So, I’m back to work today after another week off. This time, however, I really do need to knuckle down and get things done. I suspect that I will have less time for reading about and writing about aspects of global warming and climate change, but will just have to see how things go.
It could be an interesting few days though. Assuming that Anthony Watts manages the Watts Up With That Twitter feed, I may be about to get some notice over at Watts Up With That (WUWT). Anthony is suggesting that he will be writing about his spawn and has been asking me to provide some background information, which I take to mean “who are you?”. He’s welcome to call me, as he suggested, an “anonymous coward”. It may be justified, but – as I explain here – I have a right to be anonymous and choose to do so. It’s also not clear to me why one should need to be brave in order to discuss science.
Anyway, I should acknowledge that I’m partly interested to see what Anthony says – if he does go ahead and write something – and what will happen as a result. I imagine Anthony isn’t particularly happy about what I’m doing here, so am not expecting him to write anything particularly complimentary. If he does go ahead and write something, I also suspect that the comments that follow will not be particularly complimentary either. To be honest, I’m not particularly interested in trading insults with Anthony Watts and his readers. The goal of this blog is simply to address what is presented on Anthony’s blog, all of which is in the public domain. He could simply ignore me if he wished. He could point out what I’ve said that’s wrong. Or, maybe preferably, he could stop completely dismissing the work done by most mainstream climate scientists and stop publishing posts written by people who don’t understand basic science.
Anyway, we’ll have to wait and see. Maybe Anthony won’t bother. Maybe Anthony will surprise me and write something balanced and reasonable. Maybe he could surprise us all by suddenly realising that much of what is presented on his blog is scientifically questionable and actually start presenting work that more properly addresses what we do and don’t understand about climate change and global warming. Anything’s possible, I guess, but some things are – sadly – highly unlikely.
Wotts Up With That Blog 
I’m pleased to read that your blog might get some attention from WUWT. I think you’ve done a great job of highlighting some of the mistakes at WUWT and you’ve done it in a polite and easy-to-read manner. I do hope you don’t get bombarded with nasty comments.
Thanks, Rachel. It’s the latter possibility that concerns me, to be honest 🙂
AW isn’t stupid, although his posts are. He really doesn’t want his followers to notice you, or read your posts, because they might learn something and that would be bad. So my guess is he’ll ignore you.
If you suffer an influx of trolls, just turn on moderation. Your regulars will understand and put up with it for a week or so until the furore dies down. You don’t have to be abused by buffoons in comments on your own blog.
Or you could let a few through for the regulars to play with…
Here’s hoping that you’re right. Those who actually want to learn some may be perusing other blogs anyway. Those who don’t, probably aren’t bothering and nothing I say is likely to change their minds, sadly.
Moderation may indeed be necessary. As William says below though, AW might just be bluffing. We’ll just have to wait and see 🙂
Considering the track record of Anthony I won’t expect him to change his rhetoric or stance on the science behind AGW any time soon. He has a tendency to be extremely nasty towards opponents while expecting to be treated respectfully. And he has a very low standard of quality for posts on his website yet expects impossibly high standards from real scientists/science.
Yes, as I think I may mentioned in a tweet a few days ago, something I’ve discovered about the climate science “debate”, is that many involved do not understand the meaning of the word ironic 🙂
Or hypocrite for that matter.
I’ll be surprised if Anthony writes anything. He prefers to “out” people. He once asked me my name so could write about me too. He did all he could, including saying he would ask people about me (he quoted their names, it may have been people who live in my town or people he thought lived in my town or people whose names he made up out of thin air). He can be a bully and a bluffer.
Best ignore his threats/promises. If he does write about you it will only be good publicity for you. Don’t give him your name unless you are prepared for yourself, your employers/clients and anyone else you may be associated with to get a swag of threatening emails from his readers. That’s how Anthony works. There are plenty of people who’ve been on the receiving end who will tell you that’s exactly what happens.
Thanks, Sou. I remember reading something you’d written about how Anthony had tried hard to get your name. That’s partly why I wasn’t all that surprised that it eventually did happen to me (that was assuming that my blog didn’t simply disappear into obscurity, which is what I expected when I started). Yes, I’m aware that de-anonymising myself is something I should only really do after a lot of thought, a discussion with my employers, colleagues and family, and probably a few stiff drinks (although those may come afterwards) 🙂
The concept of cowardice might deserve due diligence.
Showing that Tony’s serves as an instrument to raise unassumed concerns, to dogwhistle conspiracies, and to promote outright smears always seemed too trivial to bother.
So much to do, so little time.
But then, Willard Tony might need to be taught that non-anonimity does not safeguard against cowardice.
Very true. Quite often I find myself too much of a coward to even read WUWT. I’m afraid I may rip all my hair out.
That sounds more like sensible self-preservation than cowardice 🙂
He’s sure got some balls devoting an entire post to smearing me and then asking you to divulge personal information about yourself a couple weeks later. As others have said, outing and smearing people is what Wattsy does best.
He certainly does. His recent post about how someone was mean to Willie Soon is also chock full of irony and hypocrisy.
Here’s one of those “may induce balding” articles from Delingpole – http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-features/8981081/silencing-climate-change-dissenters/. A truly dreadful article. I wish I hadn’t read it.
Yes, I saw that one too. Absolutely awful. The idea than any idea that someone thinks is science should given the same exposure as those presented by actual professional scientists is absurd.
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I’ve just poked a little fun at him on Twitter (https://twitter.com/VitaminCCS) for showing his new graph of traffic hits to his website. Hoping it doesn’t come back to bite me
Ha, ha, nice one!
I’m sure Anthony Watt’s will have the exact sentiment as you, Rachel!
Indeed, I’m sure they’ll all be giggling over at WUWT 🙂
Alexa is notoriously inaccurate with the type of statistics it gives. Something that is a known problem and it is something that has been pointed out to Watts.
Last time I checked (which is a while back) it was underestimating traffic to my website by at least a factor of 20. Currently it is underestimating traffic to my site by a factor of 30 (I rounded it down to 30), despite Alexa now ranking my site higher.
With Alexa you’re at the mercy of your target audience having the Alexa toolbar installed. Even the country your audience is from will skew the data.