Dr. Benny Peiser

Benny J. Peiser, Ph.D. is a social anthropologist with particular research interest in human and cultural evolution. His research focuses on the effects of environmental change and catastrophic events on contemporary thought and societal evolution. In addition, he is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a member of Spaceguard UK. He has written extensively on neo-catastrophism and the potential risk posed by near-Earth objects. He is the editor of CCNet, an electronic science and science policy network with more than 3,000 subscribers from around the world. It is in this capacity that a 10km-wide asteroid, Minor Planet (7107) Peiser, was named in his honor by the International Astronomical Union. Wonderfully, in 2002, a second asteroid was named after Benny’s youngest daughter, Minor Planet (11956) Tamarakate.  Dr. Peiser is also the co-founder and Director of The Global Warming Policy Foundation.  He authored The Scientist as Rebel: An interview with Freeman Dyson, Climate Change and Civilization Collapse, From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui, The Dangers of Consensus Science, From local disaster to global cataclysm: The magnification of natural catastrophes in ancient thought and contemporary science, coauthored The Frequency and Predicted Consequences of Cosmic Impacts in the Last 65 Million Years, and coedited Natural Catastrophies During Bronze Age Civilizations: Archaeological, Geological, Astronomical and Cultural Perspectives.