Talk:Benny Peiser

Peer Reviewed
I do not wish to question that the majority of papers support the theory of anthropogenic global warming. Even so, it is simply untrue to claim that no sceptical papers have been published in the peer-reviewed literature. 


 * Please, a page from Google cache? I don't need to mention the reasons why this isn't compelling evidence and can't be used in the article do I? FeloniousMonk 03:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Search Terms
The original Dec 2004 essay in Science reported the words "climate change" in two places. "That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9)." "9.The first year for which the database consistently published abstracts was 1993. Some abstracts were deleted from our analysis because, although the authors had put "climate change" in their key words, the paper was not about climate change."

This reportedly was corrected by Science to "global climate change" in the Jan. 14 2005 issue, which requires login on the site so unfortunate, I can't quote it or see if it was a change or a retraction instead. That information is from Dr. Pieser's letter on his website where Etta Kavanagh, an Associate Letters Editor said "A correction dealing with the mistake in the search terms ("global climate change" vs. "climate change") was published in our Jan. 14 issue." It's also been reported on the RealClimate blog as well as a Washington Post Editorial by Dr. Oreskes.


 * Does anyone have a copy of the correction article that is available publicly to read? Or a copy that can be noted from or linked to or quoted from?  http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;308/5724/952  Science itself has made the essay available, but for some reason not the correction.  Sln3412 22:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have found it here . --NimNick 19:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah. No, the actual page from the Jan 14 issue of Science, rather than the one on his website, I mean.  Sln3412 17:23, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a biography, right?
People here need to make up their minds whether this article is going to be the biography of Benny Peiser or an article his views on Oreskes' study. If the former, add biographical material. If the latter, rename the article to get it out of the Bio namespace. As it stands, it's a transparent vehicle for global warming skepticism aimed at discrediting Oreskes's study, not any identifiable form of biography. Actual, bona fide biographical content that goes into some detail needs to be added soon. FeloniousMonk 04:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd prefer the article to focus on his work and views. He seems to think he has quite handily discredited Oreskes's study; certainly he draws opposite conclusions from the same data. Her group of abstracts yields exactly zero challenges to GW; he says he found three dozen. She says 75% of abstracts support GW (at least implicitly). He says it's a couple of percent.


 * I would have moved it to Peiser study or (better yet) Oreskes study (in a criticism section), but the last time I moved a similar article you had voted to delete you nominated the renamed article for deletion to as some sort of 'evasion of process'. So move it yourself, or at least work with me on this. --Uncle Ed 19:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, one aspect to take into consideration is that Peisers criticism of Oreskes essay is likely why he can be considered notable enough to have a page on wp. And It's not a great idea to move the detailed critique to the Oreskes page because the critique in itself is not particularly notable in comparison. And this section is already as big as the section on Oreskes essay on her bio page, this would take up about 1/3 of that page which is completely out of proportion. If anything one could create a standalone "critique of Oreskes essay" page, but I'm not sure that's a much better idea? -- Apis ( talk ) 11:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a biography and as such should include broad information on Peiser, including articles written about him and complaints about those seeking to discredit him. All articles that reference Peiser should be considered valid for a Peiser Bio page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grazen (talk • contribs) 14:31, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

This *is* a biography - and as we can see from the Orsekes page - if we start throwing in too many articles to "prove a point" we end up losing the biographical elements that are important (Peiser's work was important and contentious at the same time) into back and forths on *how* important or *how* contentious that end up being more political in nature. Grazen (talk) 12:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Some (primarily Apis) are attempting to slant the biography to highlight a general negative bias against Peiser's work. This is a biography on Peiser, as such it should highlight the importance of his work in the greater community. The relative merits of that work will be reflected on Oreskes page or on the global warming pages - but on this biography, let's keep it to the balanced facts.Grazen (talk) 18:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * What negative bias, I've read the sources, and actually spent a great deal of time and effort on trying to reflect those sources as fairly as I could. And I'd appreciate if you didn't accuse me of trying to "slant" the article, vandal was quite enough. Thank you. -- Apis ( talk ) 19:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The fact that you aren't able to see that you are slanting the article with a negative bias with your changes should be cause for concern! Let Peiser's work speak for itself for what it is - it was significant for highlighting some methodological errors in Oreskes description of her search parameters.  Her statements were widely circulated, and lo and behold - the results were not being replicated by third parties because there were errors in how Oreskes' described her parameters.  THIS IS SIGNIFICANT.  You might argue that it's irrelevant or that it didn't prove Oreskes' wrong or that it doesn't matter or that you don't care - but on a page about Peiser, well, this is why he matters to scientists, editorial writers and skeptics who don't agree with the so-called global warming consensus.  There is no need to discuss Peiser and then to say ... "but he was proven wrong", or that "but it doesn't matter", or "most people disagree"... you will never have agreement on this page on those issues because it is the very essence of why Peiser and his work is considered important. To minimize one's importance on their biography page is just not kosher, during the passover season or other.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grazen (talk • contribs) 23:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure you are referring to my edits, i haven't written any of what you quoted. -- Apis ( talk ) 07:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

What qualifies somebody who studied political science, English, and sports science to be an expert on climate change? Oughtn't that to be asked in the first place?

-- 84.180.244.184 (talk) 19:26, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The given reason why Science didn't publish the papers
I think the current statement is misleading, in this article by the telegraph the very same statement is followed by: "A spokesman for Science said Dr Peiser's research had been rejected "for a variety of reasons", adding: "The information in the letter was not perceived to be novel".

Maybe the section could be updated to better reflect what reason Science have given? -- Apis 20:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

And I would appreciate if I weren't accused of being a vandal. -- Apis 21:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The reason given is that it has been "distributed", if there are other reasons we would be speculating as to what they are. The point is, following the letters, Peiser uncovered some serious errors in Oreskes' work, he submitted them to Science, they considered them for publication and invited him to submit it in proper form, he did so, and by that time the information was widely distributed.  No real story here, in fact there's possibly no reason to even mention Science ... is there?  I think that it doesn't add balance to mention that he submitted it but that it was rejected (with no reason provided), or for a relatively generic reason, as is the current case.  Are there any objections to removing the entire line relating to Science?Grazen (talk) 22:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If nothing else, I would annotate the Science line to say exactly that, and not leave the reader with the misleading idea it was rejected on other grounds. FellGleaming (talk) 04:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I tried to make the change, had to clean up a little to make it fit in, also corrected the section about the national post, I'm not sure we should add a column about wikipedia as a source though, it sounds silly and un-encyclopedian to me? -- Apis ( talk ) 05:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I cleaned up your cleanup a bit. I don't see the relevance of Solomon's views to either a bio on Peiser or Peiser's views on Oreskes.  Peiser's own personal viewpoint is relevant, and that I left. FellGleaming (talk) 05:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Tanks for helping. Yes, that was part of my point, but I didn't want to remove too much and be accused of more vandalism. Although, I'm not sure a column is a proper source anyway, and it's not reliable, much of the facts in it are obviously wrong if one check wikipedias page history.
 * Also much of the new material you added in your 'clean up' is lacking references, which I think is needed for some of those claims. -- Apis ( talk ) 05:58, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, since what peiser is referring to according to solomon, is the naomi oreskes wikipedia article itself, I don't think any of that is relevant here at all. -- Apis ( talk ) 06:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It's only relevant if other editors continue attempting to miscontrue his position. In my opinion, both the Solomon and the Media Watch articles should be deleted as out of place in a bio. FellGleaming (talk) 15:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, part of the problem is that peisers critique isn't particularly notable compared to oreskes essay. And it would be nice to only make a shorter description of oreskes essay on her bio and not go into the details. Although many editors feel that would be the best thing to do, it's hard to reach a consensus about not mentioning peiser since that is perceived as censoring the opposition by many anonymous ip-editors and a few new ones. Anyway, so now we have peisers bio here which basically only consists of his criticism of oreskes essay. And to try and portray everything in a fair way is difficult. I don't really see a problem with the media watch email, since it explains clearly, in peisers own words, what he thinks about the consensus on global warming and what he feels is wrong with oreskes essay. (And that view is confirmed in other sources (although it may have been misrepresented when Solomon looked at the article)). Solomon mostly talk about what he perceives as problems with wikipedia, and not so much about peisers opinions. A columnist is a pretty bad source to begin with and the amount of facts he already have gotten wrong doesn't exactly strengthen his credibility as a reliable source any way. And Solomons article is actually not relevant to this article anyway, all he claims is that "The Wikipedia page [naoimi oreskes] had misunderstood or distorted his [peisers] comments". -- Apis ( talk ) 17:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

description of correction
I believe this text from the current article is misleading and/or factually in error:


 * Peiser noted that Oreskes' original characterization of her survey was incorrect: the articles were drawn from the ISI database using the search terms "global climate change", though she originally claimed to have used the term "climate change". She also did not clearly specify that she had limited her search to just "articles" (i.e., peer-reviewed publications) rather than "all document types" (which would include non-scientific, non-peer reviewed publications). Oreskes later indicated that this was correct.

My understanding of events is that Oreske's published the survey initially refering to 928 articles on "climate change". Peiser tried to reconstruct that article set and failed (because the search criteria was wrong). He subsequently discussed this online and with Oreskes. Then it was Oreskes, who identified the problems (e.g. "global climate change") and specified what the correct search criteria were. She also published an official correction in Nature. The text, as it currently stands, appears to suggest that Peiser figured out what the errors were on his own and that Oreskes only subsequently confirmed it. I believe that is mistaken. If I understand the events correctly then a more accurate description would be to note that Peiser discovered that the criteria were wrong, leading Oreskes to announce the corrections. However, no one would have had a way to truly identify which 928 articles she looked at without her assistance. Dragons flight (talk) 23:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmmmm ... an interesting point. I would not disagree with your clarification if you have some evidence to back it, it seems reasonable however. Grazen (talk) 23:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't have evidence at hand. This is my recollection of events from following it at the time it was occuring.  I'm hoping that others will read this and try to address it based on whatever records now exist.  Dragons flight (talk) 01:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Your recollection is correct, judging from Peiser's correspondence with  (and original draft to) Science, although it seems to have been David Appell who talked to Oreskes. The Errata was published 21 jan 2005 . --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, that is important to point out, I just moved some of that from the Oreskes page to this one since the specifics of the critique belongs here in my opinion. -- Apis ( talk ) 08:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, I have tried to reflect that in the article. This is the current version: . I've tried to be careful not to make any claim as to whether Peiser or Oreskes "was wrong" etc. -- Apis ( talk ) 14:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Repeatedly stating Peiser "claims" this, "admits" that, whereas using terms which implicitly agree in relation to Oreskes (she "showed", "demonstrated", etc...) doesn't correspond with your stated goals above. Also, you keep deleting the heart of Peiser's rebuttal statement (which is that a steady stream of new research papers rebuts Oreskes claim of consensus), while loading it up with "Coat Rack" language such as Peisers statement on AGW.  This isn't a global warming article; the issue here is Peiser's view on the state of consensus, or lack thereof in the scientific community, not the actual causes of warming.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by FellGleaming (talk • contribs) 05:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I added this:
 * In Peiser's own words, "hardly a week goes by without a new research paper that questions part of even some basics of climate change theory"
 * Originally added by Grazen, maybe it's fair to point that out as well? Although, as you say, this isn't a global warming article so the issue here is only how his critique affect Naomi Oreskes essay. Maybe we should remove this whole section since it's a bit silly on a BLP in my opinion, but it does seem to be Benny Peisers main claim to notability (for inclusion in wikipedia). Maybe this should be moved to some climate skeptics page instead?
 * As is clear from Peisers letter and other references is that he no more questions whether there is a majority consensus, only whether there is a unanimous consensus. And if you read oreskes essay, you see there is no mention of such a claim.
 * I say Oreskes 'showed' and Peiser 'claimed' in slightly different context (didn't write "admited" anywhere). Showed, because her work has been published and referred to so much and many have had the chance to criticize it, and yet it still seems to be valid, and many organisations of experts in the field appears to agree. And I say Peiser claimed, since his work has not had the chance to be reviewed to the same extent. (Not that there haven't been any review though: refused by science, criticized by several bloggers, and questioned by other sources etc).
 * Since as you say, this isn't an article about global warming, I think we could remove any discussion on his statements on AGW, and simply reduce this section to say that "Peiser was shown to be wrong" or "admitted to be wrong" or something like that, but then there where a lot of protests from you if I remember correctly.
 * And again, Peiser don't think there isn't a consensus, he just want to point out that there are skeptical scientists, although, "undoubtedly, sceptical scientists are a small minority". It's clear if you read the email. -- Apis ( talk ) 09:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, I think adding that is a mistake after reading FellGleamings comment: "This isn't a global warming article; the issue here is Peiser's view on the state of consensus, or lack thereof in the scientific community". The fact that there are research papers that questions part of climate change theory isn't relevant and doesn't contradict that there is consensus. -- Apis ( talk ) 10:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Link problems and subheading query
All the links to http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/ (and there are a lot of them in the article) seem to be dead. The pages don't seem to be on the Liverpool John Moores site anywhere; and if they are somewhere else on the internet, I can't find them. I put the staff page as one replacement link, but it seems to be an older version than the one from which the "Bibliography of published works" was copied. On that point, Peiser's staff profile (and the original one, too, as I remember) calls this list "recent publications". Shouldn't we too, rather than imply that that's all he's done? N p holmes (talk) 11:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Seems as if they are currently changing their website, and have gotten another site structure. Peiser's staff page is now http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/sportandexercisesciences/76407.htm. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:58, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry, I expressed myself badly. That one I could find; and I put it in place of the old one (except I missed that it recurred in footnote 3 - I'll do that now if you haven't done it already). But the page doesn't have links to the subpages where Peiser kept his papers and whatever.  So there are three other footnotes now pointing nowhere. N p holmes (talk) 14:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Specifically footnotes 6, 11 and 12 . N p holmes (talk) 14:09, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, since the site seems to have just changed. We have the option of waiting for it to get updated. I believe thats the wise choice. We could also see how much of it can be found via archive.org links, especially if it continues. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:03, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Blog mentioning him
Here's a blog that mentions him and this page directly. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/04/12/wikipedia-s-zealots-solomon.aspx - Pop6 (talk) 22:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Its an opinion piece, which can only be used to document the opinion of the author of the piece. I doubt the author's opinion has much weight in this context.  Brusegadi (talk) 23:02, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The Cabal rides again
--Slashme (talk) 09:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Murphy's blog complaining that The Cabal is maintaining a bad page.
 * This looks to me like Peiser actually admitting to being rather off the mark.


 * So it's ok that an article about someone who focuses on the effects of environmental change and catastrophic events and who has written extensively on neo-catastrophism only discusses one article he wrote, essentially saying, "yes he wrote it but he didn't really mean it." Opus 17 21:27, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

As for the discussion of whether Oreskes's essay is accurate, I have asked him for clarification on the referenced link. He wrote back saying that he was on his way off to go on holiday, and that he will get back to me when he returns.

I agree that the article is incomplete, and that the Oreskes controversy gets undue weight, especially seeing as his contributions have been mainly in other allied fields, but is there really evidence that there is administrator interference which is maintaining a bad article? --Slashme (talk) 10:56, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Corrections from Peiser
I received some corrections from Peiser (via email), which I have addressed in the article. --Slashme (talk) 05:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Spiked and Novo
I have never contributed to Spiked. I was invited - once - to take part in a debate sponsored by the Natural Environment Research Council and the Medical Research Council http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA90D.htm

Neither have I contributed (ever) to the German journal Novo. However, I am a regular commentator for the Toronto-based newspaper Financial Post (for more information, please see my website at http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/

Oreskes debate
One of the contentious issues, as far as I am concerned, is the fact that some my main criticisms have been ignored or deleted by Wikipedia authors: I maintain that the Oreskes study is basically flawed because the vast majority of the abstracts she analysed do not mention anthropogenic climate change at all. I have actually posted all the abstracts in question on my website for anyone to see that the overwhelming majority of papers do not deal with (man-made) global warming. http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Oreskes-abstracts.htm

To my knowledge, nobody to date has rejected or falsified this key objection to Orsekes' findings.

In addition, I also claimed that only 13 abstracts (i.e. less than 2%) explicitly endorse what Oreskes has called the 'consensus view.

Cleanup Sept 2009
I have been through the article and moved content around to make it read better. In particular I have re-organised the introduction to pull all the core information about his interests and history together in one place in three short paragraphs and have moved information about his research interests into a new section. I also created a climate change section since this seems to be key interest of his at present and moved the details about Oreskes paper into that section as a subsection. Within that Oreskes section I changed the link ' Global warming ' to ' climate change 'to avoid any confusion. PeterEastern (talk) 15:50, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

New link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/05/global-warming-thinktank-double-standards William M. Connolley (talk) 21:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

No longer at Liverpool John Moores Uni
I am the Tim Osborn who is from the Climatic Research Unit. Hence please bear in mind possible conflicts of interest that I may have with respect to this article (e.g. that Dr Peiser has previously criticised CRU). My edits here are about factual matters concerning Dr Peiser's affiliation and whether the links to external sources work or not. TimOsborn (talk) 23:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Earlier this year, in response to a question about his status with them, I received the following information from LJMU: "'I must inform you that Dr Peiser ceased to be a member of staff at LJMU during July 2010 and I can confirm that he does not have any visiting or honorary role within LJMU.'" I will edit the page later to reflect this change in his status. TimOsborn (talk) 10:54, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps because he is no longer at LJMU, none of the external links to URLs of Dr Peiser's LJMU webpages appear to be working. This article relies on quite a few of those.  I'm not sure what should be done in this case (I'm new to Wikipedia) -- they obviously worked at some point, so the information they support is not wrong just because the webpages may have gone.  Advice needed from more experienced editors: do we just leave the external links even though they are (currently) dead? TimOsborn (talk) 23:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

CCNet article now redirects here
The article title "Cambridge Conference Network" now redirects to this article, for reasons stated on the former article's Talk page. In short, that article duplicated information in this article. -- HLachman (talk) 04:46, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Global Warming Policy Foundation
I'm not comfortable editing, so I'm just going to make a suggestion. The language is: "Benny Peiser, social anthropologist at Liverpool's John Moores University, is director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, who was concerned about the hysterical nature of climate change rhetoric."

That statement claims that the rhetoric surrounding climate change is objectively "hysterical" (which is a misogynist word, by the way). Please either put the word "hysterical" in quotes or make it "who was concerned about what he claimed was the hysterical nature of climate change rhetoric."

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.113.39.184 (talk) 03:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I made the suggested edit as it matched the source better. However most of the GWPF section isn't needed here as it mostly doesn't refer to the subject of this page and ought to be at GWPF instead, to avoid duplication. Any supporting or contrary views? TimOsborn (talk) 21:38, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * TimOsborn's suggestion sounds reasonable to me. -- HLachman (talk) 11:27, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

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 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://www.friendsofscience.org/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070703081734/http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Scienceletter.htm to http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Scienceletter.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20091015043635/http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Oreskes-abstracts.htm to http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Oreskes-abstracts.htm

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PROFRINGE article
This article is pretty WP:PROFRINGE. It tells us which outsider positions this layman holds and mainstream scientists he disagrees with (or "criticizes"), but there are no refutations by mainstrream scientists as demanded by WP:FRINGE. I would condense the climate change section to "Peiser rejects the scientific consensus on climate change", for example. There is no need to list all the stupid things he said about it. I will notify WP:FTN. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:53, 13 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Coatrack doesn't really have anything to do with your removal . I cited WP:COATRACK for wiping out the GWPF because this is the page for Benny, not for Global Warming Policy Foundation. Your heart was in the right place with WP:UNDUE, but there were verifiable citations there that should probably be WP:PRESERVED. I will revert to get the citations and then cut down the claims. Sennalen (talk) 23:16, 2 August 2022 (UTC)


 * We have here some guy who talks ridiculous nonsense about a subject he has neither expertise for nor any understanding of, and Wikipedia just repeats what he says without putting it in context by comments from people who do? That's clearly WP:UNDUE. All the quotes should go. That's how we handle it in other articles about tinfoil-hatters. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:53, 3 August 2022 (UTC)


 * If the article about Mr Peiser quotes Mr Peiser, that is the right thing to do since his views are part of the article subject, and WP:RS/QUOTE requires that any quoting should be of the original i.e. Mr Peiser not any potentially biased interpreter. Suppressing his views while allowing critiques of them would not be in keeping with Wikipedia's no-censorship policy. And it is not a minority opinion that Mr Peiser has those views, so WP:FRINGE, which is not a policy anyway, is irrelevant. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:15, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * That is bullshit. Peiser is a climate change denier, climate change denial is fringe, and WP:FRINGE says The neutral point of view policy requires that all majority and significant-minority positions be included in an article. However, it also requires that they not be given undue weight. If we quote Peiser's ignorant opinions but no mainstream refutations of them, that means we do not include all majority and significant-minority positions.
 * WP:FRINGE also says, Claims derived from fringe theories should be carefully attributed to an appropriate source and located within a context. If we quote Peiser's ignorant opinions but no mainstream refutations of them, that means we do not locate them within a context.
 * WP:BLP says, Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints. Climate change deniers are a big group outside of science but a tiny one within the relevant groups, the climatologists. If we quote Peiser's ignorant opinions but no mainstream refutations of them, we give disproportionate space to them.
 * WP:NPOV says, While pseudoscience may in some cases be significant to an article, it should not obfuscate the description of the mainstream views of the scientific community. If we quote Peiser's ignorant opinions but no mainstream refutations of them, we obfuscate the description of the mainstream views of the scientific community. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:53, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

As usual, this whole section is trash. None of the sources in the section call him a climate change denier, there's a bunch of WP:OR going on. Peiser has denied the reality of anthropogenic climate change in a number of editorials and speaking engagements is an outright falsehood, as far as I can see. A quote from one of the sources of that statement is So, before discussing the policy implications of climate change, it seems important to understand where he stands on the scientific questions. “There is a consensus about the contribution of anthropogenic emissions to the warming of the climate over the last 150 years,” he says. “I’m not saying that everyone is agreed on that but the vast majority of climate scientists are.” Does he subscribe to the consensus view? “Well, I’m not a climatologist but my position is I agree that anthropogenic emissions have an effect on warming. I don’t know how to quantify that. So I don’t take a position on whether it is 60%, or is it 50%, or is it 40%? I’m agnostic on the question of whether warming is mainly driven by man.” There's plenty of sourcing, so instead of having a pile of quotes, lets find the best secondary sources we can, and summarize what they say. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:44, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, bullshit. In the source cited,, he says,
 * one of the environmental horror scenarios has alarmed the public as much as the alleged peril of human-caused global warming.
 * Yet, a sober and even-handed risk analysis of the most probable developments over the next one or two generations suggests that most societies will be able to adapt to moderate climate change. In short, there is absolutely no cause for alarm.
 * The inhabitants of Pacific islands which are sinking because of increasing sea levels will be happy to hear that: They can "adapt", that is, move somewhere else, so there is no problem. Biological diversity in the Great Barrier Reef getting destroyed? Not a problem, the life forms can "adapt". More wildfires? No problem, humanity can "adapt". More hurricanes? No problem, humanity can "adapt". Desertification? No problem, humanity can "adapt".
 * Peiser is clearly a denialist of type 4 and 6 in the list given in Climate change denial:
 * 4. Even if the warming cannot be explained by natural causes, the human impact is small, and the impact of continued greenhouse gas emissions will be minor. This ("the human impact is small") can be seen from the numbers he suggests: 60%, 50%, 40% - even the decreasing order is important. Instead of just saying he is not an expert, he could have looked up what the experts say. It's 100%. But the experts are "alarmists", so he prefers his own guesses.
 * 6. Whether or not the changes are going to be good for us, humans are very adept at adapting to changes; besides, it's too late to do anything about it, and/or a technological fix is bound to come along when we really need it.
 * The paragraph starting with In 2004, a paper was published can be summarized as "Peiser found small mistakes in papers written by experts, and one of his letters was not published." What is encyclopedic about that? Maybe we should also mention that he once picked up a chair that had toppled in his home? The only point of the paragraph is an attempt to demonstrate that he is smarter than Oreskes and smarter than Science, and that Science will not listen to him. The whole paragraph is irrelevant garbage. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:43, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I removed that whole paragraph, because it was trash. There look to be hundreds of sources dealing with this guy, so maybe you can find decent sources that actually say what you're arguing for. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:01, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * All I am am arguing for is that we NOT serve as his megaphone. That is, we should NOT write "Peiser said this, Peiser said that", where "this" and "that" are statements about climatology no climatologist except the ones working for free-market think tanks would agree to. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:21, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree, the best thing would be to find some high quality RS that describe him and his views and summarize them. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:35, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * There are three solutions under discussion:
 * A. Nothing except Peiser's rough position (support of two pseudosciences)
 * B. Quotes for Peiser containing bad arguments for his position.
 * C. Quotes for Peiser containing bad arguments for his position, with refutations from mainstream sources.
 * I said we cannot have B because of explicit statements in WP:FRINGE, WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. Essentially, I said everything is better than B.
 * You said you agree that C is the best solution. Of course I agree with that, but it is not what I said. Never mind, you deleted most of the primary uncommented-on crap. I will delete the rest now, since nobody found a reason to keep it that beats WP:FRINGE, WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:25, 5 August 2022 (UTC)