Some bloggers do a yearly wrap up, and so I thought I’d do a monthly and annual summary today.
2010 – the humble start of NTZ
This blog all started with me reading climate science skeptic sites like WUWT, IceCap, CA, Bishop Hill and many others since 2007. In March 2010 I happened to be at Donna Laframboise’s No Frakking Consensus and volunteered to be a citizen auditor for her IPCC 2007 audit of the literature cited in the report, which we found out was quite gray.
So through all this I got the invitation from WordPress to start my own blog. I thought: “Hey – why not!,” and started on April 1st. My humble target was to write a couple of posts per week and to reach a 1000 page-views by the end of the month.
When you start blogging, everything feeds on itself. You get your first reader comment, and it’s a thrill. And so you write more. I ended up writing much more of course, at least one post a day. And the visitors came gradually, 40 – 50 page-views a day at first. One day I had 179 – a post about the first Earth Day.
The big break
The big break came on April 23 when I came across a story at the German-language Ria Novosti which had a piece called Global Cooling Will Make Arctic Natural Resources Inaccessible – Scientist about a Russian scientist who warned of cooling. That story led me to write the post: Russian Scientist: Expect Cooling – Pols Sitting On The Wrong Horse. It was Friday afternoon I remember, and not much happened…until Marc Morano put it up as the big headline at Climate Depot a day later on Saturday. And the rest is history. That day, April 24, NTZ went from 50 page-views – to the thousands. NoTricksZone was born. I’ve been hopelessly addicted ever since. At the end of April I had over 8000 page views – well over the original target of 1000.
Thank you readers
I don’t like to give out numbers, but I am happy to say that in November NTZ went over the 150,000 page views plateau for that month, far beyond anything I ever imagined. Thank you readers!
I’ve made all the mistakes new bloggers could make. You find out what works and what doesn’t. I tend to rush things out too quickly, and need to be more patient. It really is best to post it in the morning after a night’s sleep. I’ve blown my top a couple of times, too. Hopefully there are no hard feelings out there.
It is important to stay on the good side of your fellow bloggers, as readers get referred back and forth and all. The sites I get the most traffic from (in random order!) are Tom Nelson, WUWT, Climate Depot and Bishop Hill. There are many others. But it’s not about getting traffic. To me it’s all about having fun doing it. If you have fun, then things naturally fall into place all by themselves.
December NTZ summary
December 3-4: The Climate Conference in Berlin where I got the chance to meet some of the other German bloggers and have even agreed to cooperate with them in an effort to get the German stories out to the world. That’s right, the spotlight is now on you German warmist scientists from now on – so behave yourselves.
December 7: The newest list of climate-gates was released: List of gates balloons to 129/. But I think that will be the last. There are just too many scandals out there to keep track of.
December 13: The failure of Cancun – Cancun complete travesty and rout/. The media and bureaucrats made it look like a success, but it was a failure throughout. But they sure did have a grand ol time down there (in the record cold)!
December 17: Der Spiegel’s 1974 article on a coming ice age was examined. Read here. It’s a bit hilarious that the chances of warming back then were pegged at 1 in 10,000 – at best!
December 18: And what would December 2010 be without all the news of the cold and snow that was supposed to be rare in Europe. Read here and here.
December 23: And the PIK trying to blame it all on warming. PIK says expect warmer colder winters.
December 27: We also heard a German professor come out on German radio and slam all the global warming science put out by the warmists: German climate professor slams climate religion.
December 28: Matti Vooro’s research showed that there is a growing number of international scientists who, like Joe Bastardi, feel cooling is in the future. Cooling over the next 1 to 3 decades/.
Grand year for the skeptics
All in all, 2010 was a grand year for the skeptics, and a nightmare for the warmists, who were kept barely alive by an El Nino. But that baby won’t be there in 2011! By 2015, AGW will be relegated to a footnote in history and remain popular only among a few die-hard fringe kooks like fraudsters James Hansen and Michael Mann. Their days are numbered – start counting them off. I feel more optimistic than ever.
You’re doing fine Pierre.
You have a great blog and making the bridge between the USA and Europe in to the heartland of the AGW doctrine your blog might play a more important role than you think.
Thanks.
Congratulations! I’ve been a daily visitor for several months, and enjoy what I find. You seem to have stories others don’t, which keeps the interest up.
Long may you continue.
Your site adds the important Euro element. The press tends to assume that AGW is a done deal in Europe but you keep finding the chinks in the armour.
Many thanks!
If I were you I’d better wait for the next solar maximum.
We’ve been wating 3 years.
I believe David Archibald is right with his predictions on SC24:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/20/a-dalton-minimum-repeat-is-shaping-up/
Thanks for an interesting blog. I have become a regular reader.
I got Notrickszone bookmarked alongside WUWT. I appreciate the “Euro element” as well. Keep up good work, Pierre!
Mr. Grosselin, the talent to run a successful blog is no small thing. I salut your obvious gifts in this realm and wish you godspeed for the new year.
Thank you for taking the time to write and update this blog. I’m a regular visitor.
Pierre, your blog is a welcome voice of AGW-scepticism in Europe – keep up the great work.
Congrats Pierre. NTZ is one of my top 3 sites to visit everyday, along with WUWT and Steven Goddard’s. WUWT is mostly N. America, NTZ is mostly Germany-Europe, SG’s covers many regions, short but frequent postings per day. The warming fanatics are losing, definitely. The only resources they have are governments — the UN, national govts, and all the tax money at their disposal. But in terms of brain cells, they have little. Very little.
Nice overview. Congrats on your success! A good mind and engaging writing make for an excellent blog, and adding Europe to Anglo-world climate/weather info is a fine contribution. Best wishes for 2011 and may the page views increase exponentially.
OK, Piers is on the right track now:
It’s back
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/01/its-back.html
“Thumbs up!” Pierre…
You are doing a fine job. I visit your blog every day and its fun reading it.
Regards
Ike (my real name is Dirk, but “Ike” is a nick I like to use, ´cause its a short version of my last name “Eickholt”)
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Reply: Thanks. So it’s okay if I continue using “Ike”? Ike is a good nickname. -PG
Yep, lets stick to “Ike”, since we have a other Dirk here as well.
Pierre,
You’re a natural, always fair and open to ideas.
Thanks for the viewpoints, they make me think and that’s always a good thing:>))
Edward.
I’ve been a regular “annoyance” on this blog for much of the year; certainly since June.
This blog is most useful because it provides a channel for what’s happening in the German-language blogsphere into the English-language one. And there’s long been a need for that in climate politics; though not as much as the as-yet (almost) unfulfilled channel in the other direction. Only EIKE (http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/) comes to mind in that respect.
Those who read only one of the languages didn’t have any insight into climate politics on the “other side”. Those that could aren’t all that suprised to find much the same. But the “official” mainstream media (MSM) aren’t reporting. Nor analysing. Most have overwhelmingly become mere propagandists.
So the reporting and analysis has fallen to concerned members of the public who bypass the MSM to reach a global readership though the Internet and, more specifically, the blogsphere. The latter provides not only means to propagate ideas without substantial technical competence, but also for immediate feedback by readers which (potentially) enhances useful content by adding additional perspective and data.
I only wanted to say “thank you” for your hard work and time … and ended up with a dissertation … all the more reason for me NOT have my own blog. 😉
So thank you especially to Pierre, and thanks to all the other interesting contributors.
P.S. I’m in Australia but the floods (of flood plains) are 3000 kilometres from here. So I’m sceptical of forecasts for Australia which simplify it to one climate: as that’s never been the case.
P.P.S. Once again, my informal, local forecast for weather is better than the weather bureaux’s as delivered by the MSM. They seem to have excised all common sense in favour of computer models. All the data; none of the understanding.
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Reply: Thanks Bernd. I hope I can keep it up. -PG
Well said Bernd,
I know, the EU does not like the cross-fertilisation of ideas and literature, they have the MSM sewn up but the Internet is a problem (big problem!!).
China have closed down their Internet, I know damn well the EU are trying/thinking in the same direction, they were shocked, truly shocked when the UN/IPCC Copenhagen jamboree (supposedly to tie up a world deal- so they thought – ha ha ha!) was torpedoed by realists – have no doubt, the CRU files release was an inside job, even those twats (UEA CRU) think, that, ‘the world domination’ thing – is a step too far.
The EU don’t though – Europe first then a global government would suit the club of Rome just fine…… this is why we must keep on, swapping ideas and intelligence.
BTW, You’ve gotta be in Perth.
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Reply: One of my next posts will look into this – Stay tuned! -PG
Of course, your blog is interesting for The Netherlands too. Everything on your blogroll is OK, but I do not understand sneeuwverwachting.nl, which is a tourist site about snow in winter sport areas and some news you can find in any newspaper. It does not compare with the other ones.
You’re right. I must have confused them with some other blog. All that free promotion they got from me!
I like your Eurocentric view too, and congratulate you on the quality, variety and frequency of your posts. It is no surprise you have the numbers of views that you do because you have got the formula for giving readers what they want to read most definately right. Keep it up!
Thanks! I hope to keep it up – with the help of the guest writers (Ed, Matti and Juraj) who have been coming forward.