A Malaysian-American academic frequently at loggerheads with climate scientists for his staunch denial of man-made climate change has apparently had his research work funded almost entirely by fossil fuel companies.
Recently released documents reveal that Wei-Hock Soon, PhD, a part-time researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, accepted some $1.25 million from the fossil fuel industry over the last decade but failed to disclose this fact.
Soon became the academic darling of fossil fuel companies that deny they're a leading cause of global warming by declaring variations in the Sun's energy rather than greenhouse gas emissions are behind global warming.
"Willie" Soon is a critic of the scientific consensus on climate change. He disputes the consensus view that human activity is a significant contributor to climate change, and argues that most global warming is caused by solar variation. Climate scientists have rebutted Soon's arguments and the Smithsonian does not support his conclusions.
Despite this, Soon is frequently cited by politicians opposed to climate-change legislation. Soon has presented his climate change denials on right wing news programs and has testified before Congress at the invitation of Republican lawmakers that deny anthropomorphic climate change.
Tech Times reported Soon received money from the ultra-conservative Koch brothers, energy companies and anti-climate change lobbying groups.
The largest single funder of Soon's work is The Southern Company, one of the largest American electricity providers relying heavily on coal, and owned by the Koch brothers.
Fossil fuel industry funding for Soon's work includes $409,000 from The Southern Company; $230,000 from Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and hundreds of thousands of dollars from Donors Trust. Soon also received funding from Exxon Mobil and the American Petroleum Institute.
Soon did not disclose these facts in at least 11 papers he published since 2008. Many of the papers might have violated the ethical guidelines of most of the journals where they were published.
Charles Alcock, director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, has acknowledged Soon violated the disclosure standards required by 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."
The sources of Soon's funding were revealed in documents obtained by the environmental group Greenpeace under the Freedom of Information Act.
"The question here is really: 'What did API, ExxonMobil, Southern Company and Charles Koch see in Willie Soon?' What did they get for $1m-plus?" says Kert Davies, a former Greenpeace researcher who submitted the original freedom of information requests.
The documents include correspondence between Soon and the corporations funding his work. Soon described many of his scientific papers as "deliverables", said The New York Times.
"What it shows is the continuation of a long-term campaign by specific fossil-fuel companies and interests to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change," said Davies.
Soon has not responded to repeated requests for a comment on the documents.
He was born in Kangar, Malaysia in 1966. Soon attended the University of Southern California, receiving a B.Sc. in 1985, an M.Sc. in 1987 and a Ph.D. (with distinction) in 1991.