Climate, covid and conspiracy

New book by ecological scientist and activist Peter Taylor

- by RICHARD HOUSE

RICHARD House [RH]: Tell us about your academic and professional background, and its relation to so-called climate change.

Peter Taylor [PT]: I have two degrees from the University of Oxford, one specialising in ecological sciences, the other in social anthropology with a focus on language and meaning. In 1980, I left the somewhat restrictive academic environment to set up my own research group as a service to the growing environmental movement. We set our own research agenda and then found patrons, at first within the movement - for example, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the World Wildlife Foundation. Later, we were approached by governments, the European Commission and the UN for 'critical review' of environmental policy (for example, dumping radioactive waste at sea). My group consisted of engineers, planning specialists, biologists and chemists - all of whom forsook high-level careers.

In a review for the Countryside Commission in 1996, I realised just how simplistic the models were, and advised the commission to plan for climate change in either direction - warming or cooling; i.e. systems needed to be robust to any changes.

RH: Your 2009 book, Chill, certainly challenged the mainstream narrative about global warming. What were your main conclusions, and how was the book received?

PT: Initially, mindful of the impact of renewables strategy, I wanted to know how much time we had to make decisions affecting values of landscape, community and biodiversity. However, I concluded that the models weren't fit for purpose - climate cycles were absent from the computer projections led by the UN's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).