It’s one thing to be misunderstood, quite another to be repeatedly misquoted.

A misunderstanding can be a mere message muddle – happens all the time – and mistakenly misquoting is minor misconduct.

But continuing to misquote someone after being told what they actually said is unforgivable. Crafting your assertions to your own ends rather than to the truth is detestable.

Children make no bones about it. They call it lying and they hate it. Read more… »

It’s not possible even to keep track of the alarmist stories about climate, far less to refute them all. But when one is personally cited close to home and statements are wrongfully attributed to one, one ought to address them. This Laking/Herald howler is a case in point. Laking has taken his information from the Hot Topic side of the tracks without verification, not knowing the distortions of Renowden and friends (no matter how often corrected) and must now suffer the consequences; the formerly revered Herald similarly. My good friend Barry Brill here humorously draws our attention to the doctor’s faux pas. Regular readers will know that Richard C and Andy already mentioned the Herald article in comments on our Brash post. Thanks, guys. Apologies – one is only just getting around to it – but a refuting post will follow this. – RT

– by Barry Brill, Chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

The NZ Herald runs climate alarm propaganda in every shape and size, and from every imaginable point of view. But it was scraping the barrel with its recent patronising but content-free sermon from a certain George Laking – presented on its weather page under the heading of “Epsom and climate change”.

Laking is apparently an oncologist. He transparently knows nothing whatever of meteorology, and even less about economics – and therefore relies upon a quote from an IEA economist to define the state of the science. He then buttresses his scientific bombast with other strongly-held opinions from non-scientists – the World Bank, UK Ministry of Defence, the Medical Association, and the World Health Organisation.

Each one of his sources has heard a real scientist say something, somewhere, about climate science. And they are almost sure they can remember part of what was said. But, says George, global warming isn’t about science anyhow, it’s about MORALITY!

If you want to know how morality works, ask a cancer doctor. George has seen what tobacco sellers got up to and he wouldn’t be a bit surprised if climate sellers weren’t just as bad.

And it turns out George’s medical training also left him well-versed in the need to manipulate raw data to get the result you are after. He says:

“If you take the raw temperature recordings alone (like ACT or… Richard Treadgold did), you won’t see a temperature rise. But that is because the readings have to be corrected for changes in site location, exposure, and instrumentation. Treadgold overlooked this and so ACT constructed a whole court case on the most abysmal scientific howler.”

Hmm. George obviously doesn’t read very much in pursuit of his climate hobby. He certainly doesn’t express any methodological preferences as between Salinger (1981) and RS93; or even NIWA’s 2010 review versus the audit published by the NZ Climate Science Coalition. He doesn’t even differentiate between the old 7SS and the NZT7.

Poor George seems to think Richard Treadgold is helping ACT to sue somebody in Epsom. Perhaps the teacup taper?

Does the Herald read these Op-Eds before publication, or is a burning zeal to hurl abuse at non-believers seen to be a sufficient qualification?

I’ve been sick in bed for the week with a watery head cold. My wife took very good care of me while trying to keep her distance — nasty and painfully spluttery, it was. Much sleeping, reading and eating went on, all in bed, some of it at the same time.

I’m still not fit for polite company but I’m now catching up with work and trying to catch up with this writing. There’s so much to say, and I still like to pass on some current stories to help keep readers informed, such as today’s on black carbon.

I hope you visit other sites, too, just as I do, but putting stories here gives us an opportunity to converse about them and inform local communities. And somebody has to mention the latest sceptical climate news, since the MSM aren’t doing it, are they?!

Thing is, I just cannot cover them all, so I’m sorry if I left something out or haven’t touched on your favourite topic lately, but I’ll get round to it. Drop me a line, if you like, to remind me or to make a suggestion.

There are some things I want to say about NIWA, our legal case and the abortion that is their latest temperature record.

I hope all this will be accomplished soon, with your help and patience.

Cheers,
Richard T.

Hah! Gareth’s upset about the Alexa rankings I’ve started publishing in the sidebar.

He gets going in a scholarly way and lengthily, but listen:

Treadgold’s Climate Conversation blog ranks at around 500,000. By way of comparison, David Farrar’s Kiwiblog.co.nz is ranked #68,226 in the world (#88 in NZ). Climate Conversation is so far down in Alexa’s long tail that the Alexa rank Treadgold is keen to trumpet is effectively meaningless.

What he fails to mention is that we’re not so far down Alexa’s long tail as he is. Where is Hot Topic ranked by Alexa? Anywhere meaningful? Read more… »

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!

The doctors wanted to give me a life-saving procedure in the hospital tomorrow (Monday) and I decided to let them. Hope to be home again on Tuesday.

Please don’t worry, I’ll be fine — I’ve done this before. I think the surgeons have, too.

UPDATE 14 JUNE

I’m back with more health than before.

The kind thoughts you wrote here gently overspoke my fears of what could be and my heart lightened.

You didn’t have to do that — thank you.

Joanne Nova. Great climate warrior.

I want to pass on some kind words from Joanne Nova for our blog and our campaign for truth in climate science.

A few days ago I was catching up with Jo’s site and I was blown away (again!) by the number and quality of her posts. I told her so, and said she’s like the Energiser bunny!

After noting we were missing from her site’s blog roll, I asked her to include us. She swiftly acceded to my request, saying:

Done. Sorry you had to ask.
There’s no real reason it wasn’t done before except that I pay little attention to blog rolls. Thanks for pointing out the omission! You are doing a masterful job of NIWA. It’s inspiring…

Cheers!

Nice lady! Great climate warrior! Read her posts!

I’ll be out of town over Easter, visiting the latest grandchild who is to be christened. I expect to be back to the computer on Tuesday night, but don’t expect much out of me until later in the week. If anything crops up, feel free to use this “Easter” thread or use the famous Open threads set up by Richard C.

Good luck to you all.

Richard Treadgold.

Climate Conversation Group site traffic figures.
Part 1. Click for larger version.

Analyse this!

Perhaps I bang these traffic figures into this post like slamming a report onto the desk.

Just hear the satisfying report!

After firmly refusing and being advised to refuse, I grudgingly present the traffic figures for the first seven days of this month. They apply, as the screen dumps make clear, only to the subdomain ‘climateconversation’, not to the whole ‘wordshine’ domain.

Ken will get no more than this from me. I do this only to remove the bad taste that lingers in my mouth after being accused of lying by a man whose admitted aim is quarrel, dissent and discord. That’s what you told me, Ken, isn’t it?

Who knows what innocent visitor might have that unsubstantiated slur stick? Where might it again surface? Better to strangle it at birth — and strangle it with the truth. Better many things had such short lives. Pity more don’t.

What the figures mean, I don’t know. If there are deficiencies in them, point them out, argue about them. I prefer to spend my time fighting climate ignorance and spreading climate facts.

But in this thread, at least, these inane hostilities will not be off topic.

The Climate Conversation Group site traffic figures for the first seven days of January, 2011.
Part 2. Click for larger version.

An enduring symbol of joyful abundance.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone. May this season bring vitality and refreshment to you for whatever lies ahead.

Thank you for your support over the last 12-month; you have driven the traffic figures for the CCG site, depending on the measure, from 400% to 600% higher than a year ago.

That’s astonishing growth, and tells me we’re doing something right.

I look forward to continuing the battle after the holidays.

So keep your eyes open; look out for those around you; persevere.

For those unfortunates in deep and unexpected winter conditions on the top half of the world, our sympathies; however, entering our summer holidays as we are, we see no reason not to make fun of it:

At WUWT, on December 20, Robert M commented:

Look people, you have to understand that the temps outside your front doors are simply raw data, and will not be accurate until adjusted and homogenised. Next summer, after everyone forgets how cold it is, the Met will discover some heat that ya’ll are missing now and it will turn out that this winter is not nearly as cold as you are experiencing…

So there is hope!

Please be patient

The blog must be upgraded to WordPress 3.0.2. This should take just a few minutes, but who knows? It must be done, and the time is now.

If things stop working, please be patient; I’m aware of it.

Thank you. See you all again shortly.

Starting at 16:53 NZT.

Richard Treadgold

UPDATE 17:36 NZT

Took longer than I hoped, but it seems to have worked. Please let me know if you notice any shortcomings, thanks.

I still can’t do automatic upgrades because my file permissions are incorrect. One day soon I’ll replace the lost widgets from the sidebar (I miss the oil prices).

UPDATE 1

Sat 16 Oct 2010 10:20

I’ve returned to the familiar CCG style for now. Since the new style wasn’t giving us everything we wanted, there was no point in leaving it there. As I look around the Internet I see little that I like; finding a good blog theme is not proving easy. If anyone wants to give links to excellent themes, I’d be grateful. – Richard T

Open threads have been put up today, as requested by several very active members of our Conversation. They’re accessible from the menu bar (look for Open threads) and the sidebar on the right. I guess I should start to move relevant comments from the “Housekeeping” post to the new topics.

The record number of comments previously was 68 recorded on “Observations on NIWA’s Statement of Defence” but now the record is up to 138 143 161 recorded on “World of sceptical questions unfolds…“. Rodney take note: see what you started? (thanks again)

I’ve activated a new theme, called Blocks2. No, BLOCKS2!! It gives comment numbers, which makes it really easy to refer to the comment you’re responding to, plus it allows threaded comments, letting you reply to a particular comment, indenting as it goes.

Let’s see how it works for a few days; let me know when something seems broken. I’m keen to make things easier, not more difficult!

Now we can refer directly to comment numbers, which are consistent and unchanging within a thread.

Let me know of problems.

— Richard T

A hard disk drive, symbol of computers, source of web sites, linked by the Interweb.

I’m sorry if you couldn’t reach our site today (Friday). A technical glitch has been resolved and we’re up and running again. Some comments have been delayed but not, I think, lost. If your comments don’t appear, please post them again.

Thanks,
Richard.

UPDATE 3: Tue 12 Jan 2010 4:15 pm

It’s been four days without the blog

On Friday afternoon I asked for technical help from my web hosting provider. Something went wrong when they moved the site to a new server. While I was waiting for them to fix it, I formed a desire to install a second copy of WordPress as a test bed. I thought: what could possibly go wrong?

The minute I created the second database, the first one stopped working, meaning nobody, myself included, could access the Climate Conversation Group blog.

However, it turned out that there was no connection between the two events; they just coincided.

It’s very frustrating not having the blog available. The traffic logs show that a lot of people visit here every day, so I’m sorry about the lack of service.

Feel free to leave any comments, questions or complaints below.

UPDATE 2: Fri 8 Jan 2010 1:30 pm

Well, the upgrade still hasn’t happened, but the whole site is now on a server with the latest software that WordPress requires, hurrah! My thanks to the technical support staff at The Kiwi Web Hosting Company in Wellington for their help.

After the nameservers have replicated the new details I’ll do the WordPress upgrade. Boring, really, isn’t it? Computers have nothing to do with the subject, yet without them we’d wait weeks to hear each others’ messages, so it’s sensible to take care of them.

UPDATE 1: Thu 7 Jan 2010 10:28 am

Read more… »