The “closest thing to a celebrity scientist in Seattle” is what the Seattle Times calls Cliff Mass, “a meteorologist who specializes in weather prediction and modeling,” according to his faculty bio at the University of Washington’s College of the Environment. Mass, a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at UW, wrote The Weather of the Pacific Northwest—one of the best-selling books from the University of Washington Press. He firmly believes that Earth has been warming for about the last 130 years, that human activity is an important cause of warming, and that changes in energy technology and efforts to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere should be sought to counteract it.

So it’s a pleasant surprise to find him coming to the defense of scientists (and others) who, because they question alleged scientific consensus about climate change, get called “deniers.” In a blog post May 28 titled “Why One Should Never Use the Term ‘Climate Denier’,” Mass enumerates three reasons:

1. “If plays off the term ‘Holocaust denier'”—a pejorative that applies to those who deny reality of the Nazi Holocaust that killed nearly a third of all the world’s Jews. “The Holocaust is an historical fact,” Mass writes, but “climate change, and particularly anthropogenically forced climate change is another story: there are still major uncertainties regarding climate change, including the magnitude of the human-forced warming and the local impacts. Our models are very clear tha[t] increasing greenhouse gases will warm the planet, how much and spatially varying impacts have a lot of uncertainty.” So “climate denier” is not only offensive and “painful to many in the Jewish community” but also misleading, since the vast majority of scientists who question the causes, magnitude, consequences, and appropriate responses to climate change nonetheless affirm that Earth has warmed and human action has contributed to the warming.
2. “The terms ‘climate denier’ or ‘climate change denier’ is [sic] usually used for anyone who does not ‘believe’ that virtually all of the change in Earth’s climate over the past half-century was caused by human emission of greenhouse gases.” But, Mass writes, “Seems strange to call someone a climate change denier if they accept that there is climate change and mankind is contributing.” Further, “climate scientists can not [sic] show that humans are entirely to blame for what has happened during the past fifty years. We know that some modes of natural variability have had major impacts (like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation) and that the warming trend and sea level rise has been going on for over a hundred thirty years …—well before human emissions of greenhouse gases had a significant radiative [warming] effect.” Indeed, by the standard of those who hurl around the epithet “climate denier,” “many of my department, one of the leading research centesr in atmospheric sciences of the country, should be considered climate change deniers. Go figure.”
3. “Climate denier clearly is a pejorative, put-down term that does not win converts or friends. … To secure real action on human-forced climate change one needs to build a consensus of folks with varied political backgrounds. Calling names is not the way to do it.”

Mass goes on to pillory Bill Nye, “The Science Guy” (who isn’t a climate scientist), who “loves to call folks deniers, while he makes exaggerated claims” and asks, “Why does such a poorly informed individual represent science?” He also takes Al Gore—and with him many other limousine liberals—for loudly proclaiming the need to fight anthropogenic global warming yet having lifestyles that pour far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ordinary people.

The ideas that the “deniers” are stopping progress on climate change is [sic] just nonsense. Some of the most knowledgeable, progressive people I know have the worst carbon footprints.  Climate scientists are probably the worst of the bunch. Left-leaning politicians who enjoy traveling to unnecessary meetings (like a certain governor) are another. They know the truth, but they won’t sacrifice in their own lives. See all the big cars being driven around Seattle these days?…. [ellipsis original] those folks are not deniers.  Most are good, card-carrying progressives.

In fact, I have found a strong correlation between heavy use of the phrase climate denier and NOT knowing much about climate.

Well, Mass has made a friend of the Cornwall Alliance. We may disagree about climate change, but we can speak of each other with respect. We hope his thinking on the need for such respect is contagious!

 

 

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