NBC News:
Two government websites on climate change survive in the Trump era
Reports of climate science being scrubbed from U.S. government websites arrived early in President Donald Trump’s tenure. And the hits keep coming. From the Environmental Protection Agency, to the Energy Department, to the State Department and beyond, references to climate change, greenhouse gases and clean energy keep disappearing.
But even as some corners of the Trump administration sow a cyber garden fertile for the fossil fuel industry, a pair of websites funded by the federal government have proclaimed an unvarnished view of the dangers of carbon-driven climate change.
The two sites, Climate.gov and CLEANet.org, have expanded to more than 700 entries and collectively drew more than 68,000 page views in May, a more than 50 percent increase from the year before. And the lessons delivered by the two sites — about the threat posed by a planet warmed by human actions — extends well beyond that core audience. That’s because both sites are aimed at teachers, who say they use the taxpayer-supported websites to create lessons on everything from increasing CO2 levels to threatened biodiversity to the potential of solar power.
The mere existence of the sites might be a surprise to some in hyper-partisan Washington, where news outlets have been reporting for months about federal departments eliminating or toning down reports on the global warming threat. The durability of Climate.gov and CLEANet.org websites shows that — even under the administration of a president who once denied climate change as a “hoax” — mainstream views of global warming can survive and even thrive.
“In a lot of the federal government, scientists are continuing to do their jobs and to be heard.”
“I think these sites show that in a lot of the federal government, scientists are continuing to do their jobs and to be heard,” said Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy. “They are publishing data and sharing information with the American public, until they are told to do otherwise.”
Full story here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna891806
h/t to Dr. Willie Soon
While NBC News might think that 68,000 page views per month is impressive, in comparison to our regular daily traffic on WUWT, it pales in comparison. For example, here is a screencap from my WordPress dashboard from yesterday, July 16th, which was a fairly typical summer day for WUWT. Note that it shows 92,467 page views in one day.
And here is the last two weeks: (data as of 9AM PST 07/17/18)
In the summer, we typically have about 20% lower traffic than we do in the fall through spring period, which has weekdays that are often well in excess of 100,000 page views.
While the traffic now isn’t as much as it used to be in the heady days post-climategate, WUWT still exceeds any other climate related website in views, despite our detractors.
The overall trend for interest in climate has been down according to Google trends, which looks for keyword searches. Graph by Google Trends, annotations mine:
Source: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Global%20warming,Climate%20change
What’s most interesting is that while there’s been a slow, almost imperceptible increase in the phrase “climate change”, the search phrase “global warming” is getting far less use than it did when data was first collected, back in 2004. Right now, both “climate change”, and “global warming” have low interests.
A clearer illustration of the failure of “messaging” about the urgency of climate change could not be made.
For as long as I am able, WUWT will continue.
Thanks to everyone who has stood with me, who donated to keep WUWT going after seeing what we are up against, such as cyber-attacks, hatemail, and Google’s traffic throttling policy, among other things.
There’s still time to help support WUWT by making a purchase on Amazon during “Prime day”. See the details here.
I just realized another annoyance — with the source-story photo, whose caption reads, The dome of the U.S. Capitol is seen behind the emissions, and a smokestack, from the Capitol Power Plant, which stopped burning coal after years of protests.
Aren’t those … “emissions” … steam ?
And isn’t mentioning protests over burning coal in conjunction with a strong visual involving UNNAMED smoke, blatant conflation designed to mislead ?
Isn’t that photo one big lie ?
The photo, as it is framed, suggests that the big smoke stack is what has emitted the smoke, but I think another smoke stack OUT OF THE FRAME is what emitted that smoke, and that smoke is STEAM ! — water micro-droplets, dear fertile minds.
Surely, the writer knew (or reasonably should have been expected to know) what this smoke was. Surely, the editor publishing the story knew (or reasonably should have been expected to know) what this smoke was.
This is editorial fraud.
“Isn’t that photo one big lie ?”
It sure is. More CO2 propaganda from people who should know better.
Very little escapes WUWT’s attention. We’ve been there. Well, James Hansen has been there. And got snowed on.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/01/hansens-coal-and-global-warming-protest-may-get-snowed-out/
*Stands on chair and pumps fist*
So go wider.
The AGW scam is dying. Not dead yet; don’t let them get away. But it’s beaten.
The reproducibility scandal is a clue to where the real scientific method is not being applied.
WUWT could be the bastion of the Renaissance.
Or it could be another partisan political rant-fest. Pointless
Is this partisan? Absolutely, but not nearly as strictly partisan as the opposing “side”. We have a variety of opinions if you actually read closely, but from what I have seen, you have no interest.
I just love the inflated egos of your type. Funny, I don’t recall you ever contributing data, or what you believe as evidence, or anything of the sort to counter what is being laid out here by actual scientists and lay people, such as myself, who have spent no less than 4,000 hours directly studying the science behind this narrative.
But just like every other adversarial commenter on this site, you refuse to actually debate the science (Save for Nick Stokes. I must give him credit the guy actually puts forth evidence and defends his position) The rest of you are worthless for you contribute nothing but empty platitudes and condemnation/derision/smug holier-than-thou virtue signaling.
I do an informal poll every day while I drive to work to see how many of my neighbours are living in terror of the scientology of Climate Change. I find without fail that the vast majority are driving their full size trucks and/ or SUVs to work or play and paying the obscenely taxed gas prices with barely a whimper. The people who are taking transit that I know of only do so because it is so expensive to park downtown.
My results: there are only the media and politicians trying whip up fear with the help of some NGO’s heavily funded by American interests. The average person gives a big yawn when they hear the endless drivel about climate change.
Here a Santana song fitting for a soundtrack to this article.
If you want to see how truly biased Google is, go to Alerts.Google.com and set up a daily summary alert for “Climate Change”. I did this years ago and my impression is that the results are about 90% alarmist 100% of the time with an error margin of 5-10%. I don’t bother to look at the summary every day anymore but have looked at hundreds of them over the years and WUWT has only made it into the summary a handful of times.
They call steam emissions? Too funny!
Anthony: “For as long as I am able, WUWT will continue.”
Should something occur — God forbid — that you become unable to continue WUWT — what then?
I would like to see this site continue in perpetuum. People will always be interested in the weather, even after a few more decades when the AGW scare will have been discarded in the dust-bins of history.
Holy cow this article is a bunch of garbage
Would it kill you to be a bit more specific as to what IYO constitutes garbage?
Thanks!
Reasons for WUWT’s success relative to those boring, depressing alarmist sites (a subjective list):
1. There’s always something new and different;
2. It’s not only global warming/climate change, there are articles that only touch on GW/CC quite loosely and inform us about subjects we otherwise wouldn’t come across;
3. There is humour. Not only that, there is humor. A lot of it based on the transparent imbecility of so many “climate science” articles of the “climate change causes ingrown toenails in hermit crabs” type, and we all have a good laugh, spill coffee on our keyboards and feel immensely superior;
4. You can learn stuff from the comments as well as the articles; there are a lot of real scientists who hang out here. Even I contribute the odd snippet of geology when a topic veers into areas I know something about.
5. There are original contributions from people like Javier and Willis and vukcevic that actually provoke thought and provide fresh insights into the whole lithosphere-atmosphere-hydrosphere-biosphere system.
For these reasons and others more subtle, visitors who have found WUWT tend to keep coming back. WUWT is INTERESTING as well as INFORMATIVE and AMUSING
Anthony Watts you are a hero. Keep it going long as you can, man.
Thanks for the kind words.
You need to consider the multiplier effect. If that 68k set of viewings is from teachers, then we might assume that they are teaching their classes of perhaps 30+ kids the contents of these pages.
I’m surprised that the Trump administration hasn’t closed down this rather important propaganda channel…
I visit WUWT 2 or 3 times a day now. Whenever I’m on the WWW, it’s in my top 5 of websites I must browse.
Bye Skepticalscience, bye RealClimate
WUWT (Watts Up on World’s Top)
Nothing equals those days! I don’t have time to hunt it down, we have a post or comment on it, but after the dust settled, most climate sites returned to their pre-Climategate levels, WUWT remained at a significantly higher level than before at a little below 100K views per day.. I’m certain that shows the influx of new people looking into the controversy found WUWT the most approachable site and overall, most informative.
It influenced my commentary and posts – ever since then I’ve tried to make them be informative and educational, especially to newer readers.
As the concern over climate change wanes and sites like Google derate WUWT, I’m amazed that readership here has been so stable. Anthony has a done an amazing job at finding the sweet spot in climate blogdom and deserves all the accolades we can deliver.
Just made a small donation to WUWT,
I assume it will give me a seat at the Middleton/ Pfeiffer rematch 🙂
Near as I can tell, neither one conceded.
The Sockpuppet Troll “Betty Pfeiffer” comments and the replies to them have been DELETED.