WUWT milestone – 10 years

Foreword by Anthony, decade in review by Janice Moore.

Ten years ago today, I started Watts Up With That with one simple blog entry.

Since then, I’ve had 15,559 Posts and 1,902,684 Comments and 291,103,411 Views as of this writing. (updated at publish time)

Running this website, changed my life, and helped to change the world, if only in a small way. The reach is worldwide, where at my former TV station I only reached northern California. Now I have people who love me and hate me on all seven continents. Best of all, I don’t have to wear makeup to broadcast and sometimes I write in my skivvies. That’s freedom, yet just like running a newspaper, there’s always another story. You can’t go a day without publishing, so it’s freedom with a ball and chain attached. I have not taken a real vacation from blogging during that entire time. Still, I wouldn’t trade it. I’ve written entries from all over the world, in China, Belgium, The UK, Australia, Canada, and hundreds of places in the USA. Thanks to WiFi, I’ve written from planes, trains, and automobiles. In the field, and in the city, from Skyscrapers to a Motel 6.

I’m made some enemies in the process, but I’ve also made many, many, friends. Some of the people I’ve met have helped me though difficult times, others have inspired, some have kept me focused when entropy threatened to wreak havoc. Some have provided content when I was too tired to go on. I thank you all. I thank these people who have helped me behind the scenes, but I also thank you; the regular, general readers, the lurkers, and even the detractors.

A few people I’d like to thank personally are listed below in no particular order. I’m sure I’ve forgotten somebody, it isn’t intentional.

Steven McIntyre, Dr. Roger Pielke Senior, Dr. William Gray (deceased), Dr. Roy Spencer, Dr. John Christy, Dr. John Neilsen-Gammon, Dr. Leif Svalgaard, Dr. Judith Curry, Dr. William Happer, Dr. Richard Lindzen, Dr. Pat Michaels, Dr. Chip Knappenberger, Willis Eschenbach, Evan Jones, Bob Tisdale, Christopher Monckton, Dr. Tim Ball, Dr. S. Fred Singer, Kenneth Haapala, Tom Nelson, John Goetz, Jim Steele, Gary Boden,  Frank Lansner, Larry Hamlin, William Briggs, Dennis Ambler, Bill Illis. Jeff Id, Indur Goklany, Alec Rawls, Verity Jones, Joe D’Aleo, John Coleman, David Middleton, Eric Worrall. Dave Stealey, Mike Lorrey, Mike Jonas, Robert E. Phelan (deceased) Charles Rotter, Steven Mosher, David Little, Dr. Ira Glickstein, Dr. Susan Crockford, Marc Morano, Matt Dempsey, Chris Horner, Myron Ebell, David Schnare, E. Calvin Beisner, Caroline Kettle, Viv Forbes, Bob Fernley-Jones, Pat Frank, Larry Kummer, Kip Hansen, Rud Istvan, Kest Green, Andrew Montford, Barry Woods, Dr. Benny Peiser, Scott Gates, David Hoffer, Dr. David Demming, Wim Rost, David Burton, Ronald Voisin, Mr. James Waters, Richard Drake, David Archibald, Andy May, Jo Nova, Simon from Sydney, Andi Cockroft, Poptech, Dr. David Evans, Alan Moran, Dr. Jennifer Marohasy, Chris Field, John A., Mike Bastasch, Matt Drudge, Mark Steyn, Melissa Howes, Nic Lewis, Jos de Laat, Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., James Delingpole, Paul Driessen, Russell Cook, Joseph Bast, Jim Lakely, James Taylor, Charlie Martin, Leo Goldstein, Roger L. Simon, Lucia Liljegren,  Janice Moore, Marisa Mark, Ed Berardi, Dr. Robert Brown, Marcel Crok, Dr. Richard Tol, Stephen and Dr. Mary Graves, Juan Slayton, Ric Werme, Paul Homewood, and Josh (cartoonist extraordinaire).

Here are some people that haven’t been all that nice to me, but deserve thanks nonetheless, because they’ve given me something to write about, debate, and criticize. While normally you don’t thank detractors, I think WUWT would not have been as successful without them. Credit where credit is due.

Dr. James Hansen (who started this whole mess), Dr. Gavin Schmidt (who continues the mess Hansen started, er, well maybe, Trump might fire his egotistical ass), Al Gore (who turned it into a business), Joe Romm (who turned it into a hateful political mess), Dr. Peter Gleick (who showed us that crime doesn’t pay), David Appell (who showed us that condescending people can have a nice side too), William Connolley (whose acidic condescending behavior ruined hundreds of Wikipedia pages, and shows none of the occasional kindness David Appell shows), David Suzuki (who proved that you can scare children with Santa Claus climate stories), Nick Stokes (who has shown us that unrelenting pig-headedness can be a virtue, but has displayed occasional kindness), Ken Rice (and then there’s Physics, who has proven that one can have a degree in Astronomy, and still be dumber than a box of rocks when it comes to climate), Eli Rabbett (aka Dr. Joshua Halpern, who demonstrated a 10+ year fascination with snark and an invisible rabbit), disgraced former IPPC Chairman and apparent sex fiend Rajenda Pacahuri (who showed us that even Nobel prize winners can be scumbags while telling us we are practicing “voodoo science” for pointing out flaws in AR5)  and last, and most certainly least, Dr. Michael Mann (who led the way downward in science with small-minded thinking, pettiness, statistical murder, Nature tricks, and obfuscation). As Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. once quipped, “if Michael Mann didn’t exist, skeptics would have to invent him“.

I thank everyone who has made WUWT a success. This will be my last entry today. Later, I think I’ll take a nap and then go out for a nice dinner and maybe a beer. I think I’ve earned it.

Anybody that wants to contribute to the beer fund can do so with the “Donate” button on the right sidebar.

I now turn it over to Janice Moore, who worked for weeks on this decade-long anthology of highlights, I am in her debt. She writes:

This document was a joy to research and compile, but, at times, it was quite a challenge; it is hard to type with tears in your eyes. This is quite a story… To create a rough sketch of WUWT’s first decade, I tried to select a fairly representative sample, but, the sketch is colored by my own conscious and unconscious preferences. For instance, after the first couple of years, I skipped most of the solar threads (a worthwhile subject, but, well, we had had, by then, rather enough solar discussion for an anthology). (Note: the solar articles are easily found by using the WUWT Search Box (upper right margin).) Originally, I had a separate “HUMOR” section. I changed my mind and the humorous entries appear chronologically, mingled in with the straight education and current events, with the appalling and the dry, the technically eye-crossing (for us non-scientists) and the heart-rending, providing much-needed comedy relief in the midst of the grim battle for truth. I also started out with a “WISDOM” section, but have also incorporated those comments chronologically, sometimes separated from the rest of the thread (mostly to make my cutting and pasting revising easier!).

My goal in writing this anthology was to capture the heart of WUWT without distorting the original (i.e., keeping within the error bars of a reasonably accurate representation of the data, lol), complete, composition of WUWT. Please do not assume that because a given thread was not included I did not think it worthy. Some highly useful and or intriguing threads were left out due to their especially difficult technical nature or highly esoteric subject matter. Most likely, a given thread was not included simply for brevity’s sake. As to the included selections, most are merely summarized in this anthology, thus, I hope you will go to the original document.

Re: reader comment selection — Again, brevity controlled. I tended to include comments that were: helpful to understanding the subject or especially witty or humorous or touching or “typical WUWT.” If you want to see troll comments, while I included a few for amusement, for most of them, you’ll have to go to WUWT and see the thread. I refuse to give them one MORE stage upon which to parade their gobblinish song and dance.

Omitted text is usually indicated by “…” or “[ ]”, however, sometimes these punctuation marks were the original writer’s own. Please know that much of the omitted text was delightfully entertaining and or highly informative. Brevity dictated most of the omissions. Also, sometimes I ghost edited to keep down edit mark clutter. Re: my edits for style or grammar or ease of reading or for dramatic effect: 1) while leaving typos and the like in would have preserved for this anthology the flavor of WUWT (where no editing is possible), I chose to idealize, to a point, the writing (if you want the humor of reading some fun typos, the link is right there to check it out); 2) please do not feel embarrassed at my corrections – we all understand the frustration that is typing on a “smart” phone or into a WordPress edit-not-possible reply box or the understandable difficulty of writing in English when it is not one’s first language, and like issues; and 3) I sometimes left in an English-not-first-language writer’s very charming mistakes, their “accent” being such a delight to “hear.”

If a link does not work, try pasting it into your browser. (There were some broken links as of this writing, but I left them in for reference.)

There is likely a way (not going to attempt to give IT advice) for you to take notes and to annotate this anthology to include favorite articles I left out. Turn it into your own creation! See also “Ric Werme’s Guide to WUWT” (blue square in right margin) for WUWT Classics – a fine list of some of the best WUWT articles (several not included in this anthology).

Finally, a candle in the window for one who cannot speak, but who I know is there: Love is eternal, life immortal. “Death” is only a horizon and a horizon is only the limit of our vision.

Final word: Looking back over these ten years of smiles and frowns, of elation and agony, and of long, lonely, hours of hard work, this fact shines out above all the rest: one person can make a difference.

You see, [Anthony Watts,] you’ve really had a wonderful life.

Clarence Oddbody, Angel Second Class (before his promotion) in film “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Always. Janice

NOTE: This is a very large PDF file, 2436 pages!  Some may not be able to view it within your browser. Suggested reading is to do a “save as..” and download it.

wuwt-the-battle-for-science-the-first-ten-years (PDF 18.1 MB)