Raúl Grijalva is the US representative from Arizona’s 3rd congressional district, a Democrat, and a supporter of environmental initiatives. As the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, he recently sent letters to seven universities requesting documents related to the background of climate change research, as a response to recent revelations in the New York Times of seemingly inappropriate failure to disclose industry funding sources by Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics researcher Willie Soon. These letters requested the following:

• The university policy on employee financial disclosure.
• For specific researchers or projects, drafts of government testimony and communications regarding testimony preparation.
• Information on funding sources for the specific researchers, including the source, amount, reasons for the funding, description of funded research, and communications regarding the funding.
• Copies of financial disclosure forms listing the university.
• Information on the researcher’s compensation for a specified period of time.

All seven letters went to institutions housing researchers who are regarded to some degree or another as having published material that might be seen as favorable to fossil fuel industry supporters, who, in turn, are generally regarded as potentially benefiting from policy inaction regarding human caused greenhouse gas pollution. In other words, Congressman Grijalva was looking for Soon-like instances of industry support for bogus research that would ultimately be used by, among others, climate science denialists in Congress to delay action on climate change.

This makes sense to do, Grijalva has the legal power to do this, and indeed, the responsibility to do this.

Reconsidering Grijalva’s Strategy

However, several people and institutions, including those who tend to protect the interests of Big Fossil but also, those who are interested in advancing good science and good policy based on that science, felt that some of these requests went to far. Rather than trying to represent others’ views, I’ll give you my own view on this.

In this world of electronic communication, the private conversation, or the closed door meeting, has been partly replaced and extensively augmented by electronic communication. This means that ideas we may float or open, honest, unfettered conversations we may have, are often recorded in electronic form, at least in part. The words we speak as part of a private conversation in a hallway or office dissipate into the air; the only physical result is the small additional heat generated as the sound waves we generate vibrate some of the molecules around us. At some point these frank, sincere, and honest (or not in some cases) conversations may turn in to some form of documentation. The conversation around the table at a faculty meeting turns into minutes. The chattering among scientists at the Monday Morning Lab Meeting turns into a memo from the lab director about what the graduate students and post docs have to start (or stop) doing. Ideas tossed around among a set of researchers may turn into a grant proposal. Endless conversations about the data and the analyses of those data turn into a draft paper. And so on.

But many of these conversations, these days, do not simply dissipate as heat, with the best or most important parts written down. Now, much of that chatter, because it takes the form of electronic communications, is unintended documentation of the process.

I worked for many years in the Congo rainforest, and lived there among the Lese people. The Lese have a saying that is absolutely wonderful. This saying is used when someone wants to say something to you that you might find objectionable, but they don’t want to push the issue too far. It goes, “Let me give you these words. If you don’t like them, give them back and we’ll pretend they never existed.”

Life is full of conversations that work that way. If scientist, administers, students, teachers, and everybody else were unable to communicate with each other without the prospect of these private conversations being made public by a freedom of information request or a Congressional demand or a legal subpoena, then those conversations would have to stop happening. That would be unthinkably stifling and destructive to the process of advancing and applying knowledge.

Grijalva Does The Right Thing

Anyway, a number of people had similar thoughts, and expressed them to Representative Grijalva. And he listened. Not long after sending out the letters, he realized that his request included a certain degree of overreach. According to the National Journal,

“The communications back-and-forth is honestly secondary, and I would even on my own say that that was an overreach in that letter,” Grijalva, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, told National Journal on Monday. “I want the disclosure [of funding sources]. Then people can draw their own conclusions.”

I applaud, as we should all, Grijalva’s efforts to look into the practice of industry-bought research results, and their potential use in delaying action on climate change. That is the central narrative here. It may even be the case that in some instances looking at private correspondence will be necessary as part of one investigation or another. But at this point in time, the only thing Representative Grijalva needs is the subset of requested information that relates to disclosure, and it appears that that is the information he is now focused on. So, I applaud his rational thinking and sensible approach in this regard as well.

Related posts:

• Willie Soon, will he soon be fired?
• Get your free #WillieSoonGate meme!
• Cry for me, Willie Soon
• Smithsonian issues statement on Willie Soon
• More Willie Soon
• Willie Soon Gate
• Science Denialists Have Delayed Action On Climate Change: Soon vs. the Hockey Stick
• Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for Soon
• Science Denialists Make Fake Journal, Get Shut Down.

Willie Soon is a soft-money scientist at Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who has been producing highly questionable ‘science’ casting, for several years, faux light on the reality of the human caused process of global warming. It appears that most or all of Soon’s funding came directly or indirectly from the fossil fuel industry or supporters of that industry. (See also John Mashy’s comment below about tax breaks.) Recently the dung has struck the rotating blades and the nexus of denialist ‘science,’ fossil fuel funding, and Willie Soon has been brightly illuminated for all to see. Soon’s activities have actually been known for quite some time. Indeed, one of the denialist arguments that this isn’t really a story is the based on the assertion that this isn’t really a new story. (Pro tip: something like this going on for years is a bigger, not smaller, story!) What is different this time is that mainstream media, currently undergoing a transition away from maintaining a false balance debate about climate change has started to get real, and the main main stream media outlet in the US, the New York Times, anointed the Soon story as a story.

Even though Soon is ensconced at Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (which is more of a Smithsonian thing than a Harvard thing, but the links to Harvard are very real I am ashamed to admit) he recently made a public written statement about his situation and chose to convey that statement via the Heartland Institute. The Heartland Institute is the infamous Libertarian ‘think’ tank that supported the tobacco industry in their bid to cover up the dangers of smoking, and that has been involved in a range of rather nefarious activities vis-a-vis climate change science denialism. Soon has been an affiliate of Heartland for some time now. Soon’s statement reads:

In recent weeks I have been the target of attacks in the press by various radical environmental and politically motivated groups. This effort should be seen for what it is: a shameless attempt to silence my scientific research and writings, and to make an example out of me as a warning to any other researcher who may dare question in the slightest their fervently held orthodoxy of anthropogenic global warming.

Um, Imma let you finish reading the statement but first I want to comment on that first paragraph. The “radical” groups include Greenpeace, which I would argue is a radical group, but also, the New York Times, which I would regard as centrist, as well as a number of climate and environmental advocacy groups and individuals including mainstream scientists. What Soon calls an “orthodoxy” is actually a broadly held scientific consensus, like the “Germ Theory,” and “Einsteinian Physics” and such. By “question in the slightest” he must mean, since he is speaking circumspectly of his own work, “radical contrarianism of the important findings of climate science.” So, ladies and gentlemen, we see the magic of rhetoric at work. Soon is the radical, which is why he calls others radicals. OK, you may continue reading now.

I am saddened and appalled by this effort, not only because of the personal hurt it causes me and my family and friends, but also because of the damage it does to the integrity of the scientific process. I am willing to debate the substance of my research and competing views of climate change with anyone, anytime, anywhere. It is a shame that those who disagree with me resolutely decline all public debate and stoop instead to underhanded and unscientific ad hominem tactics.

Soon is famous for deflecting attempts to engage him in Q&A periods after the talks he gives. So forget about the debate. Soon is indeed being subjected to parallel attacks; scientists have been saying for years that his science sucks. That is not ad hominem. It is just that his science sucks. But also, his ethics are now being newly questioned, as he seems to have failed on numerous occasions to properly declare his industry funding. If accusing someone, copious evidence in hand, of ethical violations is ad hominem, then that is what it is. Soon’s reference to ad hominem is misguided. People are saying “Your science sucks. And your ethics are questionable.” The ad hominem fallacy would apply here only if people were saying “Your science sucks because your ethics suck.” No, his science does not stand on its own. OK, sorry for the interruption. Back to the statement.

Let me be clear. I have never been motivated by financial gain to write any scientific paper, nor have I ever hidden grants or any other alleged conflict of interest. I have been a solar and stellar physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics for a quarter of a century, during which time I have published numerous peer-reviewed, scholarly articles. The fact that my research has been supported in part by donations to the Smithsonian Institution from many sources, including some energy producers, has long been a matter of public record. In submitting my academic writings I have always complied with what I understood to be disclosure practices in my field generally, consistent with the level of disclosure made by many of my Smithsonian colleagues.

Whether or not Soon or any other author of a peer reviews paper is motivated by financial gain is irrelevant to the question of proper disclosure of funding. Who knows, he may be right. After all, it was just a million or so dollars, who would be motivated by that? That is a distraction. Do note his reference to grant money coming to him via the Smithsonian. We’ll return to that later. I find his reference to “many” of his Smithsonian colleagues interesting as well.

If the standards for disclosure are to change, then let them change evenly. If a journal that has peer-reviewed and published my work concludes that additional disclosures are appropriate, I am happy to comply. I would ask only that other authors-on all sides of the debate-are also required to make similar disclosures. And I call on the media outlets that have so quickly repeated my attackers’ accusations to similarly look into the motivations of and disclosures that may or may not have been made by their preferred, IPCC-linked scientists.

Just to be clear, there really is no question that Soon failed to disclose funding sources in violation of journal policies and standard practice. I should note that his failure to disclose has been on the table for some time and at no point did he address that issue, as far as I know. I suspect that Soon’s repeated references to “others” is a deluded hope that everyone should realize that everyone has been acting unethically and this will motivate everyone to back off. (See this interesting pot by Ugo Bardi on disclosure in science.)

I regret deeply that the attacks on me now appear to have spilled over onto other scientists who have dared to question the degree to which human activities might be causing dangerous global warming, a topic that ought rightly be the subject of rigorous open debate, not personal attack. I similarly regret the terrible message this pillorying sends young researchers about the costs of questioning widely accepted “truths.”

Actually, some of those people are not questioning human cause, but they are questioning the danger. But I digress.

There is indeed a message here to the young and upcoming researchers. Keep your ducks in a row when it comes to ethics and similar concerns. Otherwise, this is exactly the fight Soon says he is ready for. If you produce research that asks questions of a widely held consensus, more power to you! You may well be making an important contribution. But if your research is shown to be seriously wanting time and time again, you may want to refer to that old adage of unknown attribution about doing the same thing that does not work over and over again.

Finally, I thank all my many colleagues and friends who have bravely objected to this smear campaign on my behalf and I challenge all parties involved to focus on real scientific issues for the betterment of humanity.

This sentence really pisses me off. Willie Soon and his denialist colleagues in science and Congress have measurably stalled our collective action on climate change. How dare you play the victim, Willie Soon. You are one of the perpetrators of what could be defined, and some day will be defined, as a crime against future generations (though this isn’t technically illegal, of course). The young pre-school age children of today will suffer more than they otherwise might have because of this delay. Shame on you. Don’t tell us about the “betterment of humanity.” Don’t ask us to cry for you, Willie Soon. You are in a hole. You dug that hole, and got paid a million or two bucks along the way. You tossed our children under the bus, and now you are whinging about your own fate?

And now, for the last part of the statement:

Dr. Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Why is Willie Soon of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics releasing a statement indicating he is of that institution via the Heartland Institute, rather than from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics? I think it is very weird that he released a statement that he is not an industry shill through an organization that is an industry shill. Beyond that anything in his convoluted statement makes equal sense.

Note that in his statement, Soon throws the Smithsonian under the bus, or perhaps, drags the institution under his own bus, by reminding everyone that the grants actually came (he claims) to him from the Smithsonian, to which Big Fossil had made donations. Note also that Soon implies that failure to disclose is normal for his colleagues at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, or perhaps, the Smithsonian in general. Wow. One can only imagine the conversations going on behind closed doors between Garden Street and Concord Avenue, Cambridge, MA.

I strongly suspect that the only question that remains in the Willy Soon Gate affair is who is going down with Willie. We see the usual denialists lining up with him, and they are of no consequence. They have already crashed and burned. But we also see various so-called ‘contrarians’ choosing to jump in Willie’s hole, or not, and I strongly recommend not.

Let me give you the short version first, followed by elaboration using a handful of quotes from Mann’s book. Really, though, you should just go read the book. (By the way, if you do read it, consider leaving a review at Amazon; there has been a concerted effort by science denialists to leave bogus one star and otherwise horrid, inaccurate reviews on that site!)

The following graphic shows the march of global surface temperatures over the period we call the “Instrumental record,” which is the period of time best measured by thermometers and, later, satellites. The inset is a version of the famous “Hockey Stick Graph produced by Michael Mann and colleagues, showing recent warming in the context of previous natural variation. The inset shows both the “Hockey Stick” (in blue) and an independent reconstruction by the PAGES2k group (in green) which is an independent validation of the original Hockey Stick result.

This shows a the very end of period of mainly “natural variation” followed by a dramatic increase in surface temperatures owing to increased greenhouse gas pollution.

Here is a closeup of the same graph showing just the period of time over which the surface temperature variation, which amounts to an average increase, that is unambiguously anomalous compared to the past. This increase is pretty much entirely due to the effects of humans.

I’ve marked off a section of this graph that shows just the data since about 2003. This is the year that these two things happened: 1) Willie Soon co-authored two papers arguing that global warming wasn’t really happening, or was not human caused; and 2) Senator Jim Inhofe held Congressional hearings on climate change at which Soon, Mann, and others, testified.
There is no doubt whatsoever that action to reduce climate change has been slowed or even simply stopped in some cases by Big Fossil funded anti-science activism, which generally has involved an unholy marriage between crappy science and political maneuvering in Congress and elsewhere, a marriage involving a big dowery from fossil fuel interests. Willie Soon’s papers and Inhofe’s use of bad science is only part of the picture, but a key part, and at least, illustrative of the process. The following are brief quotes from Mann’s book describing part of the story. Again, read the book to get the full context and all of the details.

Soon after Mann and his colleagues published the Hockey Stick research, there was a range of reactions among which were attacks from the denialist community. One of these was a non peer reviewed piece put on a web site.

“The Summer of Our Discontent” (August 1998), had been invited from Sally Baliunas and Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. [Suggesting] that we had extended the MBH98 hockey stick no further back in time than A.D. 1400 for fear of encountering the warmer temperatures of the medieval warm period—a charge that … is nonsensical, since the stopping point was entirely determined by objective statistical criteria. Second, they claimed that our reconstruction suffered from an issue known as the “divergence problem”…

(I’ve discussed the divergence problem at length elsewhere on this blog.)

In a section of his book called “The Paper That Launched a Half-Dozen Resignations,” Mann talks about the Soon and Baliunas paper. Both Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon were at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Soon being a protege of Baliunas’. She had previously worked on the role of the sun in the Earth’s climate system.

The two went on to publish a number of articles analyzing the relationships between records of past solar variability and climate. … the Soon and Baliunas article took the form of two nearly identical papers published simultaneously in two different journals in spring 2003. One version of the paper appeared in the journal Climate Research while the other (which, it turns out, was simply a longer, unedited version of the first, but with three more coauthors added) was published in the journal Energy and Environment. Duplicate publication of a paper is highly unusual, and in fact is strictly forbidden by most academic journals. That both the authors and the study had been supported by the American Petroleum Institute—each of the authors had a long history of fossil fuel industry funding—combined with the highly unusual dual publication of the paper raised some eyebrows. Questions had been raised, moreover, about the two journals that jointly published the paper. Climate Research had in the recent past published a spate of contrarian papers of questionable scientific merit. Some members of the editorial board had already expressed concern that one editor at the journal known for his advocacy for the fossil fuel industry.

[One of the journal’s editors,] Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen … quite remarkably confessed in an interview … “I’m following my political agenda—a bit, anyway. But isn’t that the right of the editor?” The Soon and Baliunas study claimed to contradict previous work—including our own—that suggested that the average warmth of the Northern Hemisphere in recent decades was unprecedented over a time frame of at least the past millennium.

Mann goes on to explain in detail why the papers were scientifically flawed, and notes that …

The authors in many cases had mischaracterized or misrepresented the past studies they claimed to be assessing in their meta-analysis … Paleoclimatologist Peter de Menocal of Columbia University/LDEO, for example, who had developed a proxy record of ocean surface temperature from sediments off the coast of Africa, indicated that “Mr. Soon and his colleagues could not justify their conclusions that the African record showed the 20th century as being unexceptional … My record has no business being used to address that question.”

In response to Soon and Baliunas,

A group of twelve leading climate scientists joined me in authoring a rebuttal to Soon and Baliunas in Eos, the official newsletter of the American Geophysical Union. … The American Geophysical Union considered our rejoinder important enough to issue a press release entitled “Leading Climate Scientists Reaffirm View That Late 20th Century Warming Was Unusual and Resulted from Human Activity” in early July 2003, just prior to the article’s publication. Nevertheless, the Soon and Baliunas study was immediately taken up by the U.S. Senate’s leading climate change denier, Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma.

This brings us to the use of Soon’s and other denialist work as a tool to develop a contrarian argument in a Senate Hearing. Senator James Inhofe, famous for claiming that climate change is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American public, chaired the hearing which was held in July 2003. Again, you should read Mann’s account for all the amazing details; it is a rousing story! In essence, Soon and his work were being used to argue against the importance of Global Warming, and Mann represented the scientific view. The story also involves Hillary Clinton (in case you were wondering about her position on climate change). Here’s the part of Mann’s recounting I want you to see:

Midway through the hearing, [ranking member] Jeffords dropped a bombshell. He announced that his staff had received a note from Hans Von Storch announcing his resignation as chief editor of the journal Climate Research, in protest over the publication of the Soon and Baliunas paper. Von Storch was no scientific ally of mine. Indeed … he and I had had disputes in the past regarding the relative merits of statistical climate reconstruction methods. But ally or not, Von Storch was outraged that such a transparently flawed paper had been published in his journal. His note, which Jeffords read aloud, was to the point: “My view … is that the review of the Soon et al. paper failed to detect significant methodological flaws … The paper should not have been published in this forum, not because of the eventual conclusion, but because of the insufficient evidence to draw this conclusion.” Von Storch’s resignation had been precipitated by the refusal of the journal’s publisher, Otto Kinne, to allow him to publish an editorial expressing his view that the peer review process had clearly failed with the Soon and Baliunas paper. Several other editors quit as well (ultimately six editors—half the editorial board—would quit in protest over the incident)….

Perhaps the single most troubling issue to arise from the Soon and Baliunas affair was that of apparent editorial malpractice. At the two journals that published versions of the paper, the peer review process appears to have been compromised to produce a study in the scientific literature that could be seized upon by those with a contrarian policy agenda. … It is particularly pernicious when that process is compromised or co-opted for political ends.

Funded, I’ll add, by Big Fossil.

I asked Michael Mann how much damage he reckons Soon and Baliunas, and others like them, have done to the process of developing good policies to combat climate change. He told me, “Well, they are the hired hands of the “Merchants of Doubt”, the ones who do the bidding of fossil fuel interests by muddying the waters and confusing the public into thinking that there is still a scientific debate about whether climate change is happening, whether it is due to human activity, and whether it is a problem. There is none. It is hard to know just how much damage these deniers-for-hire have done to our civilization and our planet by needlessly delaying the action necessary to avert dangerous climate change.

As a follow-up, I wondered if he thought the recent exposure of climate science denials tactics would change the nature of future Senate hearings for the better. “I do—in my dreams,” he said. “Sadly, we are not there yet. While there is a worthy debate to be had about how we confront the challenge of averting the climate change threat, there is no legitimate debate to be had about whether or not the problem exists. Currently we have a congress that is committed to keeping that fake debate alive, as we have seen all too recently in the antics of folks like Senator James “climate change is a hoax” Inhofe, who now controls the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. We have to get past that.”

Finally, I asked Mann if he saw evidence that the peer review process has ultimately been improved as a result of clear abuses by denialist authors, or the reaction of publishers to those abuses. He told me, “Well, I certainly think that the scientific community is now far more aware of some of the bad faith efforts that have been made by industry-funded climate change deniers to pollute the peer-reviewed literature with antiscientific, agenda-driven screeds. Cracks still exist in the system, but slowly they are being repaired as scientists and editors increasingly learn more about the forces of antiscience that are still very much at play today.”

Other posts of interest:

• New Research Suggests Global Warming Is About To Heat Up
• New Research Demonstrates Link Between Greenhouse Gas Pollution and Global Warming
• Has Global Warming stopped?

Also of interest: In Search of Sungudogo: A novel of adventure and mystery, set in the Congo.

Smithsonian Statement on Willie Soon, researcher at the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory.

The Smithsonian is greatly concerned about the allegations surrounding Dr. Willie Soon’s failure to disclose funding sources for his climate change research.
The Smithsonian is taking immediate action to address the issue: Acting Secretary Albert Horvath has asked the Smithsonian Inspector General to review the matter. Horvath will also lead a full review of Smithsonian ethics and disclosure policies governing the conduct of sponsored research to ensure they meet the highest standards.

Wei-Hock (Willie) Soon is a part-time researcher at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. He was hired to conduct research on long-term stellar and solar variability. The Smithsonian does not fund Dr. Soon; he pursues external grants to fund his research.
The Smithsonian does not support Dr. Soon’s conclusions on climate change. The Smithsonian’s official statement on climate change, based upon many decades of scientific research, points to human activities as a cause of global warming.

Smithsonian Statement on Climate Change

The main thing I want to add to the discussion is this. It is clear that Willie Soon was taking piles of Big Fossil money for his climate research. It is clear that his research was widely discredited in the mainstream scientific community. It should have been easy to check to see if he was using the money properly (mainly, with respect to disclosure on publication) and to discover that he was not. So, why did it take an article in the New York Times to alert the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics of a problem going on under their roof for over a decade? Was the administration of HSCA compliant? Ignorant? In short, what did they know and when did they know it? And, will there be any effort by the Smithsonian, or Harvard for that matter, to address this?

Worth thinking about.

The image in the above meme is Senator Jim Inhofe referring to a list of some 58 “climate scientists” who oppose the global warming consensus. One of them is Soon. Many of the others are not climate scientists, or even scientists. Many are well known deniers. This list was provided by the discredited Heartland Institute. Expect new scrutiny into each of those individuals over the next few days, to see if there are any other Willie Soons on the list.

Anyway, here are a few more items of interest that came across my desk this morning.

The venerable journal Nature has weighed in on #WillieSoonGate: Documents spur investigation of climate sceptic: Questions raised about conflict-of-interest disclosures by Willie Soon.

Davies drew attention to Soon’s funding disclosures last month after Soon and three colleagues published a paper in the Chinese journal Science Bulletin2 that presented results from a simple climate model to argue that burning all recoverable fossil fuel reserves would result in little more than 2.2°C warming. By comparison, models assessed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on average project around 4° of warming with unabated fossil fuel use by 2100 and further warming beyond that time. The paper was appended with the statement: “The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.” Davies wrote to the journal insisting that Soon’s past funding sources do constitute a conflict of interest that should have been reported.

Science Bulletin’s conflict of interest policy states that authors must disclose “all relationships or interests that could influence or bias the work,” including “professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research.” The policy also gives a series of example disclosures. The first reads, “Author A has received research grants from Company A.”

The Willie Soon-Ken Cuccinelli Link: Blue Virginia has Cooch Cited Fossil-Fuel-Funded Climate Science Denier Willie Soon in Witchhunt vs. Michael Mann

…as it turns out, our old pal Ken Cuccinelli, when he was (appallingly) Attorney General of Virginia and waging a witch-hunt against climate science (and specifically against leading climate scientist Michael Mann), was busy citing some of those fossil-fuel-funded climate science deniers. That includes, as you can see below (from Cooch’s “Civil Investigative Demand” against the University of Virginia, none other than…that’s right, Willie Soon, who was falsely smearing the meticulous research of Michael Mann and many other scientists on the famous “hockey stick” graph. Not that Cuccinelli acting like this comes as a big surprise, but still, it’s yet more evidence of how “in bed” with fossil fuel interests Cuccinelli was when he was Attorney General of Virginia. Now, can someone please explain to me why THAT is legal, even as Bob and Maureen McDonnell face possible jail time for their corrupt (but arguably, FAR less severe and damaging than Cooch’s) behavior?

The Daily Climate points out the high frequency with which climate deniers denounce the funding of climate science by legitimate means, and contrasts those staw arguments to what appears to be Willie Soon’s prostitution to Big Fossil: At last, proof of a climate scientist getting rich pedaling science.

Inside Climate News has “A Guide To Willie Soon’s Climate Research Funded by Fossil Fuel Companies”

A watchdog group called the Climate Investigations Center alerted nine scientific journals Monday that studies they published most likely breached conflict-of-interest protocols. The studies in question were co-authored by Willlie Soon, a prominent climate-change skeptic whose work was funded by fossil fuel interests.

The letters grew out of the release Saturday of public records showing that Soon failed to disclose industry funding in 11 studies published by those journals.

More of that here.

Eli Rabett has two items on the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics:

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Hi-Jinks1

“…Much of the commentary on the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics hi-jinks has concerned how one of Dr Willie Soon’s sponsors the Southern Company had the right to examine and review any manuscripts that Dr. Willie Soon submitted for publication…”
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Hi-Jinks2
“…Amanda Preston was hip deep in the financials of Willie Soon’s support network. As the Advancement and External Affairs Officer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics she negotiated the terms for his support from Exxon Mobile among other things. Today she has moved on to be Executive Director of the Origins of Life Initiative at Harvard University, where, amongst other things she works works with faculty to squeeze out more dimes. …”

Anyway, just thought you’d like to know. And that you might enjoy the above meme.

Oh, and there has been some interest in who is on the list. This is the list of “those who can not be challenged!”…

DeSmogBlog has issued a NEW VERSION of the Heartland Poster with more accurate bios for each of the Heartland 58. GET IT HERE.

And, here is the list:

Habibullo Abdussamatov, Dr. Sci. Russia
Head of the Space Research Laboratory at the
Pulkovo Observatory and head of the Russian-
Ukrainian project Astrometria on the Russian
Segment of the International Space Station. He is the author
of more than 160 scientific publications.

J. Scott Armstrong, Ph.D. USA
Professor at the Wharton School, University of
Pennsylvania, a founder of the Journal of Forecasting,
International Journal of Forecasting, and International
Symposium on Forecasting.

Jerry Arnett, M.D. USA
A pulmonologist in private practice, an adjunct
scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
and a scientific advisor to the American Council on
Science and Health.

Ron Arnold USA
Executive vice president of the Center for the
Defense of Free Enterprise, author of eight books,
researcher and editor of ten books, and columnist for
the Washington Examiner.

Dennis Avery USA
Senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, previously
a senior analyst in the U.S. Department of State
(1980–88), where he won the National Intelligence
Medal of Achievement in 1983.

Tim Ball, Ph.D. Canada
Former professor of climatology, University of
Winnipeg, author of The Deliberate Corruption of
Climate Science.

Robert Balling, Ph.D. USA
Professor in the climatology program in the School
of Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University.

Joe Bastardi USA
Meteorologist, co-chief forecaster at Weatherbell
Analytics, long-time weather forecaster for
AccuWeather (1978–2011).

E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D. USA
National spokesman for The Cornwall Alliance for
the Stewardship of Creation, editor of The Cornwall
Alliance’s electronic newsletter, and author or coauthor
of several major papers and articles on global warming
produced by The Cornwall Alliance.

Larry Bell USA
Endowed professor of space architecture at the
University of Houston, where he founded and
directs the Sasakawa International Center for Space
Architecture. Author of Climate of Corruption: Politics and
Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax.

Christopher Booker United Kingdom
Columnist at the Sunday Telegraph (London) and
author of The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is The
Obsession With ‘Climate Change’ Turning Out To Be
The Most Costly Scientific Blunder In History?

Robert L. Bradley, Jr. USA
Founder and CEO, Institute for Energy Research;
adjunct scholar, Cato Institute; adjunct scholar,
Competitive Enterprise Institute; visiting fellow of
the Institute of Economic Affairs in London; and honorary
senior research fellow at the Center for Energy Economics at
the University of Texas at Austin.

Barry Brill New Zealand
New Zealand barrister and solicitor, former Minister
of Science & Technology and Minister of Energy,
and current chairman of the New Zealand Climate
Science Coalition.

Robert M. Carter, Ph.D. Australia
Palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist, and
environmental scientist, has held tenured academic staff
positions at the University of Otago (Dunedin) and
James Cook University (Townsville), where he was professor and
Head of the School of Earth Sciences between 1981 and 1999.

George Christensen, MP Australia
Member of the Australian Parliament representing
Dawson, Queensland in the House of Representatives
since 2010. He is a member of the National Party.

John Coleman USA
America’s best-known TV weatherman, the original
weathercaster on Good Morning America, and founder
of The Weather Channel, serving as its CEO and
president during the startup and its first year of operation.

Walter Cunningham USA
Pilot of Apollo 7, the first manned flight test of the
Apollo Program to land a man on the Moon. He is
a retired Marine Corps fighter pilot with the rank of
colonel, a successful businessman, entrepreneur, venture capitalist,
lecturer, and author.

James Delingpole United Kingdom
English columnist who writes for The Times, The
Daily Telegraph, and The Spectator. He has published
several novels and four political books, including
Watermelons: The Green Movement’s True Colors.

Paul Driessen USA
Senior fellow with the Committee For A Constructive
Tomorrow and Center for the Defense of Free
Enterprise, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power,
Black Death (Merril Press, 2003).

Don Easterbrook, Ph.D. USA
Emeritus professor of geology at Western
Washington University, where he has conducted
research on global climate change in western North
America, New Zealand, Argentina, and various other parts of
the world for the past 48 years.

Myron Ebell USA
Director of energy and global warming policy at
the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He chairs the
Cooler Heads Coalition, representing more than two
dozen nonprofit groups in the U.S. and abroad that question
global warming alarmism and oppose energy rationing policies.

Indur Goklany, Ph.D. USA
Former visiting fellow with the American Enterprise
Institute, the first Julian Simon Fellow at the
Political Economy Research Center in Bozeman,
Montana, author of The Improving State of the World.

Fred Goldberg, Ph.D. Sweden
Associate professor at the Royal Institute of
Technology in Stockholm and CEO of the Swedish
Polar Institute.

Stanley Goldenberg USA
Hurricane researcher based in Miami, Florida.
His primary research has been examining climatic
factors that influence the variability of hurricane
activity in the Atlantic on intraseasonal to multidecadal time
scales.

Steve Goreham USA
Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition
of America and author of Climatism! Science, Common
Sense, and the 21st Century’s Hottest Topic, and The
Mad, Mad, Mad, World of Climatism.

Tom Harris Canada
Executive director, International Climate Science
Coalition, former executive director of the Natural
Resources Stewardship Project (Canada), instructor
from 2009 to 2011 (four sessions) on the Faculty of Sciences at
Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

Howard Hayden, Ph.D. USA
Professor of physics emeritus in the Physics
Department of the University of Connecticut, editor
of The Energy Advocate, author of A Primer on CO2
and Climate (2007) and A Primer on Renewable Energy (2009).

Roger Helmer, MEP United Kingdom
Member of the European Parliament representing
the UK’s East Midlands Region for the UK
Independence Party (UKIP). He graduated from
the University of Cambridge in 1965 with a degree in mathematics.

Craig Idso, Ph.D. USA
Founder and chairman of the Center for the Study
of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, coauthor
of Climate Change Reconsidered and other books on
climate change.

Richard A. Keen, Ph.D. USA
Emeritus meteorology instructor at the University of
Colorado, academic scientist on the Juneau (Alaska)
Ice Field Research Program, and a former “tornadochaser”
for the National Center for Atmospheric Research and
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Madhav Khandekar Canada
Former research scientist from Environment Canada,
presently on the editorial board of the Journal of
Natural Hazards (Kluwer).

William Kininmonth Australia
Former head of Australia’s National Climate
Centre and consultant to the World Meteorological
Organization.

David W. Kreutzer, Ph.D. USA
Senior policy analyst in energy economics and climate
change at The Heritage Foundation’s Center
for Data Analysis, and previously a professor of
economics for 23 years at James Madison University in
Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Hon. Vaclav Klaus, Ph.D. Czech Republic
Former president of the Czech Republic, first elected
in February 2003. An economist by education, he
has worked in research at the Institute of Economics
of the Czech Academy of Sciences and at the Czechoslovak
State Bank.

David Legates, Ph.D. USA
Professor in the Department of Geography at the
University of Delaware, and an adjunct professor in
the Physical Ocean Science and Engineering
Program and the Department of Applied Economics
and Statistics.

Jay Lehr, Ph.D. USA
Senior fellow and science director of The Heartland
Institute, an internationally renowned speaker, scientist,
and author who has testified before Congress on
more than three dozen occasions on environmental issues and
consulted with nearly every agency of the federal government
and with many foreign countries.

Marlo Lewis, Ph.D. USA
Senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
where he writes on global warming, energy policy,
and other public policy issues.

Richard Lindzen, Ph.D. USA
Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Emeritus,
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and
Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Cato
Institute.

Craig Loehle, Ph.D. USA
Worked at the Department of Energy Laboratories
before joining the National Council for Air and
Stream Improvement in 1998. He has published
more than 150 peer-reviewed papers in forestry, ecology, geophysics,
modeling, and other fields.

Anthony Lupo, Ph.D. USA
Professor of atmospheric science in the Department
of Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Science at
the University of Missouri, and past chair and director
of graduate studies for the department.

Jennifer Marohasy, Ph.D. Australia
An Australian biologist who has worked for government
and industry. Currently a research fellow in
the Centre for Plant and Water Science at Central
Queensland University, Australia.

Patrick Michaels, Ph.D. USA
Director of the Center for the Study of Science at
the Cato Institute, a past president of the American
Association of State Climatologists, and former program
chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the
American Meteorological Society.

Christopher Monckton United Kingdom
Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, chief policy
advisor to the Science and Public Policy Institute.
He has held positions with the British press and
in government, as a press officer at the Conservative Central
Office, and as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s policy
advisor.

Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Canada
Co-founder, chair, and chief scientist of Greenspirit
Strategies. Founding member and former president
and international director of Greenpeace, author of
Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible
Environmentalist.

Marita Noon USA
Executive director of Energy Makes America Great
Inc. and its companion educational organization, the
Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy.

Joanne Nova Australia
Australian science writer, blogger, and speaker, author
of The Skeptics Handbook, Climate Money, and other
short books, and host of JoNova, a Web site.

Ian Plimer, Ph.D. Australia
Chair of mining geology at The University of
Adelaide and emeritus professor of Earth sciences
at The University of Melbourne, where he was chair
and head from 1992 to 2005. Author of Heaven and Earth:
Global Warming – The Missing Science.

Harrison Schmitt, Ph.D. USA
Harrison “Jack” Schmitt is an American geologist
and a former NASA astronaut, university professor,
and U.S. Senator. He is the 12th and last person to
walk on the Moon.

S. Fred Singer, Ph.D. USA
One of the world’s most prominent atmospheric
and space physicists, he is founder and president
of the Science and Environmental Policy Project,
former distinguished research professor at George Mason
University, and professor emeritus of environmental science at
the University of Virginia..

Willie Soon, Ph.D. USA
An astrophysicist and geoscientist based in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is the receiving editor
in the area of solar and stellar physics for the journal
New Astronomy and author of The Maunder Minimum and the
Variable Sun-Earth Connection.

Roy Spencer, Ph.D. USA
Principal research scientist for the University of
Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team
Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning
Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. In the past,
he has served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Brian Sussman USA
For 20 years the San Francisco Bay Area’s top television
meteorologist and science reporter, he is the
author of Climategate: A Veteran Meteorologist Exposes
The Global Warming Scam.

George H. Taylor, CCM USA
President of Applied Climate Services, former director
of the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State
University, former member of the Board of Certified
Consulting Meteorologists (chairman in 1995), and two-time
President of the American Association of State Climatologists
(1998-99 and 1999-2000).

James M. Taylor USA
Senior Fellow for The Heartland Institute and former
managing editor of Environment & Climate
News, a national monthly publication devoted to
sound science and free-market environmentalism. He writes a
weekly column addressing environment issues for Forbes.com

David Tuerck, Ph.D. USA
Professor of cconomics and executive director of
the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in
Boston. Tuerck is an authority on tax policy analysis,
labor union issues, and macroeconomic stabilization policies.

Paul E. Waggoner, Ph.D. USA
A distinguished scientist at the Connecticut
Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, where
he was formerly director. His research has spanned
micrometeorology; stomates or leaf pores; plant disease epidemiology;
and land use by cities, crops, and forests.

Anthony Watts USA
A 25-year broadcast meteorology veteran and currently
chief meteorologist for KPAY-AM radio,
he exposed shortcomings in the U.S. network of
weather stations and is host of the popular science blog, Watts
Up With That.

Thomas Wysmuller USA
Trained as a meteorologist at New York University
and at the Royal Dutch Weather Bureau in
Amsterdam, he worked for five years throughout
NASA before, during, and after the moon landings. He is routinely
invited back to give science and meteorology lectures at
NASA Field Centers and universities throughout the world.

Before going into detail I just want to note that Justin Gillis is doing a great job at the New York Times.

Anyway, you can read the following items, the most recent listed here:

Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for a Doubtful Climate Scientist

Willie Soon Gate

Willie Soon, will he soon be fired?

It really looks like Willie Soon has been paid by Big Fossil to write papers, which generally suck as science, suggesting that Anthropogenic Global Warming isn’t much of a thing. A lot of us have known this for some time, and have been complaining about it. Climate science deniers have been denying. Now, major media is putting the story together. Suddenly, we are looking at a sea change, and it is pretty wavy, and Willie needs a bigger boat.

First, the most important fact:

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.

So, our planet, his deliverables. To the tune of over $400,000 pieces of silver. Nice going, Willie, this makes you kind of an asshole.

Then, this from the big boss at Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysics:

Charles R. Alcock, director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, acknowledged on Friday that Soon had violated the disclosure standards of some journals.

“I think that’s inappropriate behavior,” Alcock said. “This frankly becomes a personnel matter, which we have to handle with Dr. Soon internally.”

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 undersecretary for science at the Smithsonian in Washington, said Friday. “We are checking into this ourselves.”

Charles, I’m not that impressed with you either. You let this go on in your institution for many years, and Soon isn’t the only climate science denialist you are harboring. WTF? Well, thanks for finally getting on with this. I do hope you have the wits to suspend his activities until the end of the HR investigation, because that could take some time. Otherwise he might pinch off a few more papers under your aegis.

I asked climate scientist Michael Mann what he thought of this news. He told me, “Willie Soon (as amply documented in my book “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”) was instrumental in the early attacks on the Hockey Stick by James Inhofe and other fossil fuel industry-funded politicians. Now we know for certain that his efforts were a quid pro quo with special interests looking to discredit my work as a means of calling into question the reality and threat of climate change.” (Mann’s book is here.)

UPDATE: Senator Edward Markey will launch an investigation of Big Fossil company funding of bogus climate change studies, according to the Boston Globe:

“For years, fossil fuel interests and front groups have attacked climate scientists and legislation to cut carbon pollution using junk science and debunked arguments,” Markey said in a statement. “The American public deserve an honest debate that isn’t polluted by the best junk science fossil fuel interests can buy. That’s why I will be launching this investigation to see how widespread this denial-for-hire scheme stretches within the anti-climate action cabal.”

Markey will be looking into over a million dollars of funding from such companies as ExonMobil, Southern Company, Texaco, etc.

Other posts of interest:

• How to get rid of spiders in your house
• Why is your poop green?
• How many cells are there in the human body?
• Is there really a plot hole in Harry Potter Goblet of Fire?
• How long is a human generation?
• Is blog ever really blue?
• Which is better, Tap Water or Bottled Water?
• Has Global Warming stopped?

Also of interest: In Search of Sungudogo: A novel of adventure and mystery, set in the Congo.

There’s been a lot of talk about the Willie Soon Controversy. Bottom line: Soon was an author on a paper that failed to disclose his extensive funding by the petroleum industry and its friends (over a million dollars to date, I believe) as required. I don’t have time to craft a detailed expose or commentary, but I wanted to get a bunch of resources in one place. I should mention that this is not all about Willie Soon, but rather, about climate science denialists more generally, a few specific others besides Soon, about how crap gets published now and then much to the giddiness of the denialist community, and about the ethical issues plaguing Soon, which have led to, among other things, tens of thousands of people signing a petition to get him sacked from his position at Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics lab.

The Monckton-Soon-Legates-Briggs paper

It all starts with this paper:

Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model, published in the Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

The paper is by Christopher Monckton, Willie Soon, David Legates and William Briggs.

The paper has been examined by a number of scientists and others, and found wanting. Here is a selection of the critiques:

• Roz Pidcock at The Carbon Brief: check: Scientists hit back at claims global warming projections are “greatly exaggerated”

• William Connolley at Stoat: “the Monckton et. al [sic] paper is complete trash”

• Thought Fragments: Monckton, Soon, Legates, and Briggs falsely claim to have presented a new climate model (see also this comment on that post.)

• And Then There’s Physics: The designers of our climate

• Not Spaghetti: The Monckton equation

• Alexandray Cheung at Climate at Imperial College London: http://wwwf.imperial.ac.uk/blog/climate-at-imperial/2015/01/23/with-climate-models-simpler-isnt-necessarily-better/

• From the Daily Kos: Mocking Monckton’s Climate Model

On getting bad climate science published in peer reviewed journals

• Brian Merchant at Motherboard: How Climate Change Denial Still Gets Published in Peer-Reviewed Journals

• From E&E Publishing, Gayathri Vaidyanathan: Heartland Institute finds route into U.S. science news conduit through China

About Soon’s apparent failure to follow disclose, and his funding sources:

• The Boston Globe: Climate change skeptic accused of violating disclosure rules

• Climate Investigations Center: Willie Soon Fails Conflict of Interest Test in Science Bulletin Article

• About that petition to get him fired: Willie Soon, will he soon be fired?

Who is Willie Soon?”

(ADDED: Since there have been so many wonderful questions about the controversial research and related issues, let me point you to this post, which is essentially a link farm to myriad resources for you to read and enjoy.)

According to DeSmogBlog, Willie Wei Hock “Soon is a prominent climate change skeptic who has received much of his research funding from the oil and gas industry.” He thinks the sun causes the climate change we’ve been observing over the last few decades:

“The evidence in my paper is consistent with the hypothesis that the Sun causes climatic change in the Arctic … It invalidates the hypothesis that CO2 is a major cause of observed climate change – and raises serious questions about the wisdom of imposing cap-and-trade or other policies that would cripple energy production and economic activity, in the name of ‘preventing catastrophic climate change’.

Apparently, his research is paid by the fossil fuel industry.

There is now a petition to get the venerable Smithsonian to drop Soon from it’s staff. The petition addresses a specific ethical concern, not his research. This pertains to Soon’s failure to disclose his sources of research funding when disclosure would be appropriate. Not disclosing funding sources is not the same as getting funding and disclosing. This is about not disclosing. You are supposed to disclose. This is a point being missed (rather intentionally I suspect) but Soon supporters. Lots of researchers get funding from industries related to their research, and conferences are often funded this way as well. But it is disclosed, like it is supposed to be, generally. The petition is not about his bone-headed ideas about climate change, to which he is entitled (as we all are entitled to view as, well, bone-headed). It is about his failure to disclose, and the specific allegation is that his funding is from oil/energy companies, which would make research (published along side well known petroleum industry funded science denialists, by the way) potentially biased. Which is why disclosure is normal. This is not hard to understand, though you will see a lot of anti-science climate change deniers very willfully misunderstanding.

Dr. Willie Soon — an astrophysicist employed by the Smithsonian — is a go-to “scientist” for climate deniers in Congress, despite his lack of climate credentials. Worse yet, he’s received research grants exclusively from fossil fuel companies and dark money groups since 2002.

Now The Boston Globe is reporting that Soon just published a paper on climate change without disclosing his fossil fuel funding — a violation of the journal’s ethics code and a no-no in the science community.

Tell the Smithsonian: Don’t lend your good name to fossil fuel-funded climate denial. Drop Dr. Willie Soon.

The petition is here, in case you want to sign it. I signed it, but reluctantly. On one hand I don’t thing firing someone is what one would normally do for violating grant-related ethics. Usually other sorts of actions are taken. On the other hand I like the idea of giving deans and other administrators a tool, so they can sit down with Soon (soon, one would hope) and the sentence “Look, Willie, there’s a petition with over 10,000 people calling for your head over this. Hard to ignore!” could be part of the conversation. (Even if they are quite capable of ignoring it). It is all a matter of personal choice. Were it me writing the petition, I’d have it be to ask the administration to look into Soon’s practice of failing to report funding by clear special interests, and take appropriate action.

UPDATE: So far, since this post has been pointed at by various science denying, or denialist defending, web sites, from which I’ve gotten a few dozen (at most) page views and about 25 or so (deleted) obnoxious comments, the petition has garnered well over 20,000 signatures. I really do have my doubts about how much a petition like this will matter, but I do strongly suspect that the Harvard-Smithsonian Observatory is getting tires of Soon and his shenanigans. Don’t be surprised if he’s not around by next winter.