George Monbiot is wrong to suggest small farms are best for humans and nature

Monbiot has criticised ecomodernism for endorsing agricultural modernisation, but this is the way to feed a growing urban population and free up land for rewilding

Yesterday we launched in London what we hope will be a new direction for the environmental movement, one which takes green thinking in a more progressive and pragmatic direction. We call it 'ecomodernism'.

The idea is to build a new cross-political movement of people who believe that humans are capable of using technological innovation to solve critical environmental problems, such as climate change, at the same time as allowing economic growth to eradicate poverty in developing countries. Traditional environmentalism has tended to insist that human prosperity and our environment are on a collision course: as we make clear in our manifesto, we don't think this has to be the case.