The strange case of David Legates continues. If you’re not aware, David Legates has been the state’s official climatologist for 7 years. He also a prominent climate change denier, one of the few actual scientists, so he’s often cited as a prominent example. Legates announced this week that he’s been asked to step down from the position.
The obvious question becomes: why now? Legates had endured as a denier in the role of official Delaware State Climatologist through seven years under Democratic governors who openly support action on climate change.
I placed multiple calls to both the University of Delaware and the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), and was unable to find anyone willing or able to go on the record to explain why Legates was asked to step down from the position.
The timing could indicate that it had something to do with Legates’ close ties to Wei Hock “Willie” Soon, another prominent denier who has recently found himself embroiled in controversy. Late last month, Greenpeace released documents acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request, and these documents reveal deep financial ties between Soon and many oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil. The most startling takeaway from the Greenpeace report was that Soon has received more than $1 million from the oil and coal industries since 2001, and that “since 2002, every new grant he has received has been from either oil or coal interests.”
Soon, who is not a climatologist, but an astrophysicist with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has made a living over the past decade by taking an outspokenly skeptical stance to man made climate change. Soon’s name is also often linked to Legates’: the two co-authored the notorious and mightily-debunked “polar bear study” paper in 2007, the two are both listed as “ “experts” for the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington, DC-based think-tank that has received over $700,000 in funding from ExxonMobil, and Soon has referred to Legates as a colleague during Congressional hearings.
The name Willie Soon might be tickling your recent memory banks. If you hadn’t heard about the Greenpeace documents, it might be because of a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing against regulating mercury emissions from power plants.
WSJ Op-Ed Argues “Mercury Has Always Existed Naturally”
Soon And Driessen Downplay Concerns About Mercury By Arguing That It “Has Always Existed Naturally. From the Wall Street Journal op-ed:
To build its case against mercury, the EPA systematically ignored evidence and clinical studies that contradict its regulatory agenda, which is to punish hydrocarbon use.
Mercury has always existed naturally in Earth’s environment. A 2009 study found mercury deposits in Antarctic ice across 650,000 years. Mercury is found in air, water, rocks, soil and trees, which absorb it from the environment. This is why our bodies evolved with proteins and antioxidants that help protect us from this and other potential contaminants. [Wall Street Journal, 5/25/11]
I find the argument that because something occurs naturally it can’t be harmful one of the more bizarre and anti-scientific arguments around. Natural things aren’t harmful? Go drink some strychnine then. The harmful effects of mercury have been known for centuries, since “Mad Hatter’s Disease” was coined. Mercury, depending on its form is very, very toxic.
Obviously Legates and Soon have done good work in their respective fields or they wouldn’t be in their current academic positions. As you can see, even smart, accomplished people can be lured into quackery by money, ideology or a combination of both. Legates will be o.k. He still has his university position and he will continue his ties with various denier institutes. I doubt we’ve heard the last of David Legates.