Brainwashing?

I just read the article, “Political brainwashing endangers Marysville school’s funding,” and I am dismayed to see that it paints a very different picture of the Michael Kundu I have known for around eight years.

Mr. Kundu, founder of Project Seawolf (a local Orca advocacy group) and Marysville School Board member, has been a guest speaker in several environmental science classes I have taught through the High School Completion program at Edmonds Community College. While I have not always agreed with Mr. Kundu views, I have never known him to be “anti-intellectual” or an enemy of science and rational thought. He always presented scientific data accurately when he spoke to my classes and when he spoke about matters of opinion, he was always fair in acknowledging that he was no longer speaking about scientifically peer-reviewed fact but rather conjecture or his own personal opinion.

I am forced to conclude that the opinion column you published from the Heartland Institute was at best unfair and inaccurate, and at worst a deliberate attempt at character assassination.

With so many corporate-backed “think tanks” working overtime to confuse the public about climate change theory — a theory that has a tremendous degree of consensus about the key contention that human activity is altering the planet’s atmospheric CO2 concentrations and in turn, our climate — it seems right to me that Mr. Kundu would be very careful about allowing industry-sponsored propaganda, disguised as science, to penetrate his district’s science curricula. While we might find fault in his specific words or tone, I feel that his motives are noble and that this attack upon his character is wholly over-the-top. Thank you.

David W. Breed, Jr.

Marysville