Climate Change and Terrorism

Feb 18, 2015 | Keith Kloor
View Original

Last month, after the terrorist attacks in Paris, Nature published a Q & Awith an anthropologist who studies the murderous motivations of Islamic extremists. He discussed socio-cultural factors and an allure to a radical ideology. That may help explain Islamic attacks against “infidels” in Europe and the United States, but then what’s driving suicide bombers in Somalia, Pakistan, and Iraq where it’s Muslims killing Muslims? Is there a common denominator?

I took the bait.

It turns out that Goodell doesn’t talk about a terrorism/climate change nexus. His piece is largely about the Pentagon taking climate change seriously (a story circulating since October), while hawkish Republicans are not. So this puts the GOP and the U.S. military in opposition on a national security issue. It’s an interesting tension, for sure, and a story that has been developing since the late 2000s.