Last year, we found out that climate denier Willie Soon received over $1 million in funding from fossil fuel interests that he failed to disclose on eleven studies—which he had produced to justify that funding. Now, we’ve learned that Soon is continuing his career “prostituting science.”
InsideClimate News (ICN) has the latest development, which is that Soon has received a new grant for $65,000 (plus a pending request for more) to fund a research project called “A Young Sun Analog: HD30495.” While ICN notes that Smithsonian didn’t want to talk about the project’s focus or a potential climate connection, a Google search shows that “HD30495” is a young star whose characteristics resemble our own sun. An HD30495 study on arXiv suggests that Soon’s study will be another attempt to blame global warming on solar cycles.
This money comes from Donor’s Trust, a group that effectively functions as a non-profit money-laundering operation. It takes money from conservative donors, sets up an individual “fund” for them within the organization, and then doles out the money to “scientists” like Soon and other organizations, which then serve the desires of the funders. By funneling the money through Donor’s Trust, individuals can fund people and organizations without anyone outside the organization knowing where the money came from, thereby blinding the public to any potential conflicts of interest.
This is important to Soon’s story, because after his scandal broke last year, the Smithsonian underwent an ethics and disclosure policy review and overhaul. Even with the new guidelines, Soon gets off scot-free, because he has disclosed that the funding came from Donor’s Trust. Despite the fact that the Donor’s Trust money that is funding Soon comes from an anonymous source, the Smithsonian considers this sufficient disclosure for Soon’s $65,000 payday.
Apparently, the Smithsonian doesn’t think the anonymous nature of Donor Trust will compromise the integrity of Soon’s work.
But after everything that’s been revealed, does Soon’s work even have any integrity left to compromise?
That’s the $65,000 question.
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