Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders doubled down Sunday on his insistence that climate change leads to terrorism, a connection he called “pretty obvious.”
“If we are going to see an increase in drought and flood and extreme weather disturbances as a result of climate change, what that means is peoples all over the world are going to be fighting over limited natural resources,” Mr. Sanders said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“If there’s not enough water, if there’s not enough land to grow your crops, you’re going to see migrations of people fighting over land that will sustain them. And that will lead to international conflict,” said Mr. Sanders.
Mr. Sanders’ comments come after he defended his contention that climate change is the greatest threat to national security during Saturday’s Democratic presidential candidates debate.
Former Reagan White House speechwriter Peggy Noonan was unconvinced, saying during the CBS panel discussion Sunday that Mr. Sanders’ comment “makes him to many people look slightly daffy, like someone who doesn’t understand what the real subject is and is leaning outside to sort of leftist or progressive nostrums that he can talk about.”
“This is about terrorism. This isn’t about climate change and deserts and people migrating because it’s hot,” said Ms. Noonan.
Asked how Friday’s deadly terrorist attacks on Paris were linked to drought, Mr. Sanders said Sunday: “What happened in Syria, for example, there’s some thought on this.”
“When you have drought, when people can’t grow their crops, they’re going to migrate into cities,” said Mr. Sanders, an avowed democratic socialist. “And when people migrate into cities and they don’t have jobs, there’s going to be a lot more instability, a lot more unemployment, and people will be subject to the types of propaganda that al Qaeda and ISIS [spread].”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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