Juno News - 3 environmental dissenters who have been de-platformed

There are a handful of examples in the recent past where environmental writers and researchers who don't parrot the usual climate change talking points have been cancelled in various ways by environmental activists and academics. In this episode, we will review three of those cases: Dr. Patrick Moore, Dr. Vivian Krauss and Dr. Sanyan Crockford.

00:00:00.000 the city of regina is hosting a major sustainability conference in may of this year and one of their

00:00:10.600 keynote speakers was supposed to be dr patrick moore who happens to be a climate skeptic but

00:00:16.920 once climate activists found out that he was set to be on the schedule they immediately tried to

00:00:23.420 de-platform him and in this case they were successful so the city of regina caved to

00:00:28.800 pressure and said they would no longer offer more a platform at their conference as it happens the

00:00:34.900 deplatforming of more it's not a total outlier of a situation there are actually a handful of examples

00:00:41.080 in the recent past where environmental writers and researchers who don't parrot the usual climate

00:00:46.740 change talking points have been cancelled in various ways so in this video i am going to review three of

00:00:53.840 those cases first let's go over the details of the patrick moore case patrick moore is a founding

00:00:59.960 member of greenpeace he has a phd in ecology and brands himself a sensible environmentalist he denies

00:01:07.340 that climate change is primarily caused by human activity and he thinks that carbon dioxide is not

00:01:12.760 a toxic pollutant but a life-giving substance that should be celebrated moore was invited by the city

00:01:19.620 regina to deliver a keynote presentation in may at the reimagine conference that was focused on

00:01:26.300 renewable energy and his scheduled talk was titled fake invisible catastrophes and threats of doom but

00:01:33.940 an online petition calling for his disinvitation collected over 2250 signatures and the mayor of regina

00:01:42.680 claimed that moore's views were problematic and so it was announced last week that he was uninvited

00:01:49.920 from the conference would not be presenting there in response to this cancellation moore took to social

00:01:55.160 media to say i have been deplatformed cancelled and round filed by the great city of regina for daring

00:02:01.840 to question the god-given wisdom of the catastrophists actually i don't want to be part of such a stupid

00:02:07.320 exercise it's impossible to make a city 100 renewable let's go over our second case here this

00:02:13.600 happened in october 2019 independent researcher and writer vivian krauss was set to be a keynote speaker

00:02:20.500 at a conference in banff and this conference was hosted by the international association of business

00:02:26.720 communicators the iabc vivian krauss researches the foreign funding behind anti-pipeline activism in

00:02:34.560 canada and her presentation was to be about how to communicate effectively in high stakes emotionally

00:02:41.300 charged situations but krauss never got to give that presentation she was cancelled the iabc organizers

00:02:47.940 told the star edmonton that they were having trouble connecting with krauss despite repeated efforts so

00:02:53.580 you know making it sound like she wasn't responding to emails about the conference or something like that

00:02:58.800 but krauss wrote her own blog post about this situation kind of outlining the communications

00:03:04.280 between her and the iabc and proved that false and it turns out what was most likely the reason

00:03:11.600 behind this cancellation was an iabc member named jody mcpherson who was publicly advocating on social

00:03:18.160 media for krauss to be deplatformed from the conference so jody mcpherson was writing on twitter

00:03:23.800 that vivian krauss is a conspiracy theorist a climate change denier she requested that the iabc do an ethics 0.90

00:03:31.580 review of krauss's work before she'd be allowed to present and she wrote when we give a platform to

00:03:38.000 conspiracy theorists and those who discredit respected charitable organizations for political gain

00:03:43.860 when we allow climate change deniers to be held up unchallenged as examples of our profession

00:03:49.600 we do the communications profession a grave disservice but despite the cancellation krauss was very graceful

00:03:56.860 she posted on social media that she wishes the iabc the best and hopes that they learn from this situation

00:04:02.940 and that it doesn't happen to anybody else and let's review our third and final case for this video today

00:04:08.860 it's an example coming from academia

00:04:10.860 zoologist dr susan crockford she's an accomplished scholar who specializes in animal bone identification

00:04:18.860 and she has written five books about polar bears and while environmental activists claim that polar bear

00:04:25.580 populations are completely at risk due to climate change induced melting of sea ice

00:04:30.620 crockford instead counters that polar bears are not threatened with extinction and they are in fact

00:04:37.420 thriving crockford has been an adjunct professor at the university of victoria for 15 years

00:04:43.340 but was advised in may 2019 that her time as an adjunct professor had ended just like that

00:04:50.860 because an internal committee had voted against the renewal of her status no reasons were given

00:04:56.940 leading crockford to conclude that she was purged in order to suppress views on polar bears and related

00:05:04.300 climate change issues there was perhaps an earlier sign that the university was uncomfortable with

00:05:09.820 crockford's research she had been part of the uvic speakers bureau for several years so she would

00:05:16.140 deliver lectures to schools and community groups and one of her presentations was titled polar bears

00:05:22.380 outstanding survivors of climate change but back in 2017 she was banned from the speakers bureau

00:05:29.260 for not confirming that she could represent the university with her research-based presentation

00:05:35.900 crockford told the financial post that the revocation of her position was an academic hanging without a

00:05:43.180 trial conducted behind closed doors and there you have it i'm lindsay shepherd investigative journalism

00:05:49.900 fellow with true north thanks so much for watching

Juno News - February 17, 2020

3 environmental dissenters who have been de-platformed

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