Following the post Ranking of climate blogs (Dec 2013), I thought I would plot the ranking to see what it looked like. As expected given that the rankings go from a few thousands to the 10s of millions the main sites (left) are out of site “in the noise”:

So, in order to give some detail I plotted the vertical using a log scale to produce the following:

This is a surprising graph. as I show below, the main section is almost entirely straight. Continue reading →

This is a list of the ranking of the main climate blogs based on Alexa. The sites were collected from those linked to by some of the main blogs as well as Realclimate. Please note, I have only given sites with a ranking and Alexa only give statistics for sites which have separate URLs, which means some sites are not listed. This affects several on Scienceblogs.com.
The list was correct as of 15th December. If I have missed any please feel free to add to comments.
**Slant: Where possible, I’ve used the description given with the link. However, where a description was not given, I’ve quickly looked to see. These could be wrong – if you spot any please add a comment.

Ranking	Site	Slant**
1	Watts Up With That?	Sceptic
2	Climate Depot	Sceptic
3	Harmless Sky	Sceptic
4	The GWPF	Sceptic
5	Judith Curry	Lukewarmer
6	Jo Nova	Sceptic
7	Climate Audit	Sceptic
8	Stephen Goddard	Sceptic
9	Skeptical Science – John Cook	Warmist
10	Bishop Hill	Sceptic

Continue reading →

After working on this pretty solidly for a week (with many false starts), I finally produced a pdf and tried to upload it as the man had told me on the phone. Apparently not … but luckily they accept open office.
How did I know it was ready? Simple law of diminishing returns … I started getting more mistakes every time I did a spelling check rather than less.
Here is the link to the Submission to the House of Commons Climate & Energy Committee investigation into the IPCC & AR5

I woke up this morning looked at the window to see the bins all lying flat and rubbish hurtling down the road. And then I noticed something missing … “where’s our trampoline”?

I had secured a few things like our bins the night before, but I thought the trampoline would be OK and the wind didn’t seem that bad. Slapping on clothes and boots I rushed outside expecting to find it embedded in some tree, pinning down some old lady or worse embedded in some window or car.

It turned out the trampoline had made its way between our house and the next and impaled itself on the pillar at the end of the wall. The trampoline is now a right-off.
Of course, it had to be bin day. So all the bins have now blown over. The wind was obviously quite strong as next door’s flower pot blew over and all the trains have been cancelled.

With the news that UKIP has been “‘wiped out’ north of the Border after its Scots leader is sacked“, is it time that we Scots who are in favour of independence from the EU woke up? Will UKIP ever treat us in Scotland with the respect we deserve?
It is not so much what they did – because yes, we had our problems in UKIP Scotland and needed to change – instead it is the manner in which a solution was imposed by UKIP HQ in England, rather than allowing the Scottish UKIP party and membership to find their own way forward.
What does this say for a future relationship between Scotland and if it should ever happen, a UKIP ruled Westminster? Could I honestly look my neighbours in the eye if I had supported such a party which ignores the consensus building values of democracy and and has so little understanding of the complex relationship between England and Scotland? Continue reading →

Nigeria: Climate Talks in Warsaw ‘A Waste of Energy’

The United Nations, UN, climate talks in Warsaw, Poland, have ended with activists disappointed that the quest for climate justice had become even more elusive.

The COP19 – the 19th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – ended on November 23 with delegates reaching a compromise on how to fight global warming.

“The climate conference in Warsaw was a waste of energy,” said Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace Germany.

“It was already clear by midweek that small steps forward would be sold as successes but would not help us to negotiate a global climate protection agreement by 2015,” he added. (All Africa)

A stalemate of lies Continue reading →

Rachel:
I am wondering what people over here think of Myles Allen’s proposal to bury the carbon problem? – http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/26/green-levies-crap-carbon-burial-fossil-fuels
Has there been any discussion in the blogosphere about it from bloggers who do not accept the IPCC consensus? Feel free to comment at http://wottsupwiththatblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/26/myles-allens-proposal-to-bury-the-carbon-problem

There are a whole series of diseases from simple allergies to some form of arthritis where the normal behaviour of the body’s immune system somehow stops just attacking foreign invaders and instead starts attacking the body’s own tissues as if it were a foreign matter. I see much similarity in the way academics now attack commerce, industry and their antithesis “practitioners” and “sceptics”.
Why do academics love battery cars?
I was thinking this morning, that much of the problem of academia stems from the way it has become divorced from the reality of real life. That e.g. researchers will spend years investigating battery technology for some supposed Utopian future without hydro-carbons … when it has long been known that batteries are an inefficient way to store energy.
In case it is not obvious, this is because batteries like hydro-carbon fuels are just ways to store chemical energy. The big difference is that the “other side” of the process in hydrocarbons is the freely available air … whereas the “other side” of a battery has to be in the battery on “the other” plate. The result is that a petrol tank is 100% full of energy giving chemicals. In contrast even if the battery were 100% full of chemicals … they would only have 50% of the energy because they carry both sides of the reaction whereas the other side for hydro-carbons is air.
But it is much worse, in a battery, the chemical store is a thin coat on a 2D plate which must have all the additional complexity, bulk and weight of the electrical plates to hold that chemical store and transfer the energy. Batteries are far from an ideal way to carry energy and you’d have to be a nutty professor to think they are.
So, why don’t academics research how to convert Carbons & water into hydro-carbons? The answer is simple – that was worked out a long time ago and therefore there is no grant money to promote the proven and useful technology which requires absolutely no change to our cars
The real alien conspiracy
Continue reading →