Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher

Because of the risks to all life on Earth of denying and not urgently responding to the imminent and catastrophic threats of global warming , I believe that lies and propaganda as profound and as hugely impactful as this man's - and those like him - should be able to be prosecuted. Somewhere, somehow we need to come up with enforceable consequences for greed so obscene and so profoundly costly to life on this planet. Greed and propaganda of this magnitude needs to no longer be tolerated, much less experienced as "normal" as it is in our country. Otherwise, as today's children and children yet unborn look back upon these times, what is the message we leave -- that we don't care about them? Another world is possible. ~ Molly

Wei-Hock Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, whose articles have been tied to corporate funding. CreditPete Marovich

By JUSTIN GILLIS and JOHN SCHWARTZ

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.

Please continue this article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us/ties-to-corporate-cash-for-climate-change-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html?_r=0