Philip Stott
Encyclopedia
Philip Stott is a professor emeritus of biogeography
at the School of Oriental and African Studies
, University of London
, and a former editor (1987–2004) of the Journal of Biogeography
.
and he was carrying out field research at Kalasin
. He has two daughters.
He has written academic papers and books on chalk grassland, on the vegetation
and archaeology
of Thailand (and on the rest of southeast Asia
), on ecology
and biogeography
(eg. his textbook 'Historical Plant Geography'), on fire ecology
eg. on lichens and mosses, on tropical rain forest eg. and and on the construction of environmental knowledge.
He is currently Chair of The Anglo-Thai Society , UK. He is no longer a member of the Scientific Alliance
because he deems it important to be academically independent of all organisations, industry, and green groups.
In the UK, he is a life-long Labour
supporter and he is mildly left wing politically. He is fiercely anti-tobacco.
, and broadcasts regularly on BBC radio and television on subjects including biogeography
, extinction
, climatology
, and ecology
.
He hosts a new web site (April 2005 onwards), based on Bruno Latour
's 'A Parliament of Things' .
Stott is often on Talksport with James Whale talking about Global Warming in his regular evening show.
He appeared on "The Great Global Warming Swindle
" on Channel 4.
In June 2008 he was a guest on Private Passions
, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3
.
He has also published four books of recorder music for children and recorder consorts eg. http://www.musicweb-international.com/garlands/210.htm, and he used to conduct an Early Music Consort called 'Pifaresca'. His Sinfonia Concertante for Clarinet in B flat is available for downloading from Philip Stott's Music Box http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1, along with other compositions, and the full orchestral score from Finale Showcase .
'mitigated sceptic' on the subject of global warming.
He has not published scholarly articles in the field of climate change
, although he has published books on the subject. Also, he has researched on the construction of environmental knowledge, including global warming as a Barthesian myth, for over thirty years.
Stott has been critical of terms like 'climate sceptic' and 'climate-change denier'; he believes in a distinction between the science of climate change and what he asserts is the Barthesian myth of global warming
, saying,
Stott is also critical of organizations like the IPCC
.
His attitude to climate change is best summed up in a central passage from a letter published in The Daily Telegraph
(June 10, 2005) :
be dropped because of "[I]ts ‘command-and-control’ economics which have no chance of working in the face of world economic growth, especially in the developing world." . He believes that the Kyoto Protocol is moribund politically http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3284-1344999,00.html. Stott is concerned that the UK is failing to address its core energy needs, which must involve a mix of clean coal
, gas
, and probably nuclear power
. Stott also encourages development of energy infrastructure in the developing world. He sees the alleviation of energy poverty, along with the need for clean water, as two of the most urgent world issues He
regards most renewables as helpful (although he is critical of wind power
), but only marginal to the core requirements of an advanced society. .
Stott teamed up with Patrick Moore
in 2000 and made several appearances deposing deforestation research.
This is in opposition to the accepted view that e.g. the Amazon rain forest has been in existence for at least 55 million years.
Biogeography
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species , organisms, and ecosystems in space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities vary in a highly regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area...
at the School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...
, University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
, and a former editor (1987–2004) of the Journal of Biogeography
Journal of Biogeography
The Journal of Biogeography is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in biogeography that was established in 1974. It covers aspects of spatial, ecological, and historical biogeography. The founding editor-in-chief was David Watts, followed by John Flenley and Philip Stott . The current editor is...
.
Background
In the early 1970s, Stott and his wife, a historian and biographer, lived in ThailandThailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
and he was carrying out field research at Kalasin
Kalasin Province
Kalasin is one of the provinces of Thailand, located in the North-East of Thailand. Neighboring provinces are Sakon Nakhon, Mukdahan, Roi Et, Maha Sarakham, Khon Kaen and Udon Thani.-Geography:...
. He has two daughters.
He has written academic papers and books on chalk grassland, on the vegetation
Vegetation
Vegetation is a general term for the plant life of a region; it refers to the ground cover provided by plants. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characteristics. It is broader...
and archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
of Thailand (and on the rest of southeast Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
), on ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
and biogeography
Biogeography
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species , organisms, and ecosystems in space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities vary in a highly regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area...
(eg. his textbook 'Historical Plant Geography'), on fire ecology
Fire ecology
Fire ecology is concerned with the processes linking the natural incidence of fire in an ecosystem and the ecological effects of this fire. Many ecosystems, such as the North American prairie and chaparral ecosystems, and the South African savanna, have evolved with fire as a natural and necessary...
eg. on lichens and mosses, on tropical rain forest eg. and and on the construction of environmental knowledge.
He is currently Chair of The Anglo-Thai Society , UK. He is no longer a member of the Scientific Alliance
Scientific Alliance
The Scientific Alliance is a British industry-friendly organization that promotes biotechnology, genetically modified food, and climate change skepticism...
because he deems it important to be academically independent of all organisations, industry, and green groups.
In the UK, he is a life-long Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
supporter and he is mildly left wing politically. He is fiercely anti-tobacco.
Media
He writes for the press, especially for The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, and broadcasts regularly on BBC radio and television on subjects including biogeography
Biogeography
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species , organisms, and ecosystems in space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities vary in a highly regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area...
, extinction
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
, climatology
Climatology
Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...
, and ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
.
He hosts a new web site (April 2005 onwards), based on Bruno Latour
Bruno Latour
Bruno Latour is a French sociologist of science and anthropologist and an influential theorist in the field of Science and Technology Studies...
's 'A Parliament of Things' .
Stott is often on Talksport with James Whale talking about Global Warming in his regular evening show.
He appeared on "The Great Global Warming Swindle
The Great Global Warming Swindle
The Great Global Warming Swindle is a polemical documentary film that suggests that the scientific opinion on climate change is influenced by funding and political factors, and questions whether scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming exists....
" on Channel 4.
In June 2008 he was a guest on Private Passions
Private Passions
Private Passions is a weekly music discussion programme which has been running for over 10 years on BBC Radio 3, presented by the composer Michael Berkeley...
, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
.
Published works
- Royal Siamese Maps: War and Trade in Nineteenth Century Thailand (River Books and Thames & Hudson: 2005), for H.R.H. Princess Sirindhorn http://www.riverbooksbk.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=31&products_id=103 (with Santanee Phasuk)
- Global environmental change (Blackwell Science: largely on climate change) (with Dr. Peter Moore and Professor Bill Chaloner)
- Political ecology: science, myth and power (Edward Arnold; Oxford USA) (edited with Dr. Sian Sullivan) .
He has also published four books of recorder music for children and recorder consorts eg. http://www.musicweb-international.com/garlands/210.htm, and he used to conduct an Early Music Consort called 'Pifaresca'. His Sinfonia Concertante for Clarinet in B flat is available for downloading from Philip Stott's Music Box http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1, along with other compositions, and the full orchestral score from Finale Showcase .
Global warming
Stott regards himself as a HumeianDavid Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
'mitigated sceptic' on the subject of global warming.
He has not published scholarly articles in the field of climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, although he has published books on the subject. Also, he has researched on the construction of environmental knowledge, including global warming as a Barthesian myth, for over thirty years.
Stott has been critical of terms like 'climate sceptic' and 'climate-change denier'; he believes in a distinction between the science of climate change and what he asserts is the Barthesian myth of global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, saying,
- "... the global warming myth harks back to a lost Golden Age of climate stability, or, to employ a more modern term, climate 'sustainability'. Sadly, the idea of a sustainable climate is an oxymoron. The fact that we have rediscovered climate change at the turn of the Millennium tells us more about ourselves, and about our devices and desires, than about climate. Opponents of global warming are often snidely referred to as 'climate change deniers'; precisely the opposite is true. Those who question the myth of global warming are passionate believers in climate change - it is the global warmers who deny that climate change is the norm." (see also his essay on environmental change and La Brea .)
Stott is also critical of organizations like the IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
.
His attitude to climate change is best summed up in a central passage from a letter published in The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
(June 10, 2005) :
- "Climate change has to be broken down into three questions: 'Is climate changing and in what direction?' 'Are humans influencing climate change, and to what degree?' And: 'Are humans able to manage climate change predictably by adjusting one or two factors out of the thousands involved?' The most fundamental question is: 'Can humans manipulate climate predictably?' Or, more scientifically: 'Will cutting carbon dioxide emissions at the margin produce a linear, predictable change in climate?' The answer is 'No'. In so complex a coupled, non-linear, chaotic system as climate, not doing something at the margins is as unpredictable as doing something. This is the cautious science; the rest is dogma." For his views more generally on climate change, see .
Energy policy
Stott's "alternative Charter for a sound energy policy" begins with (what) we need are strong economies that can adapt to climate change and he proposes that the Kyoto ProtocolKyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , aimed at fighting global warming...
be dropped because of "[I]ts ‘command-and-control’ economics which have no chance of working in the face of world economic growth, especially in the developing world." . He believes that the Kyoto Protocol is moribund politically http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3284-1344999,00.html. Stott is concerned that the UK is failing to address its core energy needs, which must involve a mix of clean coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
, gas
Gas
Gas is one of the three classical states of matter . Near absolute zero, a substance exists as a solid. As heat is added to this substance it melts into a liquid at its melting point , boils into a gas at its boiling point, and if heated high enough would enter a plasma state in which the electrons...
, and probably nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
. Stott also encourages development of energy infrastructure in the developing world. He sees the alleviation of energy poverty, along with the need for clean water, as two of the most urgent world issues He
regards most renewables as helpful (although he is critical of wind power
Wind power
Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form of energy, such as using wind turbines to make electricity, windmills for mechanical power, windpumps for water pumping or drainage, or sails to propel ships....
), but only marginal to the core requirements of an advanced society. .
Deforestation in the Amazon
Stott contested the research of a report in 2001 that predicted that by 2020 the forest would be 42% deforested.- "New research in Brazil suggests that around 87.5% of the previously mapped area of the Amazon remains largely intact and, of the 12.5% that has been deforested, one-third to one-half is fallow or in the process of regeneration," he said .
- "This lungs of the earth business is nonsense; the daftest of all theories"
Stott teamed up with Patrick Moore
Patrick Moore (environmentalist)
Patrick Moore is a former environmental activist, known as one of the early members of Greenpeace, in which he was an activist from 1971 to 1986...
in 2000 and made several appearances deposing deforestation research.
- "One of the simple, but very important, facts is that the rainforests have only been around for between 12,000 and 16,000 years. That sounds like a very long time but, in terms of the history of the earth, it's hardly a pinprick. Before then, there were hardly any rainforests. They are very young. It is just a big mistake that people are making."
This is in opposition to the accepted view that e.g. the Amazon rain forest has been in existence for at least 55 million years.
External links
- Global Warming Politics Philip Stott's weblog covering global warming issues.
- EnviroSpin Watch Philip Stott's discontinued weblog monitoring coverage of environmental issues and science in the UK media.
- A Parliament of Things His main Web Site.
- Philip Stott's Music Box His music site, from where you can download some of his compositions.
- Journal of BiogeographyJournal of BiogeographyThe Journal of Biogeography is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in biogeography that was established in 1974. It covers aspects of spatial, ecological, and historical biogeography. The founding editor-in-chief was David Watts, followed by John Flenley and Philip Stott . The current editor is...
final editorial. (this site requires cookies) - SourceWatch article on Stott Article on SourceWatch in WikipediaSourceWatchSourceWatch is an internet wiki site that is a collaborative project of the liberal Center for Media and Democracy...
- Comment to Probiotech website, 2002
- http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2938762&page=1 Global Warming Is Not a Crisis - Opinion article on ABC News