At the Democratic Debate Saturday in Des Moines, Bernie Sanders repeated his earlier claims that climate change is the biggest threat we face, and went even further by linking climate change and terrorism, pointing to the Central Intelligence Agency to verify his claim. Sanders warned that global warming could cause worldwide conflicts “over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops”.
Advertisement
“I wouldn’t have said it as strongly, but (climate change) is an accelerant to conflict and helps produce instability”, said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the national security think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“First, I would ask our allies to invoke Article 5”, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said Sunday, when asked on ABC’s “This Week” what President Barack Obama should do in light of Friday’s attacks in Paris.
DICKERSON: Senator Sanders, you said you want to rid the planet of ISIS. “So, where you have discontent, where you have instability, that’s where problems arise”.
Snapchat users can see Sanders’ snaps, but they can’t snap back because the campaign says it isn’t adding friends yet. Bernie Sanders on Monday called for a concerted global effort to defeat the Islamic State and “eliminate the stain of ISIS from this world”.
Ohio Governor John Kasich, who is running for president, also recently stated his opposition to refugee resettlement in the state.
I am sure that the McCains and Noonan are not the only conservatives having giggling fits over the linking of climate change to terrorism.
“I wouldn’t make too much out of subtle things”, Devine said. In the previous debate you said the greatest threat to national security is climate change. “Beyond that I think it is fair to say that chaotic situations such as the civil war in Syria can allow extremism to flourish”.
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. It doesn’t. And now Sanders may have to step away from the campaign message he’s spent decades honing. (Actually, that probably lowers his standing in my eyes.) But it might behoove all of them to do a few basic Googling before shooting off their mouths over how hilarious they find it that the old hippie Vermont senator would raise so fanciful a notion as climate change for fueling ISIS’s rise.
But if he’s wrong – if he manages to win the primaries anyway, but the foot soldiers he hopes will join his political revolution never show up – his nomination could end up a fiasco for the Democratic Party.
Advertisement
“In my view, now is the time for developing a serious and effective strategy to destroy ISIS”, he said. Its goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.
