With the likely installation of a Biden administration comes a renewed and likely vicious climate war.
I have inside information that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) will be pushing the Biden administration, calling for prominent climate skeptics, and climate skeptical organizations to be put on investigations and “show trials” for daring to question the consensus. There may be worse than that coming, as he seems to genuinely believe we’ve committed some sort of crime and should be punished for it. Make no mistake, it’s coming.
I suspect I’ll be personally targeted as well.
While it’s been an easy ride during the Trump administration with him pulling out of the Paris agreement, bringing the gestapo-like EPA back to sensibility, eliminating WOTUS rules, appointing prominent climate skeptics to NOAA, and many other things, we now face a renewed “in your face” series of actions by the Biden administration to make batting the invisible boogeyman of climate change not just a priority, but a declared war.
Hence, eliminating and/or neutralizing the climate skeptics. It’s war psyops 101 – eliminate/neutralize competing voices and media outlets.
To that end, I’m not going down without a fight. I hope you won’t either.
First, starting tomorrow, WUWT will be changing to a new look, something that I’ve been working on behind the scenes on for months. Here is a preview of the new look.
Second, we are likely going to have to move our hosting again. If you haven’t heard about it, the plight of the Conservative Treehouse being de-platformed by their hosting provider provides a glimpse of the likely future ahead for many climate skeptic websites if a Biden administration becomes a reality.
Third, facts are power, and to that end WUWT is launching a new, second website that will be a reference website for many climate topics, linked to the main WUWT site in the menu. It won’t be a discussion or a blog, but more like a user friendly climate wiki. Look for an announcement in the first week of January.
Finally, I’m going to need your help. We’ll need you to share stories, to help get the word out, we’ll need guest authors, we’ll need programming help, and we’ll need donations.
Tomorrow, we start.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
–Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents 82-83 (1770) in: Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 1, p. 146 (Liberty Fund ed. 1999).
Would it be fair to say, magnitude-wise, what’s coming be comparable to mccarthyism 70 yrs ago, just from the left this time?
So far it’s been worse.
The Hollywood blacklists are already much worse than anything that happened in the McCarthy era.
Outside a handful of people in DC, nobody lost their jobs because of McCarthy. Today, throughout the country, people are afraid to let others know their political leanings out of fear that they would lose their jobs.
The trouble is, they say Joe McCarthy was right about the communist agents:
https://www.aim.org/media-monitor/joe-mccarthy-was-right/
What’s the point in censoring me?
The guy who ran the empirical experiments that proved 71% of the surface of our planet was an extreme SW Selective surface.
You can’t win without me.
For someone who claims to have been censored, you sure post a lot.
I pray for Russian troops on US soil…
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/12/16/nation/meet-gina-mccarthy-mass-native-who-is-set-serve-white-house-climate-coordinator/
Now why would you pray for Russian troops on US soil?
They wouldn’t last five minutes.
Depends on how much Russian money goes over the transoms of the Kerry/Biden/Obama combine.
This sentence is to test the edit function.
I was just thinking we would funnel those Russian troops through Chicago on a weekend. The ones left, would be crying for momma come Monday. 🙂
Some money for the tip jar on its way…
FD
In the comments the grey (gray) text doesn’t provide enough contrast for those of us with non-ideal vision. I’ve got bad ‘floaters’ and the comments are definitely harder to read. I know there’s a trend for shades-of-grey web sites, and that’s fine for the 20 year-olds, but a bit more contrast would improve the experience.
sonofametman: “In the comments the grey (gray) text doesn’t provide enough contrast for those of us with non-ideal vision. I’ve got bad ‘floaters’ and the comments are definitely harder to read. I know there’s a trend for shades-of-grey web sites, and that’s fine for the 20 year-olds, but a bit more contrast would improve the experience.”
The lack of contrast is my one and only issue I have with the new format. But it is a big one. I’m a speed reader and will quickly scan an entire page of comments for those that interest me. The lack of contrast slows this process considerably.
Concerning your floaters, look for a retinal surgeon who is willing to do Floater Only Vitrectomy (FOV). If any eye care professional tells you that floaters in and of themselves aren’t a problem, they are greatly mistaken. A bad case of floaters causes as many or more vision issues as do the usual cataracts.
Several years ago, I needed retinal repairs in both eyes which required vitrectomies prior to starting the laser work. Thank God I needed that retinal work, because it was a justification to remove all of the vitreous humor, which degenerates with age and which was causing me more problems than were the retinal issues.
Take a look at Dr. Randall Wong’s floater only victrectomy videos on YouTube. I can tell you from my own personal experience that vitrectomy isn’t that much more invasive than is cataract surgery.
<i>In the comments the grey (gray) text doesn’t provide enough contrast for those of us with non-ideal vision</i>
I was hoping someone would bring this up, but I didn’t want to be first. In this case, for me at least, <b>black is beautiful.</b>
Juan Slayton …. It looks like the < > codes I’ve been using for fifteen years on WordPress blogs don’t work anymore if you embed them directly. You do it with the text highlight buttons at the bottom of the comment box. Let’s try to make a link to a previous comment and see how that works.
A test link to a previous comment to see if it works
Yes, light grey is a very poor color for text, even for people with good vision. However, it helps to enlarge it:
Alternately, instead of pressing the +/= or – key, you can spin your mouse wheel forward or back.
EDIT: Ewwww… that was supposed to be just an indented blockquote, but it appears to be bold and black. It’s nice, deep black color makes it much more readable than the default light grey color — so much more so that at first I thought it was enlarged.
It would be better if EVERYTHING was that color.
Also, the linespacing is a bit too large (except in the editing box).
So a few formatting tweaks are definitely needed.
I prefer traditional underlined blue for links, too, but that’s just personal preference.
The big picture is that the improvements are large, and the problems are relatively small. The ability to include images / graphs, and the edit button, are both wonderful improvements!
I just ran into an annoying aspect of the “Edit” feature. I tried to edit my previous comment a second time, and when I was done I clicked the “Save” button and got:
There’s apparently a short time limit for editing, which is reasonable, but:
1. there’s no indication of what the time limit is,
2. there’s no “countdown” or other indication that time is running out, and
3. there’s apparently no extension of the time limit when someone starts editing and they’re already close to the time limit.
So users get to waste their time on edits that can’t be saved, and they don’t find out until they try to save the changes.
That meant I was unable to add the following to the previous comment (and unable to correct the ungrammatical “It’s” to “Its”):
EDIT #2: Another minor disappointment is with copying and pasting comments from the comment editor into a plain text file. (I use Visual Studio Code Editor to keep a “log” of my comments at WUWT and elsewhere.)
With the old system, all the markup was included, but with the new system the markup (for formatting and embedded links) is lost, and a lot of extra blank lines are added. So I’d love to have a “raw HTML markup” mode option in the comment editor.
Here’s another interesting thing… I inserted a Unicode emoji frown character, and (at least in the editor) it is enormous: 🙁
I don’t know whether that’s just an artifact of the editor, or whether it will also be enormous in my posted comment. Let’s find out.
Here’s a screenshot:
EDIT: Okay, I see that the “giant emoji” is just an artifact of the editor, it looks fine in the posted comment. That makes it a nit.
That frowning emoji reminds me of a teenage climate alarmist. 🙂
Pleased to see the text is now much darker. Thanks, Anthony.
Nice to see that WUWT will concentrate on climate change.
Just lately opinion in some posts about Covid etc haven’t added anything to the reputation of this site.
Well, Chris Monckton’s April 8, 2020 article (with info from Steve Mosher, starting around the 15th paragraph), was one of the most useful coronavirus articles to be found, anywhere.
Very smart layout!
Love the new format. Keep up the good work. Eventually, the climate will prove what controls it and it won’t be CO2
just got new pc running n thought i had weirdness when i saw the page load;-) lol
I like it!
looks like a whole lot of us will learn new skillsets and might need to look at the alt net web side in case censorship whams down as expected
Im depressed hearing elec mob voted for bidet after all
and I dont even live there!
follow ons for other nations will affect Aussies too;-(
Anthony, the pre-run was Truman’s Federal Loyalty Board. This was taken over by McCarthy. “The Federal Loyalty Boards became the model for state and local governments, and even private institutions, which created their own loyalty programs—with equal disregard for due process. There were no rules of evidence. Gossip or innuendo, or association with someone who was associated with someone who was suspected of sympathies to a Communist-front organization, was enough to cause someone to lose their job and be blacklisted from getting another one. Many of those who were fired from their jobs were never told what the accusations against them were, much less who or what was the source of the adverse information.”
Just substitute “Climate-denier” for Communist. And some here seem to praise McCarthy!
With Pompeo’s China ranting cameo, the machinery of “I have a list” will be up and rolling. “Climate-deniers” will be a target of opportunity.
It is sickening that the ChiCom ranters are actually heralding their own sure demise! Talk about drawing fire!
I ask you to not mistake pointing out he McCarthy wasn’t entirely wrong (there were indeed communists being rooted out, it’s just that McCarthy went after them with too much zeal and too little deference to due process, causing too much collateral damage along the way) with “praising McCarthy”. But given your penchant for conspiracy theories over facts, I know it’d be a waste of effort to do so. But hey, I’m sure you can manage to work in a London based banksters conspiracy behind McCarthy’s efforts, it’s about the only thing you are capable of doing. LaRouch would be so proud of you.
Hit a nerve there!
To praise McCarthy, really Truman and good ol’ Hit-ler supporter Churchill (who dashed to FDR after his golem turned on him) is so empah!
Pushing the commie line, ala London’s Henry Jackson Society, where Pompeo takes his orders from, is downright silly and actually un-American!
Can to try that again, only this time formed in a way to be comprehended by someone who does speak conspiracy?
This was planned 6 months ago. Seems like they knew Trump “would lose”….
6 former EPA bosses call for agency reset after election
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER
August 12, 2020
https://apnews.com/article/climate-ap-top-news-health-gina-mccarthy-elections-7b5ec8e0002f3dce6bf88edde92dcb6c
They’re making Trumpkin lists. So either USA goes full Reign of Terror (how long ago guillotine posts have started, again?), or more likely Cold Civil War is going to get hot.
Well, it’s possible that SCOTUS will chase the most blatant frauds, a less fraudulent reboot of the election will be pushed through, AND somehow it won’t get compromised by naked political violence (as in, pantifa et al visit the booth and make sure those voters don’t vote the wrong way).
In which case it will be staved off for 4 years more, probably.
Rackspace.com is based in San Antonio, Texas. They pride themselves on “fanatical service”. I’m small potatoes but I have never had a moment of down time and the handful of times I have interacted with Support, my issues were resolved quickly and easily. They don’t farm out support to foreign countries either.
Anthony and/or mods: I have a question about the new look – is there new behavior that goes with it?
I have not been getting email updates from WUWT since the gmail mess earlier this week. This morning I got a few so I thought it might be resolved. But when subscribing on a post, I am NOT getting the confirmation emails anymore, so I don’t know if the subscription actually went through. Has the confirmation been eliminated?
Answering myself here: it appears like confirmation email is gone, and you just get subscribed. Looks like if you want to stay updated on ALL replies you need to subscribe at the top, not when you comment/reply.
This website is an invaluable resource, and its mission is of critical importance. That being said, if the goal is really to educate and persuade large numbers of people, then I believe the single best change WUWT could make would be to heavily moderate the unfortunate tendency in both articles and comments to devolve into hyperpartisan political screeds.
If WUWT wants to transform itself into Breitbart, then it is of course free to do so. But if the mission is, in fact, to open the eyes of a large number of people to the lack of reason and evidence in support of CAGW, then this will not be accomplished by peppering articles with angry references to “Warmunists,” global Marxist machinations, supposed plots to hack voting machines, or repeated paeans to Trump’s MAGA greatness.
It is all too easy for people who are unaware of the valid arguments against CO2 dogma to dismiss climate skepticism offhand as simply the ravings of people with bizarre political leanings. It is also generally difficult for anyone to believe that a person who launches into broad political diatribes might at the same time be presenting a reasoned and trustworthy scientific argument for something. It is one thing to demonstrate specifically that Sen. Whitehouse is utterly ignorant of facts and apparently also wishes to put elevate himself into the role of Climate Torquemada. It is another thing altogether, however, to believe that understanding this means that one must also believe that Democrats are all a bunch of “Demonrats,” or that Donald Trump is a great leader.
As far as I can tell, there are an enormous number of registered Democrats who are quite skeptical of CO2 dogma. This survey, for instance, would seem to indicate that skepticism is politically widespread: https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2016/10/04/the-politics-of-climate/
These are people who, one would presume, would be quite open to learning more about the science and history that clearly contradict the CO2 dogma. They are also the people who will be most likely to moderate the Democratic political establishment’s worst instincts. However, it seems unlikely that many of these people would voluntarily want to wade through page after page of childish abuse and the conflation of opposition to CO2 dogma with automatic support for any other political position.
WUWT should decide whether it truly wants to educate, or whether it simply wants to be a sugar fix for the already converted to juice one another up.
Reacher51, climate science and climate politics are inextricably linked. The two cannot be separated.
The best that can be done is to recognize when a WUWT article or comment is more one than the other. The way this forum is run, it is the reader’s responsibility to make that judgement call.
In any case, politics is an essential part of the methods and means we humans use for allocating and distributing resources.
Climate activists refuse to acknowledge that quickly reducing our use of fossils fuels will demand significant economic and personal lifestyle sacrifice.
As long as the climate activists refuse to acknowledge this fact, then including politics-oriented articles and comments is a highly useful, if not essential, service of this forum.
I am not suggesting that there should be no articles about politics. Discussions of policy or specific ideas put forth by various politicians are perfectly reasonable things to discuss- with logic and facts. This is altogether different, however, from e.g. writing that “The Warmunists are plotting to take our freedom, hand it to the UN, and make us perpetual serfs unless we MAGA!!!!”, which is roughly the level that many articles and comments have devolved to in recent years. No reasonable person reading that type of dreck will pay any attention to the related arguments made in the article, and they will probably also assume that whatever charts etc. are presented are fabricated or cherry picked. You can’t slather, drool, and rant, and honestly expect to persuade anybody of anything.
If recognizing this is the readers’ responsibility, then I can tell you that a whole lot of readers are failing that responsibility, and their ranting is drastically reducing the chance that this website can be used to persuade anyone who is not ranting in the same way.
Climate activists have their own share of problems, but it may occur to you that their deranged ranting is similarly offputting to those of us who prefer thinking to emoting. I have read plenty of articles and comments from activists claiming, e.g., that “Republicans oppose recognizing climate change because they hate humanity,” or “The conservative mind is too weak and fearful to recognize the reality of climate change, so they cling to denial as a defense mechanism.” Other than people who already agree with that type of lunacy, no one reads that and bothers to take seriously anything else that those people have to say, which may account for why climate skepticism remains stubbornly high after decades of blunt propaganda. If WUWT would like a shot at winning this particular war, then they would learn a lesson and try appealing to reasonable people in a reasonable way.
Reacher51, the average Joe and Jane on Main Street USA haven’t yet been asked to make serious personal and economic sacrifices in the name of fighting climate change.
And so they don’t have any incentive to dive deeper into the substance of climate science skepticism.
Would this situation change if the cost of gasoline and electricity quickly doubled, and there was less of it available?
One would think that doubling the cost of energy and enforcing strict energy conservation measures on every household and business in America would risk powerful political blowback against those who imposed it.
But the situation with the pandemic gives us a different picture. Those politicians who imposed the most severe job destroying lockdowns were handily reelected.
The election of Joe Biden as president is a powerful temptation for climate activists to push forward just as far and as fast current environmental law allows them to go.
It remains to be seen if the activists will take the golden opportunity Biden’s election represents to impose drastic energy lockdowns, or if they will instead do what they’ve done before and that is to put forward Potemkin Village schemes such as the Clean Power Plan.
Although I agree with much of what you just said, I fail to see what relevance your reply has to the point I was making.
If a comment which is mostly political can dissuade climate skeptic Democrats from reading a WUWT article, then they aren’t that interested in looking at contrary climate science opinions in the first place.
As I’ve said many times on this forum, informed debate over the validity of today’s climate science is something which is happening mostly in the backwaters of the Internet.
Before 2020, it had been my opinion that the debate will not go critical mass until and unless the average American is asked to make very significant personal sacrifices in the name of quick GHG reductions.
However, what has happened with the pandemic now forces me to reconsider that opinion; that is to say, it appears the voters in this country are willing to accept much more in the way of personal sacrifice for a declared national emergency than I previously thought was possible.
New look website, same old concern trolls popping up in the comments.
Although I have occasionally posted comments on WUWT, this is the first time that I have publicly expressed that particular opinion. So I’m not quite sure how I qualify as being one of your “same old” concern trolls, or even on what basis you accuse me of being one. Your asinine response to my post, however, seems taken straight out of the climate alarmist rhetorical handbook (Chapter 8: How to Get Lazy People to Turn Off Their Brains with Just One Sentence). So, in the same spirit, allow me to answer you on a similar rhetorical level that you would seem to be more capable of understanding:
Hey guys! Look at the paid troll Warmunist commenting immediately above me! These clowns are making false flag idiot comments in the hopes that WUWT will actually turn itself into a version of Newsmax and thereby ensure that no one sensible ever takes the website or its contents seriously! Can you believe how hard these fools have to work to get us to think that climate skepticism means you must be a puerile crank?
Hope that clarified.
You seriously think your the only concern troll to ever darken anthony’s door or the only one to express that particular “concern”? how precious. Go crawl back under your bridge.
If Anthony is repeatedly being advised that partisan name calling and immature behavior are making it impossible for him to reach a mainstream audience, then he would be wise to listen.
You remind me very much of the angry Progressives of the Democratic Party. They rant and they rave, and normal people try to avoid them like the plague. Yet when sober Democrats complain that angry Progressives are turds in the political punch bowl and drive away voters, they become incandescent with anger and attack the messenger. The repugnant effects of their behavior are completely obvious to everyone but themselves.
Anthony Watts has the right to determine who may or may not darken his door. To the best of my knowledge, he has not delegated that right to you. If Anthony truly wants to win this war, or at least to have a fighting chance in it, then he would be well served to pitch the loud, angry drunks out of his army first, and to show the world what the Democratic establishment obscures. Namely, that this is a genuine scientific issue, that there are numerous left leaning scientists who are skeptics, and that reasonable people on both sides of the aisle question CO2 dogma for intelligent reasons. The drunk on anger crowd you seem to represent are fine if the site is chasing click bait dollars, but no use if it’s fighting an opinion war
Maybe there are actually some sane Dems :
Establishment Dems Ambush AOC And Other Progressives, Stripping Key Committee Assignmentshttps://www.zerohedge.com/political/establishment-dems-ambush-aoc-and-other-progressives-stripping-key-committee-assignments
Looks like a rebellion!
There is some infighting going on in the Dem ranks, even if the MSM tends not to give it much air time. moderates Dems blame AOC and her fellow leftist open push for socialism, defunding the police, and other extreme left policies for their losses on election day.
By “repeatedly” you mean a small handful of your fellow concern trolls. Nobody is wise to heed the advice of trolls. Just to laugh at them when they crawl out from under their bridges.
case in point
<I> The drunk on anger crowd you seem to represent</I>
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha! Stop projecting and crawl back under your bridge where you came from why don’t you.
I see. You convinced me. Between your name calling, admonitions for people to blindly disregard advice, and a “Bwahaha” worthy of serious third grade props, I see now that WUWT is in great shape to win this war. How could a reasonable person fail to be persuaded? Victory is as imminent as Trump’s inevitable Electoral College win. Enjoy your well earned achievement.
I reckon your adding a separate reference site will help to minimize the massive data transfer required if you have to move this new format site?
That massive transfer of old topics and posts was the single largest time killer when CTH had to move and thus was the primary factor in extending the time it took for them to get fully back online.
Anthony, was it your plan to have the comment section continuously loop?
What does that mean, Bob?
Dave I think it was fixed yesterday. A few others mentioned it too. You’d be scrolling towards the end of the comments and once reaching the last comment the whole comments section would immediately reload beneath it, effectively looping, and you wouldn’t ever get down to the footer, as the looping was continuous. If it remained that way you’d have to remember what the first comment was to know when you passed the last comment.
Your comment on ‘acidification’ sounds remarkably like what I said about it a month or more ago, where I made the same point. It’s slight ocean ‘neutralization’ not ‘acidification’ because the ocean isn’t acidic as you mentioned. it’s basic, alkaline.
That would explain the ‘Groundhog Day’ feeling I was getting yesterday.
Thought it was a feature, not a bug.
I like the “new look,” and I especially like the ability to include a graph with my comment! Bravo!!!
Testing a .png file link:
Testing a link to a page with a Twitter-style card / thumbnail:
https://sealevel.info/learnmore.html
Testing a youtube video:
One thing I don’t like about the new look is the “load-on-demand” feature for comments. I.e., it is necessity to scroll to the bottom, again and again, to coax the page into loading all the comments, so that I can, for example, ctrl-F to search the page.
Is there a way to tell it to load all the comments?
If not, could you possibly add a “load all the comments” button or option?
Testing an attached image:
Use the “end” button on your keyboard. It worked for me in Firefox.
Still getting used to the new format.
What happened to the links sidebar?
Something appears to be wrong with the scroll bar. When you try to get to the bottom of the comments, they wrap around endlessly. Using Chrome build 87.0.4280.88.
Not seeing it on Firefox (mac), but I did see one article with a bunch of duplicate comments
Since prayer does nothing except make the person praying feel better about themselves (virtue signaling), and money talks, I went with a $50 donation.
Can you prove that? Or are you just saying it to make yourself feel better?
Right – Keep up the fight!
The new site looks pretty good. I’m not a big fan of either wordpress or the use of videos/photo headers on websites (because they’re too slow – I can read 10 times faster than talking heads can talk) but you’ve made pretty good use of both here. Cool!
Now, about your call for authors.. I did submit something awhile back and got no acknowledgement at all. That’s not smart – you may be ignoring authors who could contribute real value to a renewed fight.
I see no submissions from a Paul Murphy in the last two years.
Apologies if it went into spam bucket.
I will help in the small ways I am capable. We are on the right side. But we will lose. I’m sure of it since witnessing the politico/techno/media control over the Cootie virus and the willingness of decent people to abandon reason and freedom just to not upset the panicked.
Long-run: The climate will cycle to cooling and the Mann/Whitehouses will claim victory and order injection of CO2 into the atmosphere.
They already could, if they wanted to. So, more likely to double down.
The entire point of “point deer, make horse” type tests is that no one is truly confused. Just like Theodore Dalrymple said: “the less it corresponded to reality the better”.
The American “science settled” approach is a gradual variation of the same, that exploits inertia on one side and holiness spiral on the other: the deer is introduced when very young, so many people can get along with this — they did not see it up close, and don’t know either horses and deer too well, after all. But then his horns grow, while pressure on the heretics increases.
The green comments box is quite annoying and get in the way. The previous method of where comments are entered is much better
A feature that would be helpful for me, would be someway to highlight those posts that are new since my last visit. I realize that having the system remember my last visit would be a lot of work, however if there was a field at the top of each page where I could put in a time and day, and then have every post that is newer than that highlighted.
Fairly frequently a post will have several hundred responses, and from the count, I know that 2 of those responses are new.
Anthony,
The banner headlines are redundant and it takes longer to wait for them to scroll by than it does to scroll down and see the actual articles.
Having aging eyes with cataracts, I’d like to see higher contrast here in the comments section.
I concur. both to the banner comment and the contrast. I suggest a a good old fashioned Black colour for the text. I can and do enlarge text on sites with small text however sites with “weird” text colour choices, I don’t read.
Site development is an iterative process.
With Firefox, settings , colors, override always. With Windows set a high contrast theme.
Far too many photons are wasted on blank space. Far too many wannabee Picasso’s using html… The science of vision goes right over their heads….