Tomorrow the #DasguptaReview is published. Its approach is morally wrong, intellectually vacuous and counter-productive. It represents a catastrophic misstep in our relationship with nature: the penetration of capitalism into every corner of the world.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
It arises from a system that cannot tell the difference between protecting the living planet and commodifying it. The colonial relationship between nations has long been mirrored by our colonial relationship with nature. This is its ultimate expression.
But watch the media report the review as if it were entirely uncontroversial.
Unfortunately, there's now a whole industry invested in this natural capital nonsense: economists, consultants, civil servants. After all, it's where the money is. So this is no longer a matter of argument, but of interest. Objections get trampled in this goldrush.
As predicted, the media is reporting the Dasgupta Review uncritically, with the help of endorsements from David Attenborough, Bob Watson etc. It's a reminder that our media and public figures stand in relation to capitalism as the Soviet press and its heroes did to communism.
What Sir Partha Dasgupta promotes is a kind of totalitarian capitalism: everything must now be commodified and brought within the system. It extends the capitalist revolution even into our relations with the living world.
We cannot defend nature through the mindset that’s destroying it. The notion that it exists to serve us and that its value consists of the instrumental benefits we can extract has proved lethal to life on Earth.
As Michael Sandel argues, market values crowd out non-market values. Markets change the meaning of the things we discuss, replacing moral obligations with commercial relationships. This corrupts and degrades our intrinsic values and empties public life of moral argument.
As research commissioned by @WWF shows, the natural capital agenda undermines people’s intrinsic motivation to defend the living world. It contributes to the alienation and disenchantment the commercial mindset fosters.
In this quote from the Dasgupta Review, we see the issue in a nutshell. As Albert Einstein (possibly) said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."
Dasgupta's approach disguises the political economy of destruction. Destruction is driven, above all, by the power of the rich. Regardless of how others value nature, those with power will destroy it, until their power is curtailed.
nature.com/articles/s4189…
But far from curtailing this power, Dasgupta's natural capital agenda extends and enhances it. It is naive on many levels, but above all it is naive about power. Putting a social price on something does nothing to stop anti-social interests from exploiting it.

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More from @GeorgeMonbiot

3 Feb
Recently, quite a few people have told me
“I thought you were on our side”
“Turns out you’re a shill, after all”
“You’re such a let-down”
etc
So here’s an explanation of why I’ve disappointed some of you.
🧵
1. If we want a good society, we must challenge power relentlessly, in all its forms.
But this challenge *must* be grounded in evidence.
If we make claims against power that are untrue,
a. they glance off
b. we do harm
c. we lose ourselves.
2. For example, I still believe that Big Pharma is inordinately powerful and often abuses its power.
But this doesn’t mean that vaccines are useless, harmful or used to inject us with microchips.
Nor does it mean that Covid-19 is harmless, imaginary or an artefact of PCR tests.
Read 13 tweets
2 Feb
Perhaps the best comment yet on the parched ethics of the #DasguptaReview, which seeks to persuade us that nature is one of the "assets in our portfolios".
Incidentally, has *anyone* who's critical of the natural capital agenda yet been interviewed in the media about the Dasgupta Review, to provide, you know, an alternative perspective? If so, I haven't seen it.
The "Monoculture of Economics", to use Kate Raworth's phrase, is sustained by the Monoculture of the Media.
Read 6 tweets
31 Jan
Three days ago, I asked @naomirwolf for peer-reviewed papers supporting her allegation of a "PCR test scandal". So far, she has produced only links to videos and unreviewed claims by notorious bullshit-mongers. My provisional conclusion is that the “scandal” is imaginary.
Thread/
Videos, petitions and polemics play a useful role in public life. But their arguments should be based on known facts or likelihoods, rather than invented or debunked claims.
It’s hard to express how irresponsible this is. We're in the grip of a global pandemic in which over 2m have died. One of the vectors of this disease is misinformation. People who believe C-19 is not dangerous or widespread are more likely to expose themselves and others to risk.
Read 6 tweets
30 Jan
Imagine what a different country this would be if Blair had put the political effort he invested in the Iraq War into political and electoral reform instead. If Labour take power again, they must not waste the chance to replace our unfair system and create lasting change.
If this is to happen, Starmer needs to begin work on it now, not in 2024. He needs to start explaining the case for change, not least to his own party, which retains a self-destructive obsession with first-past-the-post.
With a fair electoral system, with Labour prepared to work with other progressive parties, it's hard to see how the Tories could ever again dominate our politics. Labour might never win an absolute majority, but they would be more likely to sustain a share of power.
Read 6 tweets
29 Jan
The #HS2 protesters are heroes. HS2 is the Concorde of the 21st Century: a money-guzzling, carbon-pumping white elephant that - if it ever comes to fruition - will serve the rich at everyone else's expense.
theguardian.com/environment/20…
I suspect that as the business case for HS2 becomes ever more absurd, the project will eventually be abandoned, but not before many £bns have been spent, and more precious habitats destroyed. The protesters are speaking truths that even the government will one day have to hear.
From the beginning, you had to believe several impossible things to justify #HS2, as I explained here, when it was costed at a mere £25bn. Now you also have to believe that long distance business transport across the UK will return to pre-pandemic levels.
monbiot.com/2010/05/17/fas…
Read 4 tweets
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…
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 7 tweets

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