And here is the AP's obituary for Stephen Schneider, although the picture they used is of a Kansas doctor of the same name. Stephen was definitely an "in-your-face" kind of guy and whether you liked him or his ideas or not, he will definitely be missed. His views on geoengineering swung widely, first against, then perhaps in favor and finally supporting an effort as yet unfulfilled to stop sea ice melting in the Arctic by use of some kind of plastic or nylon mesh. He was a member of both the climate intervention and geoengineering groups, although he didn't post any messages and his journal, Climatic Change served as the launching point for the current round of geo activities with the publication of Paul Crutzen's 2006 paper.
For those looking for a more general tribute, I would recommend renting or buying the DVD, video or oil painting (it was from 1993) of the movie "The Fire Next Time," a gloomy prediction (not projection) of unchecked climate change in the year 2017 based in part on the early IPCC work and for which Schneider served as a technical advisor and who appears briefly in the film as himself. It features all the usual suspects: hurricanes destroying New Orleans, drought-borne out-of-control fires in the western U.S., territorial boundary conflicts over water and the plight of climate refugees, in this case, Americans trying to sneak into a future Canada, which in the film, unlike the present day U.S., seems to have its border under control. Adaptation is portrayed by Amish farmers living off the grid, wealthy survivors living it up in a select community in upstate NY and enviro cultists who worship the sun and pledge rather forcefully not to reproduce by having themselves castrated. Talk about reducing one's carbon footprint. Ouch! Spoiler alert: the family in the film is ultimately reunited in Canada with relatives, but climate change follows them. The takeaway: there is no escape. A message Stephen Schneider would perhaps leave us with if he didn't already do so. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105998/ http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Time-Craig-Nelson/dp/B0007GP7LE/ref=sr_1_4/186-9194502-2455602?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1279579003&sr=8-4 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obit_schneider;_ylt=ArzjBIBcPpCMsw9yV529j8ms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNsa2pwYjJsBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNzE5L3VzX29iaXRfc2NobmVpZGVyBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDNwRwb3MDNARwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX2hlYWRsaW5lX2xpc3QEc2xrA2NsaW1hdGVzY2llbg- By JASON DEAREN, Associated Press Writer Jason Dearen, Associated Press Writer - 9 mins ago SAN FRANCISCO - Stephen Schneider, a Stanford University scientist who served on the international research panel on global warming that shared the 2007 Nobel Prize with former Vice President Al Gore, has died. He was 65. Schneider died of an apparent heart attack Monday while on a flight from Stockholm to London, Stanford officials said. Schneider studied climate change for decades and wrote a number of books charting its effects on wildlife and ecosystems in the United States, and later chronicled its effect on the nation's politics and policy. He advised every presidential administration from Nixon to Obama. "A prolific researcher and author, co-founder of the journal Climatic Change, and a wonderful communicator, his contributions to the advancement of climate science will be sorely missed," Gore said in a statement. Schneider was an influential, and at times combative, public voice in arguing the manmade causes of climate change, and appeared on news and science television programs, wrote articles and blogged. "Through his books, his extensive public speaking, and his many interactions with the media, Steve did for climate science what Carl Sagan did for astronomy," said Ben Santer, a climate researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. As a co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that earned a share of the Nobel, Schneider defended the panel's work when it came under attack from critics after some unsettling errors were discovered, including how fast Himalayan glaciers are expected to melt. The errors were made in a subsection of the world's most authoritative report on global warming, and were found to be insignificant to its overall findings that glaciers are melting faster than ever. In 1992, he received a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation for his research. "Steve, more than anything, whether you agreed with him or not, forced us to confront this real possibility of climate change," Jeff Koseff, Schneider's colleague at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment, said in a statement. Schneider also was a leader in research seeking to quantify future effects of climate change on various areas - from the insurance industry to farming - to help guide policy decisions, said Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences. "In recent years he was most interested in communicating with the general public, and the substance of his work was trying to quantify the odds and the probability of the outcomes of climate change," Cicerone said. Schneider had also fought a rare form of leukemia, a battle he chronicled in a 2005 book, "The Patient from Hell." That fight helped put into context his work on climate change, helping him to see hope in often gloomy work. He is survived by his wife, Stanford University biologist Terry Root, with whom he jointly won the 2003 National Conservation Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation. Arrangements for a memorial service are pending. - ----- Original Message ----- From: Andrew Revkin To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] ; Climate Intervention ; John Davies ; Albert Kallio Sent: Monday, July 19, 2010 1:42 Subject: Re: [clim] Record temperature despite recent solar minimum please post this to the group. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/the-passing-of-a-climate-warrior/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Climate Intervention" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/climateintervention?hl=en. -- ANDREW C. REVKIN Dot Earth blogger, The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/dotearth Senior Fellow, Pace Acad. for Applied Env. Studies Cell: 914-441-5556 Fax/voicemail: 509-357-0965 Twitter: @revkin Skype: Andrew.Revkin -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Climate Intervention" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/climateintervention?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
