When you create false premises, climate change is real

From the trusty Facebook feed:

Note that the "once in every 500 years" part is put in quotes, with no attribution. 500 years according to whom? Harvey was a Category 4 hurricane, a very serious storm to be sure, but not unusual. Certainly not "every 500 years" unusual. Harvey was particularly destructive because it stalled out over one area, but they can't be blamed on higher temperatures. Hurricane Camille did the same in 1969 over Appalachia. There are numerous hurricanes that have dumped nearly as much as Harvey on a single spot in the US.

Irma is a true monster of a storm, but not unprecedented. It is still weaker than Hurricane Camille or the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. Perhaps it will strengthen, but forecasts show it hitting Florida at Category 3 strength this weekend. Hurricane Andrew was a full-power Cat 5 when it ravaged Florida in 1992. Hurricane Hugo was a Category 5 Cape Verde type hurricane like Irma and hit the Carolinas at Cat 4 strength in the 1980s.

There is nothing to indicate these are "500-year" storms. Someone made that up and used it to "prove" climate change (where climate change means their theory of cataclysmic man-made global warming). The most humorous commentary has come from Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of airlines and cruise ships, who complained that his private luxury resort island, which he accesses by private jet and helicopter, was leveled by Irma, which he blames on global warming. None of this is Branson's fault, of course, as he has worked tirelessly to ridicule global warming skeptics. He seems to have convinced himself that global warming is caused by skepticism rather than actual carbon emissions.