Climate Activist Suggests ISIS Attacked Paris…Over Climate Change?

Brittany M. Hughes | November 16, 2015
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Oliver Tickell, a British climate change activist and editor of the pro-environment publication The Ecologist, penned an op-ed Saturday suggesting that ISIS jihadis attacked Paris Friday night in order to derail climate change agreements during the G20 Summit this week, when world leaders, including President Obama, were slated to discuss efforts to curb global warming. According to Tickell, ISIS planned and carried out the attacks in France, which left 129 dead and hundreds more wounded, in order to stop the liberal left's most precious political gem -- addressing climate change. 

From the article:

Yes, France has been especially active in its air strikes against ISIS in Syria. And yes, there is a huge reservoir of discontent among the socially excluded youth of the banlieue, the concrete jungle of impoverished outer suburbs that surround Paris and other big cities - where ISIS can perhaps find willing recruits to its ranks.

But is that all? In just a few weeks time, the COP21 climate conference will take place, in Paris, the biggest such event since COP15 in Copenhagen six years ago. The event offers the world a desperately needed opportunity to reduce its carbon emissions and limit global warming to 2C.

And that's surely something the attackers, or at least their (presumably) ISIS commanders, must know all about.

Do they? Do they, really?



Tickell also notes that with all the climate activists set to show up in Paris this week to protest man’s collective carbon footprint, police are likely to miss the terrorists sure to be masquerading among them. This is mostly because, in Tickell's view, most cops can't really tell the difference between a barefooted, tree-hugging hippie and a Islamic militant with a bomb strapped to his chest.  

Police surely fear the presence of terrorists taking shelter among the climate activists - and in many a policeman's world view, there may be no huge difference between murderous terrorists and (generally) peaceful demonstrators anyway. Both are likely to be seen as the 'enemy'.

Tickell then asserts that ISIS coordinated the six deadly attacks across Paris and killed a whole mess of people just to make sure the world would continue to buy their Middle Eastern oil -- all before backhandedly suggesting that big oil companies might somehow be in cahoots with the terrorist organization currently wreaking havoc throughout Iraq and Syria.

So, assuming - as seems probable at this stage - that the Paris outrage was carried out by or for ISIS, was it in any way motivated by a desire to scupper a strong climate agreement at COP21? And so maintain high demand for oil long into the future, together with a high oil price?

Let's just say that it could have been a factor, one of several, in the choice of target and of their timing. And of course ISIS was not necessarily acting entirely on its own. While not alleging direct collusion between ISIS and other oil producing nations and companies, it's not hard to see a coincidence of interests.

But fear not! The solution is clear, Tickell explains: WE MUST NOT FAIL TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE. If for no other reason than to stick it to those dirty rotten, carbon-loving terrorists.

So if that is the case, or even if might be the case, there's an important message in it for us all. The effort to shrink the importance of fossil fuels in the global energy landscape - and oil in particular - just took on a whole new dimension…

…So as well as standing with France in at this time of horror, we must also take a powerful resolve - and communicate it ceaselessly to our leaders - for a strong, effective climate agreement: the Paris Treaty.

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