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George Monbiot Profile picture
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27 Jan, 5 tweets, 3 min read
I argue that some lies about the pandemic are so dangerous that they should simply be banned. Why should we value the right to spread false information above the right to life?
This week’s column.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
I also discuss some pretty startling hypocrisy. The co-founder of the excellent Anti-Virus site is Sam Bowman (@s8mb). In his day job @ASI, he attacks public health messaging, in ways that happen to coincide with the interests of the tobacco industry, which, er, helps fund @ASI.
The Adam Smith Institute has also made statements about climate breakdown, malnutrition and other issues which are just as idiotic and unscientific as those Bowman rightly exposes on Anti-Virus. Good work on Covid, Sam, but physician, heal thyself.
Dark Money lobby groups are arguably the most influential source of misinformation in the public domain. When you see the @ASI, @IEALondon or @Policy_Exchange make contentious statements that just happen to favour big money, ask yourself why they won’t say who funds them.
I reposted this tweet, as in the first version I listed @IEA, not @IEALondon. With my apologies to @IEA

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More from @GeorgeMonbiot

George Monbiot Profile picture
28 Jan
If you begin with the belief that the pandemic is a fraud, you relieve yourself of the need to imagine an effective public health policy.
The "PCR test scandal" exists in some people's minds, but does not correspond to reality: covidfaq.co/Claim-91-of-Co…
See also sciencebasedmedicine.org/no-covid-19-ca…
It seems that once you fall down the rabbit hole, you keep falling. Naomi’s tweet has brought out a host of familiar atrocity deniers, climate science deniers, anti-vaxxers etc, who are now determined to prove that Covid-19 is not a dangerous or widespread disease.
Read 4 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
27 Jan
Help please. Recent paper says: "The feed of organic dairy cows incorporates a signif higher proportion of grazing (29.5% compared to 0.5%)". The study it refs isn't online.
Is it really true that only 0.5% of non-org dairy feed comes from grazing?
Peer reviewed papers only plse.
I've now found the referenced source. It's in German and 415pp, but as far as I can tell, searching for both Molkerei and Milchhandlung, it doesn't provide the stated figures. I'm intrigued though. econstor.eu/handle/10419/8…
Thank you Twitter! Two German speakers have now replied, pointing out that the Nature paper contains a mistake. The actual figure in the source ref is 5%, not 0.5%. Very helpful. I'll write to the authors.
Read 4 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
26 Jan
We should take air pollution as seriously as we take the pandemic. It causes a wide range of terrible conditions. But once again, the government fails to protect us.
theguardian.com/environment/20…
If anything, social norms, unchecked by either public information campaigns or law enforcement, are heading in the wrong direction.
I seldom used to see people sitting in their parked cars with the engines idling. Now it's everywhere.
It's madness. I see drivers looking at their phones with the engine running, wasting fuel and creating a cloud of toxic smoke. On my way home, 30 minutes later, they're still at it.
Perhaps they're texting their friends to complain about the cost of petrol.
Read 7 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
21 Jan
A "post-viral tsunami" is gathering, with devastating consequences for large numbers of people. Some of its effects closely resemble ME/CFS, a condition whose 250,000 sufferers in the UK have been horribly neglected.
It's time for action.
My column.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
There's a grim fact we have to face: for some people, Long Covid is likely to mean Lifelong Covid. The sufferers, like people with ME/CFS, will be seen as "inconvenient patients", and governments will be tempted to brush them under the carpet. We cannot let this happen.
Long Covid can hit anyone, including young, fit and healthy people with only the mildest initial infections. It can cause brain damage, heart damage, lung damage and many other effects. Ending lockdown too early is likely to condemn some people to a lifetime of suffering.
Read 7 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
18 Jan
A few more years of this and we'll be a failed state.
It is hard to imagine a radically different future for the country in which you live. But plenty of nations have flipped from prosperity into political and economic collapse, often through gross misrule.
Gross misrule is the UK's other pandemic.
And there's currently no vaccine.
The usual treatment is effective opposition. But, given the scale of the crises we now face, Labour is being remarkably quiet and passive. It should be mobilising its base in protest, while articulating a fresh and exciting political vision.
Read 9 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
15 Jan
This was always the real Brexit agenda: ripping down public protections.
Here's what I wrote in 2017 about what we would lose and what we would gain from Brexit. It's all playing to the script.
monbiot.com/2017/04/07/the…
It was crystal clear that the losses would outweigh the gains - for everyone except warlord capitalists like the Barclay brothers.
Read 7 tweets

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