I regularly get angry emails from people who are convinced that I’m single-handedly destroying the world with my opinion which is supposedly funded by “big oil” and the Koch brothers. Of course, having nothing else, that’s all part of the huge lie people like Dr. Mann likes to push, like this bit of libel over the weekend:
I’m dealing with Dr. Mann’s libel separately, but for the record I’ve never gotten a dime from the Koch brothers, or “big oil”, nor am I a “denier for hire”, and Dr. Mann knows this because he backed down from a similar claim in the past when challenged on it. Now, knowing that, he’s demonstrated malice, fulfilling one of the tests for libel.
That aside, and along the same lines, I recently got an email that included this claim:
“…your pathetic little attempt at pushing climate denialism isn’t working. Places like Real Climate and Skeptical Science are putting your little enterprise to shame.”
So, I thought I’d check and run some numbers to see if I’m shamed or not. Climateers often talk about their climate change cause being a “communications problem”. The numbers I’ve found seem to support that. Witness the new divergence problem:
These are rankings from Alexa.com Lower numbers are better, for example, Google is ranked #1.
It seems that it’s not just globally strong for WUWT, but in the USA too. WUWT is about 8 times more popular in the USA than “Skeptical Science” (SkS), and about 15 times more popular than Real Climate (RC). See the Rank in Country column three:
Look at the bounce rate under Engagement Metrics. Note that over 2/3rds of visitors to SkS don’t engage further. Note also the time on site. WUWT readers spend three times more reading than SkS and almost 9 times more than at RC.
Hmm, well since the email was sent anonymously (as most of the rants are), and I don’t know where the person was located, maybe they were talking about Australia where SkS is located? Maybe that’s where they are kicking our butt? Note column three, Rank in Country (AU):
Eh, guess not- the ratio holds. RC doesn’t even have enough traffic in AU to do a comparison.
Even with Dana Nuccitelli’s signing on with the Guardian and making sure that every time he bashes me and/or WUWT in his column he uses a [nofollow] tag or web citation link to prevent web traffic, it seems that he hasn’t succeeded in keeping WUWT down nor in significantly growing his audience on “Skeptical Science” in the USA or Australia.
Maybe it’s in the UK, where the Guardian is located. Surely SkS is beating me there with all that mass media driven Guardian backed firepower? Note column three, Rank in Country (GB):
Apparently not.
Let’s expand the comparison a bit. My subscription to Alexa allows me to run up to 10 comparisons. I identified what I think to be the most widely read websites on climate that aren’t mixed in with part of a larger organization, making tracking their stats impossible. This of course precludes places like “Climate Progress”, which are part of the larger “Think Progress” or the Guardian, which has many other departments.
While I wish I could run more than 10 on the same graph, here’s what I learned, again lower numbers are better:
Surprisingly, not only is WUWT leading the pack by a significant margin, it has now surpassed the newspaper “Grist” which has become something of a climate centric enterprise. They also have a paid staff.
Note also Al Gore’s “Climate Reality Project”, which is dead last. It appears that Gore’s million$ don’t translate into traffic. That’s some “reality drop” for him.
That bump that Climate Depot got in late July was from being featured on “The Drudge Report” by the way. Good show Marc Morano.
The metrics are also telling:
So to whoever wrote that email, thanks. It made me look deeper.
Truly, it looks like the climateers have a communications problem. People don’t seem to be engaging them like they used to. Personally I think people are seeing through it all, and angry, irrational, rants from people like Mike Mann don’t seem to be helping his cause at all. I can understand their cognitive dissonance though, because in the world where they exist, where everything is grant/funding driven, surely some former TV weather guy in Chico California and his collection of “flying monkeys” (in SkS parlance) can’t possibly be doing what he’s doing without some massive “big oil” funding behind it. Right? Surely the Koch brothers must be secretly paying for it, like Mann thinks. The truth is, WUWT exists on donations, some advertising revenue sharing managed by wordpress.com, and stamina. I couldn’t live on it, but I’m sure that won’t stop people like Dr. Mann from imagining all sorts of nefarious schemes, like his hilarious Christmas calendar episode.
I think that if I was not a broadcaster, I wouldn’t have the stamina to keep WUWT on the air. As a broadcaster, I learned long ago that dead air peppered with occasional feature rants doesn’t keep viewers coming back. It might work for awhile, but eventually people tire of it. That’s the lesson here. We can be thankful that we have so many examples of climate ugliness in the realm of the Climateers, because they drive people to the other side.
But most of all, thanks to my readers and volunteer moderators and contributors, because without all of you, WUWT wouldn’t be where it is.
“The cost to Germans of subsidizing renewable energy is set to rise nearly 20 percent next year — highlighting a problem for the government as it manages the country’s exit from nuclear power.”
I wonder what Mann has to say to that?
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/germany-sees-sharp-rise-energy-subsidy-costs-20572309
As the old saying goes Anthony, “if you’re taking this much flak you must be getting very close to the target”.
Keep it up sir, and sue his trousers off!
Mann sure loves his hashtags, doesn’t he? In the immortal words of ?uestlove, “#shutthef***up!”
The fraudsters don’t last that long in historical context. Recall the trip to Antarctica last year featuring Al Gore and Sir Richard Branson purportedly to assess melting ice (and rising sea levels). Now Branson has purchased a low-lying island of his own in the Caribbean and claims it is not for tax avoidance purposes. And that was after a major plane order by Branson’s Virgin Air. The lesson is to watch what they do and not what they say, or preach in the case of Al Gore. Also, James Hansen padded his retirement loot with various deals with Bloomberg and other media groups for spin writing. What all did Michael Mann get for sensational spin science?
NSA tracking is in agreement also.
The Warmists are a pathetic lot, they are now exhibiting all sorts of psychological projections.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com
Looks like a Mannian hockey stick to me, oh the sweet irony.
You should give Mann the opportunity to apologise, unreservedly, via Twitter. If he fails to do so, sue him. He has clearly libelled you.
Put a PayPal button up and I will contribute to your legal fund.
ddpalmer, that Salon article is interesting in how it is presented. Both the web-link and the title indicate Koch brothers donated large amounts to Heartland, and the by-line has the figure $24 million. However the reality in the text has only $25,000 to Heartland.
This is a typical Modus Operandi. They will repeat anything that helps their cause, no matter how untruthful. When exposed, they just move on and repeat the lie somewhere else.
Bragging about your high ratings is not nice. It is OReilly level foolish.
Congratulations Anthony. I thought the Bounce reading was interesting, with WUWT at 37.7%, down 12%. I guess that means where ~50% of WUWT visitors once looked no further, almost 2/3rds are staying around to read more.
MikeN says:
October 15, 2013 at 8:20 am
It is customary to put /sarc after a comment (if it is done on purpose of course) to show that you were being comical/sarcastic/caustic/witty/etc rather than plain dumb.
Jimbo says:
October 15, 2013 at 5:51 am
“Even Warmists are beginning to see the light.
Suzanne Goldenberg – Guardian – 16 February 2012
“…There is hardly any sign of support from big oil companies – which stand to lose heavily through action on climate change……”
Not really. Goldenberg is a liar or stupid. Big Oil stands to GAIN from CO2 restrictions because the coal competition will get punished.
That is the reason for BP having funded the CRU of UEA, for instance.
Maybe the Guardian deliberately lies about it; but I would not exclude stupidity as a possible explanation.
Just a couple of notes
1. Thanks to everyone for the kind word of encouragement and support
2. I had originally had Jo Nova’s website in the comparison, but since it only allowed 10, I opted to include Al Gore’s climate reality instead, since his million$ clearly aren’t having an effect. Jo does wonderful work and please don’t think I slighted her. Perhaps I’ll add another graph today.
DirkH says:
October 15, 2013 at 8:28 am
“Maybe the Guardian deliberately lies about it; but I would not exclude stupidity as a possible explanation.”
The relative carbon content per unit of energy in different sorts of fuels is probably a concept that is far beyond the horizon of social engineers at a hardcore leftist newspaper. So let’s go with stupidity.
Wow. Who can spend only 9 minutes here?
I thought the same thing. 9 minutes? Are you kidding? Even after an hour’s reading I often go scurrying into the internet to bone up on something and then come back here to continue reading.
I wish I had a nickel for every time a warmist lied or spread misinformation.
Yeah, I spend 10 or twenty 9 minuteses here per day. Some are contiguous, some are not.
Good of The Mann to drive still more traffic your way!
Here is why people like Mann are unable to change their minds when the facts change:
http://io9.com/the-backfire-effect-shows-why-you-cant-use-facts-to-wi-1443792942
If Mann is tweeting as an employee of a University, hit him where it hurts. Inform the University of the slander and instruct the University to order Mann to tweet a retraction. That Mann would use the purloined and faked documents to further dig himself into his slander hole makes your job easier to convince the University to make him apologize and then to gag him.
Universities don’t take kindly to one of their own saying libelous things about the University. That is a two way street. One of their own cannot say libelous things about outsiders on the University’s dime.
This is one of the premier locations to explore ideas on climate, extrapolate, conclude, and pursue interesting climatological phenomena. (as well as some other material of earth science interest)
As for the Mann issue, he and others like him are hate mongers protecting the billions they receive to promote an agenda driven scheme by which the end result is to further enrich themselves at the expense of not themselves but the rest of those suffering fools who in general who have not pulled themselves out of their bottom rear. That being said is compared to voluntary penny funding you might or might not receive. So far, with your meager resources, have risen above the mud slinging and I must agree with those who suggest to stay out of the courts as they also, to a large degree, are politically agenda driven.
There is plenty of examples of perpetual stupidity being broadcast in the lefty AGW media such as the following with regard to the dead freezing cattle in South Dakota that the vast majority of people just don’t by into. Example:
“Some wonder whether the arrival of a storm this catastrophic so early in the season is yet another red flag waving frantically to alert us that climate change is real and is happening all around us. For example, ClimateCentral.com indicates in a response to a comment about this snowstorm, “[U]nusually heavy snowstorms like this one, which broke all-time records, are not inconsistent with what we’re already seeing due to manmade global warming—increased extreme precip events.”
Consider the millions and billions spent on promoting AGW and what have they accomplished? Accusatory rhetoric? Libelous comments? Demonizing by standers?
Continue to sound the trumpet of simple logic, good science, and clear thinking. Truth will prevail.
Pamela Gray says: “If Mann is tweeting as an employee of a University, …”
Not sure that matters, Penn State policy says HR64 says (my bold):
“Faculty members are citizens, members of learned professions, and representatives of this University. When the faculty member speaks or writes as a citizen, the faculty member shall be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but the special position in the community held by the faculty member imposes special obligations. As a person of learning and an educator, the faculty member is expected to remember that the public may judge the profession and institution by his/her utterances. Hence, the faculty member agrees at all times to be accurate, to exercise appropriate restraint, to show respect for the opinions of others, and to make every effort to indicate that he/she is not an institutional spokesperson.”
And Penn State policy AD47 says (my bold):
“Professors, guided by a deep conviction of the worth and dignity of the advancement of knowledge, recognize the special responsibilities placed upon them. … They practice intellectual honesty.”
If Dr Mann. has been informed of the inaccuracies of such accusations before, then repeating them is not intellectual honesty (AD47) and he is not being accurate (HR64).
HR64: http://guru.psu.edu/policies/OHR/hr64.html
AD47: http://guru.psu.edu/policies/AD47.html