My prior blog post pointed out the irreconcilable difference between reports that Greenpeace administrator Kert Davies or Greenpeace worker Jesse Coleman was the person who initiated Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests which supposedly exposed the corporate corruption of skeptic climate scientist Dr Willie Soon. Coleman or Davies – can’t be both. While I was compiling my prior blog post, I spotted another sizable problem, but I noted that it would have to be a Part 2 separate blog post. So, here it is; the mountainous pile of items showing just how faulty the “crooked skeptic scientists” accusation just keeps getting bigger and more unsustainable to defend.
In the Feb 27, 2015, Buzzfeed, “Greenpeace Probe Of Climate Naysayer Implicates Exxon Mobil” article I featured in my prior blog post (that credited Coleman for the FOIA of the Smithsonian), the new “news” was that Exxon supposedly had pledged to stop funding skeptic scientists in 2007, but a new revelation exposed them ‘paying Dr Soon exactly $76,106’ (in 2008 / 2009 / 2010 – hold that three-year thought until later in this blog post) after Exxon said they weren’t doing that anymore. ‘News’ that was exclusive to Buzzfeed and provided to them exclusively by Jesse Coleman, no less.
Problem is, the odd dollar figure amount was not “new” news. It was old news, already broadcast to the world at the Huffington Post over 5½ years earlier by Greenpeace’s Kert Davies.
…After years of denying its role in the campaign of climate denial, Exxon has revealed a dirty secret, that it has and likely still is directly funding junk scientists. … The ExxonMobil 2008 Corporate Citizenship Report and Worldwide Giving Report were just released by the company ahead of their Annual General Meeting … The new Exxon Giving report shows straight pipe funding, in the odd but specific sum of $76,106 to the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory, home of Dr. Willie Soon and Dr. Sallie Baliunas. Or we assume the cash went to these two, until Exxon explains itself. …
So… a sinister-sounding $76,106 annual payment wasn’t any sort of new secret revealed through the arduous FOIA effort, it was publicly available, the Internet Archive link preserved in Davies’ 2009 HuffPo article proves that. What Davies didn’t disclose was that right above its entry for the Smithsonian, Exxon gave even more cash to the “Seeds of Peace,” New York, N.Y. group. By default, he would also assume the nearly $24,000 larger payment came with a directive to infuse climate issue disinformation into what they already did around the world, yes? It’s what always happens as the result of fossil fuel money funding, yes?
Meanwhile, the 2015 Buzzfeed article ‘revelation’ makes absolutely no mention of the other scientist at the Smithsonian, despite Davies mentioning it no less than eight times in his 2009 HuffPo article, including twice in an insulting shortened version.
The same basic story about the Exxon $76,106 cash was rehashed by the UK Guardian in late June 2011, dutifully getting a zinger quote in from Kert Davies (while mentioning no other involvement by him) where readers appear to be led to believe the new ‘news’ of that figure (again, hold the thought about three identical payment figures in 2008 / 2009 / 2010) came out of a Greenpeace FOIA documents request. Two days after that UK report, the American Grist website breathlessly repeated the same ‘new’ news, but with a seemingly more subtle implication that the $76,000 figure came from newly released FOIA-released documents, while subsequently noting a single document source. Its clickable link goes to a single page 2011-created Greenpeace funding list. As though that single page is ‘evidence’ of wrongdoing. Who at Greenpeace gets credited for uploading that page to the DocumentsCloud website? Greenpeace’s Connor Gibson, one of Kert Davies other associates I mentioned in my prior blog post.
Essentially apparently part of a pattern, a regurgitated accusation in search of an audience who’d do something major with it – including people in states Attorneys General offices. It’s seen in the current May 2025-filed Hawaii v BP lawsuit, with its two citation sources being the above-noted single page upload file by Greenpeace’s Connor Gibson and the Grist organizations entire 56-page upload of Exxon’s “2007 Corporate Citizenship Report” (Exxon’s single-sentence political correctness effort ‘pledge not to support climate deniers’ isn’t seen until page 41). However, people may imply corruption all day long about money buying disinformation, but devoid of any evidence to prove the accused knowingly puts out disinformation, the accusation is “all show and no go.” All hat and no cattle.
Or is there such evidence? Is that “odd but specific sum of $76,106” actually in the FOIA-released docs in a far more nefarious way than just the single-line listing out of the public 2008 Exxon Giving Report?
Well, the figure itself definitely is in the 131-page docs collection, multiple times, many redundantly as the result of repeated identical photocopy pages.
The figure itself is what the Smithsonian Institution’s Advancement & External Affairs administrator was requesting, for Dr Soon’s research. She describes this request in one way or another on PDF file page 1 / page 2 onto 3 / page 6 / page 8 / page 11 (a duplicate of pg 8) / page 14 / page 19 / page 22 (at first glance looking like a duplicate of page 11, but it’s the same-figure donation arrangement from the previous year) / page 23 / and page 35. The Smithsonian’s standard “Transmittal Form For Gifts & Promises To Give” has that figure on PDF file page 7 / page 12 / page 21 (a duplicate of page 7 but with the signature of the Advancement & External Affairs administrator). The “Understanding Solar Variability” proposal itself, a bit over two pages long with footnote citations of peer-reviewed science literature) notes that figure on PDF file page 25 / page 27. The basically same proposal that’s directed toward the Southern Company with the lesser figure of $60,000 is seen starting on PDF file page 42. Smithsonian’s mention of the $76,106 figure is not seen again in this PDF file again until pages 109 and 110 for their “Statement Of Financial Activity Detail Report”
And that is it – almost – for that figure. I’d suggest that for Kert Davies and his “crooked Willie Soon” accusation, the few more instances are where the problem comes into play for him.
On PDF file page 5, there is Exxon’s Senior Director for Federal Relations saying in his March 30, 2009 letter to the Smithsonian’s Advancement & External Affairs administrator …
ExxonMobil is pleased to provide the enclosed contribution to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in the amount of $76,106.00 for General Support. …
General Support. Capital G, Capital S. Not Dr Soon. General support could mean anybody and essentially everybody at the Observatory, where by their own explanation, the whole organization’s efforts concerned observation of the sun and its effects on climate. It’s what they do.
That Exxon reply page is again duplicated on PDF file page 13, but with Exxon’s phone numbers redacted and the 3-ring binder holes missing.This otherwise identically-worded page appears once more on PDF file page 20, but has a smaller signature for Exxon’s employee, and the nine months earlier date of June 30, 2008, regarding the first of these identical figure donations to the Smithsonian.
Remember up above where I said to ‘hold-that-thought’ about Greenpeace’s Jesse Coleman saying there were three $76,106 payments. Only the above two instances, 2008 and 2009, are seen in his 131-page FOIA file. Was that a false embellishment on his part?
Meanwhile, absolutely nowhere in this FOIA file is any indication at all that the Exxon money – $76,106 x 2 = $152,212 – comes under the directive to fabricate any false or misleading material.
Therein lies another potentially major problem for Kert Davies. In the March 2015 E&ENews article I pointed in which it described Davies alone initiating the FOIA docs search into the Smithsonian, the article also offered this seemingly devastating pair of lines:
In 2009, he wrote emails to his Exxon Mobil funders where he exulted about challenging former Vice President Al Gore during a climate conference on the practical implications of climate change.
Soon also offered to stop by the Exxon Mobil offices in Washington, D.C., “and just say hello and brief you on all the exciting science progress regarding my sun-climate research.”
Whenever a news outlet puts a specific series of words between quotation marks, it signifies that the words are verbatim from a source.
There are no such words to that effect anywhere in the 131-page Smithsonian FOIA docs. The only thing that resembles a direct communication between Dr Soon and any Exxon official is seen at the bottom of PDF file page 33.
I know of no other copies of the Smithsonian-released FOIA documents, they are all the same 131-page PDF file copy, including the 2017 copy version Davies features at his Climate Files site. To yell “corruption,” you need the evidence to back that up.
If he has ‘smoking gun’ FOIA pages with those bits about the Al Gore challenge and “just say hello” …. what possible reason would he have for not sharing that kind of thing with the public? And where’s the missing FOIA page showing the third $76,106 2010 payment to the Smithsonian?
I wish Dr. Soon would shed some light on this, although perhaps he has.
Why does Dr. Soon need to “shed some light”? It’s all insinuation and accusation with no evidence or context. Exxon Mobil paid leftist institutions far more. Were they required to doctor their findings or publications in exchange for donations from Exxon Mobil? No one has produced any such evidence.
Read the list yourself:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090608225554/http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/files/gcr_contributions_public_policy08.pdf
He has on this false funding accusation, in two videos. I have this first one cued up at the 7:12 point to get to his main rebuttal there, and his second video is directly on how – after a five year investigation – the Smithsonian Institution apparently had nothing to offer the public over the concerns that he had failed to properly disclose his funding. One more thing there: Trust me on this, I’m in continual direct correspondence with Dr Soon on who his main accusers are, and on the manner in which they may be held accountable for what they’ve done.
I hugely thank Anthony Watts and Charles Rotter and the rest at WUWT for reproducing my GelbspanFiles blog posts as guest posts here, including this Part 2 which I mentioned would be a future follow-up at the bottom of my prior WUWT guest post. What I detail at considerable depth and the way I do it is, of course, not to everyone’s reading preference; at least two separate critics at my prior “Part 1” guest post here mentioned that on no uncertain terms.
Even when such critics choose not to read my material, I hope they at least understand this: I have one elemental point in this whole exercise, which is to prompt greater awareness of how vulnerable the “crooked skeptic climate scientists” accusation is to total collapse around the core little group of promulgators who’ve pushed it. No matter where anyone dives into the ‘skeptic scientists are on the payroll of Big Oil‘ accusation, if they start to pull on any loose thread they find, the accusation unravels. It’s simply a matter of time before someone with far more investigative influence than I have acts on all of this. I personally don’t see how any of the promulgators of the “crooked skeptics” accusation can dodge Federal prosecution. What they’ve done ever since the late 1990s, as a means to keep their beloved climate issue alive, may be one of the bigger acts of fraud in history.
Have you ever read any of Willie Soon’s work? There’s only a certain type of person who could believe his conclusions.
If you are going to lie go big. :-o)
Reminds me of philosopher John Ridpath explaining why Marxism-based activists get violent – they no longer know anything but what they spout so just double down. (Have lost ability to recognize questions asked of them.)
When truth fails to prove your point just lie.
and get violent
The climate industrial complex is ‘hoisting itself with its own petard’ with this line of reasoning. Their argument is that relatively small sums of money are alleged to be evidence that scientists opposed to the crisis narrative have been corrupted, but huge sums of money have no effect on those who support the narrative.
The irrationality of this reasoning is off the charts! Its like being caught with your hand stuck in the cookie jar and mumbling through a mouthful of cookies, that the diabetic down the street is the one guilty of stealing the cookies!
The fact that they need to dig up such a fairly small amount of money over and over again shows
how huge the difference in terms of integrity of integrity between both sides in.
But just imagine: Trillion Dollar AGW complex brought down with 72K Dollars.
This amount was only chump change and I doubt it would have covered the PhD studies of a scientist at Princeton. Follow the money trails of the Clintons and how much they received for each of their speaking fees.
Follow the money trail of Dr Soon’s two main original accusers. One of them has amassed over $30 million into his mystery LLC company. The other has apparently benefited from the first one’s largess.
Showing someone your research is not evidence that the research is fabricated.
These climate alarmists exist in world’s entirely of their own making.
Which is why I refer to them as Trans-Reality Alarmists.
This is One for the Ages. File it under ‘parody and/or satire’:
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-climate-scientist-e84a4100
Why would it be corrupting for a researcher to receive monetary support from Exxon or another corporation, but not corrupting for a researcher to receive support from a government (with politicians/bureaucrats commutted to climate alarmism) or a climate alarmist NGO?
Suspicion should fall equally.
The late Dr S Fred Singer pointed out exactly that same basic point back in 1994 to ABC News Nightline’s Ted Koppel. The acute irony with his remark below is that the Nightline video containing Dr Singer’s statement was uploaded to Youtube by – of all people – the main accuser of these scientists who’s said for over two decades now that money donations corrupts science researchers:
The entire argument by Coleman or Davies is the usual attempt by the Greenslime to avoid the point. Financial contributions have nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the scientific statements by Dr. Soon were accurate or not. The attempt by GangGreen to draw attention to financial contributions implies that they have no counter to what Dr. Soon stated in peer-reviewed publications.
It is interesting and revealing that the Climate Industrial Complex can only defend itself by character assassination of its critics. No, Dr. Soon need not shed any light on this. The vileness of his critics are shown by their own statements and actions.
ExxonMobil is a publicly owned company
Smithsonian is more than 60 percent government funded
There should be no secrets here… screwed up world we live in.