Sir Jonathon Porritt has spent more than five decades campaigning for the environment, starting out as a grassroots activist, co-founding the sustainability charity Forum for the Future, and becoming a party leader and government adviser. Now, he’s taking the government to task, calling out how the vested interests of the fossil fuel industry are corrupting our politicians.
“The fossil fuel industry wraps the whole of government in this intricate layer of dependencies and deals,” he tells Sangita Myska, adding that any promises that new oil and gas energy projects will bring down costs are “a complete fabrication”.
In this extensive “Sangita Meets …” interview, Sangita and Jonathon take a deep dive into his activism not only on climate but also on the genocide in Gaza, which resulted in his recent arrests . He called the UK government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation “appalling”.
“You can’t say that what those protesters for Palestine Action did was genuine terrorism. It wasn’t,” he says. “It was a protest against the horror of what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Sir Jonathon Porritt also speaks about:
How the explosion in both the world population and the global economy has “put nature under the cosh”
Why the direct-action protests are worth the “inconvenience” and “nuisance” they cause
Why we need to radically reform capitalism if we want to save the planet
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