Glastonbury farmer Paul Chant lives off-grid, protests against pollution, and builds sustainably powered farm equipment. By all appearances, he is a committed climate change activist – except for one thing: he thinks it’s all a big hoax.
Chant embodies something strange happening in Glastonbury. The small town in the south west of England has long been fertile ground for radical environmentalism, where barefoot hippies sit cross-legged in the square among hand-carved incense burners, singing protest songs for Mother Earth. But the town’s green counterculturalists are now turning into outright climate deniers due, in part, to an independent newspaper promising the “uncensored truth”.
I arrive in Glastonbury in mid May to interview Melissa Taylor, the council’s independent climate emergency and resilience officer. Among patchouli-scented shops peddling necromancy and shampoo bars, there are two volunteers handing out copies of self-described “truthpaper”, The Light.
“It’s a good read, isn’t it?” says a passerby as I open the centrefold, which claims organisations like the EU are hiding Satanic pentagrams in their logo. “Time to wake up,” she adds.
“It happened during Covid, there was this split very visibly,” says Taylor, referencing a turn toward climate denial among certain residents. “It appeals to people who think they’re special and know more – ‘ordinary people don’t understand this, so I’m above’.”
The Light was first distributed in September 2020, printing unsubstantiated claims that there was “no evidence” of the pandemic that killed nearly 74,000 in England and Wales that year alone. The June 2023 issue featured the cover headline “No climate crisis”, publishing disproven reports that carbon dioxide has “zero effect on temperatures”.
The UK-based newspaper has nearly 18,000 subscribers on the messaging app Telegram. According to the BBC, it prints more than 100,000 copies monthly for distribution by local conspiracy groups in at least 30 towns across the UK. The Light did not respond to requests for comment on this article.
I meet Chant on his farm four miles east of Glastonbury. He shows me his cider brewing setup and hydrogen powered tractors, then quickly moves into tinfoil hat territory. He informs me that everything from climate change and Covid to the nearby Glastonbury festival are schemes concocted by elites to harm and control the public.
“I deny what they’re telling us and how they’re going about it,” Chant says when asked about rising temperatures. “I deny that there is a crisis, that it’s changed dramatically like that – it hasn’t.”
Despite his views, Chant still invests in clean energy. He just reduces his emissions to avoid “intoxicating” pollutants, rather than negate the effects of climate change. He supports The Light – “there’s a lot of good in there” – but claims it doesn’t go far enough.
The next thing they will move onto is climate change denial
Vicki Steward, Glastonbury resident
In 2019, the UK became the first major economy to pass laws committing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to “net zero” by 2050. This year, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called the target “impossible” while the deputy leader of Reform UK Richard Tice said they would scrap “net stupid zero” policies if elected. Data published in March by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero shows that a steadily increasing percentage of Brits are “not very” or “not at all concerned” about climate change.
Glastonbury Town Council is one of the few in the UK with a Green Party majority. All councillors are due for re-election next May. If voting had occurred this year, Taylor thinks anti-climate change sentiment and the rise of Reform would have drastically changed the council’s makeup. “They think Reform is anti-establishment,” Taylor says.
Vicki Steward has lived in Glastonbury for over 30 years. Since the pandemic, she has observed a rise in anti-green thinking among traditionally leftist residents, which she believes is largely fuelled by The Light.
“I predicted when I started seeing The Light, when the lockdowns ended, I thought ‘right, the next thing they will move onto is climate change denial’,” Steward says. “I was spot on. It’s grooming, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, people have been groomed.”
She says Glastonbury residents have long identified with being in the minority, kicking against authority at the forefront of radical environmentalism. When ideas like net zero were adopted as national policy, it affected their sense of identity. “That’s my only real explanation for what is happening,” she sighs.
“For years, I’ve been so proud of our town and the ethos and community mindedness of it, and our concern for the environment,” Steward says. “I find it really upsetting … when I see people moving further and further into that space.”
The town’s zero-waste, sustainable supermarket Earthfare stays away from the climate change debate, but has found that residents holding a range of anti-green beliefs will nevertheless still shop there. “Enjoy Glastonbury,” a worker tells me, “the town of many contradictions.”
Susannah Clemence was voted Glastonbury’s “Citizen of the Year 2025” for her community-mindedness and concern for the environment. She runs an “eco-info” stall on Tuesdays during market day, the same day The Light distributors operate.
Residents approach her to share ideas, look at a local bus timetable or argue with her about the reality of the climate crisis. Although she has noticed an increased anti-green sentiment, she says deniers often still support ecological initiatives.
“There’s a lot of people around here really into growing stuff and they might actually be total climate deniers,” she says, stressing the importance of personal engagement over political discourse. Clemence believes the free-thinking tradition of Glastonbury should be upheld, and that radical views are best addressed through community and conversation.
Before I leave, I strike up a conversation with a man named Pock sitting barefoot on the pavement, strumming a ukulele. He tells me not to believe what anyone says about anything, including The Light distributors. “Think for yourself,” he says, then returns to fiddling with his strings.
