Vivek Ramaswamy Called the ‘Climate Change Agenda’ a ‘Hoax’ on Wednesday. A Year Ago He Said It Was an ‘Important Question.’
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy made a show of calling the “climate change agenda” a “hoax” during Wednesday night’s debate.
“Let us be honest as Republicans, I’m the only person on the stage who isn’t bought and paid for so I can say this: The climate change agenda is a hoax. The climate change agenda is a hoax,” he argued with no shortage of self-righteousness.
But in the past, Ramaswamy has been far less strident in his rhetoric, and far more open to debates about how the issue should be addressed.
In February 2021, he delivered congressional testimony during which he argued that “fighting climate change” is not a “bad goal,” and professed not to “offer a judgment one way or another about whether staving off climate change is a worthy social goal for this body to elevate above other societal considerations.”
And last August, Ramaswamy meekly argued that finding the solution to climate change should be a task for “the political process.”
“Leave it to the political process to sort out important questions. I’m not discounting important questions, like how and whether we combat climate change, and when and what timeframe we do it,” said Ramaswamy. “But those are questions in which every citizen has an equal stake and an equal voice, where someone cloistered in the corner office of Manhattan should not dictate the way an entire industry behaves, settling that question through force rather than through debate.”
In another conversation that same month, he called climate change “one of the most fundamental societal discussions we ought to be having.”
“I think that the point here is if you’re an alternative energy company you’re going to have an important role to play in America’s energy future. Be the best version of yourself. But I also think that oil and gas is going to play an important role in getting there too. And at the end of the day it will be malpractice to enter the decarbonization revolution without an alternative to fill the void, that’s exactly what’s happened,” said Ramaswamy.
As recently as this March, Ramaswamy was far less dismissive of climate change action.
“Climate change is also real, by the way. We’re talking about the climatism piece of this. When I talk about climatism and COVIDism, I’m not denying the underlying reality of COVID. I’m not denying the underlying reality that global surface temperatures are going up, and in part due to human activity,” he told CBS’s Major Garrett.
Ramaswamy was the target of attacks from several of his peers on the debate stage, earning their ire through his accusations that he and he alone had reached his opinions without the input of donors.
“I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here,” declared Chris Christie in a dig aimed at Ramaswamy.
“Now is not the time for on the job training,” asserted Mike Pence in another broadside. “We don’t need to bring in a rookie.
