That was my first reaction as well. The author seems very confused about it.

He starts off defining it as something that is unknown or secret, and more specifically, he goes on to say, a secret "kept by a nefarious elite". I suppose secrets are usually associated with conspiracies, but a secret is not a conspiracy and conspirators don't have to be an elite.

And then he says that in this case, it's the Earth itself that's conspiring alone. This contradicts all the dictionaries I consulted, which define it to involve multiple parties, which makes sense considering the etymology.