In the CR article they acknowledge the American Petroleum Institute as one of their funders:
But on July 29, 2003 Soon testified before the Environment and Public Works committee of the U.S. Senate. Here's his initial testimony, which doesn't seem to include any questions he was asked:
Hmm.... A 1998 memo by Joe Walker, a PR representative for the American Petroleum Institute, lays out the Action Plan for Walker's Global Climate Science Team. It includes, among several other points
That sure sounds like an "advocacy position." Was Soon, who had been dealing with the American Petroleum Institute since at least 1994, really not have been aware of the API's position on the Kyoto treaty? (Was anyone?) Maybe, but it seems a very big stretch.
Maybe something is finally going to come from all this. The New York Times article quotes both the director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center and the secretary for science at the Smithsonian Instute (I couldn't get a comment from the Center's director back in 2003), who finally seem concerned about Soon's failure to disclose funding sources when journals he published in required it.
That, rather than the accuracy of his testimony to Congress, could be Soon's undoing. I've never understood why the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which does a lot of good work, would keep Soon on their staff. Could it have been the grants he was bringing it?
Stoat finds Soon's statement that "I would never be motivated by money for anything" "astonishing." Gavin Schmidt told the NY TImes, “The science that Willie Soon does is almost pointless." But maybe not pointless to everyone -- the US never did sign the Kyoto treaty.
1 comment:
Gavin Schmidt told the NY TImes, “The science that Willie Soon does is almost pointless."
I chuckled when I saw that. The whole point was to sow doubt, and Heritage and Heartland et al made a lot of hay with the B&S papers.
Best,
D
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