The Italian television station Canale 5 broadcast an extensive interview with Filippo Giorgi, head of the ICTP Physics of Weather and Climate group, on 15 August. The interview focussed on the huge pollution cloud of ash, acids and aerosols that is looming over southern Asia, damaging agriculture and altering regional weather patterns. The poisonous cloud is a result of forest fires, burning of agricultural wastes, increased consumption of fossil fuels by automobiles, industries and power stations, and emissions from millions of inefficient stoves and coal-fired furnaces. Giorgi has been recently elected one of the six vice chairs of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I.