Meet Benny Peiser: The Marxist Radical Turned Climate Change Denier

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Our latest DeSmog UK epic history post recalls how Dr Benny Peiser transformed from Marxist radical to director of Lord Lawsonโ€™s climate denial charity, the Global Warming Policyย Foundation.

Dr Benny Peiser, a sports anthropologist whose PhD focused on the ancient Olympic games, was chosen by Julian Morris, founder and president of the International Policy Network, to submit a chapter to the think tankโ€™s publication on climate change entitled Adapt or Die.

Peiserโ€™s chapter was called โ€œClimate Change and Civilisation Collapseโ€ and in it he explained that humans had often panicked about the end of the world, and expressed his view that global warming was just the latestย example.

Peiser explained his theory that Marxists, who became disillusioned by the failure of capitalism to collapse in on itself, turned instead to the environmentalย cause.

Climateย Credentials

โ€œDeeply infuriated by the failure of their predictions and the unremitting vibrancy of capitalism, many disillusioned believers turned to ecological pessimism and environmental determinism,โ€ heย argued.

โ€œHowever, none of these horror scenarios has alarmed the public as much as the alleged peril of human-caused globalย warming.โ€

Elsewhere, Peiser has boasted about his own youthful environmentalism to boost his credentials as a commentator on climate change. He likes to tell the story of how he was a founding member of the pioneering German Green Party in Frankfurt, and would play football with leading Green politician Joschka Fisher.

In the telling, his latter-day conversion to scepticism represents an intellectual maturity. However, the extent of his teenage radicalism may come as a surprise to his sponsor Lord Lawson and his other free market friends, while his late conservatism has been a disappointment to the environmentalists in hisย family.

Left-Wing Streetย Fighter

Dieter Nentwig is married to Rina, Peiserโ€™s half-sister and, during the 1980s, hired Peiser, a student at the University of Frankfurt, to work as an assistant at his musicย agency.

Nentwig told me: โ€œHe changed his attitude tooโ€ฆ he changed everything, you know. Donโ€™t ask me why. He cut his hair short and things like that. He was like a hippy. He was like a left-wing street fighter for a couple of years, taking part in all the big demonstrations going on in Frankfurt, not only against nuclear power, also against the Hausbesetzer โ€“ big houses being taken over by the housing agents to remove them, to throw people out and get rich peopleย in.

โ€œAnd students in those days took those houses illegally, and squatted [in] the house. And he was in that movement too. And there were big street fights in Frankfurt, I know he was part of this.โ€ย ย 

He added: โ€œWe were certainly surprised he became more bourgeois as we would say. And we didnโ€™t investigate [the question of] why did heย change.โ€

Maxistย Demonstrators

Peiser managed the musician Frank Wolff and his band, Frankfurter Kurorchester, who would perform before tens of thousands of anarchist and Marxist demonstrators fighting with the police at German nuclear power stations around the same time that Lawson was suppressing the coal minersโ€™ strike inย England.

Wolff said: โ€œHe was a pretty radical left-winger โ€“ he always does things in some way radical. Arno Lustiger [a German historian] was a fatherly friend to Benny and decidedly left wing. Benny was surely dogmatic โ€“ maybe not so much anymore today โ€“ but heavilyย dedicated.โ€

Wolff believes Peiser was a member of the Maoist Communist Union North. And he was always aย contrarian.

โ€œIn Germany, everyone bitched about Boris Becker [former world No. 1 professional tennis player]. Not everyone, but the intellectuals โ€“ โ€˜he canโ€™t even speak German correctlyโ€™ and so on. And Benny said: โ€˜Why, he is a great tennis playerโ€™. Yes, he consciously took the opposite opinion. Thatโ€™s kind of typical forย him.โ€

Research andย Writing

Peiser wrote for the hardline radical Frankfurt newspaper Pflasterstrand and knew the Marxist editor, Daniel Cohn-Bendit. Cohn-Bendit was also a founder of the autonomist group, Revolutionรคrer Kampf (Revolutionary Struggle), which recently became mired in controversy for the โ€œfictionalโ€ accounts he published in the 1980s describing sexualised encounters with youngย children.

Peiser landed a lecturing post in the sports department at Liverpool John Moores University in 1993 where he met his wife Gillian, who had worked as a language teacher in secondary schools before working at the education department of theย university.

Professor Tim Cable, his boss, said that the university tried desperately to convince Peiser to engage in substantive research but, during almost two decades, he produced only three publishedย papers.

Peiser began sending out a newsletter, called CCNet, which began discussing asteroids and moved onto climate science, and would occasionally get quoted in the media. Cable, giving evidence to an information tribunal, said the university simply ignored what Peiser said even though he was breaking mediaย protocol.

He admitted the university was embarrassed when the Times Higher Education Supplement compared Peiser to the moronic Simpsons character, Homerย Simpson.

Cable said: โ€œHe was not a trained scientistโ€ฆ Dr Peiserโ€™s work in climate science had no scientific credibilityโ€ฆ it brought disrepute to the university, notย repute.โ€

Peiser may have a point that some in the environment movement have abandoned their Marxist past. But, he is living proof that former Marxists are well represented among the sceptic and free market think tanksย too.

Our epic history series will continue with a look at Lord Lawsonโ€™s muddled account of when he first came to talk about climateย change.

@brendanmontague

Photo:ย DeSmogBlog

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