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.
“REPLY: No please, don’t send money.”
So how come Greenpeace or Al Gore never says anything like that.
All the many (far wiser) commenters above: What you all said.
We are very lucky to have WUWT and the hard-working genius behind it. I have learned so very much here: as much about the style and spirit in which to conduct a serious inquiry into the world, as about the results of that inquiry. Open-minded, even-handed, mild-mannered, fair, firm, funny. And far too humble. Many, many thanks.
A. Family
B. Business
C. Blog and related
If you think you’re not assigning enough importance to the first, consider how heavily the first weighs as one of the reasons for doing the other two.
If you can’t see how the first is a reason for doing either of the other two, why not?
I first visited in the summer of 2009, but started reading daily with Climategate. When the oil rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, this was the first place to have pictures and text from people who’d actually been close to it. When the Mystery Missile was videoed off the California coast, this was the site that had the best coverage, pictures, and possible explanations. When the earthquake/tsunami in Japan created problems at the Fukushima Diaichi reactors, this was the first site to point to a connection with real information at BraveNewClimate and World Nuclear News.
Luck has very little to do with your success. Like Smith-Barney, you earned it, every bit of it.
Thanks, and here’s hoping for many, many thousands more!
Ron Pittenger, Heretic
Thank you Anthony.
Anthony,
You do a truly spectacular job that is deeply appreciated across the political spectrum.
Anthony, congratulations for a job well-done! 5,000 posts is a heroic effort. And, thank you again for allowing me to present a guest post from time to time and reach a far wider audience than I would otherwise.
I’ve learned much from these posts and comments and links, and look forward to learning much more as the folly of “greenhouse” gas catastrophic global warming becomes more and more evident.
At one point, some months ago, I believed I might be banned from WUWT for espousing my anti-nuclear power views. Much to your credit, you allowed me to continue to make comments and the occasional guest post.
I thank you, very much, for that, and for having WUWT be the best blog around.
Roger
finding this site was a great thing for me. I am glad you are here….
as for the business thing, move to Texas we LOVE business and have the “climate” to prove it! LOL!
Mr Watts
First of all GRACIAS, muchas Gracias.
Secondly I will appreciate you take a break, I also need a break and can not take it if the posts keep on coming. WUWT is an addictive site.
Tercero: Can we agree after all the information we have at hand, that the world is cooling and therefore start dealing with that scenario. Which would be the implications? What can we do to be prepared? Which will be the progression?
Finalmente un gran Salud en su nombre y todos los que hacen posible este hermoso sitio. Un gran salud con Carmenere chileno.
Juanse
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!
There are insufficient superlatives to describe this website and the products of your dedication, Anthony. It’s also difficult to figure out how one could measure the degree by which you and your contributors have subverted the CAGW narrative – but you have. It is almost certain that not one of your regular readers here has failed to share the astounding revelations of distorted science, issues with measuring temperatures, and discussions of different models for understanding climate with relatives and colleagues (and students), so your influence — along with Steve McIntyre’s and a few others– goes well beyond immediate WUWT participants, and most likely is a major contributor to the declining influence of CAGW alarmism reflected in North American and English polls.
I know what you mean by worrying more, but you should be able to sleep the sleep of the just. Like George Bailey’s in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, your life and work have made the world a better place.
I do hope you take a complete break for a while somewhere with no computer access, and give yourself and Mrs. Watts a chance to restore and refresh yourselves. We all need mental holidays now and then. And that does not mean logging on once or twice every day while you are away (as seemed to happen during a previous ‘holiday’ you took).
As others have already said – we’ll still be here for you when you come back!
polistra says:
May 10, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Polistra is right, Anthony–As a kid, I was hauled around the mountains “prospecting” with my dad, then later found geology to be my favorite science and life-long vocation. Others have said how important it is that our kids know their dads actually work for a living–something quite common with our ancestors as most were farmers/ranchers, but nowadays most kids believe milk is harvested in plastic jugs and meat is always found conveniently sliced and packaged–show them a cow and they simply can’t get the connection (or so shocked they become vegans). Oh, that we all had more professional time with our kids.
Congrats, Anthony, on my favorite blog.
Thank you Anthony – WUWT is my favorite news source – long may your success continue.
PS. It wouldn’t hurt to add a lot more advertising. This might help to defray your costs (e.g. the increasingly onerous CA taxes). I’m sure that your ‘demographic’ are sometimes in need of various services and products, and linking those needs to assorted providers is a free-market opportunity for a quality publisher such as yourself.
+1 Internets to you, sir.
Anthony:
5000 posting, put on one big PDF?
I’d love to have them all.
I’d PAY for it.
Max
A few days back, I commented on a “Reference Pages” thread, observing a minor glitch on the ENSO/SST page – the Sea Level graph was labeled “Salinty”. It was corrected almost immediately. Prodded by your quick work, U. of Colorado finally updated their own page. You do even more good than you know! Thanks, Anthony!
Best,
Frank
Congratulations! I’ve been reading WUWT for about two years, from before Climategate, which was amazing to read day by day and feeling that an organic change was taking place.
I have total admiration for your sheer hard work and tenacity in such trying but exciting times. Thanks, too, to your guests and moderators.
I watched your hit stat grow by ~341,000 hits since last Sat, just 4 days ago. That is hard evidence of yours and the moderators’ impact on truth and sanity.
I’m not sure you realize the strong positive influence you, Steve McIntyre, and so many of the science posters (sorry for not naming you all) to this site have had.
But please take a vacation from this – long as it takes. We don’t want you, or the moderators to burn out.
Thanks to all of you!!
Dear Anthony, I am just an “older” female from Australia who isn’t scientifically trained who reads your blog every day. I try hard to get the gist of what you learned people write – sometimes a bit sinks in. However, I am passionate about destroying so-called Climate Change and its associated hell. PM Gillard (known as Juliar) will pass the Carbon Tax here in Australia over my dead body!
I attended your Sheraton Mirage Gold Coast Australia talk on Wednesday 16 June 2010 – sitting up the front as I am annoyingly partly deaf. I remember saying hello to you in the coffee room as you walked by – something about an article saying Climate Change was affecting the whales.
I knew you were a special person then but after reading your above post just now, you are VERY special. I know how difficult it is for you, having owned and run a Motel and Restaurant 24/7 in Goondiwindi Queensland for 21 years – if you care too much and take pride, your occupation owns you. Nothing is ever good enough and you wish you could do more.
All the best to you and your family. And look after your health.
Sincerefly,
Faye
Thank you, Anthony. Your superb website has given us a lot of help in fighting a totally inappropriate wind farm. We haven’t won yet but there is a fair chance we will win in the courts. Who will be hit number 20,000?
http://www.palmerston-north.info
Anthony
Thanks you for this post. You must know that the people here are very grateful for the work you have done – I for one never cease to be amazed how you seem to pour stuff out and wonder how you cope with your regular work let alone your family life. I look in here first thing in the morning before breakfast because I know that overnight Rumpelstiltskin (you) have spun more straw into gold. There is so much to read (and learn). I also enjoy the humour in the comments.
So at least know that the people here appreciate your efforts. But I know you already know!
regards
Douglas
The other day I went back in the archives to the start of this blog, and was amazed at how, from a tentative few sparks, it has exploded into a veritable conflagration. Before I discovered WUWT, I had little interest in matters climatic, except for a layman’s intuition that the claims of the ‘global warming’ alarmists were the sheerest poppycock. These were folks who could not even begin to account for the end of the last Ice Age, not to mention how the Earth survived eons when CO2 was vastly higher. A little geological perspective is all you need, really, but this site has become a daily tutorial in the infinitely more complicated—and intriguing—nature of the Earth’s turbulent atmospheric envelope, and in a host of other related phenomena.
Somehow, Anthony, you have managed by a combination of presentation skill, complete integrity, and an enduring intellectual curiosity to become a magnet for a fine crowd of interesting people. The 5k posts are indeed an accomplishment, but the roundtable of discussions they have engendered are even more so. Too often I have to tear myself away from a thread, lest the day pass without my leaving the screen, or getting any more mundane tasks done.
So thanks, and as someone said above, take some time off—so the rest of us can, too!
/Mr Lynn
Anthony, Thanks!
Regarding kids and work, my parents ran an A&W drive-in restaurant that absorbed nearly all the day every day. I’m living proof that being raised on bacon-cheese burgers, chili dogs, onion rings, and root beer is possible (and I was thin). Mom ran a book store for several years too. At the restaurant when both mom and dad were there, my sister and I often did homework sitting on the floor. We were none the worse for the wear. We flourished. Mom and dad kept us as a priority, but life happens, and things were not always great, but most of all, we remember the good times. Don’t let the blog hurt your family life, but trust that keeping your family in it will work. You are doing a service for the world. The hockey team members may scoff, but you are making the world a better place. As long as the family knows they are a part of that, and that you love them regardless, they will appreciate it and you, and what it does for you. The kids will appreciate knowing what you know, mostly because you taught them. My kids know what metallic bonding means, and why Gibbs free energy matters. Even my eight-year old understands more about atoms and chemistry than most college grads, and I’m mostly just a manager these days.
Anyway, I want to encourage you to take rest and breaks when needed, but don’t feel guilty about the kids. Keep them involved, and keep them a priority, but they are unlikely to resent the blog if you make an honest effort at proportion. For most of us parents, everything we do is for our kids at the foundation level. So, for what it’s worth, take heart. What you do is good!
Can I just say – a heartfelt thank you.
Anthony, the measure of the efficacy of your work is amply demonstrated by the sad crumbling of your major rival who is reduced to sputtering ad hominem ravings against you and this forum. His response numbers are in marked decline and seemingly grouped around a core of tired old fellow travelers, continuously droning the old CAGW catechisms.
As to California, I was born there (San Diego) in 1930 and have fond remembrances of the golden light of the land and the optimistic outlook of the people. Now, I live as a fairly close neighbor of Roy Spencer in tornado alley, Alabama. When I have time to daydream, I often return to the California days and feel sad about what has happened to that great place.
Keep up the great work, Anthony. You are deeply appreciated.
I started looking into the science behind global warming at SC24. It took me very little time to narrow down the most important blogs in the field to RealClimate, WUWT, and Climate Audit. Those three sites were what turned me into a confirmed skeptic. You should be proud of the work you have done and the high standards you have maintained here.