Montana school cancels Nobel winner's climate talk

The small farming town of Choteau, Mont., is the latest hot spot in the debate over global warming. Steven W. Running, a professor of ecology at the University of Montana and member of the United Nations panel that shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore, was scheduled to speak to the student body of Choteau High School (130 students) about his career and climate change, but some residents complained and forced a cancellation of the talk, reports Jim Robbins of The New York Times. Running (in a photo by Kurt Wilson of The Missoulian) did go ahead with his scheduled talk in the evening for the general public. A local high school basketball game, however, kept the crowd light for that event.

"Those who complained misunderstood the content of the talk, (school superintendent Kevin) St. John said, but there was no time to explain to all of them that Dr. Running was a leading scientist rather than an agenda-driven ideologue," Robbins writes.

“Disbelief was the primary reaction,” Running told Robbins. “I’ve never been canceled before. But it was almost comical. I had a pretty candid discussion with the superintendent and the school board, and they said there were some conservative citizens who didn’t want me to speak.” (Read more)

Nancy Thorton of the Chonteau Acantha, the 1,900-circulation weekly, reports that 140 people came to the evening talk, where Running spoke about the record-setting summer in Missoula and other climate issues. On a lighter note, Thornton writes that when Running discussed the shrinking of an Arctic ice pack, kindergarten student said to a first grader, "Santa Claus is in trouble." (Read more)