When Republican climate deniers in Congress are citing the few remaining scientists who are skeptical about man-made climate change, there is no name they are more fond of throwing out than Dr. Wei-Hock Soon. Well, this weekend, the New York Times revealed that Dr. Soon “appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work” by accepting mountains of money from organizations with a vested interest in protecting the fossil fuel industry. He even referred to his work scientific papers as “deliverables” in exchanges with his funders.
One of Dr. Soon’s major financiers was the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, forking over a whopping $230,000 to the GOP’s beloved climate skeptic. That’s Charles G. Koch of the infamous Koch brothers, of course, who never miss an opportunity to protect their petrochemical empire.
Consider what we already knew about the Koch brothers. They have funneled millions of dollars to climate denial front groups. They’ve been rated as one of the top polluters in the country. They’ve launched massive lobbying effortsagainst climate change legislation. Their political groups have successfully made it untenable for GOP politicians to support climate action.
In 2010, David Koch even offered this hot take to the New Yorker about why global warming would be good news anyways:
“Lengthened growing seasons in the northern hemisphere, he says, will make up for any trauma caused by the slow migration of people away from disappearing coastlines. ‘The Earth will be able to support enormously more people because a far greater land area will be available to produce food,’ he says.”
And now we know that Republican Party’s favorite “scientist” to quote in defense of their dangerous climate denialism was essentially trading “research papers” for hundreds of thousands in Koch cash. Is it surprising? Hardly. But it’s an alarming indicator of just how deeply the Koch brothers’ influence has penetrated every corner of the climate change debate.
When you step back and consider the degree to which two 70-something-year-old brothers worth $100 billion have been willing and able to put the planet in peril to further grow their fortune, it’s really quite nauseating…