The Problem With Dr. Wei-Hock Soon

The Problem With Dr. Wei-Hock Soon

Davis Goode, Editor-In-Chief

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) is the current Chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee. Here’s what he said in a tweet on January 21, 2015:

“Senators – join me in voting YES on Whitehouse’s amdmnt saying climate change is a hoax, bc it is. I’ll address my vote in floor speech soon”
Mr. Inhofe wrote a book entitled “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future”.

Mr. Inhofe is the Chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee, which handles all policy related to the environment and infrastructure in the United States.

I thought that deserved repetition.

Recent polling by Pew, the New York Times, and USA Today have found that the overwhelming majority of Americans believe that climate change is happening and caused by man. The issue is highly politicized, with a 40% delta between Republicans and Democrats on virtually any question related to climate change, including the degree of the threat and the government’s action regarding that threat. The most significant question related to climate change is whether or not action to combat climate change will help or hurt the U.S economy. Only 28% of Republicans, 58% of Democrats, and 40% of Independents believe combating climate change will help the U.S economy, while 47% of Republicans, 16% of Democrats, and 31% of Independents believe that combating climate change will harm the economy. The trajectory in public opinion suggests an upward motion in favor of action against climate change. However, most Americans rate climate change very low on a scale of issues important to them; jobs & the economy continually prevail as the most important issue. So until Americans are convinced that investment in green jobs and renewable technology will help the economy, there will likely be limited action on climate change.

However, the issue of climate change is more complicated than public opinion.
In 2014, oil companies spend over $40million in support of Republican political candidates. We have seen that when an overwhelming majority of Americans believe in a cause, Congress is not always willing to sacrifice political support for such a cause. Congress voted against universal background checks in 2013 despite support of such a measure from almost 90% of Americans because of the political influence of gun-rights groups such as the NRA. So even though the vast majority of Americans support action against climate change, and it is the job of Congress to develop solutions conducive to a productive economy, not abstain because the solutions arguably do not yet exist, it is unlikely that a Republican controlled Congress will take action because of the mountain of money such action would probably cost them.

What’s more dangerous than ignorance of American public opinion is the delusion of ‘scientific divide’ on the issue of climate change. Those shepherding such a perception include several highly educated climate scientists, including Dr. Wei-Hock Soon. Dr. Soon earned a Ph.D. with distinction and numerous other graduate degrees in varied scientific fields from the University of Southern California. Dr. Soon co-authored a widely circulated paper in 2003 arguing that the 20th century is not the warmest or most extreme climatic period. Since the publication of that paper, he has authored several others arguing against climate change. What was not revealed until last month is that Dr. Soon has been receiving over $1.2million in funding from the fossil fuel industry over the past several years. He failed to disclose such a conflict of interest in eleven papers published since 2008.

Dr. Soon has described papers he completed in conjunction with corporate funders as “deliverables”. Politicians have long cited indisputable ‘fact’ in argument and in debate. When two indisputable facts collide, it is easily understood that one is a lie.

However, in the scientific community those arguing for the overwhelming majority are often faced with the blank-stare, impulsive reaction of a person reminding them that their argument, whether on the topic of climate change or cigarettes, is just a theory. Evolution is just a theory. Heliocentrism is just a theory. There is no possible way to prove a theory; but some theories are more right than others. Let us forget for a moment that Dr. Soon was given over $1million to produce a paper that would help to protect corporate interests. When Dr. Soon, and others like him, signed his name to a counterargument of climate change at the behest of corporations, he gave climate deniers more than just vague objections to logical scientific recommendations.

In other words, climate deniers can now actually join in the discussion with legitimate scientific firepower, rather than flail in the sidelines reminding us all that climate change is just a theory.

This change sets governmental discourse decades back. Because climate deniers have the power to matter, the burden of proof is on us. We no longer have the luxury of taking action against a nearly universal truth; we have to peddle to the 2% with a total lack of logical foresight-

And Dr. Wei Hock Soon.