I had planned to write about this, and specifically that Joe Romm’s blog “Climate Progress” appears to have died a quiet death of assimilation by the borg greens, saying:
We are now merging with ThinkProgress Green, and that means we’ll be adding two new regular bloggers, Jessica Goad, manager of research and outreach for CAP’s Public Lands Project, and Rebecca Leber, a ThinkProgress blogger and research assistant. They join Stephen, me, and all the regular Climate Progress contributors from the CAP energy team and blogging news room.
But Tom Fuller beat me to it in a guest post over at Jeff Condon’s place called Bookends and Separations. The assimilation of Climate Progress (which once had its own domain name) is just a symptom of a larger trend, and such assimilation must be a bitter pill for “Hero of the Environment″ Romm to swallow, as Fuller writes:
But people have pretty much stopped listening. They’ve even stopped writing. Joe Romm has folded his Climate Progress blog into the rubric of Think Progress’ larger efforts and now interns do much of his writing for him. Deltoid is down to one post a month, and it’s an open thread. Michael Tobis has fled Only In It For The Gold and is now writing at Planet 3–and complaining about a lack of traffic.
In a Republican primary with nine initial contestants, the amount of conversation about climate change was effectively zero. Over on the other side of the aisle, President Obama has almost abandoned the issue. The IPCC’s upcoming AR5 is, by all appearances, going to be much more subdued in its claims and much more reasonable as a result.
…
And this is the way it should be.
It’s the way it should be because climate change will return as an issue. Especially in America, where we love a second act to every story, anthropogenic climate change will return. Temperatures have plateaued at a high level and may even dip during this decade due to the muting effect of several natural cycles. But those cycles will end. And a new generation of scientists is readying itself to take up the argument again, untainted by the past disasters and mistakes of those currently sagging against the ropes.
The next generation of discussion may be calmer and more grounded in facts–looking at all the things humans do to influence climate and not just the CO2 we emit. It may not.
Read the whole post: Bookends and Separations.
==============================================================
Meanwhile, WUWT traffic remains strong:
A lower number is better, for example Google is #1. Note the traffic blip on Feb 14th of Peter Gleick’s “Fakegate” didn’t last for DeSmog blog, as I’ve previously reported. My competition can’t seem to get out of the >100,000 “we don’t bother to track them” zone. You can run your own comparisons here.
I can’t compare Climate Progress or Deltoid, since they are subdomains of larger blogging aggregators, but before CP lost its domain name we were beating the pants off it traffic rank wise. With one post a month, Deltoid can’t have much in the way of traffic.
UPDATE: in related news, the Orange County Register seems to agree (h/t to Climate Depot)
Global warming alarmism becoming much less alarming: ‘Maybe it’s the Cry Wolf syndrome. Maybe it’s just taking notice of reality. Maybe it’s only a fad that’s run its course’
On a related note.
Many of you have written to me expressing concern for Steve McIntyre because he hasn’t posted anything since March 20th. I called him Friday and spoke with his wife. He’s fine, but engaged in a work project outside of blogging and is focusing on it. I can’t say that I blame him. Blogging, especially climate blogging with so many technical details, is a huge time sink. My own business has suffered due to WUWT and I know Steve’s has. Where’s those big oil checks when we need it most?
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The treehugger forums that moved to altenergyshift have also failed spectacularly
Anthony,
I’ve asked before but I’ll ask again: I would love if you could post any tips you have learned about how to write a successful blog. Clearly you know how, and clearly the greens need the lesson.
-Adam
REPLY: I doubt I could coalesce it. For me it just a continuation of my 25 years of being a broadcaster. – Anthony
The idea that the skeptics are a “well funded denier machine” is infuriating. So sick of reading warmists lies.
My mother, a mother of 8, used to say, “… you’ll get your reward in heaven.”
But on a serious note, your work is of great import, you are a touchstone, a weapons depot, of where we go to get the arguments & facts we each will use tomorrow as we, the Denier Foot Soldiers, fight the trench warfare.
Thanks for your dedication, intelligence & hard work.
“Temperatures have plateaued at a high level and may even dip during this decade due to the muting effect of several natural cycles. But those cycles will end. ”
Same thing you hear after every prophecy fizzles out. Always the hidden influence of a supernatural force that has chosen to mute its effects for the time being. You can’t see the force, and you can’t measure its reluctance, but the Chosen Ones have Secret Knowledge.
Rather sad, but it’s a highly enjoyable sadness.
Incidentally, cycles don’t end. That’s why they’re called cycles.
Anthony, Your site is very appreciated. The amount of science you can learn here, and not just climate science, is awesome.
I read some of the ad homs your site gets at places like the Huff & Puff and wonder if the idiots making the snarky comment ever even visited and read anything here.
David Ball, your father is an example of heavily funded skeptic: he has a pension! /sarc
Oh well they will get a little boost today because of this thread. Tomorrow back to the steady decline…
It’s so sad that you have had to make many sacrifices to keep the blog rolling when all sceptics are supposed to be part of MegaCorpDenialIncorporated.
As for Romm, it’s a pity that it had to happen to such a charming, reasonable fella. (sarc).
I don’t know it is because I am old and failing, or what but the “>? in this article seems backward….
never mind, I just wrked it out.
The downside of having very high site traffic, plus the fact that the alarmist blogs are failing, is the increase in trolls who have only heard the sanitized and censored side of the debate.
That’s OK, we can handle them. But it’s irritating reading some of the nonsense coming from those folks. On another thread a pal reviewed author commented that the troposphere was warming as predicted. I had to correct him. And that guy should know better. But he lives in a model world, and apparently believes only the models. Reality disagrees.
Anyway, the warmist crowd helps the numbers: more than 111 million unique hits, and counting. Also approaching a million reader comments; a more interesting metric. Maybe those Big Oil checks will start flowing after all.☺
I’ve learned more about cows on this blog than they learn about climate science on theirs.
And that’s all one needs to say.
The AGW crisis is not a climate crisis. The late 20th century warming is over. It will be interesting to hear the back pedalling as the planet cools due to the solar cycle 24 magnetic cycle change.
The AGW fear mongering is the true crisis. Massive deficit government spending on dot.com green scam projects is the true crisis. Reality is reailty. Greece will declare bankrupcy. Spain will follow.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,825490,00.html
Bankruptcies Have German Solar on the Ropes
The German solar industry is at a turning point. The bankruptcy of Q-Cells this week shows that the days of German solar cell production are numbered. Asian competitors took the lead years ago, and German government subsidies were part of the problem.
A String of Bankruptcies
In December 2011, two major solar companies slid into bankruptcy: Berlin-based Solon and Erlangen-based Solar Millennium. In the case of Solon, Indian firm Microsol acquired the core business; but of the company’s 1,000 employees, only 400 remain employed today. Solar Millennium’s bankruptcy came as a major blow to thousands of small investors who had lent the firm money.
In March 2012, Freiburg-based Scheuten Solar, the firm that presented what was the world’s largest solar module at the time eight years ago, declared bankruptcy. The same month, power plant producer Solarhybrid and the Frankfurt an der Oder-based Odersun, which had been prestige projects supported by political leaders in the eastern state of Brandenburg, also filed for insolvency proceedings. Other bankruptcies are likely to follow.
The worst hit in the German solar crisis are companies that made bad business decisions. Most of the companies effected failed to wean themselves from reliance on government subsidies. The companies had all been aware that the market was rapidly changing, but they reacted too late or too slowly. Solar subsidies had been a highly effective political means of promoting the environmentally friendly technology, but in a rapidly maturing market, they are quickly losing their impact.
And the problem isn’t the recent cuts to solar subsidies. The problem has been mismanagement across the industry in Germany.
TomRude, that is the extent of it. They are trying to crush his spirit as well as his pocketbook.
Immense pressures at the moment. People (both sides) should wonder why such a concerted effort to marginalize him.
My quick summary of what this means: before climategate (Nov, 2009), AGW-skeptics couldn’t get a story, much less a headline — dead-tree or online. But afterwords, much changed. A lot of effort went into message control, AGW CYA, occasional pushback or coverup denials, or diversions like “no problems to see.” Critics got noticed, even if the news stories were biased – especially in Great Britain, less so in North America.
Somehow, between the failure of COP-14 and later AGW-wacko events and Deniergate turned Fakegate (la affaire Gleick), and after the turn of House of Representatives to Republican control, AGW went on the back burner politically. In terms of science, there has been a turn to churnalism – repeating old phony ‘methods’ of weak analysis that get crowded out in the news by activist caterwauling about catastrophic weather.
Climategate 2.0 followed by Gleick in 2012 and the looming all political campaign in the US seems to have sucked out all the air and activism out of the room, as a lazy, brain-dead zombie trope of ‘Global Weirding’ in the MSM appears to be all that remains, until the forces of AGW-alarm regroup.
Meanwhile, a blogospheric restructuring seems to be taking place (as told above), reflecting a scientific collapse and parallel activist re-prioritization. Are you with me, folks?
I don’t follow Tom Fuller’s line here: “The IPCC’s upcoming AR5 is, by all appearances, going to be much more subdued in its claims and much more reasonable as a result.” REALLY? Based on exactly what evidence?
When our Prez visited Vermont a few weeks ago and gave a speech at UVM, it was too surreal to bear. He never really said anything, other than reciting a list of “things Vermonters want to hear” (to the cheering of several hundred invitation-only college students), “green energy!”, “renewable!”, “environment!”, and “scientific consensus!”. I had to turn off the radio, such was my disgust at having voted for the maroon in 2008.
The issue may have died on the national scene, but it’s alive and well on a local level when the pols think it will score them points. I may not vote this year, given that a win for the Dems is all but guaranteed in my state.
Our political system needs fixing, ever so much.
Adam said @ur momisugly April 14, 2012 at 5:40 pm
1. Write clearly about what you are passionate about.
2. Identify key words and phrases used by people searching for what you have to tell them.
3. Get linked to by bloggers with as high a Google Rank as you can manage.
4. Write regular updates.
5. Pay close attention to comments your readers make; they will keep you on track.
There. That should get you started 🙂
I write from what I call a climate realist perspective — the emerging scientific view that on our current greenhouse gas emissions path we are poised to destroy the livability of the climate for centuries to come. The most important post that lays out that case is:
An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces
TOO FUNNY!
Anthony, you and those that write here on this site with you and Mr. McIntyre and a host of other scientist types that fight the battle for truth in science are gladiators for the environment , and we who come here to learn are so thankful for your efforts.
I write from what I call a climate realist perspective —
They have stolen earth’s modus operandi (climate change) and now they’ve stollen the term “climate realist”.
Is nothing off limits to these people?
As referred to above, much learning and insight comes from WUWT. Even the trolls are welcome; their snarky comments result in much science being fired back at them–us mortals learn much from the barrage…
Anthony, I have been a successful entrepreneur for decades. The time is right for you to grow. I am an interested investor, as passed on in emails.
Could the time ever be better to ingnite, and grow a business in this environment (no pun intended)?
REPLY: Haven’t seen an email from you, but then again I get hundreds a day…might want to send again – Anthony
Following the Daily Blog Traffic Report on and off over the last few years, I have never seen any of the warmist sites exceed WUWTs traffic. Seems the why is those rare peaks in their ratings coincides when almost everyone at WUWT goes to their site to view some cocky statement or action they have made. Seems with no WUWT, they would all completely flat-line.
Most Western governments (including Canada’s) are still “paying lip service” to the fraud of global warming, and spending billions in public money to subsidize worthless corn ethanol, and less-than-worthless grid-connected wind and solar power.
These scoundrels and imbeciles have wasted a trillion dollars, and counting.
When our money stops disappearing down the CAGW sewer, we will have achieved something.
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. “
Sir Winston Churchill, November 1942