Vox Populi: To get out of the mess we’re in, we need a new story that explains the present and guides the future. Drawing on findings from psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology, George Monbiot offers a new vision for society built around our fundamental capacity for altruism and cooperation. This contagiously optimistic talk will make you rethink the possibilities for our shared future.

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George Monbiot (born 1963) is a British writer known for his environmental and political activism. He writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding (2013) and Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics in the Age of Crisis (2017). 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 believes that drastic action coupled with strong political will is needed to combat global warming. In 1995, Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement.

Monbiot made an unsuccessful attempt to carry out a citizen’s arrest of John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, when the latter visited Britain in May 2008. Monbiot argued that Bolton was one of the instigators of the Iraq War which resulted in the death of tens of thousands of people and the destruction of an entire country.