George Monbio is one of Britain's best-known climate writers, activists and personalities.

His new book, Regenesis, focuses on how we can feed the world without destroying the

planet.

George, welcome to Downstreet.

Thanks very much, Harry.

It's really great to be here.

How are you doing today's launch day for your new book?

Yeah, slightly hassled, but running around going on, but yeah, it's looking good.

Apparently, people want to read it, which is always a nice surprise.

Yeah.

Listen, you became a vegan a few years ago.

That's a pretty dramatic step for anybody to take, and obviously you've been immersed

in this literature and this world for your entire adult life.

Was there a moment or an event that triggered that realization I have to be a vegan?

There was, I was down in Devon exploring what was meant to be this really beautiful little

river which is maybe swarming with life, otters, kingfishes, trout, salmon, brook lamp

trees, everything, and you could smell it from 50 metres away.

And when I got down to the river, I saw that there was nothing growing it in it except

sewage fungus.

It was just this dead ditch.

So I followed this up river and eventually came to this pipe which was just pouring something

disgusting straight into the river and I followed the pipe up the hill and came to some slurry

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