Today, I conducted a telephone consultation with Dr. Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, part-time employee of the Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-author of The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun – Earth Connection; Proxy Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1000 Years; Modeling Climatic Effects of Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Unknowns and Uncertainties; Estimation and Representation of Long-term ( > 40 year ) Trends of Northern-Hemisphere-gridded Surface Temperature: a Note of Caution; and, Variation in Surface Air Temperature of China During the 20th Century; as well as sole author of Non-equilibrium Kinetics in High Temperature Gases; Variable Solar Irradiance as a Plausible Agent for Multidecadal Variations in the Arctic-wide Surface Air Temperature Record of the Past 130 years; Solar Arctic-Mediated Climate Variation on Multidecadal to Centennial Timescales: Empirical Evidence, Mechanistic Explanation and Testable Consequences; and, Implications of the Secondary Role of Carbon Dioxide and Methane Forcing in Climate Change; Past, Present, and Future. To truly appreciate this Web log post, Dear Reader, you should, of course, read all of them beforehand in their complete, utter and exhaustive entirety. I did, naturally, in order to prepare for my consultation with the good doctor (Evelyn Wood, please phone home).
Tom: Hello, Dr. Soon?
Willie: Yes, yes, is this Mr. Tom Collins Martini?
Tom: It is indeed, sir.
Willie: They say you’re the smartest person in Washington DC.
Tom: Which is a lot like being the tallest building in Baltimore.
Willie: Baltimore? But that’s hardly a noted location for tall buildings, is it?
Tom: When it comes to tall buildings, Baltimore has it all – bad subsoil, inadequate bedrock, hydraulic intrusion hazards everywhere below fifty feet under the surface. You might as well try to build skyscrapers on Lake Pontchartrain.
Willie: Maybe… I suppose. So… what are you getting at?
Tom: Um… well… in this case, nothing, apparently. Thank you for the compliment.
Willie: They also say you give the first consultation for free.
Tom: That’s correct – it’s a major aspect of my business development model.
Willie: Mighty clever of you, considering the hourly rates you charge.
Tom: Oh, I don’t know about that – I’m told my rates are quite reasonable compared to what Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw charge when they’re out doing a bit of moonlighting, for example.
Willie: Malcolm Rifkind? Jack Straw? Are you making things up? Who in blue blazes are they?
Tom: Two distinguished British gentlemen, Doctor. Politicians. Perhaps, at this point, rather more distinguished than they should desire, if you catch my drift. But be that as it may, what I am saying is, at the end of the day, one does, after all, get what one pays for, does one not? I would expect that you, of all people, should know that.
Willie: Oh really? What makes you say so?
Tom: Well, you received $400,000 from Southern Company Services to write a research paper which disputes the scientific consensus that the Earth’s atmosphere is warming due to anthropogenic creation of greenhouse gases, didn’t you?
Willie: Southern Company Services paid me some money, yes.
Tom: And Southern Company Services is a large electric utility doing business in the southeastern United States, and derives almost all of its power from burning coal, correct?
Willie: Well, yes.
Tom: And Southern Company funded at least ten other research papers you worked on, didn’t it?
Willie: So did NASA, the Smithsonian Institute, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the National Science Foundation, the state of Alaska, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a whole lot of other organizations that don’t burn one single lump of coal and never have. So what? We scientists have to get grant money for our research from anywhere we can!
Tom: But in your communications with Southern, you didn’t call your work research – you called your papers “deliverables.” Now, as a bona fide Beltway insider, I know the difference between “research” and a “deliverable.” And I bet you do, too.
Willie: The words are synonymous.
Tom: Vaguely so; but they have distinctly different connotations.
Willie: That’s just semantics. I’ve never let funding influence my scientific objectivity.
Tom: Not even the $1.3 million you’ve been paid by energy interests and the Koch brothers since 2001?
Willie: Look, during that same time period, I got another $840,000 from government agencies, scientific foundations and universities too, you know.
Tom: You must admit, though, $2.1 million is quite a bit of cash.
Willie: Oh, come on! Over fourteen years? It works out to a lousy one hundred and fifty grand a year! A mediocre dentist makes more than that!
Tom: So you’re saying you sold out to the oil and coal corporations for chicken feed?
Willie: I’m saying nothing of the sort! I haven’t sold out to anyone!
Tom: But isn’t it true that since 2002, essentially all of your funding has come from either fossil fuel interests or the so-called “Donors Trust,” which collects secret contributions from “anonymous philanthropists” and then gives them to you, among others, all of them researchers who deny climate change due to human causes such as carbon dioxide released during the burning of fossil fuels?
Willie: You and I both know that if philanthropists reveal their names, they get hounded to distraction with constant requests for money. Give those poor billionaires a break!
Tom: Right – their lives are so hard, aren’t they? So tell me, how come you and the Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics agreed to keep Southern Company funding secret?
Willie: What were we supposed to do – send tweets about it to Greenpeace?
Tom: And why did you also allow them to review your research prior to publishing?
Willie: It’s called “quality control,” okay? No big deal. Bottom line, it made for a better product… I mean, deliverable… I mean, research. Better research, yeah, that’s it.
Tom: But don’t both of those things – keeping funding by interested parties secret and allowing them to edit your work before you submit it for peer review – violate generally accepted cannons of scientific ethics and, in some cases, even the ethical guidelines of the very journals which published your work?
Willie: Ethics? You want to talk about ethics? You see me running around New Delhi chasing women?
Tom: Why no, of course not. New Delhi?
Willie: Yeah, that’s where Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has his think tank. And according to a certain female member of his staff, crazy ideas about global warming caused by people driving their cars to work and keeping the lights on in their homes weren’t the only things he was thinking about! What’s so ethical about sending unsolicited, unwelcome, suggestive, salacious emails and texts to women at the office, huh? I suppose now you’re going to tell me that two wrongs don’t make a right?
Tom: No, I won’t, because I know that three do.
Willie: Exactly! Greenpeace and the Guardian can say what they want about where I get my research funding, because at least I keep Mister Solar Maximum in my pants when I’m working, not like that lecher Pachauri!
Tom: He’s seventy-four.
Willie: All right, make it that old lecher Pachauri!
Tom: I guess you’re saying that you’re no worse than him.
Willie: Could be.
Tom: A lot of people say his science is much better than yours, though.
Willie: A lot of people say a lot of things!
Tom: So they do. Now – with what specific issues can I help you today?
Willie: I was wondering when we were going to get to that. To begin with, I need the Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and it needs me…
Tom: Wait a second there. While I certainly understand the first part, that you need the Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics so your fossil fuel billionaire patrons can use the words “Harvard,” “Smithsonian” and “Astrophysics” to lend an aura of credibility to what you say, how does the… reciprocal part of it work?
Willie: Whenever my “fossil fuel billionaires”– as you so colorfully put it – give me a bunch of money, the Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics gets a cut for operating overhead.
Tom: Oh. So that’s how the Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics needs you. You’re a cash cow.
Willie: Again, as you so colorfully put it, yes, I’m one of their cash cows. I bring in the funding, they take a percentage and I get to use their name. It’s a win-win situation all around. But now, with Greenpeace pulling a fast one with the Freedom of Information Act…
Tom: Because unlike the Harvard part of the deal, the Smithsonian is part of the federal government, and therefore subject to FOIA requests. And what’s more, you’re technically a Smithsonian employee.
Willie: Precisely. So now that Greenpeace got cute with an FIOA request and let the cat out of the bag, there’s all kinds of pressure from all kinds of places for the Smithsonian to fire me.
Tom: And if that happens, you can’t go around saying “Harvard,” “Smithsonian” and “Astrophysics” anymore.
Willie: Yeah. And I like saying “Harvard,” “Smithsonian” and “Astrophysics” when I talk about my research. It sounds really cool, you know?
Tom: Even though you aren’t really an astrophysicist, you’re an aerospace engineer, and not even exactly a scientist, either.
Willie: But I’m real, live PhD who works at the Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and doesn’t believe in global warming.
Tom: And as long as you are, the American Petroleum Institute, Exxon-Mobile, the Koch brothers and a whole lot of coal companies are going to want to be your friend, not to mention quite a few powerful and influential politicians from coal and oil states, like Senator Jim Inhofe.
Willie: Absolutely. Jim thinks I’m a genius, you know. So what should I do?
Tom: I think you may be overlooking a key aspect of this Harvard – Smithsonian Astrophysics thing.
Willie: What’s that?
Tom: Those folks at the API, Exxon and the coal companies get a kick out of saying “Harvard,” “Smithsonian” and “Astrophysics,” too. So do the Koch brothers and all those conservative politicians like Senator Inhofe. When they say “Harvard,” “Smithsonian” and “Astrophysics,” it makes them feel really smart. Hell, saying “Harvard,” “Smithsonian” and “Astrophysics” over and over again could even make a NASCAR fan feel intelligent, if they did it enough. Let’s face it, the real genius here is the person who came up with the name “Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.” That name sounds so damned intelligent and authoritative, if a barefoot Hottentot witch doctor with a bone through his nose worked there he’d be invited to testify before Congress.
Willie: Actually, we have one of those. His office is across the hall from mine. I overheard last week that the Republicans are thinking about calling him to present scientific evidence in favor of Intelligent Design.
Tom: All right then! There they are – the three magic words! And what you have overlooked is that your… clients… want them as badly as you need them.
Willie: Okay, for the sake of argument, say that’s true. What should I do?
Tom: Double down, my friend, double down!
Willie: What do you mean, “double down?”
Tom: Well, in blackjack, a player can double his original bet in exchange for agreeing to stand after taking only one more card from the dealer. And in some casinos, that player can actually increase the bet as much as they want. So, metaphorically speaking, what I’m saying is, you should vastly increase the stakes and go for broke. As things stand now, if you don’t do anything, you’re going to end up like Brian Williams. He got caught making up heroic stories about himself in Iraq and now he’s ruined. Then the left-wingers turned around and tried to pillory Bill O’Reilly for doing the same thing with his stories about his heroics in the Falklands War. But Bill doubled down and went on the attack, and now he’s sitting pretty. That’s what you should do.
Willie: How?
Tom: Use whatever… channels you use to communicate with your… clients and let them know that if they want to keep the words “Harvard,” “Smithsonian” and “Astrophysics” in their global warming skeptics’ lexicon, then they need to give you not two, not four, not eight, but sixteen million dollars for your skeptical climate research and they need to do it right away!
Willie: But, but… I’ll need a research proposal that can justify that kind of money!
Tom: No problem. I’ve read all your papers. I’ll write one for you – tonight. Piece of cake. Then, what you do, is let your boss at the Smithsonian know that you’ve landed sixteen million bucks in research funding and leave it to him to figure out that if he fires you, all that money is going to walk somewhere else!
Willie: But… what if he asks me where?
Tom: Oh, Christ, just use your imagination!
Willie: My what?
Tom: Okay, look, tell him if the Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics doesn’t want to play climate skeptics anymore, you’ll take the sixteen million bucks to the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. You know, that place at Number One Einstein Drive in Princeton, New Jersey.
Willie: But… isn’t it possible that he might call my bluff?
Tom: What bluff? We’re assuming your obscenely rich buddies in the fossil fuel sector are going to pony up sixteen million bucks, pronto, so you and they can keep “Harvard,” “Smithsonian” and “Astrophysics” rolling roundly off your tongues during climate change debates, press conferences, photo opportunities, Congressional testimony and lectures. Believe me, you swing that, and if your boss at the Smithsonian fires you, the next day, when his superiors find out how much overhead vigorish he’s blown, he’s going to lose his job.
Willie: But what if my… patrons… um… won’t give me that kind of money?
Tom: Then I will have wasted two hours writing a sixteen million dollar proposal to prove your theory that the Sun is responsible for global warming, and you will just be plain vanilla Dr. Willie Soon, aerospace engineer, who doesn’t believe in the greenhouse effect and works out of his garage.
Willie: Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! Okay, okay, you write and I’ll go get the money! Gotta go, right now! Right now!
Tom: Call me tomorrow around noon. The research proposal should be done by then.
Willie: Okay, okay! ‘Bye!