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Stuck Monkey: The Deadly Planetary Cost of the Things We Love
People hunting monkeys in the jungle once devised a simple yet effective When the creature found a banana in a large jar with a narrow neck, it would plunge its paw in to retrieve it. But it couldn't let go. And unless the monkey released the banana, it was stuck.
We are, of course, the stuck monkey, paralysed by our modern lifestyles and consumer our constant stream of online shopping deliveries, our compulsive dependence on digital devices, our obsession with our
pets. These addictions, as small and harmless as they may seem, are quietly destroying the planet. And the eco-friendly alternatives that alleviate our guilt are often not much better.
In Stuck Monkey, James Hamilton-Paterson uncovers the truth behind the everyday habits fuelling the climate crisis. Drawing on eye-opening research and shocking statistics, he mercilessly dissects a wide spectrum of modern pets, gardening, sports, vehicles, fashion, wellness, holidays, and more. Ferociously unflinching and
intelligent, this book will make you think twice about the 'innocent' habits we often take for granted.
We are, of course, the stuck monkey, paralysed by our modern lifestyles and consumer our constant stream of online shopping deliveries, our compulsive dependence on digital devices, our obsession with our
pets. These addictions, as small and harmless as they may seem, are quietly destroying the planet. And the eco-friendly alternatives that alleviate our guilt are often not much better.
In Stuck Monkey, James Hamilton-Paterson uncovers the truth behind the everyday habits fuelling the climate crisis. Drawing on eye-opening research and shocking statistics, he mercilessly dissects a wide spectrum of modern pets, gardening, sports, vehicles, fashion, wellness, holidays, and more. Ferociously unflinching and
intelligent, this book will make you think twice about the 'innocent' habits we often take for granted.
- GenresNonfictionEnvironment
243 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 13, 2023
8 people are currently reading
111 people want to read
About the author
James Hamilton-Paterson
41 books94 followersJames Hamilton-Paterson is a British poet, novelist, and one of the most private literary figures of his generation. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, he began his career as a journalist before emerging as a novelist with a distinctive lyrical style. He gained early recognition for Gerontius, a Whitbread Award-winning novel, and went on to write Ghosts of Manila and America’s Boy, incisive works reflecting his deep engagement with the Philippines. His interests range widely, from history and science to aviation, as seen in Seven-Tenths and Empire of the Clouds. He also received praise for his darkly comic Gerald Samper trilogy. Hamilton-Paterson divides his time between Austria, Italy, and the Philippines and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 10, 2024
Eye opener!!!
October 16, 2023
Very readable, urgent content on how our "life as usual" lifestyle and demand for convenience exerts a huge toll on the environment.
____
By far the greatest threat to the planet’s health comes from the inexorable demands made on its limited resources by its human freight and by our obsession with burning things. The environmental historian Stephen J. Pyne coined the term Pyrocene to describe our era of burning, fossil fuels, land and forest, bush and wetland.
While fetishes made by African priests were denigrated as irrational, the fetish of the capitalist marketplace has long been viewed as the epitome of rationalism.
If one were to portray Big Pet Food as a country, its demand for meat would rank as the world’s fifth largest consumer behind only Russia, Brazil, US and China. One authority estimates that pets now consume a fifth of all the world’s meat and fish. America’s dogs and cats are estimated to consume 19% of the calories consumed by the 321 million people in the country.
Fun facts: Dog is no more difficult to cook than lamb and less smelly, cat cooks like rabbit but is drier.
Normal human activity is worse for mother nature than the biggest nuclear disaster in history.
The more electrified we try to make our way of life, the more that life will depend on hardcore technical matters involving the power supply we increasingly rely on. Regardless of how the power is generated, preserving the integrity of the grid is paramount (by maintaining power levels at a particular level), so for the time being we increasingly build huge megabattery installations to act as backup storage in case of shortfall, while relying on nuclear or conventional generators burning fossil fuel to do the donkey-work and keep the lights on.
The technology for Green Vehicles comes down to a choice between batteries and fuel cells. However hydrogen needs a lot of water and input electricity to be made from electrolysis.
Electric aircraft will suffer from range issues (unlike fuel, the batteries you go up with are the batteries you come down with RIP landing gear)
Tyre wear produces about 2000 times more atmospheric pollution than do car exhausts. The average tyre loses about 120g per 1000 kilometers(!).
EV batteries are very time-consuming to dismantle as each fuel cell needs to be dismantled by hand.
The fashion industry is the world’s 3rd biggest manufacturing sector, using more energy than shipping and aviation combined.
A Bangladeshi factory manager was quoted as saying “We don’t talk about child slavery here. (His interviewer sarcastically suggested the phrase ‘regrettable economic necessity’) “much better. we are a poor country, not an inhumane one.”
Environmentalists tend to focus their attention far too exclusively on the manufacturers, though the time has surely come to pay just as much attention to the consumers and their unreflective, casual greed to acquire that is matched by an equally casual swiftness to throw away.
On military spending: the money is simply poured into a hole from which brasshats occasionally emerge talking about ‘threats’ and lamenting cutbacks before taking early retirement and going straight into well-paid jobs in the defence industry. Easily bought off by the glitz and rainbow smokes of air displays and jingoistic accounts of past military glories, we go on treating the military as though they inhabit an entirely different planet from us in which normal morality and accountability hardly apply, a planet that also lacks an environment.
Commercial enterprises often ‘pledge’ themselves. It suggests serious intent but falls carefully short of being a legally enforceable promise.
In Dec 2021, scientists were research microplastics in seawater at Antarctica’s Weddell Sea. They found that nearly half of all the samples they analysed were from marine paint. Then to their dismay they discovered that 89% of these micro-fragments were paint off their own vessel, RV Polarstern.
In terms of electricity, completing a single Bitcoin transaction requires about 1,500kWh, about 53 days worth of power for an average household.
Crypto fans need to recognise a hard truth, that currencies and contracts are only as valuable or enforceable as the people and institutions that recognise their legitimacy. Blockchain technology does not change this fact. In short, all financial markets need to be regulated.
Liquified Natural Gas has frequent methane leaks from wells, pumping stations and the ships’ engines themselves, meaning that LNG can have deleterious effects on the climate even before it is burned in an engine.
Patrick Browne , UPS head of global sustainability - “The time spent in transit has a direct relationship to the environmental impact. I don’t think the average consumer understands the cost to the environment of having something tomorrow as opposed to two days from now. The more time you give me, the more efficient I can be.” (fully loading delivery vehicles)
____
By far the greatest threat to the planet’s health comes from the inexorable demands made on its limited resources by its human freight and by our obsession with burning things. The environmental historian Stephen J. Pyne coined the term Pyrocene to describe our era of burning, fossil fuels, land and forest, bush and wetland.
While fetishes made by African priests were denigrated as irrational, the fetish of the capitalist marketplace has long been viewed as the epitome of rationalism.
If one were to portray Big Pet Food as a country, its demand for meat would rank as the world’s fifth largest consumer behind only Russia, Brazil, US and China. One authority estimates that pets now consume a fifth of all the world’s meat and fish. America’s dogs and cats are estimated to consume 19% of the calories consumed by the 321 million people in the country.
Fun facts: Dog is no more difficult to cook than lamb and less smelly, cat cooks like rabbit but is drier.
Normal human activity is worse for mother nature than the biggest nuclear disaster in history.
The more electrified we try to make our way of life, the more that life will depend on hardcore technical matters involving the power supply we increasingly rely on. Regardless of how the power is generated, preserving the integrity of the grid is paramount (by maintaining power levels at a particular level), so for the time being we increasingly build huge megabattery installations to act as backup storage in case of shortfall, while relying on nuclear or conventional generators burning fossil fuel to do the donkey-work and keep the lights on.
The technology for Green Vehicles comes down to a choice between batteries and fuel cells. However hydrogen needs a lot of water and input electricity to be made from electrolysis.
Electric aircraft will suffer from range issues (unlike fuel, the batteries you go up with are the batteries you come down with RIP landing gear)
Tyre wear produces about 2000 times more atmospheric pollution than do car exhausts. The average tyre loses about 120g per 1000 kilometers(!).
EV batteries are very time-consuming to dismantle as each fuel cell needs to be dismantled by hand.
The fashion industry is the world’s 3rd biggest manufacturing sector, using more energy than shipping and aviation combined.
A Bangladeshi factory manager was quoted as saying “We don’t talk about child slavery here. (His interviewer sarcastically suggested the phrase ‘regrettable economic necessity’) “much better. we are a poor country, not an inhumane one.”
Environmentalists tend to focus their attention far too exclusively on the manufacturers, though the time has surely come to pay just as much attention to the consumers and their unreflective, casual greed to acquire that is matched by an equally casual swiftness to throw away.
On military spending: the money is simply poured into a hole from which brasshats occasionally emerge talking about ‘threats’ and lamenting cutbacks before taking early retirement and going straight into well-paid jobs in the defence industry. Easily bought off by the glitz and rainbow smokes of air displays and jingoistic accounts of past military glories, we go on treating the military as though they inhabit an entirely different planet from us in which normal morality and accountability hardly apply, a planet that also lacks an environment.
Commercial enterprises often ‘pledge’ themselves. It suggests serious intent but falls carefully short of being a legally enforceable promise.
In Dec 2021, scientists were research microplastics in seawater at Antarctica’s Weddell Sea. They found that nearly half of all the samples they analysed were from marine paint. Then to their dismay they discovered that 89% of these micro-fragments were paint off their own vessel, RV Polarstern.
In terms of electricity, completing a single Bitcoin transaction requires about 1,500kWh, about 53 days worth of power for an average household.
Crypto fans need to recognise a hard truth, that currencies and contracts are only as valuable or enforceable as the people and institutions that recognise their legitimacy. Blockchain technology does not change this fact. In short, all financial markets need to be regulated.
Liquified Natural Gas has frequent methane leaks from wells, pumping stations and the ships’ engines themselves, meaning that LNG can have deleterious effects on the climate even before it is burned in an engine.
Patrick Browne , UPS head of global sustainability - “The time spent in transit has a direct relationship to the environmental impact. I don’t think the average consumer understands the cost to the environment of having something tomorrow as opposed to two days from now. The more time you give me, the more efficient I can be.” (fully loading delivery vehicles)
September 20, 2025
'Stuck Monkey' libels the things we love - pets, air travel, gardening, and more - discussing the outsized environmental impact of each. I enjoyed that this book did not overly rehash established territory - it's not like we need another treatise on why we should turn the lights off when we leave the room.
However, the book has quite an aggressive tone, and is unforgiving to young people who are largely behaving as they have been taught to. This detracted from what appeared to be relatively solid arguments and made it generally unpleasant to read.
Further, this book is very Global-North-centric. Granted, we are the biggest causes of pollution, but in keeping this narrow focus Hamilton-Paterson sidesteps the problem of how to justify preventing (or how to prevent) the Global South from accessing these luxuries. Indeed, there are really no solutions offered in this book beyond "STOP THAT, BAD BAD". Does the blurb promise solutions? No. Do I think you should at least give it half a shot if you're going to say everything the modern 30-something enjoys is harmful? Yes.
I dunno, maybe I'm just butthurt it lambasted some things I enjoy.
However, the book has quite an aggressive tone, and is unforgiving to young people who are largely behaving as they have been taught to. This detracted from what appeared to be relatively solid arguments and made it generally unpleasant to read.
Further, this book is very Global-North-centric. Granted, we are the biggest causes of pollution, but in keeping this narrow focus Hamilton-Paterson sidesteps the problem of how to justify preventing (or how to prevent) the Global South from accessing these luxuries. Indeed, there are really no solutions offered in this book beyond "STOP THAT, BAD BAD". Does the blurb promise solutions? No. Do I think you should at least give it half a shot if you're going to say everything the modern 30-something enjoys is harmful? Yes.
I dunno, maybe I'm just butthurt it lambasted some things I enjoy.
May 5, 2025
The absurd self-importance of these so-called leaders consorts oddly with the global damage caused by what they represent. p3
The monkey, of course, is us, and the way we are paralyzed by our inability to relinquish or even change our way of life and its consumer goodies on which local economy depends. p5
A trenchant commentary on the present social and environmental crises well underway that includes food (in)security, the wellness industry and the huge paw print of pets.
The entire global economy is rooted in restless desire. p14
4.5/5
6/7
The monkey, of course, is us, and the way we are paralyzed by our inability to relinquish or even change our way of life and its consumer goodies on which local economy depends. p5
A trenchant commentary on the present social and environmental crises well underway that includes food (in)security, the wellness industry and the huge paw print of pets.
The entire global economy is rooted in restless desire. p14
4.5/5
6/7
Want to read
May 5, 2024NOT IN IOWA. Five books https://fivebooks.com/best-books/econ...
July 11, 2024
Finished. Good, but the could have done with less outrage and more insight.
December 20, 2023
This type of book, about the ridiculous impact of our modern lives on the planet, is sadly almost too easy to write. There are chapters on different aspects of modern life, from pets to fashion, sports, holidays and wellness. I'm not sure the title will really attract the right readers. I'm interested in what we can do about our high impact lives, but that is a more difficult book to write and read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews