Uncritical thinking about climate change, from Andy May and WUWT fans

As you probably know by now, climate science deniers are generally incapable of critical thinking. At WUWT yesterday, there was an example of this from Andy May (archived here). He wrote about an article in the Economist, and started with this:

I found a very annoying article in the October 1, 2016 issue. The title and link are “Notes from the undergrowth.” It starts out with a false assertion that is easily debunked, but often stated:

Media myth #1
“DESPITE deluges in the South, droughts in the West and fires throughout national forests this year, the words “climate” and “change” have seldom been uttered together on the campaign trail.”

Instead of putting up some evidence that the words "climate" and "change" have often been uttered together on the campaign trail (because they haven't), he wandered off into something quite different.

Andy complained that back in 2013 the WMO reported that even though weather disasters are on the increase, and that populations are rising, the number of fatalities hasn't been increasing. This was his quote:

There were fewer deaths, even while exposure to extreme events increased as populations grew and more people were living in disaster-prone areas. According to the 2011 Global Assessment Report, the average population exposed to flooding every year increased by 114 per cent globally between 1970 and 2010, a period in which the world’s population increased by 87 per cent from 3.7 billion to 6.9 billion. The number of people exposed to severe storms almost tripled in cyclone-prone areas, increasing by 192 per cent, in the same period. 

Do you think he might have pointed to how the average population exposed to flooding increased by 114% globally, or that the number of people exposed to severe storms almost tripled? Barely.

Why do you think he neglected the following paragraph from the WMO report?

While the risk of death and injury from storms and floods declined, the vulnerability of property increased. This is because the expansion of socio-economic and infrastructural assets led to an increase in the amount and value of property exposed to weather and climate extremes same time, human influence has probably increased the maximum temperatures of the most extreme hot nights and days and the minimum temperatures of cold nights and cold days. It is also more likely than not that human-induced climate change has increased the risk of heatwaves.

Or this:

...it is likely that climate change has influenced the occurrence and intensity of extreme precipitation events. Greater warmth also speeds up the hydrological cycle, which should contribute to both heavier rainfall and increased evaporation. The largest number of national records for 24-hour extreme precipitation events, as reported in the WMO survey, occurred over the past two decades,1991–2010 (Figure 4). 

Here is Figure 4 from the report:

Figure 1 | Absolute country records of the daily maximum and minimum temperature and 24-hour total precipitation in the last five decades (source: WMO survey) Graphic Source: WMO

So instead of putting up evidence that climate change has been a frequent topic in the US election campaign, what Andy May wrote was that "there were fewer deaths". He then went on to argue that because the 2013 report didn't categorically attribute the rise in extreme events to global warming, it was "...pretty easy to completely destroy the initial statement of the article."

But the initial statement he was supposedly destroying was about how often the words "climate" and "change" appeared on the campaign trail. He didn't disprove it in any way.

If you want to know the likelihood that extreme events are worsened by climate change, read the BAMS reports. Or if you've no time for that, check out this chart from Munich Re:

Figure 2 | Number of loss events 1980-2014. Source: TOPICS GEO Natural catastrophes 2014, Munich Re (2015)

Was it deluges and wildfires that Andy disputed?

It could have been that Andy disputes all the deluges and floods in the USA this year. Or the dreadful wildfires. Or the long-standing California drought. If so, that makes him not just a climate science denier but a weather denier.

I couldn't be bothered with the rest of his tedious article. It wasn't easy to read, and after this failure of logic, I figured it wasn't worth taking the time to see what Andy May was trying to argue.

From the WUWT comments

The 29 "thoughts" were mostly as uncritical as Andy May's article. Well showed no critical reading skills or any sign of fact-checking. They were highly critical of The Economist because it supports mainstream science.

Ron Abate doesn't like to read stuff he doesn't want to "believe". Perhaps he knows he can't rely on any critical thinking skills:

October 8, 2016 at 8:36 pm
Like so many other mainstream publications, The Economist has turned into a rag. Don’t read it anymore. I suspect part of the problem is the retirement of a more sensible, less brainwashed and ideological writing staff, who have been replaced by a less intelligent, more brainwash and ideological writing staff.

Vuil figures that he's thought of as a redneck, which is probably true.

October 8, 2016 at 8:44 pm
I was a subscriber to the Economist for over 25 years and watched its resolute drift to the left as the liberal Oxbridge mafia took over the magazine. We now have an anti-American pro globalization magazine with the hubris that anyone who does not see the world their way are fools and worse, redknecks.
Their global warming unquestioning mania is just one aspect of their infuriatingly smug world view. Cancel your subscription forthwith. Let the buggers go bankrupt.

J McClure can't put up any evidence that the para he quotes is bullshit. It's typical of the denialati to not link to any evidence for their unsubstantiated statements that they cannot substantiate. Well, it's typical for them not to link to anything much.

October 8, 2016 at 9:17 pm
Excerpt from the referenced link:
“Uncoupling emissions growth and economic expansion is important to slowing climate change. Total energy consumption in America has dropped 1.5% since Barack Obama became president, according to the White House; in that time the economy has swelled by 10%. America now generates more than three times as much electricity from wind, and 30 times as much electricity from solar, as it did eight years ago.”
This is complete BS!

How about a fact check ourselves. From the chart here at the EIA, in 2008, 0.546 quadrillion BTU was generated from wind. In 2015, it was 1.814 quadrillion BTU, a more than three-fold increase. The number for solar wasn't 30 times greater. In 2008, 0.072 quadrillion BTU was generated from solar. In 2015 it was 0.431 quadrillion BTU. That's just six times more. However, from reading the text it's probable that the data only includes utility scale solar, not all the photovoltaic installations on roofs. Once that is factored in the growth has been phenomenal, according to Wikipedia.

There were lots of people who said they stopped reading or subscribing to the Economist after it started publishing articles about climate change. Soon they'll have nothing to digest except WUWT, InfoWars, the Daily Caller and Breitbart.