Stanford Protects Stephen Schneider from Public Embarrassment

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Stanford recently moved to protect one of its own from embarrassment.  The University prohibited filmmakers of the upcoming documentary “Not Evil Just Wrong” from using the audio and video from an interview they conducted with Stanford Professor Stephen Schneider.

Climatedepot.com reported today that it has obtained the letter sent by the University to the film’s director Phelim McAleer.  Skeptical of global warming crusaders’ tactics and their impact on humans, McAleer’s documentary was to feature the interview with Schneider.

Currently, Schneider very publicly champions the fight against potential “climate change that’s catastrophic in the next century.” But Stanford’s actions against the filmmakers on Schneider’s behalf also stem from the filmmakers’ questioning of Schneider regarding his publicly-stated assertions during the 70s that man was contributing to global cooling.  During the interview, Schneider responds with

I was initially in 1970 and ’71 more worried about cooling.

In the film, this quote about his previous views on global cooling is particularly embarrassing because it is book-ended by his current, strong assertions that global warming will be devastating. First, he warns,

Don’t be poor in a hot country, don’t live in a hurricane alley, watch out about being on a cost or in the arctic, it’s bad idea to be up in high mountains with your glaciers melting and losing your water supply and if you are in Mediterranean climate you’re gonna have a fire season in the summer and it’s really gonna be a problem.

Later, he states confidently,

The scientific community is very, very confident that it is warming.

In the eyes of the media, Schneider is a climate change rock star frequently sought out for comment by the New York Times, PBS, and the like. And we all know that when a Stanford professor is a media rock star, Stanford is a media rock star. However, we see now that when a Stanford professor is embarrassed in the media, Stanford is embarrassed in the media, and that just can’t happen. Stanford will strong-arm and intimidate and ultimately silence those who seek to embarrass the University.

Then again, maybe that’s only true if you’re a *liberal *professor.