Biased on water
I’m bothered by the way your June 10 article was headlined: “Weather expert challenges severe drought assessment.”
Your publication continues to downplay what’s now best described as climate crisis, and your reporting encourages your readers to stick their heads and necks in the sand so they will not demand stronger actions to counter worsening weather patterns already affecting our planet.
Though the Department of Ecology has warned that North Olympic Peninsula is in a severe drought, your article appears to give unwarranted credence to a disputed statement by “a Northwest weather expert” whose contrary opinion holds equal weight in your paper’s narrowed vision to the U.S. Drought Monitor which declared that the Olympic Peninsula is in a severe drought.
Mass cites the precipitation totals since last October as proof, which serves to show how facts can be cherry-picked to make a point.
What those numbers don’t show is how fast that rain fell, and how fast it flowed out to the ocean.
As noted via ongoing monitoring of our waterways, the streams and rivers have been experiencing record-setting low flows since March, according to the Department of Ecology, and continue to decline precipitously despite Mr. Mass’ rose-petaled outlook.
Why doesn’t that reality get mentioned in the PDN article?
Instead, we read your ongoing biased opinions questioning the reality of human-induced climate change.
While the overall science declares climate change an urgent matter, those lone voices calling out “no wolf” leaves the flock quite unprepared for the consequences.
Alfredo Quarto,
Port Angeles