Travis Cook is a man on a mission. Armed with just a sandwich board (‘There is no Climate Crisis’), an array of literature and formidable scientific knowledge, the 32-year-old former mechanical engineer is on a 1000-mile walk around the UK to talk to people and try to dispel the climate gloom that we are customarily bombarded with. His is a message of climate realism (what the BBC might call ‘climate denialism’) and of hope. Far from being the lost cause this might once have seemed, he believes his message is beginning to be accepted.
Fight the battles you can win
‘I love it,’ he tells me of his daily interactions (he was at Hayling Island in Hampshire when we spoke). ‘It’s a good news message, so it’s easy to deliver, and it brings me joy.’ And though he does face regular abuse, this doesn’t bother him, ‘as long as they don’t touch me, I don’t mind.’
His views are outlined in a series of punchy but robust articles on his website and two books. In essence, he takes his cue from world-renowned authorities like William Happer and Richard Lindzen. Yes, increased CO₂ in the atmosphere does raise global temperatures, but only to a limited degree and with much of the effect being beneficial (evidence suggests that the Earth has become 5 per cent greener since 2000). Renewables are pretty much a waste of time, and Net Zero is a dangerous, unattainable fantasy. The whole debate is skewed by bias and saturated with unreliable, or even manipulated, data.
Cook is a veteran campaigner. He was heavily involved in the anti-lockdown movement, the ‘Great Re-opening’, which he says ‘catapulted’ him to the forefront of activism. He started the Climate Con movement in 2022, first as an Instagram page, then a website, and now a walk. He claims 100,000 subscribers across various social media platforms. His supporters are assisting him on his walk, with offers of accommodation and support.
Cook is an optimist, a rational one, and describes the reception he has received as ‘mixed but leaning towards positive’. Women are worse than men, he says. So far, Essex has been the place most receptive to his message and Rye in Sussex has been the most aggressively hostile. He met people there who seemed to have a ‘demon within them’, he says, which recalls Jordan Peterson’s depiction of ultra-progressives as ‘ideologically possessed’.
What is the evidence that we sceptics are winning? Despite a fresh wave of climate doom in the wake of the hot summer and forest fires, there is reason to believe that the public’s sympathy for and interest in climate apocalypse messages is waning. YouGov has the environment as a key issue for just 20 per cent of voters, down from 34 per cent five years ago. It ranked 18th in priority ahead of the local elections in May. Andy Burnham seems tepid on the subject and Ed Miliband has been moved to a place of greater safety. The whole narrative appears to have stalled.
The Greens have largely moved on to trans issues, the ‘Nordic doom goblin’ (thank you Rod Liddle), Greta Thunberg has turned her attention to Gaza, and even the permanently keffiya-clad Dale Vince appears to be swithering. The wind seems to be going out of the sails, or blades, of climate catastrophism. Will the great unlocking be followed by the great unravelling?
‘It looks promising,’ says Cook. He believes that the volume of climate change research has peaked and is now on the decline. ‘We have reached and passed ‘peak climate’. The whole climate crisis narrative could be gone ‘within five years’.’ Cook has never voted but is cautiously impressed with Reform (‘They have kept their promises when they have attained power’) and Restore (though he doubts they can ever be big enough to make a difference). He hopes they can sort out their differences and work together. ‘I haven’t given up on politics. If we do, it could be civil war.’
But how does he feel about the ultra-zealots, the ones that spew bile at his good news message, or the Just Stop Oil activists? ‘I don’t hate them, even when they are vicious or hateful. I just think their energy is being channelled in the wrong direction.’
Are they reachable? I tell Cook about my academic colleague with whom I’d been on reasonably friendly terms, who, astounded to hear I was a sceptic, said she believed in the climate crisis because of the ‘thousands’ of scientists who endorsed it. I asked her to name one of these scientists. One. She couldn’t. And thus embarrassed (this took place in public), she never spoke to me again. I had made my point. But not a great outcome.
‘You were on the right track, probing to find the limits of their knowledge. But there is a small percentage that are hopeless, that you have to write off. But I’m not really targeting them. It’s the people in the middle, the not angry, not sad. For them, stay cool and be light-hearted.’
He then recalls a highlight of his tour, a spirited debate with three lads in Brighton during which he acquainted them with critical perspectives they had never encountered. ‘I met them later at the station,’ he says, ‘and they were completely changed. They had gone on a deep dive. I had had a profound effect on them.’ Fight the battles you can win. Shrug off the defeats, and rejoice at the victories. And enjoy the sunshine.
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