Following this week's tragic Asian earthquake and tsunami, the Independent - one of the UK's newspapers spun this into a story about climate change and the various natural disasters of 2004, where one of Britain's leading environmental activists is quoted as saying that ""Here again are yet more events in the real world that are consistent with climate change predictions".

Whatever the original intention of this quote, the way it is written suggests an immoral attitude towards those struck by the tsunami, and indeed other disasters. Likewise, the idea that emissions controls might help anyone to cope with natural disasters, or prevent them, is preposterous, as I write today in the Wall Street Journal Asia.