The Los Angeles Times (LAT) claims in “Killer mosquitoes, rabid bats and bear attacks: Climate change is making eco-horror feel real” that climate change is the common denominator behind a spate of rabid bats attacks, mosquito-borne illnesses, dangerous wildlife encounters, rattlesnake bites, hiker deaths, and flooding in California in 2026. These claims are pure hyperbole and demonstrably false. The evidence shows these hazards have different causes and trends, and the LAT provides no trend analysis or attribution evidence demonstrating that climate change caused the collection of 2026 incidents. In lieu of science, the LAT stitched together a fictional eco-horror story.
The article begins with a grab bag of frightening events: “Rabid bats and rattlesnakes. Mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus and dengue fever. Increased bear and mountain lion attacks. A summer full of tragic hiker deaths.” After acknowledging that development, increased outdoor recreation, and diminished awareness of wildlife dangers have contributed to these incidents, the LAT nevertheless declares that they share a single “common denominator. Climate change.”
That is opinionated assertion, not factual scientific attribution.
As Climate at a Glance explains, weather occurs over days, months, and individual seasons, while climate is measured over much longer periods, conventionally 30 years. A collection of unusual California events during 2026 does not establish a climate trend.
Consider the article’s most dramatic example, rabid bats. Los Angeles County really has experienced an unusual increase, with 69 rabid bats reported by late September. But the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health says something the LAT neglected to mention: although rabies in bats has increased in recent years, “the reason behind this increase remains unknown.” Public Health also estimates that fewer than 1 percent of healthy bats carry rabies.
If the public health agency actually monitoring rabies says the cause of the increase is unknown, on what scientific basis does the Times declare climate change the common denominator?
There is another obvious factor the article briefly acknowledges and then largely ignores: people.
California’s population and developed areas have expanded enormously over the past century. Houses, roads, businesses, recreation areas, and suburbs increasingly occupy what was once wildlife habitat. More people also hike, camp, mountain bike, walk dogs, and otherwise recreate in areas inhabited by bears, bats, coyotes, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, and other wildlife. More overlap naturally creates more opportunities for encounters.
California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife says precisely this. The agency states that “as our human population expands into wildlife habitat, human-wildlife interactions have increased.” It also says encounters with black bears resulting in human injury remain rare.
That is a direct observation, with no further “climate change” explanation required.
The bear data makes the LATs’ narrative even shakier. California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates the state’s black bear population at between 49,000 and 71,000 and reports that it has been stable for the past decade. The agency says high bear densities can occur around urban areas where unsecured food is available, and identifies garbage and other human food sources as important causes of bears becoming habituated to people. So, a human cause, poor trash and food management, just not climate change.
Climate Realism has documented the same phenomenon elsewhere: expanding human populations, development in bear habitat, growing bear populations in some regions, unsecured garbage, and intentional or accidental feeding can all increase encounters without climate change being the cause.
Mosquitoes provide an even better example of the LATs reaching for climate change when more immediate causes are buzzing right under its nose. Mosquitoes require water to complete their life cycle, and many species thrive in standing water around human habitation. Buckets, flowerpots, clogged gutters, birdbaths, neglected pools, rain barrels, tires, toys, and countless other containers can become breeding sites.
Los Angeles County Public Health’s advice during this year’s West Nile outbreak is straightforward: eliminate standing water where mosquitoes breed. The county notes that mosquitoes can reproduce in very small quantities of water and specifically recommends emptying containers, cleaning pools, draining water from pool covers, and removing other sources.
Recent Los Angeles weather supplied plenty of that opportunity and it was primarily driven by moisture from Hurricane Marie in early September 2026, which brought up to an inch of rain, powerful surf, and coastal flooding.
Ironically, the LAT itself reported in February that major rainfall in December and early February created what local vector-control officials described as ideal mosquito-breeding conditions. Mosquitoes were found breeding in people’s backyards at unusually high levels after the rains.
In other words, rain fell, water accumulated, temperatures warmed, mosquitoes reproduced, and a lot of standing water was not eliminated. The climate hadn’t changed but the amount of standing water and thus breeding conditions had. That’s weather and vector control, not proof of climate change.
The Times’ own reporting this month attributes part of the current mosquito problem to extraordinary humidity associated with El Niño conditions. El Niño is a naturally occurring ocean-atmosphere cycle and a major source of year-to-year weather variability. Once again, not evidence of a climate change link.
Nor is 2026’s West Nile outbreak unprecedented. Los Angeles County currently reports 135 infections this year. That’s serious, but the county recorded 268 cases in 2017, 300 in 2015, 218 in 2014, and 309 in 2004. A bad mosquito season is not evidence by itself of a worsening climate trend.
Climate change can affect vector-borne disease risks, but even the IPCC notes that disease transmission is primarily a function of built environments, urbanization, population mobility, lack of vector control, human behavior, and other ecological factors. The IPCC also discusses the fact that some already hot areas, area’s where malaria bearing mosquito populations are viable, may become too hot for their continued habitation.
Climate Realism has similarly documented how international travel, transportation, urbanization, water management, mosquito-control practices, and human behavior complicate simplistic claims that climate change is responsible whenever mosquito-borne disease increases.
Also, as detailed in Chapter Four of Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels, the vast body of scientific literature refutes the LATs’ claim that climate change has been exacerbating the spread of mosquito borne diseases.
Studies from Africa, to England and Wales, to North and South America, to Thailand and beyond refute any link between climate change and the spread of malaria, Dengue fever, West Nile virus, and other vector-borne diseases. For example, a 2010 study in the peer-reviewed journal Nature reports, “[The study’s authors] compared historical and contemporary maps of the range and incidence of malaria and found endemic/stable malaria is likely to have covered 58% of the world’s land surface around 1900 but only 30% by 2007.” Clearly, malaria has become less prevalent and deadly as the climate has warmed.
The rattlesnake argument is weaker still. Three tragic California snakebite deaths during an unusual season are anecdotes, not a climate trend. Warm weather can certainly bring snakes and people outdoors earlier, increasing opportunities for encounters, but establishing that fact is not the same as demonstrating a long-term climate-driven increase in fatal snakebites. There is no sustained trend in the data of snake bite incidences corresponding to long-term modest warming.
The same logical problem appears with hikers. Hot weather can be dangerous, and long-term warming can increase heat exposure. But an individual hiking death can involve temperature, hydration, preparation, physical condition, route choice, time of day, experience, access to rescue, and simple human error. The LAT does acknowledge in passing that the increased popularity of “amateur nature tourism” contributes to accidents. But that is not a minor detail, but is likely the largest contributing factor to more hiking accidents. More, often out of shape, people venturing into hot deserts and remote wilderness areas which they may not be familiar with inevitably creates more opportunities for emergencies. A count of hiking tragedies cannot be transformed into a climate trend without controlling for how many people are actually hiking, where they are hiking, and under what conditions.
Then there is flooding, which the Times confidently calls a “hallmark of the warming planet’s increasingly extreme weather.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report concludes there is generally low confidence in attributing changes in the probability or magnitude of flood events to human influence, because flooding depends on numerous factors including rainfall, soil moisture, land-cover change, river management, drainage, and development. The IPCC explicitly warns in chapter 11 that attributing changes in heavy precipitation to human influence cannot simply be translated into attribution of flooding.
Climate at a Glance’s California state climate assessment also reports little overall change in statewide annual precipitation since 1900 and no long-term increase in extreme precipitation in its analysis.
Urban development further complicates the picture. Pave formerly absorbent ground, build in floodplains, expand roads and parking lots, alter drainage, and put more expensive property in vulnerable areas, and flood damages increase without requiring a corresponding increase in the underlying meteorological hazard. The logic is pretty simple, more people moving to and developing more property in areas with wildlife or prone to weather extremes results in more damage when animal encounters or disasters occur.
This is the basic mistake repeated throughout the article.
More people living along the wildland-urban boundary means more opportunities to encounter bears, bats, coyotes, mountain lions, and snakes. More people hiking and camping means more opportunities for wildlife encounters and outdoor accidents. Rain followed by uncontrolled standing water creates mosquito habitat. Garbage and pet food attract bears. International travel can transport pathogens. Urban development alters drainage and puts more people and property in harm’s way.
These are direct causes of the issues raised in the article.
Yet the LAT takes bats, mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, bears, mountain lions, hikers, floods, and even COVID-19 and staples the words “climate change” across the entire collection.
The LAT does raise legitimate public-health issues. Rabies is deadly. West Nile virus can kill. Rattlesnakes deserve respect and distancing. Bears should not be fed or approached. Hiking in extreme heat can be dangerous. Inclement weather can cause harm. And all of these things have been, are, and likely will be problems, regardless of long-term climate change.
Ignoring this fact, the LAT concludes ominously that if humans continue to ignore experts, “nature will correct the course on its own terms.” They could channel The Wizard of Oz and say: Mosquito’s, and bats, and bears, oh my! That’s a great line for an eco-horror movie but it’s lousy science journalism.
Nature isn’t staging a revolt against humanity. The LAT is simply staging a clickbait style horror story for its readers, and calling it climate science. That’s probably why it is listed as being in the paper’s entertainment section, because it is pure fiction.
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
