I found another climate-science website which shows great promise: More Grumbine Science. I saw a link to it on RealClimate, and took a look. I was struck by two things. First, the post I read was clear, comprehensible, and to the point without being at all hostile. Second, the blogger’s goal is:
I’ll be trying what seems to be an unusual approach in blogs — writing to be inclusive of students in middle school and jr. high, as well as teachers and parents (whether for their own information or to help their children). To that end, comments will have to pass a stricter standard than I’d apply for an all-comers site.
I haven’t seen much of it yet, but what I have seen fulfills the stated purpose, admirably.
There’s only one drawback: a dearth of comments. I hope it’s not because he hasn’t got much readership! This effort deserves encouragement and even popularity. So I recommend that you take a look, and if you like what you see, leave a note to that effect.
9 responses so far ↓
Robert Grumbine // August 4, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Thanks for the kind words. I agree about the lack of comments — I’d like to see many more. Lots of comments and questions was what made my science cafe chat so much fun.
But, for now, I think it’s mostly just not many readers. I haven’t advertised much, including that for the first couple months the only people who knew it existed were relatives.
Hank Roberts // August 5, 2008 at 12:39 am
I hope you’ll find a way to reach the youngsters and their parents. Via a librarians’ or teachers’ site posting maybe?
Hank Roberts // August 5, 2008 at 12:36 pm
And one thought — I see today you’re already getting visits from the copypaste brigade. If your aim is a focused page for youngsters, you can omit the stuff already posted everywhere else, refuted there, and posted again over and over without losing anything except screen acreage.
I find a little time with Google usually helps identify the prior appearances of the frequently posted assertions — just searching for +buzzword +name +realclimate +tamino will give a good idea if you’ve got a bot or PR guy or true believer, or a real question from someone interested and interesting.
There are sites I find unreadable just because they’re so popular with the crowd — relatively few — who post popup assertions everywhere and never, ever cite sources or read cites.
Or if you don’t plan to screen those calls, please, please, install the killfile script.
I’ve long wished climate bloggers would quietly, in the background, collaborate on a shared list of IP numbers used to post the frequently refuted copypaste stuff. There probably aren’t all that many, and it would make recognizing the sock puppets easier.
Dano // August 5, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I’ve long wished climate bloggers would quietly, in the background, collaborate on a shared list of IP numbers used to post the frequently refuted copypaste stuff. There probably aren’t all that many, and it would make recognizing the sock puppets easier.
Yes.
When we talk about The Internets making democracy spread more easily, we talk about these sorts of things.
When we look on the ground and see whether The Internets has in fact spread democracy, we wonder what happened…
Best,
D
chriscolose // August 7, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I’ll add this to my blogroll. Good luck.
Robert Grumbine // August 10, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Hank: I may be on to a good route to reaching that audience. Fingers crossed. If it works, I’ll share the info.
Generally: Not all is bliss for the new kid in town. Most of my new neighbors have been very friendly and welcoming. But it seems while chatting with my them, one of the bigger kids from a few streets over heard me and is annoyed. You can see my response now at
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2008/08/more-from-icecap.html
piplarsen // August 13, 2008 at 12:42 am
This is a week for good new climate blogs. Another one was linked to by Deltoid today, it’s called “Brave New Climate” and is being run by Barry Brook, Prof of Climate at University of Adelaide.
http://bravenewclimate.com
Looks very promising so far.
Hank Roberts // August 13, 2008 at 3:02 am
Robert, yes, confronting these people can lead to trouble. You know what happened to Ben Santer, I expect. Not to mention Rachel Carson.
Robert Grumbine // August 14, 2008 at 10:59 am
Hank, yes I know those stories (maybe not so much detail on Carson). I was just surprised, though. I’d have figured that icecap was sufficiently large (c’mon, at least 100 times my visitation rate, right?) that I’d just be one of the gnats, not worth him taking a lengthy rant for. As it is, maybe a few of his readers are less impressed with icecap after coming for a visit.
Leave a Comment