Good luck passing climate change regulation legislation on your own with the GOP in power - of *course* you need to work with them. And sometimes you gotta play the long game. Many corporations have come around, and even Wall Street is taking climate change considerations/factors into their decisions. You're an old, ineffective crank, Charles.

I know it's hard for non-scientific people to relate to scientists, but you don't have to embarrass yourself Charles.

@2: I think he just likes to. As if it is some kind of fetish. I mean, he just keeps doing it.

Capitalism (in a way) is the only way out. Making fossil fuels more expensive is what is needed to curb their overuse. Government is needed to do this hopefully via a carbon tax, which Mr. Mudede did not support in this state last fall with I-732 that would have put a price on CO2 emissions. Increased prices for fossil fuels would lead to quicker adoption of low-emitting technologies and increased demand for public transit. Anything else is window dressing. The only solution I saw espoused by Mr. Mudede in his 'dialogue' with Cliff Mass was that he should be the benevolent dictator in choosing how people should live. That sounds like a game to me; one in which we all lose.

I personally am post-sad about the climate. It has already gone too far - past 400 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. Barring some unforeseen technology to remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere the planet is pretty much fucked. It will in the least be interesting to see what happens, but all signs point to it not being pretty.

charles has always struck me as the sort of person who'd still fume about the time he was slighted in some insignificant way 20 years ago, and this confirms it. you lost an argument to someone that actually knows something about science, charles. get over it.

given how long your bizarre rants about the gum wall and the library architecture went on for, i expect we'll be hearing more from you about cliff mass for years.

Charles' ideology-before-facts approach to journalism is far more pernicious than the facts-even-when-they-are-ideologically-inconvenient approach Cliff Mass takes to his own media presence.

So, if Cliff Mass is willing to say that the next wildfire we have is directly caused by human driven climate change, that stops the coral reefs from being destroyed? Publishing peer reviewed research isn't a 'game'. If Cliff Mass started saying what Charles wants him to he would lose his credibility in the climate change research community because it goes against the facts, and then you would just have a no longer credible scientist saying half-truths, how on earth is that a good plan for changing our future for the better?

Good Afternoon Charles,
I am in agreement with your critics Charles. Cliff Mass is credible and learned. From what I know, he never has explicitly stated that he doesn't believe in climate change. He is a gifted and informed scientist. Much of his work is peer reviewed. I believe he does know a thing or two about climate and weather.

That said, I'd exercise caution before I dismiss him. Prof. Mass is also correct to "talk with" climate change skeptics. He does learn. So does the other side. Perhaps you too could "Talk with" the other side regarding Trump and the American political Right. Communicating with them isn't "aiding & abetting".

And abject hatred of one's opponent simply doesn't work. Ask James Hodgkinson:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/14/homepage2/…

Most unfortunate. I wish Rep. Scalise a fast & full recovery.

You are a liability, Charles.

After Charles got taken to school by Ben Shapiro of all people I have to think Charles just likes torture.

Charles, even if you are right about him, your public preoccupation with Cliff Mass is, by occupying precious climate-related mental bandwidth, hastening the process of global warming.

Charles is 100% right in this way: refusing to take a stand on whether Coral Bleaching, or Glacial Recession is caused by (or even correlated to) ACC leaves a gap that Denialists and their Fossil Fuel funders have exploited ruthlessly and frequently.

Sowing doubt to this degree in the US has made addressing the issue globally impossible. I don't believe I'll see meaningful carbon reduction in the US in my lifespan, and the 2016 election is the reason why.

Charles, your stupidity knows no lows. I had previously thought your last column about Cliff showed an anger (that you lost a debate) driven naivety, the likes of which we would not see again. But alas, you're back at it with a column that would make anyone with an IQ over 80 shudder.

Let's be real, your preoccupation isn't with climate. I would bet you don't actually care about a few degrees centigrade. Your preoccupation is with capitalism. For all the alleged ills you outlined with capitalism it is also the single-most dynamic economic system the world has ever known and is directly responsible for the greatest human accomplishments of the last several centuries. Look at what capitalism did for China--now look what communism/socialism did for every country that tried it.

There are two questions we need to address here. First, why don't you shed the climate change facade and just advocate economic redistribution as its own mean to an end? Second--and the better question--why does The Stranger employ such a stupid and grudge holding buffoon like yourself?

The whole charles vs cliff things reminds me of the sex education debate. On one side you have someone who wants to use science and technology to address the issue and on the otherside you have charles screaming "keep your legs closed" and getting upset that others aren't joining him in screaming.

Honestly at this point i have no clue what charles thinks will solve climate change, it sounds like he has no faith in the government or technology, but cities will some how magical solve it?!? Other times it sounds like he's convinced we'll need a huge horrible event to shake our cultures foundation so much that we all give up cars, planes, meat and the internets. So much more reasonable then cliff who wants a comboof technology and government to address the problem (eye roll).

@17: who the fuck are you even talking to?

@15, the anti-capitalists want nothing to do with Charles after his support of Hillary over Bernie because electing a socialist for President was unrealistic. He's a Marxist in his own mind, but in reality he supports the neoliberalism he verbally decries.

I think I get Charle's syllogism. Most people are not scientists, non-scientists respond better to propaganda than to detailed explanations, therefore we must use every weather phenomenon as an opportunity to scare the masses into action.

As an engineer this offends me, but as someone who has also seen the success of such tactics by populists including Trump I have to admit there is an argument for it. Still @2 I stand with you.

We have a patient bleeding out.

Charles wants to stanch the bleeding.

Cliff wants to make sure we correctly understand the mechanisms of fluid dynamics involved in bleeding to death.

See the difference?

Nobody's saying Cliff is *wrong*, but that's not the work that is needed at this time.

@23, I'd argue that Charles isn't a doctor and the condition of the climate is more akin to a disease that needs billions of dollars of research and time along with advocacy that extends outside our Seattle bubble and resonates in places like Iowa, Hamburg, Mumbai and Beijing. You might as well start attacking Elizabeth Kolbert as well as Cliff. http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/el…

#23 You have the analogy wrong. The patient is a serious cut on her leg and is bleeding to death. Based on accurate information, I propose dealing with the problem immediately by stopping the loss of blood and giving the patient the right care (like the carbon tax). Charles Mudede wants to ignore the real problem and cover the patient's eyes and perhaps put a tourniquet on her arm, which will lead to the patient's death.

Came here to point out that people playing pretends and denying facts is what got us into the whole climate change denial thing in the first place, and that doing the same thing, only left-ishly, is not an improvement. You need credibility to sell change, and you burn all your credibility to the ground when you promote false equivalents (today is hot its global warming, yesterday was cold global warming is a lie). The right's tactics work because they can convince people that "the liberals" are lying to them. That gets a lot easier when it is TRUE.

Charles your feud with Cliff is stupid and you are saying stupid things, please stop. You guys should be on the same page, and where you are not, he is right and you are wrong.

tldr: you are taking a giant steaming dump all over the top of your own cause

Let me know if I may provide you further clarity there big guy!

@25 wrong. The correct analogy is Charles wants to let the person die on purpose, in as horrible way as possible. Then he wants to take all the pictures and videos of the person dying horribly and use them to scare everyone, telling the the only way the could avoid such a horrible horrible death is to walk backwards on odd number days.

@27, You just lost the pro-Mass crowd there. Even we critics don't doubt that Charles' has the right intentions.

Climate change alartmists have been consistently wrong, time and time again their predictions have failed. Mudede clearly doesn't care for the truth, he just wants a Marxist system and will latch onto any hysterical argument to support his dogma.

Thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item…

Someday, it'd be nice to see Mudede try and explain how Rhodesia went from the Jewell of Africa to near total collapse in 30 years once white rule came to an end. It wasn't necessarily Marxism that did it either. Something more fundemntal than that. And this is the real motivation behind Mudede's Marxism. He's just Anti-White. For Africans, Marxism is just another tool against the white man. Yet, paradoxically, colonialism was the best thing to ever happen to African man.