It started as a small petition against Oxford Brookes University offering the BBC's Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson an honorary degree in recognition of his support of British technology and his contribution to learning and society.

But it has turned into a mass outpouring of objection to the man who ridicules cyclists, loathes health and safety experts, despises environmentalists, annoys mountaineers, rages at Guardian readers and questions climate scientists.

According to the student organisers of a protest against the university plan, 1,400 people have objected online to "motormouth Clarkson" - many in the kind of language that he would recognise.

"He is a moron who spouts ignorant and antisocial rubbish;" "he is a dangerous philistine who displays an alarming lack of intelligence; "his public persona promotes wilful ignorance," said some of the politer contributors yesterday.

In the past year the intemperate Clarkson, who also has columns in the Sun and Sunday Times, has described ramblers as "urban communists", cyclists as "Lycra Nazis", and people working for transport pressure group Transport 2000 as "ugly". Women, ethnic minorities and others have all taken offence. Recently car workers blamed him in part for the collapse of MG Rover.

His attitude to nature is also eccentric. He has questioned why Britain has so many hills, proposed that great white sharks should be eaten to extinction, been excited at the thought of Birmingham being covered by a glacier, rammed a car into a tree and driven up Ben Tongue, a Scottish mountain, in a 4x4.

Much of this is seen as good entertainment but his seemingly jocular views on global warming are ignorant and dangerous, say his critics.

"What's wrong with global warming? We might lose Holland but there are other places to go on holiday," he wrote recently in the Sun. On Top Gear, he has lauded naturalist David Bellamy, who has disputed that man-made warming exists.

"Clarkson is dangerous. His views are disastrous. The message he sends across is that it's OK to have a couldn't care less attitude to the environment," said Steve Hounsham of Transport 2000. But the university was yesterday backing its man. In a statement it said: "We are giving Jeremy Clarkson an honorary degree in recognition of his enthusiasm and contribution to engineering and motor sports." The original citation talked of Clarkson's "contribution to learning and society and as an exemplary role model for students".

Clarkson was unavailable for comment yesterday, but a BBC spokesman said: "He has something to say about almost everything. Humour and lively debate are the hallmarks of Top Gear."