In a desperate bid to try to distract his audience from the fact that his organization mostly specializes in killing Muslims, Osama bin Laden released a tape criticizing the West for not doing more to combat climate change:
“Talk about climate change is not an ideological luxury but a reality,” Mr. bin Laden was quoted as saying in a report on Al Jazeera's English-language Web site. “All of the industrialized countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility for the global warming crisis.”
Ridiculing bin Laden for a rather pathetic attempt at pretending to be something other than a terrorist would be the appropriate reaction. Instead, what we're going to see is grade-school nonsense about how this means bin Laden and environmentalists are "on the same side." This type of political discourse is barely distinct from reminding everyone that Adolf Hitler had a mustache just like David Axelrod, and indeed these sorts of interpretations have already started. The bigger question is why climate denialists don't mind being more scientifically ignorant than a cave-dwelling murderer.
The irony is that inaction on climate change could help al-Qaeda in the long run by destabilizing already-weak nations. While the GOP plays politics with the issue, military and intelligence analysts are trying to figure out how to cope with the potential implications, particularly in regions of the world where al-Qaeda has previously found safe havens.
-- A. Serwer
