"21st Century US 'dustbowl' risk assessed"

This has reference to the BBC online report with the above mentioned title published in TDS on February 13, 2016. It is a mistake to make a link between extreme weather and global warming. In 2012, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) asserted that relationship between global warming and wildfires, rainfall, storms, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events has not been demonstrated. In their latest assessment report released on September 27, 2013, IPCC scientists concluded that they had only “low confidence” that “damaging increases will occur in either drought or tropical cyclone activity” as a result of global warming. In 2013, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) concluded the same saying, “in no case has a convincing relationship been established between warming over the past 100 years and increases in any of these extreme events.”

Instead of wasting money vainly trying to stop extreme weather events from happening, we need to harden our societies to these inevitable events (like deadly flooding in South India) by burying electrical cables underground, and reinforcing buildings and other infrastructure. Over $1 billion dollars are spent globally every day on climate finance. Yet, only 6 percent of it goes to helping people adapt to climate change today (ref: Climate Policy Initiative, San Francisco). That's the real climate crisis.

Tom Harris, B. Eng., M. Eng. (Mech.)

Executive Director, International Climate Science Coalition

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada