In May, the University of Victoria rejected the renewal application of Susan Crockford, a world-renowned expert in animal bone identification who had represented the school through its Speakers Bureau for 10 years.
The denial, which Crockford claims is related to her controversial claims about polar bears, revokes her affiliation with the school and deprives her ability to apply for research grants.
In her 2019 book The Polar Bear Catastrophe that Never Happened, Crockford explains that polar bears are thriving (despite melting ice) and that scientists have concealed polar bear population growth after the species was falsely listed as “threatened.”
“When push came to shove, UVic threw me under the bus rather than stand up for my academic freedom,” says Crockford.
Her situation is the perfect example of a growing trend called “cancel culture,” when professors and scientists who fail to agree with popular ideas are pushed out.
“Professor after professor has been hounded, silenced, censured, or fired for speaking out against the approved man-made climate crisis narrative,” argues author Marc Morano. “The message to any climate dissenter in academia is once again reinforced: Stay silent with your skepticism or risk endangering your career.”
Susan Crockford has an impressive resume. She earned her doctorate from UVic in interdisciplinary studies (biology and anthropology) in 2004 and was awarded a Ph.D. for her research on dog evolution.
In 2006, she published groundbreaking research about the thyroid and how it drives evolutionary change. One year later, she was featured in a PBS documentary on dog domestication.
Crockford is a signatory of the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change’s Manhattan Declaration, which claims human activity and greenhouses gases have had little effect on global temperatures.
Between 2011 and 2013, she was paid by The Heartland Institute to share research that was overlooked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
For example, the IPCC’s report “Global Warming 1.5°C” (which is often cited by activists as proof of impending doom) contains nothing to suggest the world will burn or that humans will become extinct. Nearly all claims in the report are listed ‘medium confidence,’ which is essentially a rating of 3 of 5.
In 2017, UVic canceled Crockford’s lectures after activists complained her talks ‘lacked balance.’ One year later, her work was featured in Science, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world.
“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,” explains UVic Economics Professor Cornelis van Kooten. “Think the extent to which free speech has been banned from campuses across much of the West in the name of political correctness.”
Citing a headline in the National Post of Toronto, Crockford argues she was fired for “telling school kids politically incorrect facts about polar bears.” UVic Associate Vice President Michele Parkin denied the accusation but failed to provide a reason for Crockford’s termination.
This month, Crockford begins a five-country speaking tour in Europe, where she will talk about her research as an internationally-recognized scientist not affiliated with any university.
Author’s Note: The iconic image of a polar bear ‘trapped’ on a chunk of ice is often used by activists to suggest the harmful effects of global warming. The problem with this is that polar bears can swim – regularly 30 miles or more, and as far as 220 miles – so they are not trapped, they are just fishing.
Furthermore, the official population of polar bears has been estimated between 22,000 and 31,000 (not the few thousand that activists claim).