Which is more damaging: Hurricane, or typhoon, or cyclone?

It is not the meteorology in which I am interested.

All these are natural events.  And, yes, human activities warming up the world have added power to them.

But, a natural event by itself is merely a natural event.  It is the equivalent of the old philosophical question on whether a tree falling in a forest makes a sound if there is nobody to hear it.  These natural events become "disasters" and "catastrophes" only because they affect us humans.

So, in such a framework, which is the more damaging event?

Consider one of those tropical storms making landfall where no humans live.  It will, of course, uproot trees and flood the rivers.  Is there any damage?

Now, consider one of those tropical storms making landfall in one of the sparsely populated islands in the Philippines.  And then imagine if a storm goes through the Bangladeshi coast.  The number of humans who will be affected will be vastly different, right?

Does it matter that the average Bangladeshi is poorer than the typical Filipino?

Now consider a hurricane hitting the southeastern coast of the US.  Does the "disaster" become costlier because the typical American and the property are way more "expensive"?

One doesn't even need to look beyond Wikipedia for this:

The costs of disasters vary considerably depending on a range of factors, such as the geographical location where they occur. When a disaster occurs in a densely populated area in a wealthy country, the financial damage might be huge, but when a comparable disaster occurs in a densely populated area in a poorer country, the actual financial damage might be relatively small, in part due to a lack of insurance. For example, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, with a death toll of over 230,000 people, cost a 'mere' $15 billion,^[1] whereas in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in which 11 people died, the damages were six-fold.

This is an issue that I have struggling with ever since my graduate school days: The "cost" of life varies.  It boggles my mind.  In that Wiki example, a quarter million people perished, but the "cost" of the disaster was low because it all happened in the emerging economies.

It is such economic logic that led Larry Summers, back when he was the World Bank's chief economist, to write that controversial memo, from which he later back-pedaled saying it was a thought experiment and was sarcastic.  That memo joked about the low earnings in emerging economies leading to the "cost" of pollution being lower there and, therefore, polluting industries should migrate to those poorer countries.  In reality, isn't that how the world has operated over the past three decades?

Rich people's lives and property are valued more than poor people's lives are.  As long as this framework does not change, the "costliest" natural disasters will happen only in rich countries.

Therefore, cyclones are the "cheapest" of those storms!

Such is life.

Censored: C****** C*****

Source

The guy who believes he was appointed to ruin the EPA and not run the EPA is pissed off that people are talking about c****** c***** when Hurricane Irma is knocking on America's doors, after flattening quite a few doors in the Caribbean.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that talk about how climate change has played into hurricanes like Irma and Harvey is “misplaced.”
Scott Pruitt, who has expressed skepticism on the degree to which human activity causes global warming, told CNN that the country’s focus should be squarely on the immediate effects of the hurricanes for the time being.
“Here's the issue,” Pruitt told CNN late Thursday as Irma was heading toward Florida. “To have any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm; versus helping people, or actually facing the effect of the storm, is misplaced.”

I cannot begin to understand why there is such a sustained denial of c****** c*****.  It seems like we can even remove quite a few words from George Carlin's list, but we need to add c****** c*****.

It turns out that even these hurricanes cannot and will not change the minds of the c****** c***** deniers.

"People are pretty certain of where they stand on climate change," reports David Koniksy of Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs. "Extreme weather does not move the needle much."

Does not move the needle!

"One reason may be that people do not yet closely attribute many common types of extreme weather to climate change," the researchers conclude. "Perhaps (over time) these linkages will strengthen in the public's mind."

Perhaps?

I bet that the 63 million who voted for the denier-in-chief are blaming god, and not c****** c*****, as Irma knocks Florida around, and will thank him (neither god nor the president can be female!)