The Washington Post (WaPo) published an article claiming global warming is responsible for increasing rats populations in the world’s major cities. This is false. Rats have always lived among and thrived with human populations. As cities have grown, so have urban rat populations, benefitting from mismanaged waste, ineffective pest control policies, and urban decay, none of which have anything to do with CO₂ levels.
WaPo’s article, “Rats Are Thriving in Cities—And Climate Change Is Helping Them”, blames global warming aka climate change for an increase in rat populations in major cities. Milder winters and warmer temperatures supposedly allow rats to breed more successfully, leading to more infestation.
These claims are emblematic of the type of lazy journalism that has come to define mainstream media’s reporting on environmental issues. Instead of investigating the real causes behind a problem identified by the author, WaPo shoehorns in climate change as an easy, politically useful scapegoat.
The real culprits responsible for the increase in urban rat populations are waste, policy failures, and urban decay – not climate change.
Cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles—often cited as having worsening rat problems—are dealing with fundamental urban failures that have nothing to do with global temperatures.
- Garbage Mismanagement: Rats thrive on available food sources, and city streets are littered with more garbage than ever. Many cities have either cut back on trash collection services or implemented “green” waste policies that unintentionally allow garbage to pile up. New York’s rat population didn’t explode because the planet warmed by a fraction of a degree—it exploded because the city’s population grew and sanitation policies have not kept pace.
- Regulations That Protect Pests: In an effort to be more “humane,” many cities have placed restrictions on rodenticides, making it harder to control rat populations. For example, California has banned certain types of rat poison, leading to an increase in rodent infestations. Again, this has nothing to do with climate but with misguided regulations.
- COVID Lockdowns and Behavioral Changes: The increase in remote work, restaurant closures, and shifts in human activity disrupted food sources for rats, driving them to new areas. The pandemic had a far greater impact on rat behavior than any supposed climate effects, yet this major factor is absent from the WaPo’s narrative.
Others have pointed to identifiable real-world factors that have contributed to rat populations expanding. For example, an article at Climate Change Dispatch, titled “Alarmist Study Blames Climate Change for Surge in Rats, Ignores Key Factors,” notes that experts have long recognized that rat populations fluctuate due to food availability and waste management—not temperature shifts. Indeed rats populations flourished across Europe and in China during much cooler periods, for example, as ice packs began growing marking the beginning of the little ice age, with the rats bringing the black plague in their train.
The WaPo article follows a predictable climate alarmism playbook formula: take an existing problem, and substitute climate change in place of the actual causes of the problem. This same template has been applied to nearly every issue and debunked on Climate Realism —crop failures, mental health, housing issues, illegal immigration, and now even rat infestations. By framing everything as a consequence of climate change, the media absolves policymakers of responsibility for their failures. Instead of holding local governments accountable for poor waste management or ineffective pest control, the Post’s article conveniently shifts the blame to CO₂ emissions.
Furthermore, the supposed link between warmer winters and rat populations is questionable at best. Rats have survived and thrived for centuries in a wide range of climates. As pointed out in Rats: Ultimate Survivors,
Believed to have roamed the earth with dinosaurs, rats have outlived several mass extinctions, an ice age, atomic bombs and meteors. Even their 75-million-year-old bite marks live on today in fossilized bones.
Furthermore, the supposed link between warmer winters and rat populations is questionable at best. Rats have survived and thrived for centuries in a wide range of climates. From frigid Moscow to tropical Bangkok, these rodents are highly adaptable. The idea that a slightly warmer winter in Chicago is the determining factor in rat population growth is pure speculation dressed up as science.
This latest attempt to link climate change to urban rat infestations is yet another example of the decline in journalistic integrity at WaPo, sadly a growing problem for the mainstream media in general, especially when reporting on climate change. Rather than investigating the real causes of urban rodent problems — mismanagement, weak policies, and neglect — WaPo chose to push a climate change narrative lacking any basis in fact. This is not just bad reporting; it is deliberate misdirection. The public deserves better than climate hysteria masquerading as news.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
Originally posted at ClimateRealism
Its those big rats behind the phony climate scare that need to be trapped!
That’s an insult to decent, honest rats.
Perhaps Al Gore’s Warming isn’t causing a rat crisis but wasteful government spending is:
https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-the-federal-government-wastes-millions-of-taxpayer-dollars-on-inapplicable-unnecessary-testing-that-is-cruel-to-animals%EF%BF%BC/
Uh, Mr Watts, in your eagerness to pin the blame on WaPo journalists, you made a few mistakes.
First, the finding was not that climate change was the sole cause of the increase in rat population, but rather that it was one of several causes, probably including those you accused WaPo journalists of ignoring.
Nor were these the findings of WaPo journalists as you claim, but of researchers at the University of Richmond, and the findings were originally published in a scientific paper in the journal Science Advances, not in WaPo.
By the way, did you ever finish your paper debunking global temperature rise and submit it for publication in a peer reviewed scientific journal? We’ve been eagerly waiting for it. And waiting and waiting and waiting…
When most of the effect is due to mismanagement and sucking up to animal rights activists, climate change is a very minimal cause. Mismanagement as in New York using garbage bags that are not picked up often enough, rather than dumpsters or garbage cans with lids.
Where did you publish this research? Or what research are you citing?
Sometimes, a single comedic sketch exhibits more common sense and insight than can be found in a hundred journal articles.
WaPo failed to do diligence and you’re blaming someone that has called them out.
‘WaPo failed to do due diligence’.
Oh, is that so? Please show us a study, or data, that disproves what the journalist explained about the conclusions of the scientific paper they cited.
“We’ve been eagerly waiting for it.”
Speak for yourself. Almost everyone has moved on.
I started reading about temperature in this context with Stephen McIntyre‘s “Ohio State Paper” in 2008. Other than glancing at the UAH Spenser & Christy monthly chart there is nothing of interest anymore about weather reports. Well, next week I am expecting a couple of mornings with 7°F, and that is interesting but not uncommon.
And as usual with Warren, out come the lies.
Nobody is claiming that the planet hasn’t warmed over the last 200 years or so.
It’s up to those who are convinced that CO2 is the primary, if not sole cause of this warming to prove their case. Models are not proof.
Models are never ‘proof’ of any scientific finding, in any scientific Discipline, including climate science, nor do scientists claim they are.
Also, ‘proof’ is for Math, whereas evidence is required to establish the validity of a scientific theory. So you might want to check the evidence for climate change. It’s in the DATA. A recent report from Cornell University assessed that 99.9% of the thousands of researching scientists that study the climate have concluded that man’s activities — primarily the burning of fossil fuels — are the cause of the warming since 1970, based on the hard data collected from the physical world.
Yes Mr. Beeton, the planet is warming since the mid 1800s when a period of declining temperature called the Little Ice Age ended, for reasons unknown. It seems quite clear that increasing amounts of CO2 s in our atmosphere correlate with increasing temperature. But lots of “hard data from the physical world” from actual climate scientists suggest that CO2 is a minor player. Look up, for example the work of William Happer, ex of Princeton, and William Wijngaarden of York University, Ontario, both atmospheric physicists, and you will find that CO2 has little to do with warming. What may have an effect is decreased cloud cover in recent decades (perhaps due to reduced SO2 emissions from sulfur reductions in fossil fuel) which is sufficient to cause all observed warming ignoring any countervailing effects which might be emerging.
Yes it is warming, but it is difficult to find any consequences. As regards rats, if warmth promotes their abundance should there not be more in southern cities than northern cities? Look it up. Ditto disease or any human abnormalities claimed to be caused by “climate change.” As to other claims of “climate change” consequences none, other than increasing plant growth, can be found in many studies which you can look up. Hurricanes? You can look up hurricane/cyclone abundance and strength on the web. See Dr. Ryan Maue’s work assembling records of Accumulated Cyclonic Energy, for example, and you will see no increase in either abundance or strength. If you don’t trust Dr Maue, he is just a meteorologist after all, not a “climate scientist,” you can look up NOAA data on landfalling US hurricanes. If you do, you will see a decline in recent decades. You can also look up data on floods and droughts by seeking the Palmer Drought Severity Index. Should you do so, you will find little or no changes. There are other searchable indices on issues such as wildfires, tornadoes and any other weather phenomena you wish. Should you look them up you will find that there are no increasing tendencies in any of them. Rainfall in rainy England, erratic year to year but no change in hundreds of years. Wildfires, despite the terrible recent Los Angeles fires, have declined for which I,at least, am thankful. Sea level? You can look that up as well and if you do, you will find that it has been rising slowly and steadily since before Abraham Lincoln was president (that is as far back as tide gauges go) and the rate of rise has not changed. One USGS researcher even found from examination of coastal peat bogs and river sediments that the same average rise rate has persisted over the past 6,000 years with lots of ups and downs. Curious? Look it up. One caution, be sure to look up all the available data. Climate enthusiasts have a tendency to truncate their charts and graphs to omit data from the first half of the 20th century which show many more wildfires, damaging hurricanes very high temperatures and lots of droughts and whatnot than now It takes some effort to do these things, but I recommend it to improve your knowledge and immunize you from accusations that you have failed to look it up.
Little Ice Age was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic. It was not a true ice age of global extent.
Happer and Wijngaarden never published their work in any peer reviewed journal because they don’t support their conclusions with data and competent analysis.
Thousands of researching scientists, publishing in scientific journals, conclude that indeed rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is responsible for nearly all the warming since 1970. No alternative explanations fit the data.
He’s a one fallacy pony.
And that fallacy might be….?
Let’s see. The claim was:
WaPo stated:
That sounds a whole lot like claiming that global warming is responsible for booming rat populations, at least in a ‘large part’.
I think an apology is due to Anthony. We’ll be eagerly waiting for it. And waiting and waiting and waiting…
Yep. ‘In large part (40%)’ not entirely, as Watts erroneously asserted.
and that was the claim of the scientific paper cited, not of the journalist, as Watts erroneously claimed.
But the WaPo journalist should have checked the facts of the scientific paper rather than just reproducing it.
How do you know he didn’t?
Please show us where anybody asserted that this was entirely due to climate change.
Still waiting, waiting, waiting for that apology.
Funny. Someone mentions rats and Warren shows up.
No, someone argues against Science and I show up to ridicule the ignorant.
Those are the main claims from the study. Cities experiencing greater temperature increases are very likely due to their urban heat sink and not from climate change. Differential heat increases for cities are due to buildings, parking lots, etc. This study is no more than guesses at general causes.
Tokyo has a massive rat eradication program and is one of the cleanest cities in the world.New Orleans is losing population and shutting down restaurants plus they did an aggressive poisoning program. Once you look into the details one can see this paper is junk science with an agenda.
Your assertions are the guesses — you’ve cited no data nor sources to support your claims or disprove the University of Richmond paper.
Climate change cannot address differential heat increases in cities–Heat sink effects can. They guessed based on their agenda. The paper is junk science.
Your assertion depends on the world warming uniformly — but it hasn’t — different regions and thus different cities saw different temperature increases Once again you are the one guessing — and you’ve guessed wrong.
Very nice Anthony, as I have said before lying, cheating and scaring the crap out of people is the only thing that the CAGW crowd has. They know that we skeptics own the science. They are losing and we are winning, we need to push hard and show them for the liars and cheats that they are.
There is no ‘winning’ or’ losing’. Rather, Science shows us the Truth, and it isn’t what Watts and his band of dummkopfs think.
That’s twice now you’ve written Science instead of science, that fact shows a degree of religiosity not scientific thinking. Either that or you’re Canadian who habitually and randomly capitalize words that should not be capitalized.
OMG! How did you become so competent in identifying key issues that really matter? You must be very smart!
Oh, horrors! This is only going to get worse as the rats flee Washington, DC; and the wrecking ball wielded by Elon and the Doge bros! At least now we know why the Climatistas have been so shrill; USAID apparently pays extra for volume and feigned hysteria; the old by-the-word method is passé!
There’s a rat in me kitchen what am I gonna do?
There’s a rat in me kitchen what am I gonna go?
Cut my carbon footprint that’s what I’m gonna do,
Cut my carbon footprint.
If “climate change”, i.e., warmer temperatures, are indeed causing rat populations to increase then would not southern cities such as Los Angeles and Houston have greater rat populations than northern cities such as New York City, Chicago and Toronto? Surely there must be data on this.
Perhaps if we replace the term “rat” with “eco warrior” there could be some truth to the claims. Every warm sunny day is another opportunity for green zealots to rise up in hysteria to warn us all of the coming (but never arriving) Armageddon. Not sure about the breeding part, but one way or the other Darwin has an answer for that.
From article:”…none of which have anything to do with CO₂ levels.”
A slight disagreement. With a rise in CO2 there is a demonstrated increase in the growth of food stuffs. As available food increases the amount available for pests increases so rats could easily increase in numbers due to increase in CO2.
Not so much green stuff in cities – and tree bark is not a delicacy to a rat. Grains and seeds are food to a rat, but I don’t think the change in CO2 is going to make that much difference in a city compared to ignoring garbage piling up.