Climate Change Denier Vivek Ramaswamy To Headline Jordan Peterson’s ARC Conference

Vivek Ramaswamy, who has previously referred to climate change as a “hoax,” will headline the debut event for a new worldwide organization founded by conservative activist Jordan Peterson. At the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) Conference, which is taking place in London, England from October 30 to November 1, Ramaswamy is scheduled to be one of the keynote speakers, reported DeSmog. A group of Congressional leaders from the USA will be attending, along with “over 100 parliamentarians from across Europe, the UK, and Australia,” according to Peterson and other organizers, who are promoting it as a “major gathering of political, business, and cultural leaders.”

Ramaswamy has supported hard-right ideas on matters like “free enterprise,” “affordable energy,” and “environmental stewardship,” which will all be discussed during the conference. “The climate change agenda is a hoax,” he declared in September at the first GOP debate, adding that “the reality is the anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on our economy.” 

Recently, he tweeted that the “real emergency isn’t climate change, it’s the man-made disaster of climate change policies that threaten U.S. prosperity” to his 1.3 million followers on X, formerly known as Twitter. If he were to secure the Republican nomination, he would “drill, frack & burn coal” in addition to “abandoning the climate cult & unshackle nuclear energy.” 

Other climate change deniers attending the ARC Conference include Michael Shellenberger, Bjorn Lomborg, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and Peterson himself, who has termed climate change “the idiot socialist get-out-of-jail-free-card.” This, many climate activists and scientists say, is extremely dangerous for the world.

“It’s pretty alarming and dangerous,” said Erika Seiber, a spokesperson at the nonprofit Friends of the Earth and member of a global coalition called Climate Action Against Disinformation. “It’s an attempt by the far-right to advance a fossil fuel agenda under the veil of conservative moral sentiment. They’re trying to gather support…for policies that will legitimately hurt people and the planet.”

After authoring Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam, and spearheading campaigns opposing the environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) movement—a business approach that asks companies to consider metrics beyond pure profit—Ramaswamy started to gain notoriety in politics. “I think Vivek Ramaswamy is a pretty tried and true example of why climate denial matters,” Seiber said of Ramaswamy. “We’re seeing it with this uphill battle at the local level that we’re facing with the implementation of climate legislation.”

Initially taking potshots at his political ideological opponents, he has now moved to dismiss the science of the climate crisis. For instance, he wrote in a post from late August, “40 years ago they told us an ice age was imminent. Now they tell us that global warming is an existential threat to humanity. Which is it?” He has maintained that the world can benefit from carbon dioxide emissions since they are producing more food for plants, a claim “that you’ll never hear from the climate cult.”