I’m sure the step-by-step debunking of the author’s book I linked a few posts up will be of some help to debunk the crap linked in the OP. 
The entire article is so riddled with lies and inaccuracies that it would take a long time to refute every single point, so folks here have just mentioned some of the more obviously ridiculous ones. The whole thing is just nonsense from start to finish.
The basic response to the part that you highlighted is that it simply isn’t true. The “longer-term data” that the writer refers to is most likely based on a discredited study by a climate change denialist that looked at limited regional ice core data from Greenland and falsely claimed that it represented global temperatures, which it most assuredly did not. Not even most climate change deniers try to push that nonsense. What they’ve done instead is tried to focus on a more recent period called the Medieval Warm Period (from about 950 to 1250) claiming that it parallels an equally “natural” warming period happening today. It does not. Multiple temperature reconstructions going back around 2000 years (of which the most famous is the Mann et al. “hockey stick” graph) show that the MWP was neither warmer than present-day temperatures, nor was it global in extent. It was mainly confined to parts of the northern hemisphere, but it was historically noteworthy because it included the most populated areas of Europe.
Another glaring misdirection in that article is the claim that not too long ago, geologically speaking, we were CO2 starved at a critical low of 150 ppm, so it’s a damn good thing that CO2 levels are going up. First of all that number is wrong. At the last ice age minimum, the CO2 level at its lowest was about 180 ppm. More importantly, the remarkable thing about ice age cycles is that CO2 concentrations oscillate in the very specific range of between 180 ppm at ice age minima to around 280-285 (and never more than 300 ppm) at interglacial maxima. That today it has soared to nearly 420 ppm – a level that the earth has not seen for nearly 3 million years – should be deeply concerning.
Thousands of scientists who have studied this subject all agree that we are experiencing climate change. Every one of those scientists knows more about this subject than the person who wrote that article.
True that you have done a service pointing to that author’s labor of love shredding that crook’s book.
IMO the way to stop the hydra-headed monster of dis-/mis-information is not to debunk specific sentences or paragraphs in articles or reviews, or even to debunk whole books.
It’s instead to identify news outlets, websites, and other publishers where it can be safely assumed that 100% of what they’re pushing is false garbage to sell product or push a point for political reasons.
The goal here is not to have @Crafter_Man’s gullible friend learn about climate. It’s to have him learn that if the Washington Times said it, he can safely assume it’s a lie and the exact opposite is the truth, no matter how superficially convincing their contrary argument may be.
That’s cutting the problem off at the trunk, not the tip.
We (the sane half of the USA) can’t debunk as fast as new garbage can be spewed by the evil 10% at their enthralled 40%. We can only win by depriving the spewers of their audience.
He seems to be selecting whatever date range helps his arguments. Yeah CO2 levels were higher 300 million years ago but back then there were giant insects everywhere. He doesn’t seem to cite anything in his article either and he makes baseless correlations. If weather deaths have reduced, its likely more due to better technology to deal with extreme temperatures and increased wealth than anything to do with weather.
Almost everyone who is trained and educated in climate science feels it is a serious issue. Wrightstone is a geologist (not a climate scientist), a fossil fuel consultant and hasn’t backed up anything he said in the article with cites that he published in a paper well known for ideological slant.
Glad to see already many others pointing at the clear flaws from that article lined by the OP. Besides the cites already made, the short videos from science writer Peter Hadfield (AKA as Potholer54) can be linked as a reply to your friend.
It’s not even an article – it’s clearly labelled “ANALYSIS/OPINION”.
It just then needs to be noted that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to his own facts.
Oh, and:
I meant to say “linked”, not lined, [Maxwell Smart] sorry about that chief…[/MS]
If one uses a legal definition of “emergency”, the quote is true despite the urgency of the climate situation.
The author quotes many statistics without reference, many of which are unlikely to be true.
A 600m year period is irrelevant with regard to human effects. This is the age of the stuff at the back of my fridge.
No reason to believe news reports of climate disasters 100 years ago were complete, accurate, global or represented our current understanding of climate.
The author concedes temperature has affected mass humanity. He ignores the roles of CO2 and temperature in water and ice levels, extreme weather, ozone, coastal areas, the travesty known as Mountain Dew, food supply, sustainability, oil needs, population levels and other items of relevance. He chooses one variable, picks unreasonable points of comparison and probably makes stuff up. He avoids many of the current issues to discuss how cold can be bad. I’m surprised the phrase “delicious seltzer” was avoided.