by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Those brave enough and open-minded enough to ask questions in the search for objective scientific truth about our influence on the climate rather than credulously swallowing and cloyingly parroting the socially-convenient, politically-expedient, financially-profitable party line will henceforth celebrate 7 January as Watts Up Day.
For it is today that Anthony’s outstanding blog welcomes its 100 millionth visitor: eight orders of denary magnitude. In the twinkling of an eye, Wattsupwiththat.com has become one of the most significant and influential news media on Earth. Rupert Murdoch, eat your heart out.
How has Anthony achieved this? First and foremost, by courageous persistence in the face of the barrage of venomous ad-hominem name-calling that is the sullen climate-extremists’ characteristically petulant – and increasingly desperate – way of treating those whose scientific and economic arguments even the IPCC-hugging hard-liners among them are beginning to suspect may be true.
To gather, edit, and publish several new postings daily; to illustrate each one with a suitable image; to recruit, manage, and motivate surely the best team of moderators on any blog; to keep a patient balance, maintain courtesy, and reject extremism even in the skeptical direction; to scour the web and the literature for facts and data and papers of interest; that is just part of what it takes to control the gentle giant that WattsUpWithThat has become.
And it is hard work, 24/7, 366 days a year. I do not suppose that the advertising revenue that Anthony now gets comes anywhere close to compensating him for the exhaustingly relentless grind that maintains the daily splendor of his exceptional blog.
Not long from now, when the absurd intellectual aberration among the world’s governing class that is “dangerous global warming” is a mere curiosity rather than a grave threat to the economic and political well-being of Man and a mortal menace to the democracy of the West, historians will write of their admiration for the small and gallant band who worked out the truth for themselves in the teeth of lavishly-funded hostility and quietly asserted it against all attempts to bully them into silence until it could no longer be denied.
Not the least among this platoon of heroes, outgunned but not outclassed, will be Anthony Watts, to whom the world has very good reason to be grateful. Long may he and his blog flourish. Let us hope that there will be no need for Anthony to keep at it until he notches up his ninth order of magnitude. Here’s to Anthony, his long-suffering family, and his hard-working team. Ad multos annos floreatis!
Robert of Ottawa says:
January 7, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Gareth Phillips @ur momisugly January 7, 2012 at 3:40 pm:
Robert, I thought your response to Gareth was a bit harsh. His comment demonstrates that there are Climate Realists on both sides of the traditional political divide. Here in the States those of the liberal persuasion seem to be most vociferous in pushing the CAGW, but many Republicans/Conservatives are also true believers: Bush, McCain, Gingrich, Condoleeza Rice… to name just a few. CAGW is a political agenda, but it is more the agenda of elitist statists. Making it strictly a “left-right” issue is an exercise in what Marx would have called “false consciousness”. The elitists are intent on keeping all of us in line.
major9985 says:
January 7, 2012 at 8:46 am
“Poor Anthony, what immature reply, and to even talk about courage when you clearly don’t have any to stand up to the fact you associate yourself with Monckton.”
Monckton must have zapped you really hard on an occasion of one of your inanities – you’re one-tracked mind is causing you to dribble. It must have been an accident if he did because he is also an honorable man and would never engage in a duel of wits with an unarmed opponent. Whatever it is, don’t feel so bad, he also won the annual Oxford U debate on climate, I believe two years running, against powerful, prepared and purposeful opposition- particularly the second time around. He is a dangerous man to argue with if the outcome is critically important to you. You are one of the rare ones who seemes to exhibit an imperviousness to the wonderful education available to you at WUWT. It seems the best presenters for the CO2-is-global-warming side also come here – the likes of R. Gates and Joel Shore to choose two of the few dozen or so. They provide the kind of intelligent commentary that forces one to not be careless or slack in making the skeptic’s case (I mean here the serious skeptic who is interested in the truth, one that accepts that there has been recent warming but isn’t convinced by the offerings that it is largely due to manmade CO2 additions.) I wouldn’t come here if there wasn’t that kind of two way intellectual fertilization. Come on, get into the spirit of it – whatever side you are on- and offer something useful to the dialogue – you will be enriched for it.
Very well said Sir. My thoughts exactly.
“Watts Up day” – it has a certain ring to it…
Anthony – beer tokens of my appreciation are on the way…
Thank you Lord Monckton for your words.
And thank you, Anthony, for your actions.
With my warmest (no pun intended) regards.
Jim
Congratulations, Mr Watts. Keep up the good work.
Anthony and crew:
An amazing statistic, which should be ominous to the CAGW crowd. Let them sweat ;)))
Congrats!
I, too, lurk every day. I am a true layman (or woman) when it comes to any sort of science, but I never take anything at face value, I question everything (most probably why I did not do well at school in the 60s).
I only picked up on the climate chage ‘debate’ in 2007 when we in Oz we were told by the then PM, ‘KRudd’, that we were facing the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’. I then went looking for information on global warming, found out about something labeled AGW and wound up at WUWT. Notwithstanding a lot of the technical stuff is over my head, I have learned heaps. Thank you and congratulations to you, Mr Watts, your contributors and bloggers.
Lord Monckton, I wish you could have seen my face as I watched you skydive into Durban. One of the most uplifting moments in this struggle.
Congratulations, Anthony, and Christopher Monckton, from a septuagenarian and long-time visitor from Australia. Lang may yer lums reek! I have seldom, if ever, posted on your site, but the quality and civility of your articles make for a recurring object lesson to those who demonise others who will not toe the IPCC line but instead know that CO2 is a trace atmospheric gas essential to life on planet Earth.
major9985 says:
January 7, 2012 at 7:17 am
I cant believe you even let Monckton visit the site.
So, major, how do you explain the fact that you visit a site that lets Monckton visit it?
In other words, you’ve just been defeated by your own standard of “intellectual snobbery”, which, sadly for you, is also one characteristic defining a member of a Cult…another characteristic being an [anti-scientific] denial of reality in favor of fetishes and phobias [Monckton and his words]. But on the bright side, major, having shown your ‘bravery’, they’ll probably take you back in anyway!
I’ve recommended this site to many people with the caveat that they should be careful–it can be so addictive it will change their lifestyle along with their perception of the world.
Lots of people waste their time playing video games, which I find unthinkable. I spend what free time I have trying to keep up with the fountain of knowledge this site has become (like trying to drink from a fully-open fire hose)!
Congrats to Mr. W, Lord M, and all the moderators and guest contributors!
(Posting of some of the most laughable troll comments I’ve seen in a long time is a testament to your effectiveness in destroying “The Cause”, “The Team”, general climate stupidity, and blatant propaganda–shame, shame on those people!)
I wonder how many visitors RealClimate has had.
Alice:
We are all in the real climate, so I would guess approx 7 Billion or so?
Congratilations from another Australian who visits your site virtually every day, for both its science and its civility. I too look forward to the day when it is clear that sceptical arguments can no longer be ignored, and become the basis for policy. Then, I am sure you will feel able to relax from the extraordinary workload your blogging must represent
“”””” Harry Dale Huffman says:
January 7, 2012 at 8:06 am
Political rant, done for self-glorification; I see this every day from Obama and the other presidential candidates now, I don’t like seeing it here too. It merely reminds us all that the “debate” is political, not scientific, and above all dogmatic, not truthseeking. This post is like turning the dirty sock, covered in climate alarmism, inside out, only to find it is just as repugnant on the other side (due to the dogmatic rhetoric of Monckton, in service to the lukewarm believers in the consensus greenhouse effect, which in fact simply does not exist). “”””
One of the best measures of success as a communications vehicle; one that needs ADVERTISERS to support it, is the nature of of the self selecting parties who choose to advertise with their sticker on YOUR bumper.
So for example, in looney lefty San Francisco; the hub of California Green Socialism; the most popular talk radio station is heavily conservative; actually by self choice entirely conservative.
So guess which talk radio station the powerful CTA chooses to advertise on; and they are just one of the many socialist causes which choose to spend their advertising dollar on the very station whose message they abhor. Every snake oil solar power company in the area, likewise chooses to advertise on a station that when on its own nickel, continues to spread the message of the folly of many so-called “green” free clean renewable energy companies; like Solyndra for example.
So look at who pays for advertising space on WUWT; it’s mostly the very people who disagree most vehemently with the message at WUWT.
They at least have the good sense to know when their message will fall by the wayside; so they don’t advertise on outlets that most support their cause; it’s RATINGS and readership that sells even stuff and nonsense; so the purveyors of hocus pokus choose to advertise with their own dollar at WUWT; I doubt that Anthony is knocking on THEIR doors, cup in hand.
if only Anthony had a penny for every….
Thank you very much Anthony for the great public service you have provided. You have succeeded in educating the public where the academics and journalists have failed: that the Earth’s climate is not simple and that it cannot be described by a simple fairy tale.
I am still trying to stop laughing after reading the good Major’s comments. I visualise him as being in a British Major’s full dress uniform above the belt, and wearing his undies and is barefoot below. He looks somewhat demented and is barking orders at a fire hydrant.
I also enjoy reading the troll’s comments. The techniques they use remind me of a rhetoric class I took ages ago. It would be great if a moderator versed in rhetoric would deconstruct their posts for the audience.
History is written by the victors. You sound like you assume we are going to lose.
One of my hobbies is history. I became a skeptic when they tried to erase the Medieval Warm Period.
As far as I can tell, you’re being quite unfair to historians. And yes, I do think Mr. Watts will go down in history.
Andrew, congratulations from ‘down under’, and many many thanks for your untiring, and informative input.
May I also take this oportunity to say thankyou to many folk who provide very worthwhile scholarly comments on many of the issues raised.
Thankyou to all.
@ur momisuglyVukcevic: Xrstos se Rodi!!
@ur momisuglyotsar; my image is a odds with yours on the major; I see bunny slippers.
@ur momisugly Lord Benchley; Well said, as always.
From down under, I too, ‘lurk’ as many call the activity however, I’d call it ‘enlightening’ as these recent years have shown.
But more to the point, we lurkers/posters would serve Anthony best if we hit the DONATE button and gave a $100 or whatever we each think this site gives us every day of every week of every year for now some 6 years.
Note for Anthony – instal that DONATE button and make it hover before our eyes – you deserve it!
The only thing I ‘hold against’ Lord Monckton is that he makes me dive for my dictionary on a regular basis and learn a new word!! Other than that, he really does a good job of clearing the fog the CAGW crow keep putting out. That’s probably why major9985 hates him. Falsehood hates the light of truth.
Let’s go for a record number of comments into the bargain.
Hearty congratulations, Anthony.
Congrats to you Anthony. As a N. Cal resident, I can’t tell you how much I enjoy WUWT. Thanks for all of your hard work, and the interesting content. As they often say in the local Pub, “You’re the Best
Russ Blake
Congratulations, Anthony. A brilliant achievement. My best wishes to you.