I was watching the president in California announce a billion-dollar fund to combat the effects of climate change, and guess what? Every hair on my neck did not stand on end! In fact, I agree with this. Why? Because the climate is changing – always has and always will. We are putting more people in harm’s way every day. So we should be putting money toward adapting to the effects of what comes naturally!

I grew up on the New Jersey shore understanding that it was just a matter of time before the glorious beach was going to be severely rearranged by nature. Why? It’s happened before and will happen again. In fact, in a talk I gave to a reinsurance group, I showed the “Sandy Scenario” and said it had to happen, and I expected it soon (I wonder if that is why the group invited me back to talk again this year). A focal point of the hurricane talks I have done for many years now is something I call the “Philadelphia Story” – a landfalling hurricane from the southeast with landfall on the Delmarva Peninsula, shoving the storm surge up Delaware Bay, while flooding comes down the Delaware River from heavy rains. The intersection of the two is over the ports of Philadelphia and Wilmington. My argument is not why should it happen but why shouldn’t it? This would be far more destructive than Sandy, as it would mean severe damage in a huge port as well as a much greater storm surge into Atlantic City, which was spared the worst from Sandy as the eye hit the city, allowing the strongest surge to pass by the north. The point is that all of this has been seen for years, and not just by me, but by many, and it had nothing to do with CO₂ levels. Adaption measures are fine. They did it at Galveston after big hurricanes wiped out that city. They did it in New England after hurricanes in 1938 and 1954 devastated the cities of Providence and New Bedford. I have no problem with adapting to what comes naturally.

But here is the problem: All the other things going on to back a false cause – to try to prevent what comes naturally – is costing this nation time, treasure, blood, sweat and tears – the latter three because of people fighting to make a better living for themselves, while the noose around the neck of the economic lifeline of the country closes. This is brought about directly by government policy due to the notion that man is somehow destroying the climate.

And here is where the president and I part company. I believe if we quit throwing money at a problem that doesn’t exist – CO₂ – and put it where it does exist, and always has – man adapting to nature – then we have common ground.

An ounce of prevention (in this case, adaptation) is worth a pound of cure. The problem is that the Climate Ambulance Chasers’ agenda is trying to cure something that isn’t there and throwing many more times the amount of money at it than what adapting would cost.

The latest example being touted as a CO₂-induced man-made problem is the California drought. Never mind we have a state that has Lord knows how much revenue in oil sitting offshore and deflects rivers that could be used for farming and irrigation along with drinking water just to save a smelt. And never mind there have been numerous droughts over longer periods of time when the population was far less. Let’s look at this inconvenient fact: When the Pacific Decadol Oscillation (PDO) is warm, the globe warms and much of the U.S. is wet, California included (top graph below). Why? More warm water in the tropical Pacific means more moisture available for the U.S. When the PDO turns cold, global temperatures begin to drop (bottom graph). Guess what happens to the input of moisture into the U.S., beginning with California? It’s not rocket science.

I am not a genius by any means, but how is this so hard to see? And why in the face of such an obvious link would you not expect what is happening to happen? Especially when you consider, as I have shown, that it happened before with the last cool PDO cycle.

Many of the “scientists” who are pushing the man-made global warming issue fancy themselves also as philosophers and ethically enlightened people. I am not going to argue that point, for who am I to judge? But I want to ask them this question: What do you think someone like Aristotle would think about this whole argument? I think all would agree that Aristotle is pretty much a heavyweight as far as being a well-rounded scientific and philosophical light. Using his argument about the search for the unmoved mover – the source of what starts a given set of events (of course Aristotle, and later Aquinas, were both talking in realms far greater rather than a silly climate fight) – how much sense would it make for CO₂ to be the unmoved mover?

Now let’s get this argument down to the barebone. I believe the unmoved mover of weather and climate is the design of the system. Of course, after that we can start arguing over how the design got that way – random chance or planned order? But given the length you are going to push CO₂ as something we must control in order to command the climate, your argument would have to be that CO₂ is the unmoved mover. You can’t have it any other way, for what you are telling us is that the very fate of the planet is in the hands of this gas, even though there have been ice ages at 7,000 ppm (it’s currently at 400 ppm).

Though I lack the advanced schooling of many antagonists on this matter, if the referee was Aristotle, I am very sure I would carry the day.

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