How we say things, the words we use, how we say it, and even our perceptions on the meaning of words do matter. It at the same time makes languages extremely powerful and the cause of a lot of strife.
Anyone participating in any exchanges around the environment, particularly in the context of global warming, will have noticed how heated these exchanges often are. These exchanges have a tendency to completely derail leaving both parties angry and/or frustrated with each other.
This can of course not always be prevented, but in my experience there are a few things that you can do that help. Considering I’ve participated in online dialogue on global warming, and many other environmental subjects, for about 5 years now I’ve noticed a few things; things that might help with keeping any exchange productive.
The post gives a good explanation on the words I use during exchanges on for example global warming and what I mean by them. It also makes very clear why I’m always so patient and polite in my exchanges (there’s actually a reason for this supported by research).
Watts is known for using Alexa web traffic statistics to show how well his website is doing compared to other blogs. Often to boast he’s doing far better than for example Skeptical Science or Real Climate.
It was just me giving an opinion on how inaccurate the Alexa data is and that you shouldn’t use it. Watts did respond to my remark, and before I address his response to me I’ll explain why I think Alexa data is unreliable.
Continue reading Why You Shouldn’t Use Alexa Traffic Statistics
Q. Why do a couple of guest essays have nom de plum names? Aren’t you adamant about people putting their names behind their words?
A. Anyone who publishes on WUWT must be known to the proprietor, and they are all known to me. This requirement is mainly for legal reasons. When running a large enterprise such as this, there may be a legal challenges to writing, and the writer must be held accountable for his/her own words in that case. For the few occasions where somebody wants to publish on WUWT using a nom de plume, the first requirement is full disclosure before publication, and that communications is recorded should there ever be an issue in the furture. Of the nearly 10,000 posts on WUWT, there are just a few that were given the opportunity to publish this way. For good reason, some of those authors fear things like this from activists such as Greenpeace: We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we be many, but you be few.
Publishing on WUWT under a nom de plume known to the proprietor is different from anonymous commenters or some of my doppleganger blog children who use the cloak of anonymity to launch personal attacks against me or contributors to WUWT. For example, in a U.S. court of law, the accused is given the right to openly face the accuser(s). WUWT’s author policy of allows for that if need be. With external attackers who claim self righteousness under the cloak of anonymity, not so much.
No, allowing nom de plum names – also known as pseudonyms – for authors of content on your website is not different from anonymous users criticising Watts.
Continue reading Responding To Watts About Anonymous Opinions
For those that might not know this, @wottsupwiththat is the person who runs the WordPress blog WottsUpWithThat. A blog that has as goal to “address climate science claims made on Anthony Watts’s Watts Up With That (WUWT) site.” And so far Wotts has been very critical towards some of the nonsense that’s published on WUWT.
Which is probably part of the reason Wotts has garnered some attention from Watts. Attention in the form of a fishing expedition for his identity.
Continue reading Anonymous Opinion “Not Worth Bucket Of Warm Spit”
Andrew Dessler, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University, uploaded a good short video where he talks about how likely it would be that climate sensitivity is less than 2 degrees. It puts some of the more recent papers into context as to why they might be underestimating climate sensitivity:
My only nitpick about this video is that he didn’t mention that if you look at how our planet has reacted in the distant past a low climate sensitivity isn’t supported. If you do a review of these studies it shows that the climate sensitivity of our planet is somewhere between 2 and 4.5 degrees (with a few big jumps upwards, but those are the exception).
Continue reading Is The Climate Sensitivity Less Than 2°C?
After I published the response I received from the KNMI I did a few pokes on Twitter towards Anthony Watts and Marcel Crok to see if they were willing to respond to it.
So far I haven’t received a response from Watts, but Marcel Crok was kind enough to engage me in his comment section. I’ll be going through his responses to me in this post and my take on them.
Before I do that though I have to compliment Crok for being respectful and civil towards me, despite me being quite critical towards him. It’s something that’s often severely lacking from any public exchanges that take place. Being able to engage someone while being quite critical and at the same time having a civil exchange was a breath of fresh air. It’s just sad that this is the exception.
Now lets start with his first response towards me, which I found a bit strange:
Continue reading Marcel Crok Responds To The KNMI Statement
To be short: yes, the KNMI had some criticism towards the IPCC and how they operate. However, it wasn’t the type of criticism the so-called sceptics thought.
What the KNMI did was provide recommendations to the IPCC to improve its procedures. This included recommendations for improving their reports and how results are communicated. Something that the IPCC asked for and the resulting recommendations from the KNMI aren’t shocking.
However, the so-called sceptics seemed to think differently. Marcel Crok, one of the more known Dutch so-called sceptics, wrote an article about it and Anthony Watts published the following snippet from it on WUWT (emphasis added by Crok):
Continue reading Dutch Meteorological Institute KNMI Critical Of IPCC?
On my “Climate Changes, But Facts Don’t: Debunking Monckton” videos this claim was popping up a lot. The reasoning is that because global surface temperatures haven’t risen for over 15 years this means that global warming has stopped and that the projections are wrong.
Unfortunately this ignores a lot of evidence that the planet is still accumulating heat. As I had to explain this constantly in my comment sections on YouTube it prompted me to push the script I was writing about this to the top of the queue:
Just a little heads-up for my readers that I’ve written a guest post for Climate Crocks. The following is a snippet from the beginning of the guest post: One of the things I do is to keep an ear out to what the so-called sceptics are saying in their corner on the internet. I do this on for example Twitter…
Watts is known for using Alexa web traffic statistics to show how well his website is doing compared to other blogs. Often to boast he’s doing far better than for example Skeptical Science or Real Climate.
Something I almost always do is to let someone know that I’ve mentioned them in one of my blog post. It’s why I sent my “
Yesterday I published a 
After I published 