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George Monbiot
George Joshua Richard Monbiot (/ˈmɒnbioʊ/ MON-bee-oh; born 27 January 1963) is an English journalist, author, and environmental and political activist. He writes a regular column for The Guardian and has written several books.
Monbiot grew up in Oxfordshire in a Jewish family and studied zoology at the University of Oxford. He then began a career in investigative journalism, publishing his first book Poisoned Arrows in 1989 about human rights issues in West Papua. In later years, he has been involved in activism and advocacy related to various issues, such as climate change, British politics and loneliness. In Feral (2013), he discussed and endorsed expansion of rewilding. He is the founder of The Land is Ours, a campaign for the right of access to the countryside and its resources in the United Kingdom. Monbiot was awarded the Global 500 in 1995 and the Orwell Prize in 2022.
Born in Kensington, Monbiot grew up in Rotherfield Peppard, Oxfordshire. His father, Raymond Monbiot, was a businessman who headed the Conservative Party's trade and industry forum. His mother, Rosalie (daughter of Gresham Cooke MP), was a Conservative councillor and former leader of South Oxfordshire District Council. His uncle, Canon Hereward Cooke, was the Liberal Democrat deputy leader of Norwich City Council.
After preparatory boarding school at Elstree School, he was educated at Stowe School, in Buckinghamshire. He won an open scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford. Monbiot has stated that his "political awakening" was prompted by reading Bettina Ehrlich's book Paolo and Panetto while at his prep school, and that he regretted attending Oxford.
After graduating with a degree in zoology, Monbiot joined the BBC Natural History Unit as a radio producer, making natural history and environmental programmes. He transferred to the BBC's World Service, where he worked briefly as a current affairs producer and presenter, before leaving to research and write his first book.
Working as an investigative journalist, he travelled in Indonesia, Brazil, and East Africa. His activities led to his being made persona non grata in seven countries and being sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in Indonesia. In these places he was also shot at, brutally beaten up and arrested by military police, shipwrecked and stung into a poisoned coma by hornets. He came back to work in Britain after having been pronounced clinically dead in Lodwar General Hospital in north-western Kenya, having contracted cerebral malaria.
He joined the British roads protest movement and was often called to give press interviews; as a result he was denounced as a "media tart" by groups such as Green Anarchist and Class War. He claims he was brutally beaten and attacked by security guards, who allegedly drove a metal spike through his foot, smashing the middle metatarsal bone. His injuries left him in hospital. Sir Crispin Tickell, a former United Nations diplomat, who was then Warden at Green College, Oxford, made the young protester a visiting fellow.
In November 2012, he apologised to Lord McAlpine for his "stupidity and thoughtlessness" in implying, in a tweet, that the Conservative peer was a paedophile.
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George Monbiot
George Joshua Richard Monbiot (/ˈmɒnbioʊ/ MON-bee-oh; born 27 January 1963) is an English journalist, author, and environmental and political activist. He writes a regular column for The Guardian and has written several books.
Monbiot grew up in Oxfordshire in a Jewish family and studied zoology at the University of Oxford. He then began a career in investigative journalism, publishing his first book Poisoned Arrows in 1989 about human rights issues in West Papua. In later years, he has been involved in activism and advocacy related to various issues, such as climate change, British politics and loneliness. In Feral (2013), he discussed and endorsed expansion of rewilding. He is the founder of The Land is Ours, a campaign for the right of access to the countryside and its resources in the United Kingdom. Monbiot was awarded the Global 500 in 1995 and the Orwell Prize in 2022.
Born in Kensington, Monbiot grew up in Rotherfield Peppard, Oxfordshire. His father, Raymond Monbiot, was a businessman who headed the Conservative Party's trade and industry forum. His mother, Rosalie (daughter of Gresham Cooke MP), was a Conservative councillor and former leader of South Oxfordshire District Council. His uncle, Canon Hereward Cooke, was the Liberal Democrat deputy leader of Norwich City Council.
After preparatory boarding school at Elstree School, he was educated at Stowe School, in Buckinghamshire. He won an open scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford. Monbiot has stated that his "political awakening" was prompted by reading Bettina Ehrlich's book Paolo and Panetto while at his prep school, and that he regretted attending Oxford.
After graduating with a degree in zoology, Monbiot joined the BBC Natural History Unit as a radio producer, making natural history and environmental programmes. He transferred to the BBC's World Service, where he worked briefly as a current affairs producer and presenter, before leaving to research and write his first book.
Working as an investigative journalist, he travelled in Indonesia, Brazil, and East Africa. His activities led to his being made persona non grata in seven countries and being sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in Indonesia. In these places he was also shot at, brutally beaten up and arrested by military police, shipwrecked and stung into a poisoned coma by hornets. He came back to work in Britain after having been pronounced clinically dead in Lodwar General Hospital in north-western Kenya, having contracted cerebral malaria.
He joined the British roads protest movement and was often called to give press interviews; as a result he was denounced as a "media tart" by groups such as Green Anarchist and Class War. He claims he was brutally beaten and attacked by security guards, who allegedly drove a metal spike through his foot, smashing the middle metatarsal bone. His injuries left him in hospital. Sir Crispin Tickell, a former United Nations diplomat, who was then Warden at Green College, Oxford, made the young protester a visiting fellow.
In November 2012, he apologised to Lord McAlpine for his "stupidity and thoughtlessness" in implying, in a tweet, that the Conservative peer was a paedophile.