Benny Peiser#Cambridge Conference Network
{{Short description|British social anthropologist}}
{{EngvarB|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Benny Peiser
| native_name = בני פייזר
| native_name_lang = he
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| birth_date = 1957
| birth_place = Haifa, Israel
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| education = PhD Cultural Studies
| alma_mater = Frankfurt University
| employer =
| organisation = Director, Global Warming Policy Foundation; Founder & editor, Cambridge Conference Network; Co-editor, Energy & Environment
| notable works =
| occupation = Social anthropologist, writer
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Benny Josef Peiser ({{Langx|he|בני יוסף פייזר}}; born 1957) is a social anthropologist specialising in the environmental and socio-economic impact of physical activity on health. He was a senior lecturer in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU){{cite web |url=http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/sportandexercisesciences/76407.htm |url-status=dead |title=Staff Profiles |date=13 April 2010 |author=Davies, Nicky |publisher=Liverpool John Moores University |archive-date=17 July 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100717233111/http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/sportandexercisesciences/76407.htm }} and is a visiting fellow at the University of Buckingham.{{cite news |last1=Evans |first1=Lloyd |title='The global warming concern is over. Time for a return to sanity': a Spectator debate |url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA254405288&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00386952&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=mlin_oweb&isGeoAuthType=true |access-date=4 August 2022 |work=The Spectator |issue=9528 |date=9 April 2011}}
Peiser established the Cambridge Conference Network in 1997. He serves as co-editor of the journal, Energy & Environment and is a regular contributor to Canada's National Post.{{cite news |url=http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/tags/Benny+Peiser/default.aspx |title=Benny Peiser: Climate libel chill |publisher=The National Post |date=12 March 2010}}
The National Post, former media magnate Conrad Black's national flagship title was established to provide a voice for Canadian conservatives and to compete with Canada's The Globe and Mail, the establishment newspaper with a liberal bias in Canadian newspapers {{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}. Outside Toronto, the National Post was built on the printing and distribution infrastructure of Black's national newspaper chain, formerly called Southam Newspapers, that included papers such as the Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, and Vancouver Sun and Benny Peiser continues to participate in stories with these newspapers as well. He became the director UK lobbying group Global Warming Policy Foundation in 2009. His interest as a social anthropologist, is in "how climate change is portrayed as a potential disaster and how we respond to that".{{cite news |url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/403382.article |title=Debate is an endangered species, says climate critic |series=Times Higher Education Debate |publisher=Times Higher Education |date=4 September 2008 |first=Melanie |last=Newman}}
Background
Born of German parents in Haifa, Israel, in 1957, Peiser's family soon returned to Germany. He grew up in Frankfurt and "spent the first 35 years of his life" in Germany.
{{cite web
|url=http://www.jewishtelegraph.com/prof_85.html
|last=Wachmann |first=Doreen
|year=2010
|title=Profile: Climate change does not pose immediate danger to the planet
|publisher=Jerusalem Telegraph
|access-date=22 May 2012
}}
Peiser studied political science, English, and sports science at Frankfurt University, receiving a doctorate in cultural studies (Kulturwissenschaften) from that institution in 1993, for an examination of the history, archaeology and natural history of Greek problems at the time of the ancient Olympic Games.
|editor1=Peiser, Benny J.
|editor2=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.Peiser, Benny J. 1993. Das dunkle Zeitalter Olympias: kritische Untersuchung der historischen, archäologischen und naturgeschichtlichen Probleme der griechischen Achsenzeit am Beispiel der antiken Olympischen Spiele. Frankfurt am Main: Lang 1993, 290 pp., {{ISBN|3-631-46522-X}}.
Drawn by "concerns about nuclear energy and its waste", he reportedly was involved with the German Green Party while a student.
Upon completing his doctoral degree, Peiser moved to Liverpool, England, to take up a position as lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University.
Career and research interests
Peiser was previously employed as an historian of ancient sport at the University of Frankfurt.Conference Schedule: "Reconsidering Velikovsky: The Role of Catastrophism in the Earth Sciences and the History of Mankind," University of Toronto, 17–19 August 1990. He listed his research interests at LJMU as the effects of environmental change and catastrophic events on contemporary thought and societal evolution; climate change and science communication; international climate policy; the risks posed by near-Earth objects and satellites and the environmental and socio-economic impacts of physical activity.{{cite web|url=http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/sportandexercisesciences/76407.htm |title=Department staff page |publisher=John Moores University |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141031124355/http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/sportandexercisesciences/76407.htm |archive-date=31 October 2014 }} Peiser is a member of Spaceguard UK.{{cite web|url=http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spaceguard-00b.html|title=Sir Arthur Backs Liverpool's Bid For Spaceguard Scope|publisher=Space Daily}} A 10 km-wide asteroid, Minor Planet (7107) Peiser, is named in his honour by the International Astronomical Union.
{{cite web
|url=http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=7107
|title=7107 Peiser (1980 PB1)
|publisher=Nasa
Cambridge Conference Network
In 1997 Peiser established the Cambridge Conference Network, an email-based discussion group for a conference of the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies about Bronze Age catastrophes. Over time the network began to focus on discussion on climate change and was renamed CCNet (active from 1997 to 2006),{{cite web|url=http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/CCNet-homepage.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060507215057/http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/CCNet-homepage.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=7 May 2006|title=CCNet homepage}} to provide a platform for "the minority of people who are climate (change) sceptics or have doubts about the prevailing views".
On 11–13 July 1997, Benny Peiser and co-editors in the Second Society for Interdisciplinary Studies Cambridge Conference held at Fitzwilliam College, examined astronomical and meteoritic background of catastrophic thinking, for example near-Earth objects, cometary catastrophes and ecological disasters. Proceedings were compiled in a publication entitled Natural Catastrophes during Bronze Age Civilisations.
{{cite book
|title=Natural Catastrophes during Bronze Age Civilisations: Archaeological, geological, Astronomical and Cultural Perspectives
|bibcode=1999M&PS...34.1029G
|editor=Benny J. Peiser
|editor2=Trevor E. Palmer
|editor3=Mark E. Bailey
|pages=252
|isbn=978-0-86054-916-1
|series=Archaeopress
|location=Oxford, United Kingdom
|publisher=British Archaeological Reports International Series
|year=1998
|last1=Guillory
|first1=J.
|journal=Meteoritics and Planetary Science
|volume=34
}}
Climate change denial
Peiser has denied the reality of anthropogenic climate change in a number of editorials and speaking engagements.
{{cite web |url=http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/OxfordUnionDebate.htm |title=This House believes that alarmism has replaced science in the global warming debate |publisher=John Moores University |date=19 May 2005 |access-date=2 December 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070703082124/http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/OxfordUnionDebate.htm |archive-date=3 July 2007}}{{cite web|url=http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/LTT-interviewNo06.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070703082425/http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/LTT-interviewNo06.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=3 July 2007 |title=Can we go on building roads and runways and save the planet |work=Local Transport Today |date=30 November 2006 |access-date=2 December 2009 }}{{cite news |publisher=New England Section Newsletter: American Physical Society (APS) and AAPT New England Sections |title=Global Warming from a Critical Perspective |date=19–20 October 2007 |volume=13 |number=2 |location=The University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut |url=http://www.aps.org/units/nes/newsletters/upload/fall07.pdf |access-date=10 May 2013}}{{cite news |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6938356.ece |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091203045614/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6938356.ece |url-status=dead |archive-date=3 December 2009 |title=Major cities at risk from rising sea level threat |work=The Times |date=1 December 2009 |access-date=12 September 2009 | location=London | first1=Hannah | last1=Devlin | first2=Robin | last2=Pagnamenta}} Benny Peiser is director of global warming denialist think-tank The Global Warming Policy Foundation.{{cite news |title= The voices of climate change skeptics |author= Caroline Davies |author2= Suzanne Goldenberg |url= https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/nov/24/voices-of-climate-change-denial | newspaper= The Guardian | location= London/Manchester |date= 24 November 2009 |access-date= 22 January 2010}}
Notes
{{Reflist|group=notes}}
Selected publications
{{refbegin|2}}
- {{cite book |author=Peiser, Benny Josef |title=Das dunkle Zeitalter Olympias: Kritische Untersuchung der historischen, archaeologischen und naturgeschichtlichen Probleme der griechischen Achsenzeit am Beispiel der antiken Olympischen Spiele |publisher=P. Lang |location=Frankfurt am Main |year=1993 |isbn=978-3-631-46522-6 }} ("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")
- {{cite book |author1=Palmer, Trevor |author2=Peiser, Benny Josef |title=Natural catastrophes during Bronze Age civilisations: archaeological, geological, astronomical and cultural perspectives |publisher=Archaeopress |location=Oxford, England |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-86054-916-1 }}
- B. Peiser (2003) Climate Change and Civilisation Collapse, in {{cite book |author=Okonski, Kendra |title=Adapt or die: the science, politics and economics of climate change |publisher=Profile |location=London |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-86197-795-3 }}
- 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.
- Brook, Barry W., 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.
{{refend}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.achgut.com/dadgdx/index.php/dadgd/article/the_new_age_of_apocalypticism Interview with Benny Peisner, "The New Age of Apocalypticism", 28 May 2008.]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20120127214424/http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/11/25/durban-downbeat/ Benny Peisner, "Durban Downbeat" (op-ed), National Post, 25 November 2011.]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Peiser, Benny}}
Category:English anthropologists
Category:Anthropology educators
Category:Academics of Liverpool John Moores University
Category:Goethe University Frankfurt alumni