Dr Soon will soon publish
a series of scientific papers
demonstrating beyond doubt
that the notion of large and
dangerous global warming
arose from several elementary,
but significant, scientific errors
perpetrated by careless,
or prejudiced, climatologists.
With that news,
the mainstream media
decided to attack
Dr. Soon's
character first.
So, earlier this year,
the Washington Post
libeled astrophysicist
PhD Willie Soon,
who studies
global warming,
mainly from the
point of view
that natural causes
are more likely than
man made causes.
An article in the
Washington Post ,
by a smarmy man,
named Mr Thacker,
included a personal
attack on Dr Soon.
Soon was the only
individual scientist
named by Mr Thacker
for misleading the public
about "his" funding.
In fact, the real misleading
was done by the author,
Mr. Thacker.
Dr Soon is an award-winning
solar astrophysicist.
Mr. Thacker never mentioned
that his employer, the Harvard
-Smithsonian Observatory,
had given Soon an award
for the high quality
of his research.
Mr Thacker never contacted
Dr Soon to obtain his account
of events.
A few years ago,
it was claimed that
Dr. Willie Soon
had accepted $1.2 million
from fossil fuel interests
to publish studies.
Much of his research
has argued variations
in the sun’s energy
can explain most recent
global warming and that
humans have had
little effect on
climate change.
Climate alarmists
hate that claim.
Mr Thacker’s claim
that Dr Soon had
“accepted $1.2 million
from fossil fuel interests”
is false.
The Harvard-Smithsonian
Observatory accepted
various donations
for more research
by Dr Soon, and
negotiated contracts
for further study
with the donors.
The Observatory was paid
over a period of ten years,
and deducted 30% for its
“overhead”.
Another 30% went for
Dr Soon’s costs of
conducting research
over ten years.
The remainder went to
Dr. Soon himself
-- less than $50,000
a year for ten years.
Mr Thacker’s description
of Dr Soon’s funding
as “vested relationships”
is inaccurate.
The Observatory negotiated
the contractual relationship
with Dr Soon’s funders, and
one contractual obligation
was that Dr Soon could NOT
disclose them as sources
of the funding the Observatory
had received for his research,
if he wanted to keep his job.
As a member of
the Observatory staff,
Dr Soon was obliged
by law to honor the
terms of the contract
that the Observatory
had negotiated, if he
wanted to keep his job.
If Mr Thacker
wanted to criticize
anyone for having
failed to disclose
Dr Soon’s imagined
conflict of interest,
it should have been
the Observatory itself,
for how they raise money
for research and require
non-disclosure agreements.
Also, the claim that private
funding leads to bad science,
while government funding
leads to good science,
is wrong.
Government funding of
climate science leads to
always wrong, wild guesses
of the future climate,
which creates the need
for this public service website !