U

S senator Barbara Boxer said in a speech on global warming, just one day after the Moore tornado in Oklahoma: '€œYou'€™re going to have tornadoes and all the rest. '€¦ Carbon could cost us the planet.'€

There is nothing unusual about tornadoes in Tornado Alley on the prairies, or hurricanes in the Caribbean, or cyclones in the Coral Sea '€” all have been creating extreme weather events long before Europeans arrived in these areas and long before the surge of industrial growth in the 1950s.

Despite the intensity of the news reports, the severity of US tornadoes is not increasing '€” there have been many US tornadoes with greater severity and more fatalities than the Moore tornado.

One in 1935 resulted in 695 deaths in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. What is increasing is the population density in the threatened areas and the demand by some media outlets for a man-made climate scare every week.

The US and Australia will continue to suffer intense tornadoes, hurricanes and cyclones but carbon dioxide is blameless.

Instead of wasting billions on the mega-myth that man controls the climates, both countries should spend that money on building infrastructure that better withstands natural disasters. Successful species are those that learn to cope with natural disasters.

Viv Forbes
Queensland, Australia