Neither was Harvey in Houston.

Nor Maria in Puerto Rico.

Yet we continue to use that term.

Doing so -- especially in the era of climate change -- is misleading if not dangerous, according to several disaster experts and climate scientists I reached by phone and on Twitter.

"The phrase 'natural disaster' is an attempt to lay blame where blame really doesn't rest," said Kerry A. Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT and a global expert on hurricanes.

Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Florida Gov. Rick Scott tour a Lynn Haven, Florida, neighborhood that was affected by Hurricane Michael. Hide Caption 1 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Lisa Patrick is overcome with emotion as she visits the remains of her home in Mexico Beach, Florida, on Monday, October 15. Hide Caption 2 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction The President and first lady hand out bottles of water to people in Lynn Haven on October 15. Hide Caption 3 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction The Trumps tour damage in Lynn Haven. Hide Caption 4 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction President Trump flies over the devastation in Mexico Beach. Hide Caption 5 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Mexico Beach residents make their way across a washed-out road on Friday, October 12. Hide Caption 6 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction An aerial view shows the devastation in Mexico Beach on October 12. The small beach resort saw the brunt of Michael, authorities say. Hide Caption 7 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Dough Shelby looks out at the destruction from his house in Mexico Beach on October 12. Hide Caption 8 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Little remains of a burned home destroyed by the hurricane in Mexico Beach on October 12. Hide Caption 9 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Benny Hobson sits in his recliner on Thursday, October 11, after losing the front wall of his house in Panama City, Florida. Hide Caption 10 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Storm-damaged boats are piled up in Panama City on October 11. Hide Caption 11 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Elizabeth Hanson, right, and her daughter Emaly hug their neighbor Cindy Clark on October 11. The hurricane heavily damaged their homes in Mexico Beach. Hide Caption 12 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Collector cars are covered in debris in Panama City on October 11. Hide Caption 13 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Tom Bailey walks his bike past a home that was carried across a road and slammed up against a condo complex in Mexico Beach. Hide Caption 14 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Joyce Fox stands in front of her heavily damaged home in Panama City on October 11. Hide Caption 15 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction A boat sits amid debris in Mexico Beach on October 11. Hide Caption 16 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Kylie Strampe holds her 4-month-old daughter, Lola, while surveying the damage in Callaway, Florida, on October 11. Hide Caption 17 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Trees snapped by Michael's winds are seen in Mexico Beach on October 11. Hide Caption 18 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Amanda Logsdon faces a heavy cleanup task at her Panama City house on October 11. Hide Caption 19 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Rescue personnel search Mexico Beach. Hide Caption 20 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction A man walks through a damaged store in Springfield, Florida. Hide Caption 21 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction An aerial photo shows a destroyed boat in Mexico Beach on October 11. Hide Caption 22 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction A tree sits on top of a Panama City mobile home. Almost all the residents of the mobile-home park rode out the storm. All homes were damaged except one. Hide Caption 23 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Kathy Coy stands among what is left of her home in Panama City. She said she was in the home when it was blown apart and is thankful to be alive. Hide Caption 24 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction The view from a Panama City hotel room that lost a wall in the storm. Hide Caption 25 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Firefighter Austin Schlarb performs a door-to-door search in Mexico Beach on October 11. Hide Caption 26 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Damaged buildings are seen in Panama City on October 11. Hide Caption 27 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Debris is scattered in Mexico Beach early on October 11. Hide Caption 28 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Wreckage is piled up in Mexico Beach, near where Michael made landfall. Hide Caption 29 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Debris burns in Mexico Beach on October 11. Hide Caption 30 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Haley Nelson inspects damage at her family properties in the Panama City area on Wednesday, October 10. Hide Caption 31 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Cars are tossed among the debris in Mexico Beach. Hide Caption 32 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Kaylee O'Brian cries inside her Panama City home after several trees fell on it on October 10. Hide Caption 33 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Floodwaters overwhelm vehicles in Panama City on Wednesday, October 10. Hide Caption 34 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction A storm chaser climbs into his vehicle to retrieve equipment after a hotel canopy collapsed in Panama City Beach on October 10. Hide Caption 35 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction A helicopter circles a Panama City neighborhood in the storm's wake on October 10. Hide Caption 36 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction A woman and her children wait near a destroyed gas station in Panama City on October 10. Hide Caption 37 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction A McDonald's sign is mangled in Panama City on October 10. Hide Caption 38 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Boats are left damaged in a Panama City marina on October 10. Hide Caption 39 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction People comfort each other outside an apartment building in Panama City. Hide Caption 40 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction People make their way through a building's wreckage in Panama City on October 10. Hide Caption 41 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction The powerful hurricane left houses battered in Panama City Beach. Hide Caption 42 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Phlomena Telker stands on the remains of her covered porch in Panama City. Hide Caption 43 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Boats are damaged at the Port St. Joe Marina in the Florida Panhandle. Hide Caption 44 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Lenora Adams evacuates a motel with her dog as the hurricane comes ashore in Panacea, Florida, on October 10. Hide Caption 45 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Rick Tesk, left, helps a business owner rescue his dogs from a damaged business in Panama City. Hide Caption 46 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Wrecked boats sit near a pier in Panama City. Hide Caption 47 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction A resident of St. Marks, Florida, pulls a cooler out of the floodwaters near his home. Hide Caption 48 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Pine trees litter a yard in Port St. Joe. Hide Caption 49 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Streets begin to flood as high tide approaches in St. Petersburg, Florida, on October 10. Hide Caption 50 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Mike Lindsey stands in his Panama City antique shop after it was damaged by Hurricane Michael on October 10. Hide Caption 51 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Trees lie on top of a home in Panama City. Hide Caption 52 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Bo Lynn's Market is flooded in St. Marks on October 10. Hide Caption 53 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction A truck drives along a road in Alligator Point, Florida, that had been washed out by the storm on October 10. Hide Caption 54 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Waves hit a house in Alligator Point on October 10. Hide Caption 55 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction The eye of the storm, as seen from the International Space Station on October 10. Hide Caption 56 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction A woman checks on her vehicle after a hotel canopy collapsed in Panama City Beach. Hide Caption 57 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Mitchell Pope tries to salvage what he can from his mobile home in St. Marks. Hide Caption 58 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction This boat ran aground at Florida's Quietwater Beach. Hide Caption 59 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Jayden Morgan, 11, evacuates his home as water starts to flood his neighborhood in St. Marks. Hide Caption 60 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction A person takes pictures of the surf and fishing pier on Okaloosa Island in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Hide Caption 61 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Emily Hindle lies on the floor at an evacuation shelter set up at a Panama City Beach high school on October 10. Hide Caption 62 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Kathy Eaton takes what she can from her Panama City Beach home as she tries to get out of the way of the storm on October 10. Hide Caption 63 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Justin Davis, left, and Brock Mclean board up a business in Destin, Florida, on Tuesday, October 9. Hide Caption 64 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Krystal Day, left, leads a sandbag assembly line at the Old Port Cove restaurant in Ozello, Florida, on October 9. Hide Caption 65 of 66 Photos: In pictures: Hurricane Michael's trail of destruction Workers scramble to store boats at Shields Marina in St. Marks. Hide Caption 66 of 66

It's not about semantics, said Ksenia Chmutina, a lecturer at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom. She and colleagues issued a news release this year asking journalists to banish the phrase from our lexicon. "By blaming nature on disasters, we're saying there is nothing we can do about this -- we can't do anything to reduce the risks. Which is not the case."

So, what should we say instead?

And where, if not with nature, should we place the blame?

You have to consider climate change

There are essentially two big answers to the blame question.

One is climate change.

Humans are burning fossil fuels -- coal, oil, gas -- at an alarming rate, putting heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. In this manner, we've raised global temperatures about 1 degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution, according to a landmark report released this week by a UN organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . The air is warmer, and so are the oceans. The storms that form in this now-changed environment are different than they were before.

I prefer "unnatural disaster" when talking about impacts that have been exacerbated by climate change. https://t.co/pV1dJdNJvm — Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) October 10, 2018

"The best scientific info we have now is that the probabilities of these intense hurricanes -- from the point of view of both wind and water -- are going up in many places because of global warming," Emanuel said.

Rain associated with these storms is getting more intense, he said, because "warmer air holds more water vapor than cooler air." Sea levels are rising as the oceans warm and as land-based ice in the Arctic, for example, melts into the ocean -- and that means more damage, and likely death, associated with storm surges and coastal flooding. Plus, hurricanes are expected to intensify more rapidly in a warming world, making them more difficult to forecast.

"There is a pretty strong consensus [among scientists] that the frequency of the high category events like Michael, in most parts of the world, should go up as a result of climate warming," Emanuel said.

Natural & man made are both true. The real problem is the impact these disasters have on ecology, environment, economies and societies. The most vulnerable are as always hit hardest. Example, when a storm hits it hits true industrial zones & water becomes toxic w worst impact — Henk Ovink (@henkovink) October 10, 2018

Hurricanes aren't new. But storms like Hurricane Michael occur in the context of this macro trend. Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that humans are driving global warming , according to a NASA summary of peer-reviewed science. And the sobering report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this month says the world must cut emissions of carbon dioxide about in half by 2030 -- a dozen years from now -- and become carbon-neutral, meaning no net pollution of that heat-trapping gas, by 2050 in order to possibly meet the strictest global climate goals and avoid some of the very worst consequences of warming.

"The climate is changing, and that means that weather is impacted by the current state of the climate. There's a human fingerprint on that," said Kevin A. Reed, an assistant professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. "So, to some extent, there's a human fingerprint on individual weather events."

Scientists are getting better at looking for human 'fingerprints'

Increasingly, researchers like Reed are able to analyze how human-induced warming affects individual storms. This is somewhat new. ( I wrote about the history in an article about the 2016 floods in Baton Rouge, Louisiana ). And this "climate attribution" science helps the public answer questions about how climate change is making storms, heat waves, floods and the like different -- and often more dangerous.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes — traditionally "Acts of God" on Insurance Forms. But as climate-change continues, and coastal flooding from hurricanes worsens, the Forms might now include "Acts of Humans". — Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 10, 2018

That's a preliminary assessment Reed is following up with more research now. But the point is that we can't pretend climate change is a distant threat, he said.

"Climate change is here now, and it's impacting storms now," he told me by phone. "The impacts of climate change are very, very real."

Where people live also matters -- as does preparedness

The other big answer to the blame question is much older -- like back-to- Rousseau older. And that's the fact that we humans don't prepare well for hazards like floods and hurricanes. In doing so, we create risk.

"The hazard is a natural one, but you don't get a disaster if there aren't people/buildings in harm's way," Andrea Thompson, an associate editor at Scientific American, wrote on Twitter. "Climate change is a component, most clearly with sea level rise, but coastal population explosion means a lot more potential for disaster."

I use this figure in every class I teach to explain that disaster is the result of three things: the hazard itself, who/what is exposed to it, and how prepared/vulnerable they are. If a hurricane never makes landfall, it's not a disaster! pic.twitter.com/EU42nzrN1b — Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) October 10, 2018

Emanuel, the hurricane expert at MIT, says the global population exposed to hurricane risks has tripled since the 1970s as more people move toward coastal regions and hurricane-prone areas.

"The problem in the United States is that we not only stop adaptation but we're actually engaged in what you might call a 'negative adaptation' to the risks posed by storms and climate change," Emanuel said. "The government -- both at the state and federal level -- has strong policies in place that encourage people to live and build in risky places."

Examples, he said, include the National Flood Insurance Program, which is funded by taxpayers, and state-level policies that put a cap on the amount people pay for flood insurance.

Yes, as @KHayhoe said, the hazard is a natural one, but you don't get a disaster if there aren't people/buildings in harm's way. Climate change is a component, most clearly with sea level rise, but coastal population explosion means a lot more potential for disaster. — Andrea Thompson (@AndreaTWeather) October 10, 2018

Even very simple changes to construction standards and zoning could make a difference in terms of preparedness, said Chmutina, the lecturer in the UK. Putting power outlets higher on walls, for instance, reduces the chance of power going out during a flood, she said. But largely, people and governments do not opt for these preventative measures because they're slightly more expensive up-front, she said, even though some adaptations could save money and lives.

"When we're saying this phrase, 'natural disaster,' we pretend we are not responsible for creating disaster," she told me. "We blame everything on nature. We make nature responsible for disasters, and that is not the case."

The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, she pointed out, famously made this point in the 1700s.

"[N]ature did not construct twenty thousand houses of six to seven stories there," he wrote in a letter responding to debate about a deadly earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal. "[I]f the inhabitants of this great city had been more equally spread out and more lightly lodged, the damage would have been much less and perhaps of no account."

What should we say instead?

OK, so if you concede that these disasters and their fallout are no longer truly "natural" (and never really were), then what's the best term to use instead?

John Upton, a writer at Climate Central, suggested dropping the term "natural" in favor of just "disaster."

I think we can just skip over the 'natural' part and say "disaster."



We build homes where wildfires burn and waters swell, then rebuild after they're trashed. We don't help the poor or working class weather or escape effects of storms. Evacuation routes are often limited. Etc. — John Upton (@johnupton) October 10, 2018

Katharine Hayhoe , a climate scientist at Texas Tech, had a longer turn of phrase, suggesting that we call them "what used to be entirely natural disasters ... now amplified or exacerbated by human-induced change."

"I know it's a mouthful," she wrote on Twitter, "but I think it's worth it, because it addresses the misconception and presents the facts, all in one."

I call them "what used to be entirely natural disasters" ... and if I have another 5s, I add: "now amplified or exacerbated by human-induced change". I know it's a mouthful but I think it's worth it, because it addresses the misconception and presents the facts, all in one. — Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) October 10, 2018

Reed, the Stony Brook professor, suggested simply "extreme events."

The important thing, experts said, is that we humans accept some blame.

And then use that knowledge to prevent suffering associated with storms yet to come.