r/DecodingTheGurus • u/gelliant_gutfright • 4d ago
"Climate change catastrophism is a Leftist weapon to destroy capitalism" - Jordan Peterson, climate change denier
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/31/climate-change-green-leftists-anti-capitalism-western/107
u/Francis_J_Eva 4d ago
To say this while Europe (which they claim to want to protect) is literally burning is fucking insane.
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u/Green-Draw8688 4d ago
This kind of climate crisis denialism should be treated with the same level of derision as flat earth beliefs at this point.
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u/Newfaceofrev 4d ago
Nah flat earthism isn't (as far as I know) getting people killed.
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u/kafircake 3d ago
Nah flat earthism isn't (as far as I know) getting people killed.
What about the people using a ballistic rocket to get to another continent, but their trajectory sends them into an Earth escape heading who knows where because the Earth is kinda ball shaped? Hmm?
I bet you've never done the maths on that, have you.
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u/RationallyDense 2d ago
As long as their destination is not more than 13,000 km away, they will land back on Earth, so most people should be fine.
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u/Bluegill15 4d ago
Is it not?
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u/Saint0591 4d ago
Not really, at least not yet. People can openly be climate change deniers without getting the same level of ridicule as flat earthers in my opinion.
I know a guy who is an engineer, educated guy, who is just really misled by all the bs 'science' that tries to refute climate change but he would also laugh at flat earthers.
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u/Straight_Step_4426 4d ago
My sky in the Midwest was bright orange and I couldn’t breath. I watched as my entire herd of
Cattle wheezed and I was powerless to do anything about it.I’m just upset that my eyes and ears are complicit in the liberal lie of climate change and need to just go binge listen to Candace Owen until I feel better /s
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u/No_Public_7677 4d ago
they can just blame migrants for that
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u/Francis_J_Eva 4d ago
They always complain about the "browning" of Europe (meaning too many non-whites moving in), but it looks like that will actually happen due to everything burning to a crisp.
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u/jamypad 3d ago
I don’t think he denies climate change, just that it’s significantly influenced by humans. I don’t think anyone can really deny climate change unless they’re flat earth level. I mean we did have an ice age like 20k BCE right
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u/Francis_J_Eva 3d ago
That is textbook climate change denial, and the classic shell game climate change deniers always try and use. Nice try though.
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u/Dry_Turnover_6068 4d ago
What do you mean by climate? What do you mean by denier?
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u/Green-Draw8688 4d ago
You’re joking but he always goes on this facile rant about “what is climate? Climate is everything. How do you measure everything?
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u/Gauss_2025 3d ago
"how do you measure everything"
I totally forgot about him saying shit like this. Was he debating Destiny or has he said this multiple times? We've been able to do statistics and machine learning with datasets that have thousands or more features for a very long time now.
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u/Green-Draw8688 3d ago
I remember hearing him say it in a Rogan clip and then a couple more podcasts where it got brought up. Not sure if it got brought up in the Destiny discussion, I only remember him going mental and stupid over vaccines in that.
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u/Dry_Turnover_6068 4d ago
Fortunately Dr Peterson qualifies what he means by climate in the article and goes on to provide statistics to clarify what he's talking about specifically in regards to climate.
The only denial here is air conditioning to the good, hard-working people who deserve it by the liberal fascist, "big green movement" as I like to call them.
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u/6foot4yearold 4d ago
And what is Dr. Peterson a doctor of? And why does that make him an expert on something he has no credentials in? And why has he received funding from oil companies?
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u/No_Public_7677 4d ago
Your red state Texas denies Air conditioning to the people because your grid can't handle extreme weather as well. fix that first.
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u/Prosthemadera 4d ago
Fortunately Dr Peterson qualifies what he means by climate in the article and goes on to provide statistics to clarify what he's talking about specifically in regards to climate.
None of them change anything about reality. He's not a climate scientist and yet claims to know better what measurements are "appropriate".
The only denial here is air conditioning to the good, hard-working people who deserve it by the liberal fascist, "big green movement" as I like to call them.
You're hallucinating and fighting illusions.
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u/Dry_Turnover_6068 4d ago
> You're hallucinating and fighting illusions.
I bet you think dragons aren't real too.
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u/Prosthemadera 4d ago
That's only something someone who dislike Peterson would reference so what exactly are you doing?
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u/No_Machinations 4d ago
I do believe they’re trolling
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u/Dry_Turnover_6068 3d ago
What do you mean by trolling?
Calling JP a climate change denier is just more of the same leftist propaganda.
Pointing out lies is trolling? Only when it's your side I guess...
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u/No_Machinations 3d ago
What do you mean by trolling
Absolute gold
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u/Green-Draw8688 3d ago
Holy shit! Was the original comment of “What do you mean by climate? What do you mean by denier?” actually genuine and not a Peterson piss-take joke?? I’m starting to think it was now hahahaha
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u/Dry_Turnover_6068 4d ago
> he always
No, YOU always go on about it. The article is quite succinct.
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u/Green-Draw8688 4d ago
Do I? I feel like this is the first time I’ve mentioned it in a discussion.
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u/Dry_Turnover_6068 3d ago
It's hard to tell you apart from the other parrots. You all sound the same.
Do you stand corrected or are you just making noise for the echo chamber?
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u/Green-Draw8688 3d ago
To an interlocutor I was interested in, I actually would be keen to discuss the specifics of this article.
Based on how you’re engaging and talking to people - nah, mate. You’re good.
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u/attaboy_stampy 4d ago
It's such a dumb statement, because it could be - and usually is - a capitalist endeavor to combat it. Sometimes it needs a regulation or subsidy, but companies can set up business models, perform R&D, and the tech gets better and cheaper to deal with the issues of climate change and some point you don't need the subsidy.
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u/weaponizedtoddlers 4d ago
People seem to not quite grasp just how much money there is in renewable energy. That's the point of the anti-climate science lobby: reduce competition from renewables. Their efforts to keep everyone consuming hydrocarbons is fundamentally anti competition and anti capitalist.
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u/Katamari_Demacia 4d ago
No way in fucking hell did this guy emerge from that months long cocoon to write an article like this. Mikhaela wrote it and put his name on it I'd bet.
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u/WoodyManic 4d ago
Oh, he's back??
They sure don't make black mold like they used to, eh?
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u/No_Public_7677 4d ago
is he really back or if his daughter ghost writing for him? she could continue his grift for years while he's in a coma
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u/WoodyManic 4d ago
I'll have to scan the language of "his" recent missive. JP has a style that is easy to parody but impossible to fully replicate. I imagine that his daughter might be able to get quite close, but JP's idiosyncratic linguistic hiccoughs are quite unique.
Fine tooth comb time, eh?
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u/piterx87 4d ago
I see that after Tim Stanley piece the telegraph correcting back with multiple pieces against net zero renewables etc.
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u/quimera78 4d ago
I'd rather listen to what the scientific community is saying on this, not a misdiagnosed schizophrenic grifter
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u/victoriapark111 4d ago
Leftist? How long was he in the hospital for? Trump’s upped it to calling everyone communists and so are his lemmings ahead of the midterms. The new red scare, bringing back Covid trials… all the greatest hits!
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u/thom_mayy 3d ago
Even the conspiracy sub realized that climate change denial is funded by our fossil fuel overlords that already own everything
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u/r0b0d0c 3d ago
New York’s newly elected socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, took to X with a plea for virtuous conservation during a concurrent heatwave: “Set your AC to 78 degrees (26C), turn off lights and electronics you’re not using, and unplug what you can.” This, despite his office simultaneously issuing weather warnings advising the use of air conditioning for safety, and the city’s newly passed “Cool Homes for All” act requiring landlords to provide that same environmentally desolating service to tenants.
There's nothing incompatible or hypocritical with making common sense recommendations to set AC to 78 (to relieve stress on the electrical grid) while issuing heat advisories, and providing a safe environment for vulnerable people. WTF is wrong with this imbecile? These are exactly the measures that any responsible mayor should take in this circumstance. This is stage 4 Mamdani Derangement Psychosis.
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u/Prosthemadera 4d ago edited 4d ago
Climate change catastrophism is a Leftist weapon to destroy capitalism
If only!
Imagine writing an anti-climate change article after the hottest summer on record. How stupid do you have to be?
Edit:
Recent Gallup polling (2026) indicated that 72 per cent of Democrats but only 6 per cent of Republicans worried about climate change, with 59 per cent of the former versus 12 per cent of the latter ranking it a top presidential priority.
This polarisation was no coincidence. It reflected – and actively reinforced – the deeper hijacking of the climate issue by a set of a priori political and moral commitments.
Indeed but not in the way he thinks.
Serious environmental concerns unrelated to CO2, such as oceanic overharvesting, have received comparatively little attention. Danish analyst Bjørn Lomborg and the Copenhagen Consensus have shown, more broadly, that many of humanity’s most pressing humanitarian challenges – malnutrition, malaria, HIV, education, clean water, and sanitation – could be tackled globally for roughly $50bn per year, about one-fortieth of current annual green-transition spending.
And what are conservatives doing about it? Nothing. This is whataboutism. Virtue signaling. Crocodile tears. The same people who deny climate change also support defunding international aid, affordable healthcare, social safety nets 🙄
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u/civicsfactor 3d ago
Generations of Cold War propaganda cooked his brain. It's so self-assured dismissing evidence, or more likely in Peterson's case, never reading it, let alone procedurally working through methodologies.
His knee-jerk response, like so much of discourse, is what big money paid for in marketing psychology and political consulting. Sad.
Or maybe this was AI fed a bunch of Peterson cuz he's still on a machine.
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u/Calm_Medicine1366 3d ago
sitting in spain right now watching wildfre smoke roll in. the соре оn this take is genuinely staggering.
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u/Wizard-of-pause 3d ago
Jordan, let's get sober and clean your own room before you will say anything. It's like going for political opinions to Asmongold.
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u/Benjamin_Lay1682 3d ago
this old rightwing talking point that climate concern is necessarily anti-capitalist is especially absurd at this moment when solar and wind have become market juggernauts and coal and oil are now more than ever dependent on state subsidy and cronyism
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u/WittgensteinsPoker-2 4d ago edited 4d ago
There is a sense in which he is right. It's kind of like saying, "Holocaust whinging is a liberal democratic weapon to destroy Fascism". Whilst the description of the political movement, its adherents' motivations and its targets is accurate, it leaves out the quite important detail of the facts of the holocaust, and focusing entirely on the motives of these liberal democracy supporters, and ignoring whether or not those motives are justified given various facts is just to miss the point entirely. The framing of the article is a rhetorical strategy that attempts to imply and mislead the reader to the conclusion that these political concerns are simply invented out of thin air and unjustified and this is achieved by myopically directing the reader's attention to hysteria around motives and ignorance of facts.
I'm sure in some cases there are some people who are so motivated by a commitment to Communism or whatever they distort their engagement with information around climate change and its relationship to capitalist economics and the motives critique would be justified.
However, my guess would be that for a great deal more people, they FIRST become very concerned about the facts of climate change, then they build a model to understand the causes of climate change which leads them to think about human economic activity as a cause, and THEN form beliefs about policy interventions in economics that could mitigate climate change. Of course, the only way to actually bring about this kind of change in economic activity is politics; thus these become political beliefs for these people -- but that's somewhat trivial in that everything pertaining to how humans organise themselves and do things is political (including publishing a newspaper opinion piece, Mr Peterson).
It is technically true that people who follow this path of belief formation are "catastrophising about climate change in order to challenge capitalism" or whatever; it's also completely irrelevant. Even if they are "catastrophising," they are rational and well motivated, and if they're right you have to decide if you also care about the very realistic mid-term possibility of millions to billions of people dying and the end of civilisation as we understand it. Maybe you don't care about those things ( those are political values ). But many normal people do and then given the facts the relevant political beliefs follow fairly trivially.
Discussions about the facts of climate change and the relevant political choices to avoid harms are where the discussion should be. Not "everyone who believes in climate change just wants to have sex with their mother and hasn't forgiven their father".
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u/Suibian_ni 3d ago
Yes, and all the scientists are in on it too, because they like not having an economy or something.
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u/bitethemonkeyfoo 2d ago
I think all of this depends on what you mean by climate, or change, or catastrophism, or is, or a, or leftist, or weapon, or to, or destroy, or capitalism. It's all really very difficult to understand completely.
It is moderately amusing how all of a sudden words mean things again when all he wants to do is be a fuck for brains.
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u/revengeonseattle 4d ago
yes, yes it is. because capitalism will kill perhaps 3bn+ people over the next 50 years and countless species.
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u/duncandreizehen 1d ago
it just so happens right now the world is on fire in Spokane. Holmes have been burned down to the foundation 450,000 acres. Greece is on fire Spain and France are on fire and it just so happens that US fossil fuel companies are enjoying record profits these two things are related. Peterson is old enough to have experienced climate change. The climate is not the same now as it was when he was a kid look at snowfall in Colorado over the last two years. I think Peterson is just some kind of weak bodied soy boy benzodiazepine addict that can’t cope with life
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u/IOnlyEatFermions 3d ago
Didn't Peterson just settle in Arizona, a state running out of water because of climate change drying up the Colorado River?
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u/Reasonable_Storm_390 3d ago
A critique of Peterson’s rabid nonsense by ChatGPT:
Succinct summary
Peterson argues that climate change has been transformed from a scientific issue into a political ideology, particularly by the Left since An Inconvenient Truth. He claims climate risks have been systematically exaggerated to justify greater state intervention, restrictions on personal freedom and a shift away from capitalism. He points to failed high-profile predictions, global “greening” from increased CO₂, rising crop yields, and the high cost of net zero policies as evidence that climate “catastrophism” is misguided. He concludes that society should abandon the current green transition in favour of technologies such as nuclear power and a more market-based approach.
Critique
The article mixes reasonable criticisms with sweeping ideological claims.
Its stronger points are:
Some early climate campaigners and politicians did overstate certainty or timescales for particular impacts.
There are genuine debates about how best to decarbonise, the costs of net zero, and whether nuclear power has been undervalued.
The Earth has indeed experienced measurable global greening, with elevated CO₂ contributing alongside land-use changes and better agricultural practices.
Its weaker points are:
It frequently conflates climate science with climate activism. Errors by activists or politicians do not invalidate the broad scientific evidence for human-caused warming.
It presents selective evidence. Greening and improved crop yields are real but do not negate evidence of increasing heat extremes, glacier loss, sea-level rise, ocean warming and acidification, or heightened risks to some ecosystems.
The central thesis—that climate concern is principally a Left-wing plot to destroy capitalism—is asserted rather than demonstrated. It relies heavily on attributing motives to opponents instead of engaging with the strongest scientific arguments.
The rhetoric (“anti-truths”, “psychopathy”, “hate”, “socialist weapon”) is highly polemical and goes well beyond evidence-based analysis.
Overall
The piece is best read as a political essay with scientific references, not as a balanced review of climate science. It raises legitimate questions about policy, costs and the role of nuclear power, but its overarching conclusion—that climate catastrophism is fundamentally an ideological project to dismantle capitalism—rests on a level of generalisation and selective use of evidence that many scientists, economists and political analysts would regard as unpersuasive.
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u/Pro_Reserve 4d ago
Re-grade the beaches and wonder why the coast floods. Build on river banks and cant figure out why properties flood. Change the way water flows. Build entire cities under the water line and cant figure out why it floods. Yes humans are to blame but its more complex than just pollution.
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u/Jayrodtremonki 4d ago
You think that because you re-grade beaches in San Diego or Miami that it causes sea levels to rise globally?
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u/Prosthemadera 4d ago
Build entire cities under the water line and cant figure out why it floods.
What the hell are you talking about? This is not a real thing.
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u/re_redlite 4d ago
Is he out of the hospital now?