This is the five thousandth published post on WUWT, since this is a computer written blog, publishing the number in binary seemed appropos. 1388 for you hexadecimal fans.
I don’t have anything profound to say. It is just a number, and other blogs have reached and exceeded this number, so it is no biggie. But, I will share a few thoughts.
- I find myself running the most visited climate related website in the world. I never set out to do that, it just happened to turn out that way. WUWT has been a part of climate history, partly by skill, partly by persistence, partly by luck.
- I think of blogging much like I did my days of broadcast TV, it is a 24/7 occupation. I’m always “on”.
- I’m proud of what this blog has achieved. I’m proud of the reach we have.
- OTOH there are things I’m not proud of. I’ve made some stupid mistakes, said some things I regret, and sometimes I’ve let my emotions get the better of me. I’m human. That said, I’ve learned much too. I’d like to think I’ve learned from mistakes and that I’m better at this job now than when I started.
- I’m thankful for the supportive community we have here. I was stunned and gratified that you all came to my aid in getting funds to publish the surfacestations paper. Know that all of you have my sincere gratitude.
- Some days it is a struggle to post something new. From that I realize that I’m tired, probably I need a vacation. I haven’t really had one in several years where I can “disconnect”. Every business trip or even trips with the family inevitably turn into another station survey. My kids know what an MMTS and Stevenson Screen is. They shouldn’t.
- I get more email every day than I can respond to. For those of you that have sent inquires and never got an answer, know that I’m sorry for that. I have to choose what time I have.
- I’ve made thousands of friends, and probably an equal number of enemies. Some days it is a sobering thought. As a result, I have had to be more diligent with my home and business security than I did before.
- I wish I was thirty pounds lighter. I spend way too much time in front of a PC.
- I worry more than I used to. Life seems far more complex than it was 4.5 years ago when I first started doing this. Getting things done seems harder than it used to be.
- Living in California has become depressing. Owning a business in California even more so. The regulation and business climate here is insane. Just today I learned our electricity rates would be going up to pay for Smartmeters. Pissed I am.
- I thank Steve McIntyre, who has always been an inspiration. He set the standard. I’m sure he feels many of the same things I do.
- I’m doubly grateful to the volunteer moderators and guest authors. Without you, I’d be toastier than I am now.
- We live in interesting times, times get more interesting with each passing day.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Finding your blog was the cherry on the cake of climategate.
I’ve said this once before, but you don’t need to post as much as you do – even at half the frequency, there’s still plenty to be chewing on for your readers. Maybe you need to start pacing yourself and thereby creating a little more leisure time. Nobody wins if you burn yourself out – least of all, us.
Thanks for your blog. I’ve learnt a great deal here.
Anthony –
Merely inspirational you are. That’s all. Just an obvious and awesome commitment to excellence. You have also demonstrated how ethics matter in our day-to-day lives.
Big stuff. Thanks for that.
Congratulations, and thanks for all the tremendous effort. Keep up the great work.
Sorry for the spam, but I thought you might like to see how another web site approaches climate, and any question as to their intentions. It’s from realclimate.org, when I actually think they mean realcensors.org. It’s posted under “Handbook of Denialism”. Note the rebuttals are simple to refute with a little bit of web time, especially Al gore’s ramp.
I wrote (OK Skeptic)
I think there are good reasons to be skeptical. These are as follows.
a) The cost to do anything about it is enormous, hence a high degree of certainty is required.
b) The US can’t do much about it anyway. China has taken the lead as the largest C02 producer, and as the next 1,000,000,000 Chinese get their fair share of energy, they will push that number higher.
c) Climate is complex, and I don’t think humans have a great understanding of it (recall the human gnome project promised all kinds of solutions, but it turns out it is much more complex)
d) There seems to be a huge emotional component to some AGW scientists, so I don’t trust their work (looking forward to BEST getting out their data/algorithms/code and letting others munch on it for a few years only to get the earth’s temperature right!)
[Response: I think you are unfair. Please tell us which scientific disciplines practise more openness. and try getting data/algorithms/code from those who argue that AGW is not a problem – see my attempt reported in the NewScientist. -rasmus]
e) If this is such a big deal, why aren’t the global warming people more willing to share their data/algorithms/code in a meaningful way.
[Response: Please see this commment.]
f) IPCC, greens, and others have made preposterous claims, which in the end has probably alienated people from the global warming cause.
[Response: The contents of the IPCC reports should reflect the scientific literature, and the drafting of this report should be transparent. Hence, any claim should be based on the assessment of results published in the scientific literature. This is probably different from whatever is meant by “greens”. Please provide a logical connection. You argue for transparency, but I see none behind the claims that you present. -rasmus]
With a spokesman like Al Gore “the Seas will Rise, the Pestilence, Plague, Drought, and Famine will rule the earth,” and other such old testament claptrap, you are going to find a lot of people associating that catastrophe with AGW, and thinking to themselves “Not likely.” The point is, with opportunists like that out there, leading credence to AGW could enable even more parasites to add no value (as an example of this, I live in a tiny town in California, and it took Federal money, which was 40 – 100 times the annual electric cost of its street lights, to replace them with LEDs. Please agree that is insane!)
g) As I don’t think there is much that can be done about it, I don’t see much need to get off the fence. Study the problem, observe, and let’s see how the models match up to the reality. (As Richard Muller pointed out, buying Priuses in the US isn’t going to solve the C02 problem.)
Changing to an all nuclear source of fuel might, and I wish the stimulus money had been spent on that. My skepticism goes only so far. I do agree there is some non-zero, real chance that AGW will occur if it hasn’t, though I also suspect all this doom and gloom is grossly overstated as a way for unscrupulous people to take money away from others. And I would like to take the obvious, meaningful steps, like encouraging Nuclear, perhaps making it cheaper than Coal at some point. Oh well, that’s probably not in the cards for the average warmista.
Martin Vermeer says:
OK Skeptic rambles:
I live in a tiny town in California, and it took Federal money, which was 40 – 100 times the annual electric cost of its street lights, to replace them with LEDs. Please agree that is insane!
Eh, there are other costs besides electricity. How often were those incandescent or sodium or whatever lamps replaced? How much did that cost in lamps? How much in labor?
…and how long will those LEDs last? Have you ever seen a LED burn out? I suppose they do sometimes, but have yet to see it.
SecularAnimist says:
OK Skeptic wrote: “With a spokesman like Al Gore ‘the Seas will Rise, the Pestilence, Plague, Drought, and Famine will rule the earth,’ and other such old testament claptrap …”
When you blatantly and maliciously lie, to people who know better, about what Al Gore has said, why should you expect anything in response but derision and contempt?
Rasmus demonstrates heroic patience in his responses to your copied-and-pasted litany of dishonest Ditto-Head denialist talking points. It is far better than you deserve.
Are the moderators relaxing their standards for this thread, so as to allow such offensively ignorant and stupid bunkum to be posted as examples of the “denialism” that is the subject of the book review?
Pete Dunkelberg says:
OK Skeptic,
your list of reasons is essentially versions of misdirected mistrust of science and misplaced trust of other sources and their unfounded claims.
First, “The cost to do anything about it is enormous ….”
The cost of business as usual (BAU) is far greater. The cost of climate disruption will be the enormous cost. If we continue burning carbon as you wish, atmospheric CO2 will easily go above 550 ppm. How high was sea level the last time that happened? Meanwhile we do not acknowledge the costs of carbon based energy. The pollution, environmental and health costs of coal, it faced, would make it much more expensive than its official price. Oil brings pollution, foreign dependence, and is a factor in our troubled relationship with the middle east. Chalk up some of the defense budget to oil.
Second, blame China … so all is vanity. No, the US must act and lead. Saying others must go first is the road to destruction.
Then later: buying Priuses won’t solve the problem
Future models will be plug-in optional electric. Electric cars, and decarbonizing the grid plus roof top or backyard solar power will help plenty. It is basic knowledge that a combination of 15 or so fairly large moves will be needed to do what we should do, so of course no one move is the whole solution. This is displayed nicely in a pie chart of 15 wedges somewhere.
Note that all that “all is vanity” stuff serves the interests of Big Carbon (and is a collection of bad arguments).
Then: “I don’t think humans have a great understanding of it (climate).”
Speak for yourself. Scientists understand climate quite well enough to know that continuing with BAU is folly.
Then: a misguided statement about “preposterous claims.” That’s just a slur based on not knowing science. Most commenters here at least read research papers. It is true that the denial industry uses incorrect statements (often made up by them) to push false doubt. What you may not know is the deniers make preposterous claims over and over, and little else.
Then a crack about Al Gore. I didn’t take it as meant to be a real quote. I don’t think that matters for your argument. Just saying his name refutes atmospheric science in the view of some. Learn science and your appreciation for him will grow. But if you are among those who can not reason well when his name is used, do yourself a favor and leave him out of your deliberations.
Consider that the chance that you are right and physics is wrong is nil. Then consider that if you are wrong, and your consul to do nothing is heeded, the human cost will be extreme. And consider that although there is initial cost to replacing old power plants with renewable energy, we will be better off when it is done. Can you in fairness still consul no action?
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Thank you Anthony.
You are an inspiration and WUWT contains a wealth of information.
Regards, eh? ☺
Clive
From the once-frozen plains of western Canada … where spring may have finally arrived … albeit two weeks late.
” My kids know what an MMTS and Stevenson Screen is. They shouldn’t.”
As the daughter of an aerospace engineer, who hauled us all over the country from 1955-1969, I can say that you are mistaken. Many of my friends didn’t understand that their fathers had a life, skills and interests outside of the family. I had the honor of knowing who my father was because he shared that life with us. Being in the same school from K-12 was not important. He needlessly apologized for that. Your children have likely gained much from participating in your activities.
As this thread is sort of loose, I would like to bring attention to a figure posted by Skepticalscience:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/SLR_models_obs.gif
The figure pretends to present sea level rise compared to IPCC projections.
The maximum (worst case) IPCC projection is about 6 mm a decade, and the figure pretends to follow that trend.
But take notice: the figure takes 20 years to reach 6 centimeters, not 10.
hahah!
Thanks for your time and effort, sir.
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1001110001000
This is the five thousandth published post on WUWT, since this is a computer written blog, publishing the number in binary seemed appropos. 1388 for you hexadecimal fans.
<<
I was going to mention octal, but I see someone already has. The old CDC Cybers were octal based machines.
No one’s mentioned quaternary or base four: 1032020. DNA and RNA both use a base four system.
Congratulations and thanks for the breath of fresh air every day.
Jim
About the vacation – just take it.
Thanks for providing a spot where sanity can be found along with lively, reasoned discussion. It is much appreciated.
Don
Coming to this site is like getting to lick the icing on the cake of life.
Anthony, ditto to all the accolades, I think you have the best science site going and owe you big time for the education you provide.
There should be a monument raised to those who are saving humanity from the self inflicted catastrophe of “action on climate change”. Steve McIntyre’s name would lead the roll, but “Anthony Watts” would have a prominent place of honour.
Congrats, Anthony. I fear that the fact that you count blogs is a sign of stress – you seemed a bit that way when we met in Melbourne. Worrying does no good, it confines the mind. You’ve now set boundaries on what you can and cannot do, so you are eligible by far for some lower key effort (that does not equate with lower quality).
However, the importance of WUWT is partially measured by its activity and numbers. If I attempt to recruit another contributor, I do not have a good idea of the demographics of your present subscribers, so I do not know if there is an age bracket or a qualifications bracket that is under represented.
If you could derive the information and tell us a wants list like “More people needed in 20-30 age group with qualifications in earth sciences” or “political activists we see on other blogs” or “media reporters”, to pluck 3 categories from the air, it would help us recruit. You might be filled to brimming with people like me, retired, science background, more able to critique than calculate, but very willing to help.
congratulations anthony –
do hope mrs watts if doing well.
both of u should take it easy whenever the opportunity arises.
this blog is an inspiration and has led tech-challenged people like me to explore a subject we had wrongly “taken for granted”.
Excellent website that lives up to it’s name. You never know what you will find when you “link in” to WUWT, but invariably there is something interesting going on.
About time you took a decent break Anthony,where the only climate concern is,
`is it a nice one?`
Don`t burn yourself out, shut the blog for a week or two,we`ll still be here.
Congratulations. Just remember family comes first. And nobody, no company, no State or Country is too big to fail.
John X and Ric Locke have recommended you relocate to the hill country of Texas. I did that last year from just down the road from you a bit in California’s gold country. My wife and I decided there was no need for us to be participants in California’s economic suicide. Give us a shout if you are ever in Austin and we will treat you to an evening at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema- the very best movie theater in the country. The owners started in the theater business in Bakersfield and gave up after a couple of years. They moved to Austin and enjoyed fantastic success due to the business friendly nature of Texas. You should be able to do the same.
5000 posts! That’s a body of work. And with that comes authority. And with that comes an assured place in the history of the AGW phenomenon.
The best, Anthony!
“partly by luck” – I agree, as in : “the more I practise, the luckier I get” (Gary Player?)
One of the things that to my mind really sets WUWT apart from the opposition is this : any evidence that supports CAGW will be posted here.
Thank you, thank you and thank you very much.
Take a break, good Anthony. The sun will continue to rise. You’ll need energy closer to 2012.
Congratulations Anthony.
Having had the honour of hosting you on your Townsville leg of your Australian tour last year and sharing a Lemon, Lime and Bitters or two on the Strand in Townsville I know the hard work and dedication you put into your website. The amazing job you do of keeping things fresh and up to date does you great credit.
If you are sick of California remember that there is this quiet little place down under called Queensland that would welcome you and your family with open arms. It gets a bit windy and wet at times (Yasi) but generally the weather is beautiful one day and perfect the next.
BTW have you noticed that Andrew Bolt has his own show on TV now which started last Sunday. It was a ratings smash. Perhaps you might get a call up as a guest when your surface stations paper is released.
Cheers Michael