• Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
Climate Change Dispatch
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Climate Change Dispatch
No Result
View All Result

CNN Op-Ed Blames Hurricane Ian’s Destructive Impact On People—Not Climate

by Stephen Strader
October 07, 2022, 9:15 AM
in News and Opinion
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
4
Share on FacebookShare on XwitterShare on Linkedin

ian storm surgeWriting for CNN, Stephen Strader, a Villanova University geography and environment professor, attributes the large amount of damage Hurricane Ian caused to decisions made by individuals and politicians that have resulted in large populations living along the Florida coast, not climate change.

Strader is correct. There is no evidence Hurricane Ian was in any way unusual in strength, or location of formation and landfall, thus climate change can’t be responsible for the number of lives lost and disrupted, or the high costs associated with it. [bold, links added]

In the CNN opinion piece, “The hurricane problem Florida could have avoided,” Stephen Strader writes:

After hours of battling Hurricane Ian’s high winds, torrential rain, and storm surges nearing 12 feet in some locations, residents are left to pick up the pieces. In the hours and days after Ian, the true destruction will be revealed…

Those residents who did not evacuate are facing life-threatening conditions, while emergency responders deal with an overwhelming volume of calls from those in need of help.

Unfortunately, this scene is all too common to the state of Florida.

Strader discusses how historical development along Florida’s Atlantic and Gulf coasts resulted in “unchecked population growth,” encouraged by developers:

In building up the area, [developers] effectively replaced sponge-like natural wetlands and mangroves that protect the inland areas from storm waters with hardened, impervious surfaces that would go on to bear the brunt of hurricanes like Andrew and now Ian.
Unfortunately, this pattern of rapid development along both the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines has continued into the 21st century, setting the stage for disasters.

For example, Florida’s population has grown nearly 60% since Hurricane Andrew, which is two times faster than the national average over that same time period, according to a US Census Bureau data analysis. With increasing population comes a greater number of homes. In fact, the number of homes in Florida has nearly doubled from 5.7 million in 1990 to 10 million in 2020, based on government data.

But why does this matter for hazard events like Hurricane Ian?

The simple fact is that when more people are exposed to a natural hazard such as a hurricane, the odds for a major disaster to occur are greater. As our population and built environment grows and expands, we are more readily placing ourselves in the harm’s way.

The wetlands and mangroves that once acted as natural “buffers” to the rising waters and waves that come with hurricanes are now shrinking or gone. They have been replaced by subdivisions.

Strader is right. As explored in Climate Realism previously here, for instance, rising nominal costs from hurricane damage, and the damage from other natural disasters, by the way, are due to what Bjorn Lomborg, Ph.D., and Strader himself call the “expanding bulls-eye effect.”

The increased costs of natural disasters in recent decades are due to communities increasingly expanding into areas historically prone to natural disasters, such as flood plains, forests, and coastal areas, erecting increasingly expensive structures and infrastructure there.

As a result, when extreme weather events strike, more developed land and more expensive properties are destroyed.

Although Strader does not discuss it, the fact is government policies such as subsidized flood and hurricane insurance and disaster-relief programs and loans, encourage people to move to areas prone to those natural disasters.

Or, at least it makes the decision to move to or reside in such locations easier.

Indeed, as noted in a National Center for Policy Analysis report, the National Climactic Data Center says that the increased population and development of coastal areas are responsible for the increase in losses due to hurricanes.

A Heinz Center report determined that in the absence of subsidized hurricane and flood insurance, development density in areas at high risk of flooding would be about 25 percent less than in low-risk areas.

Federal flood control and coastal erosion programs also contribute to growing coastal development in Florida and elsewhere.

In short, when taxpayers in general are picking up the tab for hurricane and flood insurance, and are helping to pay for disaster recovery after the fact, property owners have less incentive to question their decision to live along the coast, or whether to rebuild there after a hurricane strikes.

Kudos to CNN for publishing an article that largely avoids blaming climate change for the deaths and destruction inflicted by Hurricane Ian.

Decisions made by people, businesses, and government institutions about coastal development, not purported human-caused climate change, are the factors that transform Ian, similar hurricanes, and other extreme weather events from dangerous “hazards” into “disasters”, a distinction made by Strader.

Read more at Climate Realism

  • Truth
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Gettr
  • Threads
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Mastodon
  • Buffer
  • Telegram
  • Email
  • Copy Link
  • Share Using More Networks…
Share via
  • Facebook
  • Like
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • VKontakte
  • Print
  • Email
  • Reddit
  • Buffer
  • Love This
  • Weibo
  • Pocket
  • Xing
  • Odnoklassniki
  • WhatsApp
  • Meneame
  • Blogger
  • Amazon
  • Yahoo Mail
  • Gmail
  • AOL
  • Newsvine
  • HackerNews
  • Evernote
  • MySpace
  • Mail.ru
  • Viadeo
  • Line
  • Flipboard
  • Comments
  • SMS
  • Viber
  • Telegram
  • Subscribe
  • Skype
  • Facebook Messenger
  • Kakao
  • LiveJournal
  • Yammer
  • Edgar
  • Fintel
  • Mix
  • Instapaper
  • Copy Link
  • Truth
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Gettr
  • Baidu
  • Mastodon
  • Threads
  • Bluesky

Join our list

Subscribe to our mailing list and get interesting stuff and updates to your email inbox.

Thank you for subscribing.

Something went wrong.

We respect your privacy and take protecting it seriously

Related Posts

News and Opinion

Predictive? Study Finds IPCC Climate Models Overstate Warming Up To 4.5°F

May 28, 2025
Electric Vehicles (EVs)

Senate GOP Accuses Govt Watchdog Of Trying To Save California EPA Waiver

May 28, 2025
Lawfare

Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Bid To Kill NYC Congestion Toll

May 28, 2025

Comments 4

  1. Spurwing Plover says:
    3 years ago

    The Crappy News Network(CNN) nothing but the same liberal lies we get from the NYT,s and the rest of the M.S. Media

  2. Coeur de Lion says:
    3 years ago

    Quite. As a yachtsman I was interested in two ocean going sized boats all smashed up. Given the warning time and landfall prediction plenty of scope to get the hell out. Gross rich man’s incompetence.

    • Tombstone Gabby says:
      3 years ago

      What got me was seeing the commercial boats piled up. If anybody should have “known better”…..

      The BOATUS organization – in the 1980’s and 90’s at least – put out warnings and instructions on how to avoid problems. I guess some folk just don’t pay attention. (Just used ‘DuckDuckGo’ – “BOATUS” is still around.)

  3. Graham McDonald says:
    3 years ago

    It was back in the 1970’s. “Come and inspect the waterfront land for sale in Florida.”
    It was reported that the salespeople scheduled their ‘inspections’ for the time of low tide.

Stay Connected On Social Media

gab-logo

Donate Today

Beating back the alarmist narrative takes time and money. Please donate today to help!

Recent Posts

  • earth sunrisePredictive? Study Finds IPCC Climate Models Overstate Warming Up To 4.5°F
    May 28, 2025
    New study finds IPCC climate models overstate warming nearly 4.5°F, with benchmark models proving far more accurate in long-term forecasts. […]
  • Government Accountability OfficeSenate GOP Accuses Govt Watchdog Of Trying To Save California EPA Waiver
    May 28, 2025
    Republicans are criticizing the GAO for showing bias and overstepping its bounds in trying to stop Congress from repealing California’s EPA waiver. […]
  • NYC traffic congestionFederal Judge Blocks Trump’s Bid To Kill NYC Congestion Toll
    May 28, 2025
    A federal judge blocked Trump’s bid to kill NYC’s congestion toll, preserving New York’s climate law and traffic-cutting program—for now. […]
  • Gavin Newsom PresserGavin Newsom Is Seething After Congress Repealed California’s Gas Car Ban
    May 27, 2025
    Gov. Newsom is steamed after Congress repealed a Biden EPA waiver letting California ban gas-powered cars and said he'll fight back. […]
  • Capitol Hill DCCongress Resurrects Fight Against The Climate Cult’s Regulatory Assault
    May 27, 2025
    Congress eyes bills to rein in climate overreach, challenge secret science, and expose hypocrisy fueling the elite-driven climate change narrative. […]
  • mosquitoNo, Climate Change Isn’t Behind Britain’s Mosquito Fears
    May 27, 2025
    The Guardian asserts that climate change will make the UK more hospitable to mosquito-borne diseases, ignoring established drivers. […]
  • wind turbine blades landfill‘Green’ Waste Piles Up As Solar Panels And Wind Turbines Pollute Landfills
    May 27, 2025
    Solar and wind waste is piling up with no clear plan for disposal, raising new questions about the cost of going green and the myth of net zero. […]
  • new orleans blackoutMISO Ignored Warnings Before Holiday Blackout Left Blue City In The Dark
    May 27, 2025
    Nearly 100,000 lost power in New Orleans after MISO cut the grid, raising alarm over blackout risk tied to green energy replacing coal and gas. […]
  • protest FFF world on fire‘Doomed From Birth’: How Climate Alarmism Is Stoking An Epidemic Of Youth Anxiety
    May 26, 2025
    Hollywood heirs like Ramona Sarsgaard and Violet Affleck are spiraling into climate panic—fueled by activism, media hype, and elite institutions. […]
  • Biden touting green economyGOP’s Big, Beautiful Bill Would Rescind $500 Billion In Green Energy Handouts
    May 26, 2025
    The House-passed BBB would repeal $500B in green handouts, slash subsidies, and undo key parts of the inaptly named Inflation Reduction Act. […]

Get Instant Email Notifications

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email either instantly or daily. Check your Junk folder for any verification emails upon subscribing.

Submit a tip

Please enter your email, so we know you're human.

Books We Like

very convenient warming

exposing great lie

Have a suggestion? Let us know! We swap out books based on your input. We participate in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. See here.

  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

© Portions copyright Climate Change Dispatch

Share via
  • Threads
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Mastodon
  • Buffer
  • Telegram
  • Email
  • Copy Link
  • Share Using More Networks…
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us

© 2025 Climate Change Dispatch