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When people ask why more scientists don’t publicly question the so-called science behind anthropogenic climate change, they need only look at the case of Susan Crockford. Formerly an adjunct assistant professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Victoria in Canada (UVic), Crockford now finds herself without a teaching position. After 15 years on the job, the university rejected her renewal application, with no reason given.
As an adjunct professor, Crockford was not paid by the university. But her dismissal will deprive her of the ability to secure grant funding.
Crockford believes she was let go because of her high-profile work showing that, instead of being endangered by so-called climate-change, polar bears are in fact thriving despite the allegedly adverse climate conditions. Crockford publicly announced her firing last Wednesday on her Polar Bear Science blog.
Prior to just two years ago, UVic appeared very happy with Crockford’s work. The university routinely touted her research on both human and animal evolution, which included groundbreaking work on how thyroid hormones might provide a mechanism for evolution to work via natural selection. Her participation in a 2007 PBS documentary about dog evolution was highlighted by the university as well. Crockford also made regular appearances in schools and adult groups as a member of the university’s speakers bureau.
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But in the spring of 2017, something changed. “Until April of 2017 the university and Anthropology department proudly promoted my work, including my critical polar bear commentary, which suggests someone with influence (and perhaps political clout) intervened to silence my scientific criticism.”
In May of 2017, the speakers bureau removed Crockford from the list of university-approved speakers following a complaint about a “lack of balance” in her lectures. Crockford believes that one complaint “poisoned support I might have expected from colleagues in the department.”
As a zoologist, Crockford, who earned her Ph.D. in 2004, is not really a climate scientist. Nevertheless, her studies debunking the claims of climate hysterics that polar bears are endangered owing to shrinking Arctic Sea ice seem to have upset the wrong people.
It seems as if academic freedom itself is under attack owing to the climate-change agenda and the rise of “cancel culture” for scientists who stray from the politically correct and approved ideas of the academic establishment.
“When push came to shove, UVic threw me under the bus rather than stand up for my academic freedom,” Crockford said.
A headline in the National Post of Toronto implied that Crockford was let go for “telling schoolkids politically incorrect facts about polar bears.” Crockford suggested that she was a victim of “an academic hanging without a trial, behind closed doors.”
Associate vice president of the university Michele Parkin fired back at those assertions. “There is no evidence to suggest that Dr. Crockford’s adjunct appointment was not renewed for ‘telling school kids politically incorrect about polar bears,’” Parkin wrote in a letter. “The University of Victoria, in both word and deed, supports academic freedom and free debate on academic issues.”
“There is no evidence to suggest?” That’s not really a denial; it’s a dodge.
Crockford is the author of three scholarly books on polar bears. Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change; Polar Bear Facts and Myths: A Science Summary for All Ages; and, released in February of this year, The Polar Bear Catastrophe that Never Happened. She has also released a novel, Eaten, which is described as “a terrifying polar bear attack thriller.”
Crockford is largely responsible for destroying the climate hysteric narrative that polar bears are an example of a current victim of so-called climate change. Her work is a key to debunking the photos of those sad polar bears stranded on floes of ice that have convinced so many that climate change is a tragedy already wreaking havoc on the planet.
So, of course, she’s a prime candidate to be destroyed.
UVic Professor Cornelis van Kooten believes that the attempt to silence Crockford with the loss of her job is symptomatic of not only the climate-change movement, but broader academic freedom of speech as well.
“Put it this way: religion, race, evolution, gender, indigenous peoples, nuclear power, polar bears, deforestation…. Any views on these topics that don’t fall in line with the ‘consensus’ are taboo,” van Kooten said. “Think the extent to which free speech has been banned from campuses across much of the West in the name of political correctness.”
This is precisely why more scientists and academics don’t publicly come out against the fallacy that is man-made climate change. They understand the stakes and know that their livelihoods are on the line if their opinions stray too far from the orthodoxy of the powers that be.
Image: vladsilver via iStock / Getty Images Plus
