The people claiming that climate change is the cause for what has been labeled by the meteorological centers as a Category 4 landfall of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines are either ignorant of the facts or lying about them. Earth to AGW alarmists: What you see is what Category 4 storms do to buildings that can’t withstand winds close to 150 m.p.h.

So what’s more remarkable: a major typhoon hit on the Philippines – a place that’s been struck hundreds of times by typhoons, dozens of which were major – or hits by major Category 4 hurricanes Flora, Cleo and Inez in a four-year stretch between 1963 and 1966 on Haiti? And why don’t we throw in Betsy, a strong Cat. 4 at its peak that struck the Florida Keys and then the central Gulf Coast in 1965. That’s four storms in four years in a geographical area that’s less than the size of the Philippines (Haiti to Florida) in the Atlantic Basin, which only has one-third the activity of the Pacific on average! What’s more remarkable: the weakened Haiyan going into North Vietnam as a tropical storm (why didn’t it come roaring back?), or the typhoon that hit Haiphong in 1881 and killed 300,000? Or the Bay of Bengal where multiple cyclones have killed over 100,000 people several times, all when CO₂ was well below where it is now?

For those who want to see either the ignorance or lying on display, here’s the track of Flora in 1963.

(By the way, in the spirit of Fidel Castro – who blamed the U.S. for stalling Flora over his island to destroy him – using weather for political motives is nothing new with people who care little about the truth. It’s just ramped up to levels that would make Castro look like a novice.):

Cleo, 1964:

Betsy, 1965:

Inez, 1966:

If you’re aware of this – three major hurricanes in four seasons hitting within 100 miles of Haiti – how do you then turn around and say that a single strike in one year is a sign of climate change? Obviously, three in four years in one area is far more extreme.

So is it ignorance, or outright lies?

You tell me: Which one of these photos is from Haiyan, and which one is from the aforementioned storms that devastated Hispaniola? (Obviously, the more modern photo is Haiyan, which adds to what I’m saying since the other pictures are from storms when CO₂ was far less.)

How about these pictures, from New England in 1938 – not the deep tropics.

Again, this is New England where winds gusted to 186 mph in Blue Hill, Mass, within 20 miles of Boston (5 minute wind speed, 121 m.p.h). It’s New England! And you want to tell me that Haiyan is an example of what man is causing nature to do? That defies credibility and borders on delusional.

This is what severe tropical cyclones do to populated areas with poor infrastructure (never mind places like New England, where even in the 1930s, structures were better made than many places in the tropics). If you took 10% of the money wasted on global warming and created a fund to assist people in times of devastation, you would be able to cope with these occasional and natural occurrences.

And, by the way, like Providence and its position on Narragansett Bay – the funnel shaped bay that contributes to such extremities – the position of Tacloban was such that the storm passing just to the south the way it did helped with the extreme surge. People in Rhode Island described the 1938 storm surge as a Tidal Wave moving up Narragansett Bay. The word for that in the South Pacific is Tsunami, and there are striking similarities that have nothing to do with CO₂.

I’m not going to name names, but they are revealing themselves with each comment. There is a reason 50,000 Poles turned up in Warsaw to protest the climate conference, because they are calling it like they see it. They know exactly what this is about. That the folks pushing Haiyan as evidence of global warming – they are trying to revert it to climate change, because they have lost on the other matter – would use the misery of a poor people living in an area where this can occur any year says enough. I often think that the Climate Ambulance Chasers can sink no lower. But in a year where the global tropical activity was – again – well below normal (seventh year in a row) and the Atlantic shut down completely in a situation where it never has before to this extent (warm cycle of the Atlantic), you have to state the facts. The claim that Haiyan is an example of climate change is being made by people who are either ignorant of the facts or simply lying.

And complicit in this is the mainstream media, which are pushing these distortions, obviously ignoring countless examples.

No one is against helping people. I am for helping people in a rational manner – not using deceit or ignorance while capitalizing on the misery of poor people to push an agenda.

Joe Bastardi is chief forecaster at WeatherBELL Analytics, a meteorological consulting firm.