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What others say about Mayer

"I’d be the first to admit that no-one’s perfect. Well, one man is – the veteran climate campaigner Mayer Hillman." - Mark Lynas more... 

"One of the environmentalists I admire and fear most [is] a man called Mayer Hillman. I admire him because he says what he believes to be true and doesn’t care about the consequences. I fear him because his life is a mirror in which the rest of us see our hypocrisy." - George Monbiot more...

"He's a Jeremiah figure, lambasting those who will listen for their moral failure to adapt their lifestyle to reduce carbon emissions. For an audience no doubt contemplating their imminent summer holidays, his rage against the scandal of growing carbon emissions from cheap air flights, made for some awkward shifting in seats. He never flies. His message on transport is stark: travel less and best of all, don't travel at all." - Madelaine Bunting, The Guardian more... 

"With the passion of an evangelist and the intellect of a first rate academic...he argued his proposition that carbon rationing is the only realistic way for the world's population to limit damage from climate change." Jane Chisholm, Cambridge Cycling Campaign more...

"Being a town planner, social radical and iconoclast, Mayer Hillman has a way of getting to the heart of things. Twenty years ago, he pointed out that most journeys are made on foot - something transport planners had never considered. A decade ago, he turned our ideas about the freedom of the road on their heads by pointing out that our cars had driven our children off the streets of our cities. Now he wants to save the world."- Fred Pearce, New Scientist more...

"Here’s someone utterly at home with organised austerity. Wartime rationing, to him, is a heroic precedent, accepted by an embattled nation not as desirable, but as necessary, and above all as fair." - Roger East, Forum for the Future more...

Interviews and personal profiles

Environmentalist extraordinaire (Richard Selfridge), Newsletter of the Netherhall Neighbourhood Association, Summer 2008

The green room – Mayer Hillman: environmentalist The Guardian, 7 February 2008

A plan to save the planet – but is anyone willing to pay the price? (Andrew Forster) Local Transport Today, 6‑19 December, 2007
 
What single breakthrough would best advance the fight against climate change? The Guardian, 3 December 2007

Unsettling truths: rationing to save the planet (Tom Wall) Environmental Health News, 23 November 2007 

Interview in Times Educational Supplement 7 September 2007

Article in Times Educational Supplement, 22 August 2007

An inconvenient man (Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the RSA), Fabian Review, pp.6-10, Spring 2007

Interview with Peter Wiggins Unpublished, March 2007

The low carbon show: carbon rationing (Phil England), Climate Radio Resonance FM, 30 January 2007

An interview on carbon rationing (Matthew Taylor), BBC Politics Show, 23 November 2006

Proposal for carbon ration cards BBC Breakfast TV, 20 July 2006

Video interview with John Riley Chair of Scottish Action of Climate Change, 13 May 2006

Interview on the subject of carbon rationing for a DVD commissioned and produced by the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group in 2007

Plane speaking Ethical Living, Observer, 29 May 2005

Clarion call on climate change BBC1 Politics Show, 6 February 2005

Radio interview with Richard Scrase, (transcript) Green World, Summer 2004

An imaginative mission to minimise emissions (Anne Karpf) Weekly Review, Jewish Chronicle, 25 June 2004

Cyclist scientist who can save the world Camden New Journal May 13, 2004

A chain reaction (Anne Karpf), The Guardian, November 2002

Signposting the road to global ruin (Juliette Jowit) Financial Times, 19 July 1999 

The visionary (Laurence Watts) Cycling and Mountain Biking Today, August 1995           

An interview: road safety – a new philosophy Journal of the Institute of Road Safety Officers, Vol.16, No.2, October 1994

In 2001 the Policy Studies Institute presented Mayer Hillman with a festschrift – a new book Ahead of Time – on his 70th birthday. This contains a series of thought-provoking letters by 15 prominent UK thinkers, academics and innovators. They were written as “a celebration of Mayer's unique combination of qualities: great intellectual productivity and originality, tenacity in argument and in pursuing his chosen themes, and a willingness to speak truth to power". 

In 2006 The Guardian named Mayer Hillman as number 37 in the Environment Agency list of Earthshakers: the top green campaigners of all time.