Koch Brothers Needed a Scientist to Deny Climate Change — So They Bought One

There is zero doubt that climate change is real, and that increased carbon pollution is the cause. To say it’s the overwhelming scientific consensus is to understate reality.

But every now and then a respected scientist pops up with a different theory. A great example is Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, an aeronautical engineer who works for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He believes climate change is the result of variations in solar activity rather than humans pouring carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.

Soon’s theory has made him the darling of conservative media (which often misidentifies him as an astrophysicist) and conservative politicians like Sen. James Inhofe, current chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. They point to Soon as evidence that there is a real controversy over what’s causing climate change.

But it turns out Soon’s research has been bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry — including the Koch brothers.

The New York Times reports that not only have corporations like Exxon and Southern Company Services — which owns many coal plants — paid for Soon’s research, but so have organizations with deep ties to the petroleum industry, like the American Petroleum Institute, the Charles G. Koch Foundation, and Donors Trust, which funnels anonymous donors to conservative causes.

Corporate funding of scientific research isn’t unusual, but what’s different in this case is Soon’s direct acknowledgement that he would produce specific results for his funding. In his proposals for  funding, he referred to papers submitted to journals and testimony before Congress as “deliverables” — what his funders would get for their cash.

Just as troublesome, Soon didn’t disclose his dependence on petrodollars to the journals where he published, a clear breach of the ethics governing scientific research. The journals are investigating, as are his employers at Harvard and the Smithsonian.

The media commonly cites the statistic that 97 percent of scientists agree that man-made climate change is a reality. Now we know where the the other 3 percent come from — the oil industry buys them off.