Peter Weingart

Weingart also took the climate change debate as an example where the public announcement of findings may backfire. The public debate about climate change in Germany was at its height around 1986, when the energy committee of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (AKE) predicted a climate catastrophe rendering earth a dead planet within 50 years. The scientists asked in parallel to increase nuclear power stations to reduce CO2 emissions. When meteorologists started to criticize the alarmist tone, the AKE toned down its conclusions to climate change instead of climate disaster. However the public scene kept using the alarmist conclusions first and later on doubted scientists overall credibility on the topic.

Weingart had various assignments with the Berlin University and was science expert for the German unions economic institute in Düsseldorf and directed the center of Science research at Bielefeld University. 1973 he received a tenure in Bielefeld. In the mid-1980s, he received various fellowships at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and Harvard University. From 1989 until 2009 he was again in Bielefeld. Since 2015 Weingart has held the South African Research Chair in Science communication at Stellenbosch University.

Peter Weingart studied sociology and economics from 1961 until 1967 at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and Freie Universität Berlin. Till 1968, he was University Fellow at Princeton University in New Jersey and received a doctorate 1969 at the Freie Universität Berlin. The thesis was about the American scientific lobby in the process of research planning.

Peter Weingart (born 5 June 1941 in Marburg) is a German professor emeritus in sociology and former director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld.