a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment
(14) (1) (2) (6) (116) (10) (3) (1) (15) (2) (1970) (1) (2) (5) (7) (4) (9) (104) (9) (483) (1) (4) (15) (3) (1) (8) (1) (1)Methane Leak
Scientists have discovered the Arctic ocean seabed is leaking huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere. The research published in the journal Science shows the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic shelf, which was thought to be a barrier sealing methane, is perforated. Read more here. (1)
NYT: Pachauri Faces Credibility Siege
The New York Times is reporting that: Dr. Pachauri and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are now under intense scrutiny, facing accusations of scientific sloppiness and potential financial conflicts of interest from climate skeptics, right-leaning politicians and even some mainstream scientists. More here. (1)
Phil Jones Guilty, But
The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny. B ut… Read more here. (0)
Banks Leave Carbon Market
Banks and investors are pulling out of the carbon market after the failure to make progress at Copenhagen on reaching new emissions targets after 2012. Read more here. (0)
UK Met Office Can't Forecast Weather
The UK Met Office is debating what to do with its long-term and seasonal forecasting after criticism for failing to predict extreme weather. It was predicted that this winter would be warmer than average – yet it has been unusually cold. Read more here. (2)
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Posted by jennifer, January 13th, 2009 - under Good Causes.
Tags: People
WE are into the final days of voting for the 2008 Weblog Awards.
This blog is a finalist in the online community section. There is no environment section.
You can vote every 24 hours. We are only short a few hundred or so votes.
So please, vote now, and then vote again tomorrow, and then it will be all over.
Click here: http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-online-community/
FROM THE AWARD PEOPLE:
Thank you to everyone who has made The 2008 Weblog Awards such a smashing success. As of today there have been 870,000 votes in 48 categories. Polls close tomorrow at 5PM (US – Eastern), so there could well be over 1 million votes cast when all is said and done.
IMPORTANT! – In the next two hours we will be shutting down the poll embed code and redirecting it to a link to the poll page
. We are doing this because today the load on our servers spike to an extent that sites without embedded polls were having trouble sending voters to the polls. As much as we’d like to keep the embedded polls open (and we will move to cloud computing next year to handle that extra load), the only fair thing to do is close make everyones access to the poll page the same. Our severs have kept up with the load all week, only slowing noticeably during a few peak hours during the day.
The first two days of poll embedding when well, it was only when we opened up access that things started to slow down for everyone.
Final results should be certified on Wednesday. To this point we’ve seen no breaches in our security and all polls are accurate.
Thank again,
_______________________________
Kevin Aylward
The Weblog Awards
NOW GO AND VOTE HERE:
http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-online-community/
Jen has moved into a solid second place, passing My Opera and Metafilter community this afternoon.
Please note that the Enron funded Fenton communications disinformation site, “Real Climate” dot org is languishing at 1,069 votes. This inspite of it being the media darling spin merchant of choice where the MSM directs any question they are too lazy or corrupt to reseach themselves.
In fact, all of the skeptical sites have buried Real Climate in the dust.
I call that a global victory.
[...] Marohasy admits to attempts to corrupt data 2009-01-13 — Dave Bath Why doesn’t it surprise me that Marohasy is trying to corrupt the spirit of a voting process? [...]
Jennifer,
As we can vote more than once it will only be a pyrrhic victory for who ever wins. Who was the corrupt mayor in the US who joked, “vote early and vote often”?.
I’d ignore the whole thing if I was you.
It’s true that each individual computer can vote once a day over the week that polls are open, but I would take that as a measure of dedication from your viewership.
It’s not the same as hacking the vote or digging up dead relatives for an election.
I wouldn’t throw in the towel because your in second place either. The current front runner “The Strobist”, is nominated in two different categories.
Best photo blog, and best online commmunity.
Unless I miss my guess there will be a ruling that a single entrant can not win in two different categories, in which case the runner up will win the contest.
Strobist is dedicated to helping people improve their lighting technique for digital photography, so when push comes to shove it would be more fitting for it to be awarded a photography award then a community award.
Jen has a good shot at this thing still.
Jennifer,
Having looked over this blog award thingy I want to ask what is the purpose of it when everyone can, ‘vote early and vote often’? What is your purpose in seeking to enter and to win it, is it validation, influence? It certainly doesn’t say whether the blogs entered have anything to say or what they print as being true, creative, useful. It just seems a bit celeb tainted. For example say your blog wins and the Realclimate blog comes absolutely last in its category does it give your blog any more authority in what is printed over that of Realclimate or Strobist or My Opera or the Michael jackson Fan Forum. Or look at it another way, say I have a blog with 10,000 members and you have a blog with 1,000 members and mine vote and win the blog award why would that have any meaning beyond the numbers?
Looking over the finalists in the category your blog is entered in I noticed that Strobist and My Opera were taking the same attitude to the blog awards as you are while over at Realclimate they are using it to discuss the nature of science blogging. Perhaps it will give you more influence if you win than Realclimate but I might just blow a raspberry each time you mention any such award in the year to come. But I might be inured to awards as I have a family member with three Emmy Awards and we play games with one of the statuettes at the dinner table and and wave it around with the winner of the awards leading the joking.
Perhaps the best thing to come out of it will be if the finalists get a slap up meal together for which they don’t have to pay for.
Jeremy C,
C’mon, chill (no pun intended when I wrote that). It’s just a bit of fun – any competition I was in, or nominated in, I’d want to win it; popularity contest, beauty contest (albeit unlikely) or even a Year 9 maths exam (loooong ago).
Who cares about repeat votes – thems the rules, they are transparent and all the sites’ participants/readers are free to multi vote.
And see – you are seeking validation by mentioning the three Emmys. Let’s just call it even hey, and have a few chuckles. In any case it looks like Jen may not have won the “popular vote”, even if there’s a drop out from Strobist.
No harm, no foul.
some thoughtful comment on the awards here:
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/01/can-blog-awards-identify-quality-online-content012.html
[...] read your post today mentioning the polls for the 2008 Weblog Awards. I recently wrote a feature length PBS article about [...]
Congratulations on the strong showing in this year’s awards. All your regular contributors should take a measure of pride as the vote is an indication of appreciation from the wider blogosphere for your continued and spirited exchange of ideas, perspectives and information.
Note that sites on environmental and climate topics that censure posts and are predominantly negative and disparaging in tone, languished in the voting, while this site, Climate Audit and Watts up With That all did exceptionally well: a strong vindication for free-thinking and reasonable discussion. Learning is not difficult: it just takes an open mind. Those that are closed minded got their just desserts in the voting.
This blog is important so that people can read all about the HIV/AIDS scam that scientists are spreading, all in the name of getting rich on research grants. Don’t believe me? Just ask Gordon, Louis and others all about it.
Back from holiday in the nick of time to vote!
Congratulations Jen for creating the best enviro community blog, if not on the planet, then certainly in the Southern Hemisphere.
This small free marketplace of ideas that Jen has created is an environment where concepts wrestle fiercely, while silent but curious minds, (surely the vast majority of visitors here) naturally select the fittest for survival. Although, we rhetorical gladiators know not which they choose to amplify or dismiss.
Jen seems to believe, far more than most of us, that every voice should be heard without censor and in the mayhem that follows insight can naturally, if unpredictably, rise out of the chaos. Interestingly, this is precisely the opposite approach of sites, like RC, where no matter whose computer I use or what alias, my posts are routinely censored as heresy to the orthodoxy they promote. Many others are also excluded from debate on these sites, which are reduced to mere billboards for their masters’ folly. One wonders why their hypotheses need to be protected from open debate. Is a hypothesis protected from free debate science or something less– dogma or just cant?
Of course, Jen promotes a worldview, all individuals by definition possess a unique worldview. Yet unlike many, she subjects her views to the acid bath of hearty online dissent. The resulting discourse, while sometimes maddening, is an exemplar of Enlightenment values–rational debate, honest consideration of opposing points of view and the experience of personal growth through the willingness to modifying one’s worldview as new evidence presents itself. I can only hope that her robustly adaptive sanity is contagious.
Memes are created and destroyed here. Or perhaps more correctly, virtual butterflies flap their wings here, what comes of it lies beyond the reach of any forecast, if not imagination.
I hope everyone flogs their keyboard to pieces in 2009!
Jennifer
“some thoughtful comment on the awards here:
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/01/can-blog-awards-identify-quality-online-content012.html”
You’re right, that was an interesting article with its interviews and posts, but I’m still not convinced.