But while most Democrats shied away from linking the attacks that killed almost 130 people to the aim of the United Nations conference that begins in Paris on November 30, Sanders’ words echo one of the Obama administration’s favorite themes-that climate change is a “threat multiplier” that will breed conflict around the globe as desperate populations compete for scarce resources. “Beyond that I think it is fair to say that chaotic situations such as the civil war in Syria can allow extremism to flourish”.
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The bottom line: Climate change is the gravest threat to our security, and that’s why the nations of the world must succeed at COP21 and beyond in working together to minimize the danger.
Sixty-two percent of those voters said she could bring about real change in the way things are done in Washington, whereas 51 percent said the same of Sanders. Is climate change the biggest national security threat?
“We come together, we can defeat the people with all of the money and all of the power”, he said.
Sanders noted that this belief, which he originally stated during the first Democratic debate, is in fact shared by both the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Defense Department. “And I think we’ve got to work toward a political agreement to get Assad out of office”, Sanders said.
“If there is not enough water, if there is not enough land to grow your crops, then you’re going to see migrations of people fighting over land that will sustain them, and that will lead to worldwide conflicts…”
In Syria, for example, Sanders said that drought has driven people to migrate into cities. In March 2012, Climate Progress published a piece by Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell, co-founders and directors of the Center for Climate and Security, which made the case for the link between climate change and events in Syria. The evidence so far does not support Sanders’ claim. “The Syrian conflict, now civil war, is no exception”.
Amanda Thomas, a Sanders supporter from Lorain, said after the rally that although she didn’t agree with Sanders on everything – she has concerns about eliminating mandatory minimum prison sentences, for instance – she did like his stance on helping the middle class. “The impacts of climate change interact with other factors to make existing security risks”.
The study concludes climate change is already drying the region, as climate models had long predicted. A national security policy that focuses only on AK-47-wielding terrorists and does not consider threats that are harder to quantify will be short-sighted and ultimately ineffective, he said.
Sanders did call out a few Republican presidential candidates, but not by name, as he talked of the tragedy of terrorism in Paris and GOP calls for US military intervention in the Mideast to destroy ISIS.
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“We have different points of view… but Russian Federation has got to join us”. The only question is who is going to lead the way in trying to turn the problem around? “I mean, [ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi] will be sawing Bernie Sanders” head off, and he’ll be saying as his neck is being sliced, “Oh, if only we had an emissions trading scheme!'”
