The headline of George Monbiot’s latest opinion piece in The Guardian reads: ‘Stop eating fish. It’s the only way to save the life in our seas.’ We’ve seen our share of terrible headlines, but this one is “Dewey Defeats Truman” bad.

When wrong information about fisheries and sustainability is promoted in mainstream press, it is usually a passing reference to an old fishery myth or a misunderstanding of what fully-fished means. Sometimes we ignore the misinformation, sometimes we email the author, every so often we begrudgingly become reply-guys on twitter, but rarely have we ever felt compelled to write an entire blog.

Presenting an ‘opinion’ that has little to no factual backing is presenting something in bad faith—a dishonest tactic meant to gaslight the public and hijack civil discourse. Hiding falsehoods behind “I’m just stating an opinion” can also be dangerous. Calling out these bad faith opinions is an important part of functioning democratic societies so here we are: a fact-check of every statement made by Monbiot.