Soon after the most recent Paris terror attacks the Omaha World-Herald printed a letter saying that President Obama is wrong to fight climate change – he should be fighting ISIS instead.  ISIS, the letter writer contended, will “destroy our way of life much faster than climate change.”
And so it may – without ever setting foot on American soil, the Paris attackers have sent many of our politicians into a reactionary frenzy.  There are strident calls to stop accepting Syrian refugees and/or impose religious tests on them.  Just as after 9/11 we eagerly surrendered our privacy, moral decency (by resorting to torture) and mentality (by invading Iraq which played no role in 9/11), many are now happy to abandon openness, compassion and religious tolerance.
It’s easy sometimes to miss the proverbial forest for the trees, but the “trees” of terrorism are just one part of a much larger forest.  For years our military and intelligence agencies have been warning about the security threats posed by climate change.  Climate change creates refugees, and with refugees often comes violence.
Just last March researchers at Columbia University and the University of California demonstrated the strong connection between the prolonged global-warming-intensified drought in Syria and the civil unrest there.  The drought which began in 2007 (well before the appearance of ISIS) forced 1.5 million people from farms in Syria’s north into the cities, a migration that contributed to social unraveling and eventually civil war.
Though there were other factors leading to the breakdown of Syrian society, including a million refugees from Iraq and the brutality of the Assad regime, this report has been called the “single clearest case ever presented of climate change playing a part in a conflict.”
Something similar happened right here nearly 1,000 years ago.  The climate back then had long been favorable for growing corn, beans and squash and the Native American population had boomed.  But then came a devastating drought. Crops failed again and again; people had to either move away or starve.
Archaeological records indicate that at this same time warfare broke out on the Iowa and South Dakota sides of the Missouri River.  Indians there weren’t directly affected by this drought and had been living in small, scattered settlements prior to this time.  Yet they soon abandoned these small villages in favor of large ones surrounded by wooden palisades.  These people were most likely attempting to defend themselves against refugees from here (and like many advocate today, did so by building walls).
While I doubt Nebraskans will ever go to war with Iowa and South Dakota (at least I hope things never again get that bad), it’s a home-grown reminder that when people are desperate violence often ensues.
A year ago then-Secretary of Defense and former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel – who had pooh-poohed global warming while serving in Congress – touched on this danger when he unveiled a Pentagon report on the impact of climate change on national security.

“Droughts and crop failures can leave millions of people without any lifeline and trigger mass migrations, “Hagel observed.  Who exactly is prepared to resettle and assimilate them?  Europe clearly isn’t and America is already struggling to deal with millions of illegal immigrants, many of whom are refugees from poverty and drug violence.
ISIS may well be a more immediate threat than climate change.  But if climate change is left unaddressed ISIS is merely the harbinger of greater violence to come.  We need to fight terrorism in every way we can, and this includes by fighting the conditions – including global warming — that are breeding it.