“Isis is not an existential threat to the United States,” he told me in one of these conversations. “Climate change is a potential existential threat to the entire world if we don’t do something about it.”
I agree with his point that IS is not an existential threat to the U.S. And, okay, climate change is a potential existential threat to a large portion of humanity. Car crashes less so but look, it will not do to conflate IS and climate change as threats having anything in common. IS is direct, premeditated action by specific, identifiable human beings intent on attacking the U.S. and the West, climate change may make the Middle East uninhabitable for heat at the same time it is inundating U.S. coastal shores. Climate change is complicated, involves multiple national actors. IS is a specific threat that the U.S. and the West could end in the time it takes a few nuclear missiles to land in IS territory.
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But at any given moment, Obama’s entire presidency could be upended by North Korean aggression, or an assault by Russia on a member of nato, or an isis-planned attack on U.S. soil.
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But at any given moment, Obama’s entire presidency could be upended by North Korean aggression, or an assault by Russia on a member of nato, or an isis-planned attack on U.S. soil.
