Wei-Hock 'Willie' Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, whose articles have been tied to corporate funding, appears at a Heritage Foundation event. Photo: Pete Marovich

By JUSTIN GILLIS and JOHN SCHWARTZ
21 February 2015 (The New York Times) – For years, politicians wanting to block legislation on climate change have bolstered their arguments by pointing to the work of a handful of scientists who claim that greenhouse gases pose little risk to humanity. One of the names they invoke most often is Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims that variations in the sun’s energy can largely explain recent global warming. He has often appeared on conservative news programs, testified before Congress and in state capitals, and starred at conferences of people who deny the risks of global warming. But newly released documents show the extent to which Dr. Soon’s work has been tied to funding he received from corporate interests. He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work. The documents show that Dr. Soon, in correspondence with his corporate funders, described many of his scientific papers as “deliverables” that he completed in exchange for their money. He used the same term to describe testimony he prepared for Congress. Though Dr. Soon did not respond to questions about the documents, he has long stated that his corporate funding has not influenced his scientific findings. The documents were obtained by Greenpeace, the environmental group, under the Freedom of Information Act. Greenpeace and an allied group, the Climate Investigations Center, shared them with several news organizations last week. The documents shed light on the role of scientists like Dr. Soon in fostering public debate over whether human activity is causing global warming. The vast majority of experts have concluded that it is and that greenhouse emissions pose long-term risks to civilization. [more]

Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher

By Connor Gibson
22 February 2015 (Greenpeace) – Extra Extra! Read all about climate denial scientist Willie Soon’s dirty money from petrochemical billionaire Charles Koch, coal utility Southern Company, oil giant ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies to deny the science of climate change! The last time I bumped into Willie Soon, I asked him if there was any explanation for some of the information in our latest round of documents indicating that his employer was eager to take money from ExxonMobil. The questions I tried asking Dr. Soon (who won’t talk to me, after a few of these encounters went bad for him) seem to show that despite all the embarrassment Soon has caused his employer, the Smithsonian Institution, private communications with ExxonMobil indicate that Smithsonian was all too happy to take Exxon’s money for their general operating budget. […] To their credit, Smithsonian officials say they are doing an internal review of Dr. Soon. We’ll see how that goes, but it’s not encouraging to see that Soon’s coworkers may have been complicit in peddling influence for ExxonMobil and the other polluters financing Dr. Soon. For years, we at Greenpeace have been working to make public the secret paper trails that show what everyone already knows: climate science deniers – #Fakexperts – are few and far between, and most of them are paid by companies most responsible for global warming to downplay the problem. [more]

Greenpeace on NY Times Sunday Front Page – #Fakexpert Willie Soon