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Dr Benny Josef Peiser, born 1957 in Haifa, is a social anthropologist and a senior lecturer in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Liverpool's John Moores University. He was educated in West Germany and studied political science, English studies and sports science in Frankfurt and previously was an historian of ancient sport at the University of Frankfurt. Peiser is the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, editor of CCNet, co-editor of Energy and Environment, a scientific advisor to the Lifeboat Foundation and a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He is a member of Spaceguard UK, of a German libertarian blog "Achse des Guten" ("Axis of Good") and is a regular commentator for the Toronto-based newspaper Financial Post.

Research interests

He lists the following research interests on his staff page

• The effects of environmental change and catastrophic events on contemporary thought and societal evolution.
• Climate change and science communication
• International climate policy
• Risks posed by near-Earth objects.
• Environmental and socio-economic impacts on physical activity and health
• Seasonal variations in physical activity

Climate change

During a debate at the Oxford Union in 2005 he stated: "The lack of a balanced approach to the issue of global warming has led to an extremely one-sided and alarmist perception of risk." ... ""climate alarmists habitually ignore the potential economic and health benefits of warming temperatures. While magnifying the probable risks to health and mortality as a result of warmer temperatures, many underrate or simply discount the possible heath benefits of moderate warming".

In an interview in Local Transport Today in 2006 Peiser argued that environmental concerns in general and concern about climate change in particular had reached a level of "near hysteria" and was "poisonous for rational policy making".

In 2009, in response to a prediction by James E. Hansen from Nasa that sea levels could rise by 60cm, he said that “The predictions come in thick and fast, but we take them all with a pinch of salt. We look out of the window and it’s very cold, it doesn’t seem to be warming.”

A common criticism of his climate scepticism is his lack of academic knowledge and research into the science of climate change.

Objections to Oreskes essay

In 2004 a paper was published in the journal Science by Naomi Oreskes titled Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. It researched the hypothesis that legitimate dissenting opinions on anthropogenic climate change might be downplayed in scientific papers and concluded that 75 percent of the examined abstracts either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it. The essay received a great deal of media attention from around the world and has been cited by many prominent persons including as Al Gore in the movie An Inconvenient Truth, the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the UK Government's chief scientific adviser.

Peiser identified an error in this paper in that keywords used in the ISI database search were in fact 'global climate change' and not 'climate change' as originally stated which resulted in a correction being published by Science.

Noticing that the original research had limited itself to articles in peer-reviewed publications Peiser then performed a similar survey that included non-scientific, non-peer reviewed publications and wrote to Science claiming that only 29% of such papers agreed with the consensus viewpoint, while 3% explicitly disagreed. Science choose not to publish Peiser's letter saying that the information was "widely dispersed on the internet", that the contents were not "novel" and because it was "too long". In an article in the The Daily Telegraph Peiser claimed that leading scientific journals were 'censoring debate on global warming' and that Science "has a duty to publish ".

One of his main points of criticism is his claim that the vast majority of the abstracts referred to in the study do not mention anthropogenic climate change, and only 13 of the 928 abstracts explicitly endorse what Oreskes called the "consensus view".

Peiser later admitted that it was a mistake to include one of the papers in his survey and said that his main criticism of Oreskes' essay was "that claim of a unanimous consensus on (as opposed to a majority consensus) is tenuous" and that it still was valid.

In a response letter that Peiser submitted 2006 to the Australian Media Watch Peiser explained that he had retracted some of his original critique and elaborated on some of his comments: "I do not think anyone is questioning that we are in a period of global warming. Neither do I doubt that the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact. However, this majority consensus is far from unanimous".

Selected publications by Peiser

• Peiser, Benny Josef (1993). Das dunkle Zeitalter Olympias: Kritische Untersuchung der historischen, archaologischen und naturgeschichtlichen Probleme der griechischen Achsenzeit am Beispiel der antiken Olympischen Spiele. Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang. ISBN 3-631-46522-X. ("The dark age of Olympia, critical investigation of the historical, archeological and natural science problems of the Axial age of Greece with reference to the Ancient Olympic Games")
• Palmer, Trevor; Peiser, Benny Josef (1998). Natural catastrophes during Bronze Age civilisations: archaeological, geological, astronomical and cultural perspectives. Oxford, England: Archaeopress. ISBN 0-86054-916-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• B. Peiser (2003) Climate Change and Civilisation Collapse, in Okonski, Kendra (2003). Adapt or die: the science, politics and economics of climate change. London: Profile. ISBN 1-86197-795-6.
• M. Paine and B. Peiser (2004) The frequency and consequences of cosmic impacts since the demise of the dinosaurs, in: Bioastronomy 2002: Life among the Stars, eds. R. Norris & F. Stootman, (Sydney), 214–226
• B. Peiser and T. Reilly (2004) Environmental factors in the summer Olympics in historical perspective. Journal of Sports Science 22(10) 981–1002
• B. Peiser (2005) From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui. Energy & Environment 16:3&4, pp. 513–539
• B. Peiser (2005) Cultural aspects of neo-catastrophism: Implications for archaeoastronomy. In: Current Studies in Archaeoastronomy (J Fountain and R Sinclair, eds). The Carolina Academic Press Press, Durham, North Carolina, pp. 25–37
• T. Reilly and B. Peiser (2006) Seasonal variations in health-related human physical activity, Sports Medicine 36:6, 473–485
• A. Ball, S. Kelley and B. Peiser (2006) Near Earth Objects and the Impact Hazard. (Milton Keynes: Open University)
• B Peiser, T Reilly, G Atkinson, B Drust, J Waterhouse (2006). Seasonal changes and physiological responses: Their impact on activity, health, exercise and athletic performance. (The extreme environment and sports medicine) International SportMed Journal 7(1), 16–32
• Barry W. Brook et al. (2007) Would the Australian megafauna have become extinct if humans had never colonised the continent? Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 26, Issues 1–2, January 2007.

Honoraria

A 10 km-wide asteroid, Minor Planet (7107) Peiser, is named in his honour by the International Astronomical Union.

References

1. ^ "Department staff page". John Moores University.
2. Peiser, Benny J., Trevor Palmer, and Mark E. Bailey (editors) (1998). Natural Catastrophes During Bronze Age Civilizations, BAR International Series 728. ISBN 0 86054 916 X. p. 251.
3. Conference Schedule: "Reconsidering Velikovsky: The Role of Catastrophism in the Earth Sciences and the History of Mankind," University of Toronto, August 17–19, 1990.
4. "CCNet". John Moores University.
5. "Energy and Environment". Multi-science.
6. "DR. BENNY J. PEISER". Lifeboat.
7. "Sir Arthur Backs Liverpool's Bid For Spaceguard Scope". Space Daily.
8. "Beiträge von Dr. Benny Peiser". Achse des Guten.
9. "Browse by Tags- All Tags » Benny Peiser (RSS)". The National Post.
10. "This House believes that alarmism has replaced science in the global warming debate". John Moores University. 2005-05-19. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
11. "Can we go on building roads and runways and save the planet" (PDF). Local Transport Today. 2006-11-30. Retrieved 2009-12-02. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |title= at position 33 (help)
12. "Major cities at risk from rising sea level threat". The Times. 2009-12-01. Retrieved 2009-09-12.
13. ^ Oreskes, N. (2005-01-21). "Beyond the Ivory Tower, The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change (including corrections)]" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-04-24.
14. ^ Matthews, R. (2005-05-01). "Leading scientific journals 'are censoring debate on global warming". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2009-04-21.
15. "Benny Peiser's correspondence with Science". Retrieved 2008-04-24.
16. "Peiser's analysis of Oreskes's abstracts".
17. Peiser: "I accept that it was a mistake to include the abstract you mentioned" – Politicization 101: Segregating Scientists According to Political Orientation 17 March 2006
18. Peiser, B. (2006-10-12). "e-mail from Benny Peiser". Media Watch on Australian ABC Television. Retrieved date. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Text "2008-04-24" ignored (help)
19. "Bolt's Minority View". Media Watch. 2006-10-30. Retrieved 2008-04-24.
20. "7107 Peiser (1980 PB1)". Nasa.

• 1957 births
• Living people
• English anthropologists
• Anthropology educators
• Anthropology writers
• Academics of Liverpool John Moores University