When it comes to natural disasters, Absol are used in Hoenn as Psyduck are in Kanto: their presence or unusual behavior leads to an evacuation, which usually averts the brunt of the calamity. Yet these shy pokemon have little ability to communicate with humans, so it is always far more difficult for the Absol's warnings to prevent disasters caused by man.
The Absol, like the oracles of old, are never wrong, for when no action is taken, disaster will always strike. But because humans, unlike volcanoes, can change their fates in countless ways, they are difficult to interpret properly. Consider the old tale of a prince of Hoenn sacrificed soon after birth on an Absol's appearance, only to see the realm fall into new chaos years later, for the king died without an heir. Scholars have debated for generations as to whether the disastrous, Absol-warned king could be worse than the anarchy that followed. Or recall the story of an Absol's howl which warned the indigenous Unovans when a conquering explorer set sail from the east, but because they could not know of events so far away, they waged war on one another, believing it had meant to warn them of a harsh winter which would require great stores of farmland to survive; the explorer discovered an exhausted, war-weary people too bloodied to resist gunpowder.
Some have sought to drive away the Absol, blaming them for creating new disasters, but to no avail; indeed, disasters seemed even more common once they were gone. And at times, the Absol's warnings were heeded: a foolish leader was overthrown, a city was fortified, or a lucky guess saved a nation from conquest. For Absol or no Absol, man can never truly drive away catastrophe, only fight desperately to improve their odds of survival.