Establishing this linkage diverts attention from Islamist ideology at the heart of modern terrorism.

It’s ridiculous when an elite university like MIT promotes bogus lectures such as Is Islamophobia Accelerating Global Warming? However, one can argue that it’s even worse when our top U.S. government leaders advocate for similar bogus theories such as linking climate change to terrorism.

This is what happened recently at the annual Intelligence & National Security Summit in Washington, D.C., when DNI’s James Clapper suggested a connection between environmental issues and terrorism.

The political left has been trying to establish a linkage between the two topics to provide a way to divert attention away from the actual radical Islamic ideology that is at the heart of modern day terrorism.

For example, in Paris a couple weeks after the horrific November 2015 attacks, U.S. President Obama had the audacity to insinuate a connection between climate change and terrorism. It’s bad enough that some leftists continue to push the narrative that humans are the main reason for climate change – now we have to hear our government officials promote a political agenda that basically says if we don’t go “green” we can expect terrorism to continue. Defense One reveals Clapper’s rationale behind this climate change and terrorism connection stating:

…Increased competition for “ever-diminishing food and water resources” will amplify socio-economically motivated armed conflicts, countries’ difficulties controlling their borders, and instability more generally, he said. “I think climate change is going to be an underpinning for a lot of national security issues,” Clapper said. It affects “so many things: the availability of basics like water and food and other resources which are continually going to become matters of conflict, and already are, between and among countries.”

Defense One goes on to add:

The Pentagon has been getting increasingly serious about preparing for it, warning that warming global temperatures and extreme weather events would act as a “threat multiplier” and foster terrorism. Earlier this year, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work ordered the military to adapt current and future operations to address climate change. Clapper echoed this warning. Climate change-driven instability and other factors mean that “after ISIL is gone, you can expect some other terrorist entity to arise, and the cycle of extremism [to] continue for the foreseeable future.”

It seems like the line of logic is as follows: Humans (implied) -> climate change -> diminished resources -> struggle for resources -> “extremism”/terrorism

To say that climate change is causing a depletion of our resources like food and water–which then causes conflict that leads to terrorism is a massive stretch of the imagination. Of course, this didn’t stop President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry from linking climate change to the Syrian civil war.

Even left-leaning national security analyst Peter Brookes debunked this in an article last year, writing that, “there seems to be no strong quantitative (i.e., empirical) evidence to prove a cause-and-effect relationship between changes in the climate and conflict.”

It’s one thing to say that natural resources like fresh water are a security concern in arid regions like areas in the Middle East and Africa, and enter into countries’ national security policy. That much is true– and also obvious. However, to say Islamic jihad is a result from supposed conflict caused by a lack of resources is ludicrous.

Jihadists are driven by motives such as Sharia law and bringing back the Caliphate, not by frustration over the contention of scarce food and water supplies. This type of linkage is even weaker than the belief that terrorists are essentially joining the cause of jihad because of a lack of jobs/economic opportunities. ISIS could be living on the most resource-replete land and they still wouldn’t be satisfied until they bring the world under Islamic rule.

Regardless of their differences, there is a commonality between those who are hyper-ideological; a link between those who are so obsessed with their worldview that they believe it explains literally everything: In Paris last year, Obama said, “climate change — affects all trends”; the totalitarian Islamist thinks implementing Sharia law globally is the answer to solving the world’s problems.

Of course, Obama wants to see the establishment of liberal-progressive values, while the Islamist wants everything Islamic; however, both groups need each other politically at least temporarily in order to build up a powerful enough coalition to launch their respective agendas on the world stage.

Leftist politicians tend to dismiss or ignore the worldwide jihadist movement and seek to combat what they call “extremism” with vague solutions that furthers their political agenda.

Anyone with common sense realizes that hardcore jihadists like ISIS are not going to put down the sword of jihad through diplomacy and random acts of global kindness. The West needs to militarily wipe jihadists like those involved with ISIS off of the face of the earth, but also seek ways in countering their Sharia ideology that is reaching the youth.