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

[mbone]

'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.

Most of the scientists I know make a salary and that's it. A $ 100 honorarium (say for giving a talk to the public) is regarded as a big deal.

Re:disclosure

[Xylantiel]

Apparently you don't read many papers. It is very common, I daresay almost ubiquitous, for scientific papers to say "this work supported by X".

Re:disclosure

[TapeCutter]

The thousands of scientists who help compile the IPCC reports do it for free, none of them get a dime from the IPCC, at best they get their regular salary from their university. The IPCC has a $5-6M annual budget, most of it is spent on conference rooms and transport, there are a handful of full time admin staff. The IPCC accounts are published on their website for all to see. The money comes from individual nation states, last time I look there were about 130 nations on the donor list representing every colour of the political rainbow.

Most people in the climate science community will not be surprised that Soon was on the FF payroll.

Re:disclosure

[fermion]

At the base it is disclosure. Papers should have a note of who is funding the research. Sometimes that funding is obfuscated because the money goes through shell non-profits. This is why government funding is so useful. But there is nothing wrong with independent funding, as long as it transparent. When Al Gore was big, he never hid his objective or funding. Likewise Green Peace and PETA are generally transparent. OTOH, when Philip Morris was trying to push cigarettes as healthy, most of their research was far from transparent.

This is interesting, because despite the diplomatic title of the post, many if not most researchers who are publishing against man made climate change are funded by people who are going to lose money, at least short term, if man made climate change becomes a political reality. To be sure the improvements to industrial processes are going to create a whole new class of very wealthy people, but those who will no innovate will be left behind.

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

[beelsebob]

Right, and then you're somewhat bound to give the "right" result, because otherwise they won't fund more research.

Hence the conflict of interest.

Re:disclosure

[wisnoskij]

I don't know about that. If you base your belief in the integrity of the scientist conducting the research instead of repeat-ability and peer review process, I think that is a little misguided. If you are saying that to trust hat a plane I am getting on will on not crash, I have to trust a series of hundreds of scientist's integrity, than I disagree. It does not matter what whit if one of them was an adulterer, a liar, or a thief, only if their processes were solid (as verified by peer review), and there experiments could suffer repetition by interested third parties.

Re:disclosure

[blue trane]

The first thing conservatives usually say to discredit climate scientists is, they are in thrall to their funders. Now we know why; they're projecting.

Re:disclosure

[i.r.id10t]

"Here's 1.2 mil. We want you to tell us that it is possible that global warming is being caused by the sun"

A few months of well funded but blindly done research - ie, you know the answer to the question, what can we do to prove it? - and wallah! A paper. That is then submitted to a supposedly peer-reviewed journal, where of course no such review takes place (there have been several stories about that on /.).

So... are we shocked that the NRG Industry went shopping for the answer they wanted to hear? Are we shocked that a person who either needs to be top in their field or at least bringing in grants accepted a grant to do research? Are we shocked that a peer-reviewed journal is in fact not very often reviewd by the peers?

Re:disclosure

[Strangely Familiar]

There are a bunch of people hearing about Dr. Soon's research on Fox News who have not been told the facts, and probably think he is a straight up scientist. They probably don't know the man Fox News calls a "Harvard Astrophysicist" (yes, I actually RTFA, and this is something in TFA) actually has a doctorate in aerospace engineering, not astrophysics. They probably don't know he gets no money from Harvard, a part time salary from the Smithsonian, and that most of his money comes from the fossil fuel industry. So, "Are we shocked" is not the right question at all. This kind of crap is like that junk science about autism and vaccines. Once that stuff gets out there, it is very difficult to get people to stop repeating it, even after it gets discredited. And this kind of disinformation has real-world consequences when people rely on it, including U.S. Senators making speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Re:disclosure

[Obfuscant]

Papers directly supported by funding/grants usually don't thank/credit sources (or maybe it's just so small that I never noticed it?).

Every paper I've ever seen in geosciences credits the public funding agency as part of the grant requirements. Not just "usually do", it's all do.

A paper funded by private sources will credit what is required by that source. Carnegie-Mellon, etc, usually do, but it isn't required. It's polite to do so as a way of saying "thanks". The fact that someone hasn't doesn't mean anything.

So.....$120k per year? That's not actually very much.

That's a pittance. It will cover salary and benefits for one researcher. It won't cover much in the way of travel.

Compare that to other grants that cover the salaries of five or six researchers and travel to conferences in Hawaii or Spain or other nice places...

This is another example of "if we can't discredit the science, discredit the scientist for being paid to do research." That ignores all the scientists who are part of the consensus who are also paid to do research. No, nobody is pocketing the loot, it just shows up as salary. Salary for research that means that the scientist doesn't have to be paid on state money so he doesn't have to teach or do other stuff that is attached to non-grant research salary. A stable source of funding means you can hire people and build a lab and build a reputation that helps get more money. The more people you pay, the higher your status. The more stuff you get from the University because your overhead fees benefit them, too.

Re:disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

> NASA, NOAA point out warming has stalled, no temperature has exceeded 1998's.

You deniers have got to stop using that one.
By now, we've all figured out that any mention of 1998 is just cherry-picking at its worst.
All you do is identify yourself as a zero-knowledge shill that should be ignored.

Re:disclosure

[riverat1]

He's in good company here, this scientist in 2008, using the same hypothesis correctly predicts the awful and cold winters of 2013 and 2014.

Did they predict it for the whole globe? If they did they were wrong. They were right if they only predicted it for Eastern North America.

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.

Re:disclosure

[itzly]

He's in good company here, this scientist in 2008, using the same hypothesis correctly predicts the awful and cold winters of 2013 and 2014

The winters of 2013 and 2014 were in the top-10 warmest. Not sure why you would refer to them as "awful and cold".

You think it's warming? Show me your data that proves NASA wrong then.

How about NASA's own data where they show it's warming ?

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/resea...

Re:disclosure

[abies]

Sometimes it is 'later' enough to influence entire generation of people in doing wrong or useless things. For example salt in food
http://www.scientificamerican....
One wrong study done in 70ties and entire generation of people were scared from using salt. Bluff was called 20 years later but it took _another_ 20 years to officially admit 70ties findings were completely wrong - and I suppose another 20 years are needed before 'salt if white death' people will finally die out.
I think similar thing (other direction) happened with tabacco.

Climate is complicated enough that it is not really an 'objective reality'. Given all the possibilities of handpicking data points and applying arbitrary correction factors, you can manipulate data in subtle ways, rather than blatantly fake it. And as it is complicated enough that normal people cannot really doublecheck data, we are left to believe the 'consensus'.

Re:disclosure

[Mr D from 63]

No, he wasn't taking home all that money. That is why the author used the word "accepted" because he knew it could be misconstrued as take home pay. A lot of folks here seem to jump to the conclusion that the author intended.

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: Could be true, that

[Anonymous Coward]

Or he's investing in technologies and developments that he has openly and expressly said he believes offers the best economic potential due to what he has learned from those studies.

All Gore isn't one to declare profit is wrong, or attack capitalism on an existential basis. He's put his money where his mouth is, and thinks you should too.

Re:Corporate interests

[TapeCutter]

Zero. Gore put his money where his mouth was and made an educational movie, the profit went straight back into his educational foundation, not his pocket. Gore is worth ~$100m, none of it has come from his activism on AGW, that activity has COST him money.

Re: Corporate interests

[Required Snark]

Gore is right: the science is settled. In fact, it's been understood for nearly 200 years.

The existence of the greenhouse effect was argued for by Joseph Fourier in 1824. The argument and the evidence was further strengthened by Claude Pouillet in 1827 and 1838, and reasoned from experimental observations by John Tyndall in 1859, and more fully quantified by Svante Arrhenius in 1896.

In 1917 Alexander Graham Bell wrote “[The unchecked burning of fossil fuels] would have a sort of greenhouse effect”, and “The net result is the greenhouse becomes a sort of hot-house.” Bell went on to also advocate for the use of alternate energy sources, such as solar energy.

The basic mechanism is straightforward, even thought the physical system has many interacting processes.

The Earth receives energy from the Sun in the form UV, visible, and near IR radiation, most of which passes through the atmosphere without being absorbed. Of the total amount of energy available at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), about 50% is absorbed at the Earth's surface. Because it is warm, the surface radiates far IR thermal radiation that consists of wavelengths that are predominantly much longer than the wavelengths that were absorbed (the overlap between the incident solar spectrum and the terrestrial thermal spectrum is small enough to be neglected for most purposes). Most of this thermal radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere and re-radiated both upwards and downwards; that radiated downwards is absorbed by the Earth's surface. This trapping of long-wavelength thermal radiation leads to a higher equilibrium temperature than if the atmosphere were absent.

The key observation is that human activity has changed the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and this has changed the equilibrium temperature of the system.

Strengthening of the greenhouse effect through human activities is known as the enhanced (or anthropogenic) greenhouse effect. This increase in radiative forcing from human activity is attributable mainly to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. According to the latest Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations".

CO2 is produced by fossil fuel burning and other activities such as cement production and tropical deforestation. Measurements of CO2 from the Mauna Loa observatory show that concentrations have increased from about 313 ppm in 1960 to about 389 ppm in 2010. It reached the 400ppm milestone on May 9, 2013. The current observed amount of CO2 exceeds the geological record maxima (~300 ppm) from ice core data. The effect of combustion-produced carbon dioxide on the global climate, a special case of the greenhouse effect first described in 1896 by Svante Arrhenius, has also been called the Callendar effect.

Al Gore, although not a scientist by training, is smart enough to understand this. You, on the other hand, are too biased and stupid to accept facts that have been well known for a long time.

Just to make sure that your are up to speed on basic facts, the world is not flat, the earth revolves around the sun, and the universe is more then 5000 years old. Glad that I could clear these things up for you.

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:Yes, it's a conflict of interest.

[Idarubicin]

Dr. Soon may even truly believe his science is valid, but the funding he receives creates a lopsided megaphone which unfairly skews the perception of the debate.

Having a conflict of interest is understandable; hiding a conflict of interest is problematic.

By the same token, all scientists who receive funding from the pharmaceutical industry or groups they influence, should be barred from publishing papers on vaccine safety.

Scientists who receive funding from, for example, the pharmaceutical industry are expected to fully and explicitly disclose potentially conflicting interests--and by golly, they do. It's taken quite seriously, actually. If you look at any article in a respectable medical journal today, you'll find a section of the manuscript that's explicitly headed with Conflicting interests: or something synonymous. It will appear on every article, even on the ones where it's followed by "None declared" or the like, just so that it's clear that the journal asked for and got an on-the-record response from the article's authors. It doesn't remove the potential bias associated with outside funding, but it at least makes the potential for bias transparent.

Lying about competing interests - even through omission - is looked on very poorly by serious, credible medical researchers. Interestingly, one of the many, many types of misconduct engaged in by Andrew Wakefield was his failure to disclose significant financial interests when he published his (now-retracted and thoroughly discredited) Lancet paper suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. (Wakefield wasn't receiving pharmaceutical money, of course; he collected almost half a million pounds from lawyers involved in an anti-MMR lawsuit.)

And while the practice of mandatory disclosure started with the medical journals, the expectation has gradually bled across into other fields as well, particularly among top-tier journals.

Re:Yes, it's a conflict of interest.

[Baloroth]

That's why there is a little thing called "peer review". If his observations are incorrect then a peer review will discover it.

A common misconception. Peer review does not verify that the data is correct, that the methodology in the paper is followed, or in general that the results are reliable. It looks at the methods outlined in the paper and tries to spot obvious flaws or oversights, as well as any major problems with the structure of the paper. It can't detect fraud, cherry-picking data, or a host of other problems. Some "scientists" have gotten away for years with made up data or other fraud. And of course the quality of the peer review (or even if it is peer reviewed, in some cases) depends heavily on the journal that publishes it. Anyone can make the "Journal of American Climate Study" or some other professional sounding name and publish total garbage.

If his experiments can't be reproduced then the paper will be discredited (along with his career)

This has pretty much already happened. He's published papers with deeply flawed methodology that has misrepresented the work of other scientists, espouses a scientific viewpoint (that solar variation causes most observed climate changes) that has been shown wrong years ago, and has failed to disclose the source of his funding, a fairly major ethical violation.

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