March 02, 2016
In a batch of more than 100 documents seized in a May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden was a handwritten rambling that allegedly urges Americans to rise up against climate change.
According to a report on the documents by Reuters, in the letter – which was part of a translated batch of documents released on Tuesday by the Obama administration – bin Laden expressed his concern with the global state of the environment, which he called "catastrophic."
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In the letter, he goes on to urge the U.S. to back President Barack Obama in his efforts to curb climate change, and, in doing so, "save humanity."
Based on the letter, bin Laden blamed the 2007-8 U.S. financial crisis on corporate control of capital and corporate lobbyists and the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Reuters reports.
References to events in the letter indicate that it was likely drafted shortly after Obama began his first term in 2009.
“Bin Laden's preoccupation with climate change also emerged as a theme in the first tranche of documents from the raid that was declassified in May 2015, as well as in an audio recording released via the al Jazeera network in January 2010,” Reuters reports.
Read the full Reuters report here.
