RIP Steve Schneider

Today I learned that Professor Steve Schneider has passed away of a heart attack at age 65.

This is very sad news.

I can't say that I knew Steve personally. I had seen him at a few events and heard him talk, but I was not a climate student. I think that his passing is a blow to the environmental movement and to the direction of environmental science, and part of me feels a pang of "What are we going to do now?"

But what feels more important than his research and advocacy, is that he had been a friend and mentor to many of my friends, and was a close friend and colleague of many of the people I most respected as advisers. He touched the lives of many people I care about, and I am hoping that they are all okay.

His life and trials in the public policy arena have made a big impression on me, even though I only heard about them secondhand. I had heard that he had been misquoted once by a reporter, and as a result had been banned from testifying before Congress about climate science for over twenty years. I don't want to reduce the man's life and achievements to just a cautionary tale, but the fact that this could happen to an honest scientist makes me angry and sad, and paranoid. My friends and I were taught to record all interviews with the press touching on our research to avoid a repeat of this situation.

I recognize the huge positive impact that his man had on my friends, on science, and the world. RIP.