Climate change can ‘foster terrorism,’ Pentagon says

The Pentagon’s latest report finds that climate change is one of the world’s greatest security risks because it can actually foster terrorism.

The report published this week lays out the logic, Mediaite said: First off, the military is tasked to its limits from responding to national disasters, like floods, droughts and so forth, on American soil.

Then, climate change comes in and causes “instability in other countries by impairing access to food and water, damaging infrastructure, spreading disease, uprooting and displacing large numbers of people, compelling mass migration, interrupting commercial activity or restricting electricity availability,” the Pentagon report stated.

It went on, the blog reported: “These developments could undermine already-fragile governments that are unable to respond effectively or challenge currently-stable governments, as well as increasing competition and tension between countries vying for limited resources. These gaps in governance can create an avenue for extremist ideologies and conditions that foster terrorism.”

As part of staving off that risk, the Pentagon recently started adding climate change situations and scenarios to its war games and combat training, Mediaite reported. But to some, the United States may actually be late to the game.

Marcus King, a George Washington University climate change expert, says the weather situation has already sparked terrorism — and is directly to blame for the rise of the Islamic State. Why? The lack of water in the Middle East, he said.

“Climate change and water shortages may have triggered the drought that caused farmers to relocate to Syrian cities and triggered situations where youth were more susceptible to joining extremist groups,” he said, in the New York Times.