George Monbiot calls out the racism and colonialism that persists in his own movement in the form of population-control.

His answer: in order to stop climate change we have to stop black and brown people enjoying western lifestyles & becoming as wealthy as white people. https://twitter.com/wattsupwiththat/status/1263937732436467712

The formula environmentalists use is always a variant of:

Environmental Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology. (IPAT).

As you can see, this gives just three levers of control to reduce impact.

This means that even when greens reject the racism of population control, it is still present in their thinking.

You can reject population control, but you have to then limit affluence and technology.

We know that George hates affluence. And he's not that keen on technology.

Most greens regard technology as 'techno-fixes' to a deeper, systemic problem, which is a fundamental disconnect from the natural world. Eventually the technofix will fail, and there will be a catastrophe.

Environmentalism wants to use the limits of natural world, implied by IPAT to constrain society, one way or another.

Technology that threatens to expand those putative limits therefore challenges environmentalism's claim to *necessity*.

George's superficial anti-malthusianism is just that. He would still hold people in lifestyles that are *only just* above poverty and subsistence. That's okay, he thinks, because nature will fill our lives with meaning, wonder and joy.

It's austerity eco-socialism.

In other words, people such as George *need* for there to be total, interminable, unassailable, overwhelming problems like climate change for the IPAT formula to hold.

There can be no solution to IPAT. Because if there is, their whole world falls apart.

And *that* is why greens like George are hostile to criticism, debate and democracy.

Criticism, debate and democracy would let us get to the bottom of the green perspective and its central claims, such as IPAT, to ask if they deserve to be at the centre of *our* understanding.

George doesn't like that happening. So if you criticise him or greens, you get this kind of article.. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/07/us-billionaires-hard-right-britain-spiked-magazine-charles-david-koch-foundation

As I pointed out at the time, how come George Monbiot isn't interested in the connections between the Koch's and green energy and green campaigns?

Monbiot can scream and shout at Moore as much as he likes. He didn't notice the Kochs were on his side.

Of course, we should reject Monbiot's demonology as much as his interpretation of IPAT.

His criticism of Moore is that we should look the other way when big companies and billionaires support his agenda.

The disparity can be quantified.

Monbiot's demon-hunting -- searching for "connections" between companies and critics of green ideologies such as his -- causes him to be blind to a stream of cash which is around six orders of magnitude larger.

Environmentalism is either myopia or it is a failure to develop a sense of proportion.

It's also possible that Monbiot just really isn't very bright at all.

Or all three.