Acknowledging that it was time India took part in the global discussion, the workshop concluded with a proposal to set a steering committee at the state level constituting policy makers, scientists, NGOs, legislators from both houses, panchayat level workers and others. "While we get panicky about water and other resources, nobody bothers much to ask why we are in this situation. There is a lot of politics involved in it but there are also critical issues that need to be discussed. We need to create awareness," said B K Chandrashekar.

While presentations were made based on some of the UNEP and IPCC findings that clearly show the human hand behind the rise in carbon dioxide levels since the industrial era, Prof U R Rao chose to highlight some of the lacuna.

He was sceptical about connecting global warming to intense weather events. "Our climate models are very poor. Modelling the atmosphere is difficult. We need globalised climate models. And drought or extreme rain can't be blamed on global warming. Is the California fire then due to global warming?"

However, as Dr Sukumar later pointed out, "droughts set conditions for fire."
Expressing annoyance at the constant reference to flooding of parts of Asia or India, he said "before that, parts of New York, London will be flooded! What we need to do and it can be done is to study how our coasts will be affected and how to address this. We have done this and it is only parts of Andhra coast and Orissa that will be affected. The eastern coast is mostly safe. We need to plan such that we do not invest heavily in these areas nor have many habitats."