PORTALdedicationINTROSpecialIssueFINAL


 
PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, September 2011. 
Special issue details: Global Climate Change Policy: Post-Copenhagen Discord Special Issue, guest 
edited by Chris Riedy and Ian McGregor. 
ISSN: 1449-2490; http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/portal 
PORTAL is published under the auspices of UTSePress, Sydney, Australia. 
 

  
The late Stephen Schneider  
© Linda A. Cicero / Stanford News Service. 
 

Global Climate Change Policy: Post-Copenhagen Discord  
 

Special Issue dedicated to Stephen H. Schneider 
 
It is with both pleasure and sadness that we dedicate this special climate change issue of 
Portal to the late Dr. Stephen H. Schneider.  
 
Steve, as he was known to his friends and colleagues, was as rare a bird as any he sought 
out in his passion as a birdwatcher. A brilliant climate scientist, author of countless books 
and papers, path breaking inter-disciplinarian, eminent public communicator, mentor to 
dozens of young scholars; the list of roles and adulatory adjectives could fill an IPCC 
special report.  
 
Steve would have appreciated this special issue, with its multidisciplinary approach, and its 
quest for solutions based on analytical scholarship. He understood better than most the 
inseparability of normative and descriptive concerns, the need for academics and scientists 
of all kinds to be involved with public processes of communication, policy design and 
deliberation. While his last book was called Science as a Contact Sport, the unspoken title 
of his career might have been ‘Science as a Public Service.’ He was endlessly testifying, 
consulting and giving interviews, and encouraged others to learn to do the same.  
 
Notwithstanding a battle with lymphoma in his last decade (chronicled in the wonderful 
book The Patient from Hell), Steve maintained a frenetic level of activity and was still 
going strong when he was felled by a pulmonary embolism in July 2010 at the age of 65. He 
leaves behind a legacy embodied in his publications, institutions like the Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the journal Climatic Change,1 and in the hearts and 
minds of the countless persons he interacted with, mentored, and loved. Exuberant, 
passionate, full of warmth and good humor, Steve was a mensch among mensches.2 He will 
be sorely missed. 
 
Paul Baer, with the assistance of Terry Root and Ian McGregor. 
 
                                                
1 Publisher URL: 
http://www.springer.com/earth+sciences+and+geography/atmospheric+sciences/journal/10584 
2 Mensch, a Yiddish word meaning ‘a person of integrity and honor’ (Wikipedia, accessed 28 Nov. 2011).