Call me all the names you want – I won’t stop telling the truth about livestock farming | George Monbiot

I've been accused of being a soyboy' and in the pay of Big Lettuce' by one of the most destructive industries on Earth

Everything that makes campaigning against fossil fuels difficult is 10 times harder when it comes to opposing livestock farming. Here you will find a similar suite of science denial, misinformation and greenwashing. But in this case, it's accompanied by a toxic combination of identity politics, nostalgia, machismo and the demonisation of alternatives. If you engage with this issue, you don't just need a thick skin; you need the skin of a glyptodon.

You will be vilified daily as a soyboy", a hater of farmers" and a dictator who would force everyone to eat insects. You will be charged with undermining western civilisation, destroying its masculinity and threatening its health. You will be denounced as an enemy of Indigenous people, though generally not by Indigenous people themselves, for many of whom livestock farming is and has long been by far the greatest cause of land-grabbing, displacement and the destruction of their homes.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist