Blog Post #8 How Climicide Fosters Climate Terrorism

 The most dangerous thing about climate change is that it has the potential to destabilize
numerous systems in our world. If left unchecked, it could completely upend weather systems
and patterns, food production, oceans, economies, disease patterns, wildlife migration patterns,
global trade, governments, and mental health. When poorer countries are slammed by climate
disasters it can easily turn their precarious existence from poor to desperate, causing widespread
hopelessness, anger and desperation. This becomes fertile ground for climate terrorism.

Climate terrorism is when a few people in a country deeply affected by climate change commit
an act of violence in retaliation for climicide. Climicide occurs when a small group of wealthy
oil executives in rich countries continue pumping out fossil fuels despite knowing the
devastating effects. Climicide is such a disturbing phenomenon because fossil fuel companies
like Shell, Exxon, BP and Chevron have known all along exactly what the burning of fossil
fuels was doing, but refused to stop selling them. They instituted extensive campaigns of
disinformation, misinformation and lobbying around the world to spread the lie that fossil fuels
aren’t harmful. The scale of their crimes cannot be overstated. Burning fossil fuels disrupts
every aspect of life on Earth.

Climatologists have been warning for years that climate disasters will have a greater effect on
populations in poorer countries who largely didn’t contribute to the problem. In many cases
those countries are smaller, closer to sea level and more vulnerable to sea level rise and
hurricanes. They also tend to be more economically depressed and thus unable to afford the
extraordinary expense of climate adaptation. One can easily imagine a developing island nation
still dealing with the effects of colonialism and imperialism, struggling to advance in the world.
A teenager in that country learns about climate change and the major players. He becomes
resentful that the United States is the largest emitter of fossil fuels in history but hasn’t provided
enough money for his country to adapt to climate change. Then he loses his family and his home
in a massive hurricane and flood and the country becomes destabilized. Roving gangs
exacerbate the conditions of the island and recruit him. He and a few others plot and execute a
successful terrorist attack on the United States.

As Americans saw from 9/11, terrorist attacks have wide-ranging consequences in lives lost,
unsuccessful, unfocused and reactionary wars and huge financial expenses. Let’s prevent the
perfect conditions for climate terrorism by recognizing that we are one of the rich nations that
has allowed climicide to perpetuate. Americans of all stripes should be coming together to
advocate for the provision of fair climate adaptation funds for countries on the front-line of
climate change. Citizens of rich nations must support sufficient financial aid (in the form of
grants, not loans) to underprivileged nations for climate adaptation or climicide will lead to
climate terrorism.

We must be one step ahead of future terrorist recruiters and help maintain the stability of
developing nations in a democratic way. If we forget about developing nations and don’t help
them deal with climate change, penalties in the future will easily be more than the cost of
indemnifications now.