What the commentators said

Hot on the heels of Hurricane Harvey, Irma ought to “kill any doubt that climate change is real”, said Michael E. Mann in The Washington Post. Hurricanes are increasing in strength because of the changing climate. Cyclones get their energy from warm ocean waters, and the oceans are warming because of the greenhouse gases released by burning hydrocarbons. “Over the past two years, we have witnessed the most intense hurricanes on record for the globe, both hemispheres, the Pacific and now, with Irma, the Atlantic.” Actually, the science is not all that clear-cut, said Matt Ridley in The Times. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is on record as stating that there has been no recent increase in the frequency of tropical cyclones: in fact, Harvey and Irma have ended a historic 12-year hurricane drought for the mainland US. Climate change may have made hurricanes “slightly fiercer”, but adequate preparation for extreme weather more than compensates for this. When Galveston, Texas, was hit by a hurricane in 1900, 10,000 people died. By contrast, the death toll for Harvey and Irma has been spectacularly low. “Adaptation is and always will be the way to survive storms.”

The problem with adaptation is that it costs a lot of money, said Susan Matthews on Slate. Sceptical Republicans “may refuse to believe the science on climate change, but they will pay attention to the fiscal costs of these events”. Congress is planning to spend at least $15.3bn dollars on relief following Harvey, which dumped an unprecedented amount of rain on Texas. In time, such numbers may make them willing to think about “climate change mitigation”. As for the British Government, its aid package for the affected territories is “derisory”, said Rupert Jones in The Guardian. Is £32m all it can afford, from its £12bn foreign aid budget, for this “enormous” reconstruction effort? Schools, hospitals and airports have all been flattened. If this had happened to the Falkland Islands or Gibraltar would the response have been the same?