Arguments
It's Skeptical Science's 10th Birthday!
Posted on 22 August 2017 by BaerbelW
Ten years ago, when Skeptical Science (SkS) first went live, John Cook had no inkling of what he had set in motion with the push of the proverbial button. Sifting through the material we have on SkS while putting this post together, I'm quite amazed at what our global team of volunteers has tackled and accomplished over the years. In this article, we'll take a look back and recount some of the pivotal moments in the history of SkS as it evolved from a personal database to a website reaching thousands of people around the globe each day.
As this turned into a fairly long post, you can jump to individual years via these links or the respective buttons:
You'll notice the "ornamental" graphics at the bottom of each year's post and in case that you are wondering what these are, here is the overall picture. It shows the evolution of SkS from a "one-man-blog" to a big and global team effort.
Shown are the number of blogs written per author in a year. Numbers for 2017 go to the end of June.
Thanks to John Garrett (jg) for creating the artwork accompanying this series of articles!
You did a good job! Thanks! Happy birthday!
Only 10 years?
My first interest in global warming was from print media, before 2006's An Inconvenient Truth.
My first efforts in correcting skeptics/deniers at WUWT must've started about 2008. When, finding something suspicious on WUWT, I'd look it up at SkepticalScience, and compose a correction. This was early enough that I got away with mentioning SkepticalScience as my source.
This had to have been before mid-2009. When I spent a weekend composing a summary comment on a backwater Argument. Which is still there.
Congratulations on all you've done!
Congratulations and Happy Birthday :)
Thank you for all you've done!!!
Well done and thank's. Very useful website. Lots of well organised material in one place.
Well I have learned a bit of the more sophisticated information from Skeptical Science posts. I must say that some of the scientists (not necessarily from Skeptical Science) have come up with ideas that have problems. People found that cool roofs reflected solar energy onto other buildings and increased air pollution and decreased rain because of lack of convection. Cows were accused of grand methane production and harm (however if the cows do not eat vegetation it can rot anyway, causing carbon dioxide and methane). and people complained about fuel being burned from airplane travel (however the airplane prevents solar enery from entering the sea or ground by casting a shadow - quite a few kWh). Scientists have proposed bright clouds, but with evaporative fine mist cooling, temperatures of clouds could fall to near wet bulb temperatures and descend (or have they got a method to make them rise?). Putting aerosols into the air will also (I am almost certain) reduce solar energy to the ground and reduce convectional rain, causing droughts. So it seems to me that some solutions proposed to cure the situation will cause problems. But huge headway has been made with solar energy (solar panels), wind energy, etc. Used solar panels have now become a huge problem - where to put them. My proposal is this: Make mirrors (mirrors can be made with plastic) of old solar panels and use them for concentrated solar power.
The enormous amount of work that has gone into this site is still breathtaking every time I visit. I can't find a way to express my thanks to all the contributors throughout the years in an appropriate wording. But I hope you'll get the gist...
Third time is the charm? I apologize for my blunderings. Lets try one more time... Our site: www.joboneforhumanity.org/ and our free e-book: "Climageddon: The Global Warming Emergency and how to Survive It"
Happy Birthday To SkS! Your Weelky Round Up is the Best on the Web!!!
[PS] Thanks for taking the time to learn. I have deleted earlier attempts.
Swayseeker @5
"and people complained about fuel being burned from airplane travel (however the airplane prevents solar enery from entering the sea or ground by casting a shadow - quite a few kWh)."
Aircraft emit approx. 1% of global CO2 emissions (plus other greenhouse gases) so are responsible for a small but measurable and significant quantity of warming.
There are typically 9,000 aircraft in the air globally at any one time. The area of total shadow cast is approximately 1 part in 30 million of global surface area. Therefore the shadow effect on surface temperatures is totally insignificant.
Hi. Just registered today after lurking for a few years. incredible site-well organised and extremely informative. Keep up the good work.