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This morning, a Harvard professor was quoted in @NYTimes suggesting that the crisis Texas is the "necessary" result of markets working properly.
What it didn't say is that his research is largely funded by fossil fuel and utility interests.
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What it didn't say is that his research is largely funded by fossil fuel and utility interests.
(THREAD)
According to Prof. Hogan's CV, he's served as an expert on behalf of @BP, @Shell, @Exxon, and consults for industry PR firm @fticonsulting. https://scholar.harvard.edu/whogan/home
And his research initiative, the Harvard Electrical Policy Group, is funded largely by utility companies… including ERCOT, the very company whose policies have caused the crisis in Texas.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160328233426/http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hepg/participants.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20160328233426/http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hepg/participants.html
Under his leadership, moreover, the Electrical Policy Group has lobbied government officials against expanded rollouts of renewable energy… https://www.energyandpolicy.org/utility-industry-influence-at-universities/harvard-university-electricity-policy-group/
…the same technologies that might have made Texas’ grid more resilient in face of a situation like this. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/john-moore/texas-needs-smarter-more-resilient-electric-grid
To be sure, the problem does not lie with Prof. Hogan. He has an absolute right to academic freedom that we do not mean to call into question. And as a genuine expert in the field, the NYTimes has every right to quote him.
Rather, what’s at play is a much broader trend — the industry capture of academia, and how it prevents action on climate. As @BenFranta and @GeoffreySupran write: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/mar/13/the-fossil-fuel-industrys-invisible-colonization-of-academia
When powerful institutions endorse such efforts, and journalists presume impartiality, it risks lending credibility to such efforts — we call on @NYTimes to clarify potential conflicts of interest, and on @Harvard to evaluate when industry partnerships do more harm than good.
And when industry influence upon academia is not made transparent, it risks damaging the scientific and academic endeavor. That’s why transparency is absolutely essential for public understanding.
Because ultimately, if we are to avoid such a tragedy in the future, we’ll need to learn lessons from the present — and that means being willing to take on the industries that profit from inequity and injustice.
