> They're just observing that there appears to be an awful lot of bad things happening lately.
OK, then present statistics (not you, but everyone who try to convince climate change from single incidents).
Individual incidents only damage the cause. Fires happened all the time in the last million years. One can't come to correct conclusions about they getting more frequent from their personal observation of news feed.
> Just a quick google search leads me to articles like this
As I said, I'm not denying climate change, global warming, increased frequency of forest fires etc.
Just don't be (not you) religious pro-climate-change fanatic indistinguishable from client-change-denier fanatic. Present data, studies.