OK, child. Of Willie Soon,
Dr. Willie Wei-Hock Soon (who is most commonly referred to as Willie Soon) is a global warming skeptic. He is a physicist at the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and, since 1992[1], has been an astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory,[2], where climate denier and Marshall Institute co-founder Robert Jastrow was Director[3] from 1992-2003.[4]
"U.S. oil and coal companies, including ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, Koch Industries, and the world’s largest coal-burning utility, Southern Company, have contributed more than $1 million over the past decade to his research. According to Greenpeace, every grant Dr. Soon has received since 2002 has been from oil or coal interests."[5]
...
Biographical notesA biographical note formerly on the website of
DCI Group-run
Tech Central Station, where Soon was listed as "Science Director" between approximately September 2003[6] and May 2007, listed his "areas of Expertise" as "Global warming", "Mercury", "Solar Variability" and the "Arctic".[7] His bio note on TCS stated that "Dr. Willie Soon's views expressed are not necessarily those of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics."[7]
A biographical note from 2000 stated that he was "a contributing editor to
World Climate Report and member of the American Astrophysical Society, American Geophysical Union, and International Astronomical Union."[8] Two years later, another biographical note stated that he was a former contributing editor to World Climate Report but added that he was then an "Adjunct Professor of the Faculty of Science and Environmental Studies of the University of Putra, Malaysia." It also stated that "for years, he has researched the topic of the orbital theory of climate change, the Milankovic theory for glacial and interglacial changes."[9]
Global Warming Skeptic tiesSoon has long been associated with various U.S. and Canadian think tanks disputing human-induced global warming. Many of the papers he has published on the topic have been co-authored with
Sallie L. Baliunas and sometimes with her and other co-authors.
Between December 1998[10] and September 2001[11] he was listed as a "Scientific Adviser" to the
Greening Earth Society, a group that was funded and controlled by the
Western Fuels Association (WFA), an association of coal-burning utility companies. WFA founded the group in 1997, according to an archived version of its website, "as a vehicle for advocacy on climate change, the environmental impact of CO2, and fossil fuel use."[12] While Soon remains listed on the websites of various think tanks noted for disputing global warming -- such as the
Fraser Institute in Canada and the
George C. Marshall Institute in the U.S. -- Soon has not written for them for a long time. (For example, the last paper by Soon published on the website of the Fraser Institute dates back to January 2003[13] and for the Marshall Institute the last published paper was in May 2003[14]) (Baliunas was one of the other "scientific advisers").
As of early 2009, Soon's current biographical note states that he "is chief science adviser for the
Science and Public Policy Institute".[15] Prior to Bob Ferguson founding SPPI in mid 2007, Soon worked with him from mid-2003 at the
Center for Science and Public Policy, a project of
Frontiers of Freedom (FOF)[16] funded, at least in part, by Exxon.[17]
The site's use of the term "skeptic" in relation to this character is overly generous.
Soon is a prominent climate change skeptic who has received much of his research funding from the oil and gas industry.
According to David Suzuki:
Quote:"U.S. oil and coal companies, including ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, Koch Industries, and the world’s largest coal-burning utility, Southern Company, have contributed more than $1 million over the past decade to his research. According to Greenpeace, every grant Dr. Soon has received since 2002 has been from oil or coal interests."
With so many ties to the rabid Right and fossil fuel industry, his credibility I would charitably put at nil.
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