Retort to Sciblogs obituary on Chris de Freitas

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What’s to be done about the climate change poison being published at SciBlogs? The only course open to me is to offer as best I can an alternative view of what Peter Griffin and the rest put out. I left these comments at SciBlogs over an hour and a half before presenting them here and I fear they won’t see the light of day, as I noticed several comments this morning from colleagues remain unpublished—only one from Bryan Leyland got through (he’s a member of the RS). Chris de Freitas was generous with his expertise with me over many years and I came to admire his calm strength. May his influence in death continue as real to us and as strong as it was in life. – RT

Peter Griffin, your obituary to Chris de Freitas pays some compliments in acknowledging Chris’s career as a climate scientist but then it abandons generosity to engage in what can only be called character assassination. Continue Reading →

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Tornadoes not part of increase in extreme weather

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Peter Griffin: Tornadoes don’t indicate extreme weather is increasing – NZ Herald.

Old news alert (6 Dec) – I’m catching up.

This is good news. Nobody wants tornadoes to increase. Of course, there are other indications that extreme weather will increase – is perhaps already increasing – so please don’t stop worrying.

But it’s disappointing to see the Herald recycling posts from SciBlogs.

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Climate Conversation v. Hot Topic et al.

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Alexa world-wide rankings

I bow to you, my reader.

As measured informally on my Alexa toolbar, you’ve raised this humble blog into a leading Kiwi site for sceptical discussion of global warming. Though many of you are silent and your participation limited to quiet reading, you’ve achieved a remarkable thing with your frequent loyal visits (I’ll be sure to keep the kettle hot).

It shows that north of sixty thousand visitors per month prefer a moderate tone over stridency and a restrained view of climate data better than a doomsday clamour. Large numbers! MSM, are you noticing?

In June last year there was a bit of a fuss over climate blog rankings and whether the numbers were reliable. Nothing to do with climate, of course.

Then a while back I reinstalled the Alexa toolbar, just out of interest. Apparently you have to give Alexa time to get settled information on your traffic, so I waited. Just now I noticed our world ranking is up to 844,719, having started at over 1.3 million. The NZ rank is under 900. Wow! So it’s time to tell you. Continue Reading →

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Sciblogs ignores climate facts

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Talk about spin.

Greenpeace went in to bat for the seabirds killed off by a bit of oil from the Rena – good on them. But they had a big, juicy agenda – killing off deep sea oil drilling near NZ. So they exaggerated the few Rena bird deaths. The 1300 little bodies collected became 20,000 dead, without evidence to justify the expansion.

Then they claimed that 1000 times more again “could” perish in a spill the size of the Gulf of Mexico disaster. That would mean 20 million dead birds. Well, that was ambiguously tentative, although they said later they weren’t talking just about bird deaths.

Our good friend Bryan Leyland complained to the Advertising Standards Authority over Greenpeace’s wild claims. The ASA agreed with him, saying Greenpeace made misleading claims and really shouldn’t. Continue Reading →

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NZ blog rankings

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Alexa rulz!

Just a quick note to draw your attention to a new feature on the sidebar: scroll down one page and you should see it. There’s a little table showing the recent Alexa rankings for the Climate Conversation, SciBlogs and Hot Topic. At the moment we’re leading them by big margins.

It’s not automated, just a table I’ll fill in when I remember.

My wife and son just accused me of boasting, and I suppose to some degree I am boasting. However, it’s humbling to see that this modest little blog is more popular and thousands more people visit it than other, brasher sites around the country that even get into the newspapers.

I’m content to boast a little if it means that more ordinary Kiwis hear about us and get the opportunity to participate in a calm, polite and informative conversation about “the biggest challenge facing humanity today.”

This is a bit of bragging I won’t apologise for and the mainstream media can go hang. Notice we’ve just gone under 1000, which means we’re one of the thousand most popular sites in the country. Course, it could change tomorrow!

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Perspective, raw and bleeding

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Alexa NZ rankings

The best in New Zealand is no. 1. All others fall into line astern according to their number. So far, we at the Climate Conversation are proud of our standing. However, should this ranking fall, we will still be proud of our standing.

Latest rankings – 21 June, 2011

(The closer the number is to 1, the more popular the site.)

Climate Conversation – 928    SciBlogs – 1879    Hot Topic – 3478    Open Parachute – 3602

This is a dose of reality. Has the warmist bluster lost its lustre?

20 June, 2011 — CCG 989;           SB —;           HT 4204;           OP —
14 June, 2011 — CCG 1021;           SB 1709;           HT 4142;           OP 4988
12 June, 2011 — CCG 1038;           SB 1611;           HT 4398;           OP 6013
9 June, 2011 — CCG 1045;           SB 1584;           HT 4122;           OP 7113
8 June, 2011 — CCG 1100;           SB 1541;           HT 4113;           OP 6504

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No puerile sarcasm

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Here’s a comment made today by Ken Perrott. Unfortunately his comments are copied immediately on Sciblogs, lending them a dignity they don’t deserve. Ken referred to the CCG as containing:

“puerile sarcasm aimed at denying the credibility of scientists and honest science.”

I don’t believe there is any “puerile sarcasm” here, and I would like to keep it that way. It’s acceptable to have one’s scientific thinking challenged or refuted, but the only way to brush off these insults is to be innocent of the alleged activity.

Anyway, we will agree, I’m sure, that Ken is fully skilled in judging the appearance and use of puerile sarcasm.

I encourage him now to address the scientific arguments given throughout this site against the theory of dangerous anthropogenic global warming.

But, considering his post simply offers juvenile mockery of those who disagree with him, I don’t expect very much. Perhaps he will surprise me.

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