How One Climate-Change Skeptic Has Profited From Corporate Interests

Lasrick writes Elected officials who want to block the EPA and legislation on climate change frequently refer to a handful of scientists who dispute anthropogenic climate change. One of scientists they quote most often is Wei-Hock Soon, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims that variations in the sun's energy can largely explain recent global warming. Newly released documents show the extent to which Dr. Soon has made a fortune 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 Koch Brothers are cited as a source of Dr. Soon's funding.

Comments

disclosure

[ganjadude]

'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. Im a little curious if it is standard practice to not disclose this type of relationship. If it is, it is wrong. I see an ethics issue at hand

Id like to see a breakdown on which scientists are getting paid and by whom in all their works.

Re:disclosure

[Geoffrey.landis]

The ethics violation isn't that he was paid by a corporation.
The ethics violation is in not disclosing it.

Re:disclosure

[ShanghaiBill]

Yes, but they get millions to conduct research. I doubt he took that $1.2 million home.

It still should have been disclosed, it was unethical for him fail to disclose it, and he certainly knew that. Science doesn't work without integrity.

Re:disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that we can't just leave it up to the science in the public sphere. This guy's "science" has already been widely discredited and debunked through the scientific method, and yet it's still held up as evidence. It shouldn't be surprising therefore that people getting fed up of that then start attacking the scientist himself.

I'm also not sure why you're trying to equate typical funding from a public sector source with typical funding from a private sector source. They're not in any way equivalent.

For example, in the UK, Met Office climatologists have their job guaranteed no matter what the outcome of their research, they're paid by the public sector to give public sector entities a realistic view of what we might expect and want to plan for - there is no partisanship there, their jobs are guaranteed and they just need to be as accurate as possible regardless of what the actual outcome is.

Compare and contrast to an energy sector company, whether fossil fuel or green energy and if they fund research they do so because they want papers to hold up their viewpoint to protect their profits.

The Met Office worker can go to work and think "Great, I can just focus on the science, my job is secure regardless of what I find.". The energy sector worker goes to work and has to think "I better do all I can to give them the results I want, or else I might lose my funding".

Quite how you can place these two scenarios as equivalent I've no idea. They're very clearly not - funding source is an inherent indicator of whether there is any partisanship in a study. If the money has come from a source that just needs to know the facts without seeing any benefit from an outcome one way or the other then that research is far less tainted than if it's come from a source that has a vested profit interest in one outcome over the other.

This is basic stuff, I'm amazed on Slashdot anyone is even trying to argue it, much less mod such drivel up.

Koch brothers?

[argee]

Their involvement says it all.

Re:Bullshit.

[thephydes]

sorry wrong link, and you still are a fuckwit - I'm just careless https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:And... the evidence?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would anyone say the same about the handful of "scientists" who were funded by the lead industry starting in the 1950s, and spent twenty years casting doubt on the fact that lead exposure is bad (and therefore tetraethyl lead in gasoline is really bad)?

Or how about the handful of "doctors" who the tobbaco companies paid millions to spread lies and doubt about the connection between smoking and cancer for decades?

When the truth is bad for corporate interests, expect a campaign against the truth that is as determined and well funded as it is slanderous.

Re:Corporate interests

[circletimessquare]

climate change is not some scheme al gore cooked up for political purposes

but... for the sake of argument, let's make believe you are right for a moment

let's ignore the research of thousands of scientists, decades of observations, and go with the low iq fantasy that al gore, sitting on his gold toilet, made climate change up, just to hurt big energy donors to republicans

ok. and?

this is your argument?

"i know a guy once who committed murder and got away with it... so this guy here should get away with murder"

that's how you think right and wrong works?

it's like those moronic headlines about how many jets al gore flies in, or how much fossil fuel was burned to fly big wigs to a climate change conference. so what!

if someone does something wrong, *that hardly makes another wrong ok*

point out the grossest, most hypocritical, limousine liberal shallowness on the topic, and guess what einstein: climate change suddenly doesn't go away as a problem. the damage to our atmosphere from fossil fuels doesn't magically disappear and become a nontopic, just because you found a liberal somewhere who drives a gas guzzling 4x4. do you understand?

to not understand this very simple moral concept: that two wrongs don't make a right, simply makes you, and all of the ignorant propaganda that depends on that foundation, look fucking stupid and morally immature