Special to WorldTribune.com

As Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) turned up the heat, seizing Ramadi, Iraq and Palmyra, Syria in less than a week, President Barack Obama declined to threaten U.S. intervention.

Instead he suggested that it is the Earth’s turned up heat that is to blame for the precipitous rise of groups such as ISIL and Boko Haram.

Speaking at the Coast Guard Academy’s graduation ceremony on May 20, Obama said “climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security.”

Obama pointed to “severe drought” in the Middle East and Africa as contributing factors to the rise of ISIL and Boko Haram: “Understand, climate change did not cause the conflicts we see around the world, yet what we also know is that severe drought helped to create the instability in Nigeria that was exploited by the terrorist group Boko Haram.

“It’s now believed that drought, crop failures, and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East,” Obama said.

Syndicated radio host Mark Levin responded: “Severe drought? There’s been severe drought since before the beginning of man. Is this the dumbest mythology? And it’s being spouted by the President of the United States. Severe drought, you see, is caused by climate change. Floods are caused by climate change.”

As Obama prepared attendees at the May 20 ceremony for the war on climate change (“I guarantee the Coast Guard will have to respond … you need to be ready,”) State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf was seen as less than reassuring when asked what the U.S. could do to prevent ISIL’s destruction of the historic site at Palmyra.

“Is there really nothing America can do to prevent its destruction?” a reporter asked Harf.

“We’ll keep watching here, we’ll keep seeing what’s happening on the ground,” she responded.

  Barack Obama, Boko Haram, climate change, ISIL, Obama: Climate change contributed to terror groups’ rise