Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley was on solid ground when he recently linked climate change to the rise of ISIL, but Fox personalities and other conservative media figures have continued their deceptive onslaught against his remarks.

As Media Matters detailed, multiple expert studies and reports explain how a severe drought likely due to climate change caused economic and social conditions in Syria to deteriorate, which provided “tinder” for the 2011 uprising there. Experts have also detailed how ISIL took advantage of Syria's civil war to gain territory and establish a base of operations in the country. O'Malley summarized this research accurately during a July 20 interview with Bloomberg Television, saying “Climate change and the mega-drought ...created a humanitarian crisis” in Syria that “led now to the rise of ISIL.”

In response -- and in spite of the evidence -- right-wing media figures relentlessly mocked O'Malley, as Media Matters catalogued. But some of the worst reactions have occurred since our piece was published.

On the July 21 edition of Fox Business' Kennedy, host Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery and her panelists agreed that O'Malley is “a moron,” with Kennedy mockingly declaring: “I guess when you mix a rise in temperature with a lack of water, you get an Islamic caliphate!” Joanne Nosuchinsky, co-host of Fox News' Red Eye, then compared O'Malley's comments to saying “my use of aerosol hairspray is as bad as beheadings”:

And on the July 21 edition of Fox News' The Five, co-host Greg Gutfeld said O'Malley “suffers from A.B.I.S., or Anything But Islam Syndrome. It's like IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), except he's the pain in the ass”:

Read more about the connection between global warming and the rise of ISIL here.