Ah, but they would be far more striking without our 400 years of scientific progress. Anyone who thinks modern science is a hallucination is free to show us why that is so.

Whadda think I am?

A government funded climate scientist?
Only they can tell the future.
That’s if you believe our children’s children have a future.
Which obviously, you don’t.

That’s entirely possible. Again, I don’t claim to be a climate scientist; I just try to maintain a healthy level of skepticism. I don’t like to think that I can predict things for certain, even though obviously one can do so with a high degree of accuracy in certain circumstances.

Greg & Lawrence,

The additional flooding from Sandy is certainly something I had forgotten to take into effect (probably a perception issue, as in CT, flooding wasn’t our major concern, but it was obviously a major issue in NY and NJ). That’s definitely an area – higher sea levels – where you could state that a storm was more damaging than it might have been earlier, without ambiguity or contention.

Thanks for the feedback.

Like Will Steffen, you are trying to move the goal posts after the fact. Quote:
“A few years ago, talking about weather and climate change in the same breath was a cardinal sin for scientists.”

Only a few years ago?
How convenient.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/climate-change-a-key-factor-in-extreme-weather-experts-say-20130303-2fefv.html

As my first link shows, this type of ‘thinking’ (and I use that term very loosely) has been documented before and is an ugly speed hump on humanity’s road to destiny.

So in a world like you describe, of course Sandy’s devastation can be attributed to climate change, because all weather is attributed to the state of the climate.