by Justin Gillis and John Schwartz, The New York Times, February 21, 2015
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.
Historians
and sociologists of science say that since the tobacco wars of the
1960s, corporations trying to block legislation that hurts their
interests have employed a strategy of creating the appearance of
scientific doubt, usually with the help of ostensibly independent
researchers who accept industry funding.
Fossil-fuel interests have followed this approach for years, but the mechanics of their activities remained largely hidden.
“The
whole doubt-mongering strategy relies on creating the impression of
scientific debate,” said Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at
Harvard University and the co-author of “Merchants of Doubt,” a book about such campaigns. “Willie Soon is playing a role in a certain kind of political theater.”
Environmentalists
have long questioned Dr. Soon’s work, and his acceptance of funding
from the fossil-fuel industry was previously known. But the full extent
of the links was not; the documents show that corporate contributions
were tied to specific papers and were not disclosed, as required by modern standards of publishing.
“What
it shows is the continuation of a long-term campaign by specific
fossil-fuel companies and interests to undermine the scientific
consensus on climate change,” said Kert Davies, executive director of
the Climate Investigations Center, a group funded by foundations seeking
to limit the risks of climate change.
Charles
R. Alcock, director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, acknowledged on
Friday that Dr. Soon had violated the disclosure standards of some
journals.
“I think that’s inappropriate behavior,” Dr. Alcock said. “This frankly becomes a personnel matter, which we have to handle with Dr. Soon internally.”
Dr. Soon is employed by the Smithsonian Institution, which jointly sponsors the astrophysics center with Harvard.
“I am aware of the situation with Willie Soon, and I’m very concerned about it,” W. John Kress, interim under secretary for science at the Smithsonian in Washington, said on Friday. “We are checking into this ourselves.”
Dr.
Soon rarely grants interviews to reporters, and he did not respond to
multiple emails and phone calls last week; nor did he respond to an
interview request conveyed to him by his employer. In past public
appearances, he has reacted angrily to questions about his funding
sources, but then acknowledged some corporate ties and said that they
had not altered his scientific findings.
“I
write proposals; I let them decide whether to fund me or not,” he said
at an event in Madison, Wis., in 2013. “If they choose to fund me, I’m
happy to receive it.” A moment later, he added, “I would never be
motivated by money for anything.”
The
newly disclosed documents, plus additional documents compiled by
Greenpeace over the last four years, show that at least $409,000 of Dr.
Soon’s funding in the past decade came from Southern Company Services, a
subsidiary of the Southern Company, based in Atlanta.
Southern
is one of the largest utility holding companies in the country, with
huge investments in coal-burning power plants. The company has spent
heavily over many years to lobby against greenhouse-gas regulations in
Washington. More recently, it has spent significant money to research ways to limit emissions.
“Southern
Company funds a broad range of research on a number of topics that have
potentially significant public-policy implications for our business,”
said Jeannice M. Hall, a spokeswoman. The company declined to answer
detailed questions about its funding of Dr. Soon’s research.
Dr.
Soon also received at least $230,000 from the Charles G. Koch
Charitable Foundation. (Mr. Koch’s fortune derives partly from oil
refining.) However, other companies and industry groups that once
supported Dr. Soon, including Exxon Mobil and the American Petroleum
Institute, appear to have eliminated their grants to him in recent
years.
As the oil-industry contributions fell, Dr. Soon started receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars through Donors Trust,
an organization based in Alexandria, Va., that accepts money from
donors who wish to remain anonymous, then funnels it to various
conservative causes.
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
in Cambridge, Mass., is a joint venture between Harvard and the
Smithsonian Institution, housing some 300 scientists from both
institutions. Because the Smithsonian is a government agency, Greenpeace
was able to request that Dr. Soon’s correspondence and grant agreements
be released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Though
he has little formal training in climatology, Dr. Soon has for years
published papers trying to show that variations in the sun’s energy can
explain most recent global warming. His thesis is that human activity
has played a relatively small role in causing climate change.
Many
experts in the field say that Dr. Soon uses out-of-date data, publishes
spurious correlations between solar output and climate indicators, and
does not take account of the evidence implicating emissions from human
behavior in climate change.
Gavin A. Schmidt, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies
in Manhattan, a NASA division that studies climate change, said that
the sun had probably accounted for no more than 10 percent of recent
global warming and that greenhouse gases produced by human activity
explained most of it.
“The science that Willie Soon does is almost pointless,” Dr. Schmidt said.
The
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, whose scientists focus
largely on understanding distant stars and galaxies, routinely distances
itself from Dr. Soon’s findings. The Smithsonian has also published a statement accepting the scientific consensus on climate change.
Dr.
Alcock said that, aside from the disclosure issue, he thought it was
important to protect Dr. Soon’s academic freedom, even if most of his
colleagues disagreed with his findings.
Dr.
Soon has found a warm welcome among politicians in Washington and state
capitals who try to block climate action. United States Senator James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who claims that climate change is a global scientific hoax, has repeatedly cited Dr. Soon’s work over the years.
In
a Senate debate last month, Mr. Inhofe pointed to a poster with photos
of scientists questioning the climate-change consensus, including Dr.
Soon. “These are scientists that cannot be challenged,” the senator
said. A spokeswoman for the senator said Friday that he was traveling
and could not be reached for comment.
As
of late last week, most of the journals in which Dr. Soon’s work had
appeared were not aware of the newly disclosed documents. The Climate
Investigations Center is planning to notify them over the coming week.
Several journals advised of the situation by The New York Times said
they would look into the matter.
Robert
J. Strangeway, the editor of a journal that published three of Dr.
Soon’s papers, said that editors relied on authors to be candid about
any conflicts of interest. “We assume that when people put stuff in a
paper, or anywhere else, they’re basically being honest,” said Dr.
Strangeway, editor of the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial
Physics.
Dr. Oreskes,
the Harvard science historian, said that academic institutions and
scientific journals had been too lax in recent decades in ferreting out
dubious research created to serve a corporate agenda.
“I
think universities desperately need to look more closely at this
issue,” Dr. Oreskes said. She added that Dr. Soon’s papers omitting
disclosure of his corporate funding should be retracted by the journals
that published them.
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