Hey, while you're at it, why not blame Mass for 9/11 or the JFK assassination?

Stick with something you know a little more about, like economics or sex with horses.

Charles, give it a rest. This is embarrassing.

When someone uses a question mark in the headline, it is a pretty reliable indicator that it was written by a talentless hack, and contains little to no information.

Charles, because you don't know what science is or why it needs to remain independent and objective doesn't make Cliff Mass equivalent to climate change deniers. That's incredibly intellectually lazy, even for you.

@1: fuck off with your knee-jerk ad hominem. charles' position is pretty clear: neutrality enables denial, and we can't afford to keep delaying meaningful action. he's right.

of course, we will anyway, because shareholders might not realize the dividends they expect.

Claiming that we shouldn't be alarmed by the increasing frequencies of extreme climate events because we cannot attribute any particular event to climate change amounts to denial of the impact of climate change, i.e. it's climate change denialism.

@8 What ad hominem? Charles literally wrote a movie about sex with horses: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0874423/

8: So Charles' repeating over and over and over and over again that essentially real work to combat climate change would happen but for Cliff Mass is ok but my pithy ad hominem is not?

@8: Calm down. Continuous discussion and objective analysis including evaluating and re-evaulating contributing factors is prudent to the science.

As another Cliff Mass-related comments section gets going, I just want to re-affirm the most important thing that you need to know about Cliff Mass:

Cliff Mass believes that the greatest threat to the global climate comes from people exaggerating its effects, rather than from people who deny that it even exists and set policy around that.

Cliff Mass believes that an entire United States political party doesn’t believe in climate change (and has made this a core platform of the party) because the media hurts their feelings by making exaggerated claims.

Cliff Mass spends the bulk of his relative authority as a University-employed weatherperson fighting what he believes is the most important climate crisis facing our planet: media and scientific exaggeration.

Not, you know, the people who don’t even think it exists.

I was wondering why Charles seems to hate Cliff more then actual climate change deniers. If you listen to their debate, Cliff is a strong believer of climate change and believes it's going to have a horrible impact on humanity and requires a great effort to deal with. So why so much hate from Charles?

Here's my theory. Charles fundamentally believes only behavior changes can fight climate change. He believes that humans must be frightened enough to start changing their behavior or at least elect a government that will force them into behavioring different. He refuses to believes capitalism or technology will solve the problem. So people must be scared into change.

The problem with this climate change alarmist have been trying to scare society for 11 years, at least since an inconvenient truth came out. And its not working, people aren't changing their habits. Instead globally people acting in more and more harmful ways wrt to the climate.

So now Charles is faced with a delima, his only way to solve the problem isn't working. He could either change course or find a reason to justify why its not working. That's what he's doing with Cliff. If only scientists like Cliff would stop pointing out facts and science and data, climate alarmist would be working, or at least that's what Charles needs to believe. He needs Cliff as a villain to justify why people aren't reacting to climate alarmist like he wants them too. So he hates Cliff more then actual climate change deniers or polluters because having Cliff as a villain justify Charles' beliefs.

The sad thing is Cliff is right, technology will solve the problem sooner then mass behavioral change will. We're seeing solar power grow while coal power shrinks, meanwhile Charles can't change his behavior or those around him (to do what Charles preaches you basically need to give up cars, flights, eating meat and using the internet).

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment…

Neutrality enables denial? Arguably, in some cases.

But departing from neutrality, i.e., faking it, enables denial on steroids.

Also, in the title of his Slog post, Charles unfortunately missed the actual question: the issue is not, "Why Does Cliff Mass Believe Scientists and Leftist Journalists Are Exaggerating the Dangers of Climate Change?"

The correct question is, "Why does Cliff Mass believe that supposed exaggerations about climate change are more dangerous than actual climate denialism?"

Cliff Mass doesn't care about people who deny the existence of climate change, but he cares very, very deeply and passionately about people who get a little too far ahead of themselves about the causes of a winter storm or misattribution about the cause of death for a city park tree.

Again: Cliff Mass thinks that republicans don't believe in climate change because the Seattle Times hurt their feelings about a tree story. This is all you need to understand about Cliff Mass.

Science can't afford neutrality.

@3 what kind of a child is still critiquing the likely education and intelligence of an individual based on their usage of "bad language"?

Half the comments are gone???

It's astonishing to find so many people defending Mudede's position that scientists should lie or misrepresent scientific evidence in order that they don't "enable" deniers. Mass is no denier and the thing that he does (besides being white) that so enrages Mudede and his sycophants here is what any good scientist would do; follow the evidence and don't lie or mis-repesent it. He doesnt in any way deny global warming, that we are causing it and that we must do something about it NOW. You all hate him because he's saying; "we must do something but we must be careful, reasoned and practical about how we go about it and that means talking to people who have different perspectives in order to find a workable solution". If we want to make reasoned decisions about what to do about this problem, we must do careful and rigorous scientific analysis, without resort to falsehoods, to guide our actions or we run the risk of doing greater damage.

But that's not the right approach, according to Mudede. Instead we must lie and misrepresent the science, as the evil white devils can't be trusted and, most importantly, under no circumstance listen to solutions or arguments other than our own.

Feh. We are truly living in a post-enlightenment, post-science world.

@16 did you listen to the debate? My understanding was Cliff point was if you use anecdotal evidence then it's easy for your opponent to use anecdotal evidence, but if you use well proven data and data models then people listen.

Ie if you say "omg climate change is horrible because last summer we had no snow in the mountains", people can easily counter "yeah but look at this year we have lots of snow in the mountains so why should i change". Whereas if you show people a model of how snow in the mountains has changed over the last 20 years and then explain what it means for agriculture, you have a much better chance of convincing them.

**When someone uses the screen name 'Theodore Gorath' the comments, it is a pretty reliable indicator that it was written by a right-wing hack, and contains little to no information.**

There. Fixed it for you.

@22 Mudede and pals are not interested in convincing anyone. They are not even really interested in doing anything about climate change. They are in it for the virtual signaling and the politics of hate.

What @16 said. Exactly.

Mass makes himself a 'useful idiot' tool for denialists (like the ones on this thread.

@24...yeah. Not at all like you.

Pretending that climate scientists and activists are knowingly alarmists in spite of the evidence because the end would justify the means is a straw-man made up by climate denialists. Mass is just happy to continue on with that tradition.

I was wondering when the left would start to deny science when it doesn't provide the back up for this weeks narrative that must be pushed.

A mind that can't be changed is the mind of someone stupid.

25: So when we read just today:

Energy Secretary Rick Perry told CNBC on Monday he does not believe carbon dioxide emissions from human activity are the main driver of climate change, joining the EPA administrator in casting doubt on the conclusion of some of the government's top scientists.

We're supposed to believe Cliff Mass is the greater threat? Did you also blame Dan Savage for the invasion of Iraq? Sorry, I don't get this yet-another-hyping of Mass' supposed position (and thus influence) on climate change policy the same day you have the United States Secretary of Energy spouting off with this garbage.

I think not being able to get a scientist, by name, on record defending his position is evidence enough for why Cliff Mass would be in a remarkable tough position to come out and say the things that Charles Mudede wants him to.

Seems that there is a good chance to get more positive action if the top scientists were using stronger language and being more politically involved, but if all science faculty realize that to publicly hold these opinions is career suicide then I don't see how it will happen. Some of what Charles wants people to say is possible but certainly not all of it, I feel like he would realize at a point that the scientific community will not cooperate with him after all these attacks. Can't even get someone reputable on the record to back him up.

Charles,
Why do you keep on writing these baseless stories and how long will the Stranger support you in doing so? Global warming IS a serious issue. We need to reduce our carbon emissions. But scientists and the media need to tell the truth and not exaggerate things. I believe that folks like you, who are working to panic folks with false information, are HARMING our ability to deal with climate change, both through mitigation and adaptation. You are a part of the problem, not the solution. The quote from the academic has nothing to do with anything. Clearly someone without much knowledge of climate change and her obscene language is not impressive....cliff

Cliff's comment, located directly above mine at #34, really illustrates my point about Cliff Mass very well.

Cliff begins by saying, "Global warming IS a serious issue" and saying that we "need to reduce" CO2 emissions.

But he sincerely and genuinely believes that the reason we aren't taking action on climate change is because Charles Mudede makes people "panic" with false information. He actually says Charles is "HARMING" efforts to combat climate change.

This is the Cliff Mass Fallacy. His anger and his energy are directed at Charles Mudede. He blames Charles Frickin' Mudede (!) for climate inaction.

To Cliff Mass, the fact that an entire political party and political ideology are foundationally and fundamentally opposed to accepting even the very premise of climate change is just a minor detail. The fact that this political party is taking concrete actions to worsen, not improve this problem isn't even worth a mention. The real enemy to the planet? The STRANGER! MUDEEEDEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Cliff continues -- one frustrated, old-man-shaking-his-fist blog post at a time -- to dig his own grave into irrelevancy. How ironic that the blog that made him a celebrity local weatherman will be the exact thing that ensures his public legacy is one of shame.

When the waters rise over the seawalls and forests burn away, someday in that long, distant future, the long-dead ghost of Cliff Mass will still blather like an idiot about Charles Mudede and the Seattle Times for writing about a dead tree, furiously typing out long, meandering, pointless blog posts while completely ignoring the political party that took concrete, actionable steps to destroy the planet as part of its core party platform.

So Cliff, should Portuguese people be alarmed by the connection between megafires and climate change? Why aren't you talking about that instead of rehashing the same old canard about people exaggerating consciously when there are plenty of data suggesting that you should be alarmed by global warming.

anon1256..... of course, you should be concerned about megafires. But consider that most of them today are not caused by climate change, but forest mismanagement, being focused on climate changes results in a lack of dealing with the real problem... you see why one needs to be educated by the truth and not hype? ..cliff

Cliff ... Your denying that much data points to climate change very probably playing a significant role in the increase in frequency, duration and size of forest fires (according to many forest experts), including in area not overly affected by mismanagement, shows that you are not only a climate change denier but also that you are precisely doing what you claim "alarmists" do: reaching conclusions not supported by the data.