Bob Ward

PR man for a sustainable economy

Ward is currently policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the LSE. As one of our judges put it, “Bob’s the Alastair Campbell of climate change”and, reflecting Campbell’s line that the PR man should never be the story, we contemplated including Ward’s boss, Nick Stern, or the funder Jeremy Grantham instead But Ward is more than someone else’s PR man.

Ward’s is another voice in climate that is active on Twitter – @ret_ward – known for forthright argumentative style. It is perhaps appropriate that Ward follows Tol in our alphabetical list, because the two have been having a particularly public fight in recent months (see Ward’s extensive blogposts on the topicand Tol’s responses). Ward also regularly writes for the Guardian and others disputing various claims of climate sceptics.

Before moving to the LSE, Ward started a PhD and worked as a journalist and headed the media team at the Royal Society for several years. He is also credited by many in having playing a key role in crisis management following Climategate. If the public still have trust in climate science (and in the UK in particular, they do) it’s at least partly due to Mr Ward.