Letter writer gets it wrong on climate change questions

Letter from Ron Arnold

Pete Kuntz’s letter smearing Tom Harris repeated the false Greenpeace accusation that astrophysicist Willie Soon“got caught secretly taking over a million dollars from oil corporations for his climate science denial services and lying about it.” Dead wrong.

Soon is a researcher with the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics Laboratory, and all funds for his research have been and still are approved by the Smithsonian Institution, which took a management fee of nearly half and gave the rest to Soon to cover all his research expenses and pay himself as well. The widely reported grant money from energy companies came over the course of several years, and Soon’s personal remuneration was modest indeed.

Mr. Kuntz also noted that “The head of NASA’s Goddard Space Center said Soon’s scientific work is ‘irrelevant,’” as if that meant something. NASA’s Gavin Schmidt is a high-level federal employee who, when asked, dares not allow anyone, government or academic like Soon, to step out of line with the President’s climate policy if he wants to keep his NASA job. Groupthink or else.

I see that Dr. Fred Singer has already debunked the notorious DeSmogBlog and its parentage by a Canadian public relations chief (James Hoggan) and a convicted money laundering felon (John Lefebvre), but did not supply the link to the court docket where Lefebvre was ordered to pay a forfeiture obligation of $40,000,000. Yes, $40 million.

Ron Arnold resides in Bellevue, Wash.