Along with it, says the firm’s meteorologist and chief forecaster Joe Bastardi, will come the climate change blame game, which he calls a false narrative. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, killing an estimated 1,833 people and causing approximately $161 billion in damages. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, Irma hit the Caribbean, and Maria hit the Caribbean and Puerto Rico, resulting in at least 3,364 fatalities and a combined cost of over $294 billion in damages.

In 2020, six major hurricanes landed, resulting in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) dubbing 2020 the “most active season in recorded history.”

Following each season, government officials, committees, and scientists were quick to blame climate change.

“There is perhaps no better example of the potential for devastating global warming impacts than the Gulf Coast and Hurricane Katrina,” the U.S. Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming stated after Katrina. “While the contribution of human-caused warming to Hurricane Katrina is difficult to quantify, scientists have unearthed a trend towards larger, more intense storms as oceans around the world warm.”

After Irma, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called the 2017 season “the most violent on record.”

“Changes to our climate are making extreme weather events more severe and frequent, pushing communities into a vicious cycle of shock and recovery,” he stated.

After the 2020 season, Jim Kossin, an atmospheric research scientist at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, blamed “warmer-than-average ocean temperatures” for the hurricane “hyper-activity.”

He said an increase in more ferocious hurricanes over the past 40 years was linked to climate change. Mr. Bastardi said he expects to hear similar messaging this year if it pans out like he’s predicting.

“If you hang around people constantly spouting negative stuff and how bad it is, guess what you’re going to believe? … It’s a great strategy for pushing this thing—if I wanted to argue the CO2 [carbon dioxide] argument, I’d do exactly what they’re doing,” Mr. Bastardi told The Epoch Times. “But there’s been no increase. And the size of the storms is getting smaller. That’s the other thing: hurricanes are smaller and more compact.”

Oceanographer and certified consulting meteorologist Bob Cohen concurred. He said there’s currently a transition from El Niño patterns to La Niña, which is “correlated with higher-than-normal hurricane activity.”

“Right now, the subsurface temperatures are much cooler than during El Niño,” he told The Epoch Times. “The immediate near-surface temperatures are still warmer, but the subsurface water pool and the warm water pool have dissipated, and so once that pops to the surface, it becomes La Niña,” Mr. Cohen said.

He said he expects “we’ll hear a lot more alarmist messaging” if 2024 is a busy hurricane season, as predicted. But, like Mr. Bastardi, Mr. Cohen said hurricanes aren’t getting bigger or more intense. He said that as temperatures naturally warm coming out of the Little Ice Age, hurricanes and weather events will get less intense—not exponentially worse.

Basic Physics and Temperature

The Earth endeavors to exist in a state of equilibrium; it tries to equalize the temperature between the equator and the poles, which drives weather, according to Mr. Cohen.

“When you look at the 50,000-foot big picture, the Earth is a heat engine,” he said. “The tropics remain fairly constant in temperatures, and it’s the poles that have the greatest change.

“The gradient drives the storms. … If the poles warm, the temperature gradient decreases, which would mean less of a requirement for more intense storms from Mother Nature. It’s basic physics.”

Mr. Bastardi agreed.

“Look at Ida versus Betsy,” he said. “Betsy’s hurricane-force winds extended out 150 miles to the west and 250 miles east. Ida 50 miles to the west, and 75 miles to the east. They’re both category 4. They both had similar pressures. Which was the worst storm? The bigger storm. But they don’t tell you that.”

NOAA’s hurricane division shows Hurricane Betsy hitting Florida and Louisiana in 1965 with a central pressure of 946 millibars and a maximum wind speed of 132 miles per hour. Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana in 2021 with a central pressure of 931 mb and a maximum wind speed of 149 miles per hour. However, NOAA data doesn’t include the overall size of a hurricane.

“Hurricanes now are like fists of furry rather than giant bulldozers that come in and plow the coast,” Mr. Bastardi said. “But [NOAA] won’t show the entire picture. Because if they did, people would say, ‘What the heck!’”

He said the reason hurricanes are more costly now is because of increased infrastructure along the coasts, not because of increased severity. NOAA’s historical hurricane data dating back to 1851 supports the premise that hurricanes aren’t getting worse.

It adds as a caveat to its data that “because of the sparseness of towns and cities before 1900,” hurricanes may have been missed or their intensity underestimated. NOAA’s data also shows hurricanes are getting less severe in terms of central pressure.

Even with possible missing data, the NOAA data show an average central pressure decline of 0.00013mb per year between 1851 and 2022 (2023 data isn’t included yet), and max wind had a marginal average increase of 0.00011mph per year for that same period. The agency uses the Saffir-Simpson scale to categorize hurricanes from 1 to 5 based on maximum sustained wind speed.

Fear Before Reality

Government agencies, such as NOAA, often lead with an alarming statement about increased weather severity, but beyond the headlines, the data show a different story, Mr. Cohen said.

For example, in its 2023 State of the Science fact sheet titled “Atlantic Hurricanes and Climate Change,” NOAA asks the questions: “Has human-caused climate change had any detectable influence on hurricanes and their impacts?” and “What changes do we expect going forward with continued global warming?”

It answers itself by stating that “Several Atlantic hurricane activity metrics show pronounced increases since 1980.”

A few paragraphs later, NOAA states that if the data from the 1900s to the present is considered, “There has been no significant trend in annual numbers of U.S. landfalling tropical storms, hurricanes, or major hurricanes.”

Instead, there’s a “decreasing trend since 1900 in the propagation speed of tropical storms and hurricanes over the continental U.S.”

Mr. Cohen said NOAA’s approach is problematic. Its initial statements are “scary” and then “it discounts these same statements.”

“It’s very confusing because it goes back and forth between blaming climate change and blaming natural variability,” he said.

The reliance on climate modeling instead of observed reality is one of the problems with government reports, Mr. Cohen said.

In its fact sheet, NOAA says it hasn’t found clear evidence of a “greenhouse gas-induced change in historical observed Atlantic hurricane behavior.”

“Since a highly confident attribution has not yet been established for Atlantic hurricanes, future projections rely mostly on climate models alone.”

Mr. Cohen said the real observations don’t agree with the models.

“Some will say, ‘Well, if the observations don’t agree, then the observations are wrong.’ But it’s the opposite. It’s the models that are wrong,” he said.

Mr. Bastardi concurred and added that much of what’s being presented to the public is propaganda, not science, intended to facilitate a specific outcome.

“The climate agenda is the nail in freedom’s coffin. We’re more prosperous, we have five times the number of people, and we have one-fiftieth the number of climate disasters than we did in the 1900s,” he said. “But we’ve got this mass brainwashing going on, and it’s all over incremental nonsense—very, very small things that are just amplified to make people think that things are really bad.”

CO2 Impact

When asked if human-caused CO2 has an impact on hurricanes, Mr. Bastardi was quick to say “no.”

Mr. Cohen agreed. “Greenhouse gas doesn’t warm the ocean, except in the top millimeter. The deep warming is caused by the sun. The greenhouse gas theory, which is effect, irradiates heat that tries to escape back down to the Earth in a wavelength that only goes into the oceans at the top—the ocean’s skin or the top few millimeters. So, you don’t get changes in ocean heat content because of greenhouse gasses,” he said.

“You get that because of solar insulation, the direct sunlight, which is a different wavelength. And so, changes in thermal heat content are not due to greenhouse gasses.”

Mr. Bastardi agreed and said there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to the climate and what causes warming or cooling, particularly in the oceans.

“We’re woefully short of knowing what’s going on in the oceans,” he said. “We have one data point for every 112,000 square miles. It does not do anything except faintly estimate what’s going on.”

He said the increase in geothermal activity in the oceans since 1990 has been warming the oceans. But he’s also seeing a predicted cooling.

“What’s more startling to me is how cold the Indian Ocean is forecast to get over the next six months. I mean, I’ve never seen a drop like this forecasted,” he said.

During the incoming change to the La Niña pattern, upwelling in the oceans brings cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface, pushing the Pacific jet stream northward. That can result in droughts in the southern United States, increased rain and flooding in Canada and the Pacific Northwest, and an increased risk of hurricanes, according to NOAA.

“The warming of the oceans is a big deal,” Mr. Bastardi said. “But there may be a countering going on. As far as La Niña goes, the planet is warming. And it’s warming in a way that creates stronger than average easterly winds across the Pacific, which means upwelling, and upwelling means cooler water.

“All a La Niña is is a resistance to the warming that’s taking place. And unless there is a shutdown of whatever input that is—if you’re a CO2 guy, you think it’s manmade, and if you’re me, you believe it’s natural—until that shutdown occurs, the oceans will continue to warm.

“Now, here’s a dirty little secret: We don’t have the data to know exactly what’s happening.”

Mr. Bastardi predicts this hurricane season “will turn into a real political football” over the climate change narrative.

Mr. Cohen added, “You never see it asked: ‘For humans, what is the optimal temperature?’

“Nine times more people die from cold than heat. The yields in Africa now because of the CO2 are huge, feeding millions of people. So many articles, particularly in the mainstream media, are written to scare people. And that leads to the general public thinking we’re heading into a bad situation. And that’s not the case.

“Warmer weather is better.”

Sound off about this news on The Liberty Daily Substack.

On Friday, around 11:11 p.m. local time, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake exploded through the High Atlas mountains in Morocco, not far from the populous city of Marrakesh. People as far away as Spain and Portugal felt a strange vibration ripple beneath their feet. But millions in Morocco felt the planet shake and splinter, jolt and disintegrate, before thousands of the most unfortunate were greeted by tectonic rage. At least 2,100 people are dead, and that number is expected to rise. According to the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center, an NGO, several aftershocks convulsed through the area earlier today.

This was a really big one. It was clearly felt by countless people in both Spain and Portugal.

The final death toll will not be known for quite a while, but it is rising with each passing hour.

According to the USGS, this was the biggest earthquake that Morocco has experienced in more than 100 years…

The US Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 when it hit at 11:11 p.m. (2211 GMT), with shaking that lasted several seconds. The US agency reported that a magnitude-4.9 aftershock hit 19 minutes later and that the earthquake was the largest to hit Morocco in more than 100 years.

The epicenter of Friday’s tremor was high in the Atlas Mountains, about 40 miles south of Marrakech. It was also near Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa, and Oukaimeden, a popular Moroccan ski resort.

In the city of Marrakesh, tall buildings violently crumbled to the ground as the ground shook with great force…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXxdESqRwmE

When something like this happens, your life can be turned upside down in a single moment.

Can you imagine what it must be like to lose your home and your family without any warning whatsoever?…

In mere moments, entire neighborhoods vanish. Entire families are exterminated. Some may be entombed under the ruins of the place in which they grew up or raised their children or reunited with old friends. Survivors of the cataclysmic back-to-back earthquakes in Turkey and Syria this February have told reporters what happens next:. People trapped in the rubble wait in purgatory, wondering which of their loved ones may still be breathing; many perish inside these hollows of concrete, mud, silt, metal, and brick. And those who aren’t physically trapped, who just happened to be far from any susceptible buildings, are still caught in a desperate dread, questioning the reality that seemed immovable just a moment ago. What just happened? Do I still have a home? Is my daughter okay? Is my dog still alive? Where is my wife? I just saw her; we just spoke; she was right there.

The survivors in this region of Morocco need our prayers.

This is a country that has not seen a tragedy like this in any of our lifetimes, and the royal family has just declared “three days of national mourning”…

Morocco’s royal family declared three days of national mourning after the deadly earthquake.

‘Three days of national mourning have been decided, with flags to fly at half-mast on all public buildings,’ said a statement published by the official MAP news agency after King Mohamed VI chaired a meeting to discuss the disaster.

Of course this was not the only major quake that we have seen in the past few days.

On Friday, a magnitude 5.0 earthquake hit northern California…

A magnitude 5.0 earthquake was recorded in Northern California Friday morning. The quake was recorded at 10:24 a.m. about 7.5 miles west-southwest of the community of Fall River Mills in Shasta County,

at a depth of over nine miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The area is about 50 miles northeast of Redding, and about 290 miles north of Sacramento.

According to the USGS Felt Report, close to two hundred people had reported feeling shaking in the first half hour after the quake, with the majority of the reports coming from Shasta County, and a few reports from as far away as Chico and some communities in Oregon close to Medford.

As I keep reminding my readers, it is just a matter of time before “the Big One” hits the state. Also on Friday, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck Mexico…

A magnitude-5.6 earthquake occurred near the coast of Jalisco State at around 09:53 Sept. 8. The epicenter was about 9 km (6 miles) northwest of Emiliano Zapata. The tremor occurred at a depth of about 35 km (22 miles), and moderate shaking was probably felt in the immediate vicinity of the epicenter, with lighter shaking likely felt in other parts of Jalisco and Colima states.

Interestingly, this earthquake came just two days after the Mexican Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide…

Reports over the last year suggest some abortion-hoppers are also looking beyond US borders. They’ve been seeking out help in Mexico since as early as July last year. Now, Mexico is set to become an even more attractive destination.

This week, the Mexican supreme court decriminalized decriminalized abortion across the country. The apex court was unequivocal in saying that “the legal system that penalizes abortion in the federal penal code is unconstitutional given it violates the human rights of women and people with the ability to gestate.”

Then on Saturday, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit off the coast of Palu, Indonesia, and a magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck not too far from New Zealand. Meanwhile, massive storms continue to rage all over the planet.

This year, for the very first time ever recorded, “storms have reached top-tier Category 5 strength in every tropical ocean basin in the same year”.

And now here comes Hurricane Lee.

Lee made headlines all over the globe on Thursday when it suddenly strengthened from a Category 1 storm to a Category 5 storm…

Hurricane Lee is set to send huge rip tides across the East Coast as soon as this weekend, even as meteorologists are still unsure if the eye of the storm will make landfall.

Severe surges could generate waves up to 10 feet tall crashing into the eastern seaboard on Sunday, risking flash flooding and structural damage.

The storm system alarmed forecasters after it escalated from a Category 1 to Category 5 hurricane overnight Thursday, as its wind speeds soared from 80mph to over 160mph in a matter of hours.

Can you imagine what such a storm would do to New York City or Boston if a direct hit happened?

Let us hope that such a scenario can be avoided. But as I have been relentlessly warning, we are entering a period of great instability when our planet will be hit by one major disaster after another.

What we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg, and so I would encourage all of you to brace yourselves for the tumultuous months and years that are ahead.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here. Article cross-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog.

On the other end of the scale, in 2004, my country, the Cayman Islands, experienced a Category 5 hurricane, with winds up to 200 miles per hour that sat on us without moving for 36 hours. I was responsible for ensuring that safety be provided for scores of my employees prior to the hurricane. After the storm, one of my companies took on the complete rebuilding of the country’s wholesale and retail food distribution facilities in order to ensure that the country’s population would have the most essential commodities—food and water. (A big change in level of responsibility over the years.)

In addition to having spent decades planning for hurricane damage, I’ve also spent decades as an economist, planning for major economic storms. In 1999, I determined that the world would experience what Doug Casey has termed a Greater Depression that would be more devastating than any economic event the world had ever seen. I predicted that it would happen in stages and that the final stage would be the most devastating. I would have been quite pleased to have been incorrect, but unfortunately, my predictions have come to pass. I believe we’re now quite close to the final destruction stage, a period that will lead to the collapse of many of the world’s formerly strongest economies, coinciding with a period of devastating warfare. In both the economic and warfare cases, those who are the world’s major players will believe that they’ll be able to control the extent of devastation and even profit from it, but events will go beyond their control and take on a life of their own.

As in the image above, there will not be just one, but multiple epicentres. Europe and North America will be hit the hardest economically. Next in line will be those countries, such as Japan, Australia, etc., that are the most closely linked economically with these centres. The next tier down will be those countries that are dependent on the centres, but more peripherally, such as Panama or Mexico. Finally, there will be those countries that are the least linked to the major centres, such as Uruguay or Thailand.

All countries will be impacted by the coming economic hurricane, but the effects will vary. Those in the US and Europe will experience the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane. Those in Australia and Japan will experience a Category 4. Countries in the third tier will experience a Category 3, and those countries that are either distant from or the least economically dependent upon the epicentres will experience Category 2 or even Category 1 damage.

This is not mere speculation. In examining previous depressions and the last two world wars, we can see that those countries that were the least connected to events tended to fare well. This will hold true this time around as well.

When we turn on the television and the weatherman says that a hurricane is approaching, we have to make a decision. Do we trust in the hope that it might not pass directly over us? Do we question the severity of the storm as it’s being described to us? Should we plan to stay at home, as in a Category 1 or Category 2 storm, or should we plan to go to a local shelter as in a Category 3 or Category 4 storm? Or, do we believe we’ll be experiencing the devastation of a Category 5, in which case we’d pack our bags, wave goodbye to our home, and get as far away from the epicentre as possible?

Well, first, we’d better look at the categories, then, based on where we’re located, ask ourselves what we need to do. We’re presently already experiencing Category 1 conditions.

• Category 1 Warfare: Minor civil disobedience and/or riots
• Category 1 Economics: Increased mortgage foreclosures, some strip-shop and mall closings, decreased spending overall
• Category 2 Warfare: Major civil disobedience, riots, and/or insurrection
• Category 2 Economics: The above, plus tariff wars, stock and bond market crashes
• Category 3 Warfare: Minor bombing and/or ground invasion
• Category 3 Economics: The above, plus minor inability of governments to pay entitlements, significant inflation, credit collapse
• Category 4 Warfare: Major bombing and/or ground invasion
• Category 4 Economics: The above, plus the end of the dollar as a reserve currency/end of the petrodollar, considerable inflation, short-term bank closures
• Category 5 Warfare: Nuclear destruction
• Category 5 Economics: The above, plus major inability of governments to pay entitlements, permanent closure of the majority of banks, currency collapse, confiscation of deposits, major internal capital controls

The above descriptions are not by any means comprehensive. They represent basic categories, to which many details can and should be added.

So, what should your personal plan be? Well, if you’re located in one of the epicentres (the EU and US), you might devise a plan to head out to the country, if you have a destination that you either own or rent. Then, depending on the severity of the storm, you may survive the damage. (A rural area is the equivalent of a hurricane shelter.) However, if you’re dependent on your government for income, you may not be able to survive a Category 3 storm. Even if your income is independent of your government, you may not be able to survive a Category 4 or 5 storm, as you’ll still be under the control of a collapsing system.

The closer you are to an epicentre, the worse the damage promises to be to you personally. And the stronger the hurricane, the greater the damage. It’s important to remember that personal preparedness will help, but the worse the state your government, infrastructure, local businesses and neighbours will be in, the more you’ll be impacted by their condition, even if you’re personally prepared.

As an example, those who choose to sit out a Category 5 monetary and/or warfare hurricane in Uruguay would be likely to fare quite well, just as the Europeans who went there during the world wars. (Very few of them returned after the wars, having found a better life abroad.)

In a Category 4 hurricane, life would be likely to remain relatively stable in areas such as the southeastern provinces of Mexico. In a Category 3, New Zealand might just be manageable.

However, in order to assess your personal situation, it would be advisable to have another look at the categories above and decide for yourself what degree of damage is likely in the near future, then make a personal assessment as to whether you’re willing to chance experiencing that level of damage.

We’ve passed the point of whether there’ll be a hurricane; we just can’t be sure how severe it’ll be. The winds are already picking up and those who choose to make a move will need to do so soon.

Article cross-posted from International Man.

IM’s Note: If you live in the US or the EU, expect the coming financial hurricane to be a Category 5. Think major currency collapses, big bank closures, and capital controls. In other words, total financial mayhem.
New York Times best-selling author Doug Casey and his team share all the details in this urgent video. Click here to watch it now.