotment in Oxford reflecting on the difficulties and intricacies of growing one’s own food in Britain. Late frosts, an ever-changing climate and spare time are difficulties for those who have somewhere to grow. Space, costs and 20-year allotment waiting lists are often blockers for those who do not grow. We do not reflect on this long though for by the end of the chapter we have already dived into the complex world of soil biology and how little we know.
From here Monbiot takes us on a masterclass of the global food system, shows us its incredible complexity that we barely understand and rarely hear about. With ease and clarity, he shows us the dangers of the system and more importantly its vulnerabilities. He paints of picture of a teetering system that is ready to collapse. Fear-mongering and being a doomsday profit, his critics would argue, yet Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Ever Given cargo ship’s blocking of the Suez Canal have given us a taste of such system-wide frailties.
Your reward for getting through this downcast first part is a second section full of much more hope and optimism. Monbiot takes us on a tour of people and places identifying novel ways of supporting our food system whilst protecting the soil below and wildlife above. We travel around the UK learning about farmers, scientists and everyone in between exploring food systems with radically different approaches. We learn about the cost of food and rectifying its inequal distribution. As we progress through this section the technology gets bigger and bolder. High-protein flour produced by bacteria. At the same time, Monbiot’s appreciation of the scale of change becomes clear. Changing the system will be hard, but not impossible.
As always, Monbiot is meticulous in his research. His notes section, almost 90 pages long, is filled with references galore, primarily from scientific journals and reputable sources. In a world where facts and figures are drawn down out of the air like the ever-promising carbon capture and storage technologies that Monbiot has huge distaste for, his voraciousness in cross-referencing, examining and doublechecking every single detail is sorely welcome.
Is Monbiot overly optimistic in his viewpoint of the public adopting bacteria-grown meat or governments implementing the correct policies and controls on the agricultural mega-corporations? Quite possibly. However, it is not hard to see why he believes in this possible future when he argues the economic and societal changes that would enable such changes. And, as he has argued before, cultural and political opinion can radically change in a short space of time. One thing is for certain, Monbiot will continue to campaign for the radical change that is required to save the global food system and will continue to enlighten us on his path to doing so.
Daniel George, CEnv, MISEP: I’m a senior sustainability and carbon consultant for AtkinsRéalis, based in their Bristol office. I’m a big reader of sci-fi and climate fiction but I’ll happy read anything. I love climate fiction because it provides a counter to the constant doom and gloom of climate change that we normally experience. Whilst climate fiction is rarely sunshine and rainbows, it does often provide a more positive future outlook than the news or social media. It explores people dealing with the challenges of a climate-damaged world and showcases their stories of adaptation, community and humanity in such vividly imaginative ways.
