1.2 million dollars.
Let us assume for a moment that the figure is entirely accurate.
Let us assume that Dr. Soon was paid for his work. Paid for research. Paid for studies. Paid for analysis. Paid for his expertise.
Very well.
Now let us place that number into context.
One point two million dollars sounds like an outrageous sum until you compare it with the financial ecosystem surrounding the climate industry itself. Then it begins to look less like corruption and more like lunch money accidentally left in the pocket of an expensive suit.
Over the last decades, trillions have flowed into what has become one of the largest political, financial, academic, regulatory, and industrial enterprises ever assembled around a single narrative.
Trillions.
Not millions.
Trillions.
Taxes.
Levies.
Carbon schemes.
Subsidies.
Research grants.
Compliance departments.
Consultancies.
Investment funds.
Certification bodies.
Reporting requirements.
Advisory boards.
Entire industries have emerged around the management of the narrative.
Entire careers depend upon it.
Entire institutions are funded by it.
Entire sections of the financial world feed upon it.
The climate discussion ceased being merely a scientific question a very long time ago. It became an economic ecosystem.
And like every ecosystem, it developed a powerful instinct for self-preservation.
Curiously, whenever money enters the discussion, attention tends to focus on the smallest piles.
A scientist receives funding and suddenly headlines appear.
Questions are asked.
Motives are examined.
Character becomes fair game.
Meanwhile, the vastly larger rivers of money flowing in the opposite direction pass largely without scrutiny.
This is fascinating.
If money automatically invalidates an argument, then surely the side collecting the largest pile deserves at least equal attention.
Perhaps more.
After all, incentives scale.
A billion-dollar incentive tends to be more persuasive than a million-dollar one.
A trillion-dollar incentive tends to become its own weather system.
Yet narratives rarely concern themselves with symmetry.
Narratives select villains.
They identify heretics.
They create emotional focal points.
And they encourage people to stare intently at one corner of the room while quietly ignoring the elephant conducting business in the center.
This is hardly a new phenomenon.
Human civilization has always excelled at constructing stories around money.
Every great speculative mania had its narrative.
Every bubble had its prophets.
Every financial fever dream came equipped with experts, moral justifications, grand visions, and promises of salvation.
Railways.
Canals.
Telecommunications.
Internet stocks.
Housing.
Crypto.
Different century. Different costumes. Same human software.
The mechanism never changes.
A compelling story attracts capital.
Capital attracts institutions.
Institutions attract careers.
Careers attract defenders.
And before long, questioning the story becomes more dangerous than questioning reality itself.
That is when things become interesting.
Because once enough people depend on a narrative, defending it becomes a matter of survival.
The story no longer exists to explain reality.
Reality must now be adjusted to preserve the story.
Every contradiction becomes an inconvenience.
Every skeptic becomes suspect.
Every dissenter becomes a threat.
And every challenge to the flow of money becomes intolerable.
The creature feeding upon the pile has no intention of surrendering its meal voluntarily.
It will defend itself.
It will distract.
It will accuse.
It will redirect attention.
It will manufacture outrage where necessary.
Anything, really.
Not because it is uniquely evil.
But because large systems develop the same instinct as every living organism.
They seek to survive.
Narratives survive by protecting themselves.
Money helps enormously.
And when enough money accumulates around a story, the story becomes far more important than the facts that supposedly created it in the first place.