There are many climate sites out there but apart from mine one of my favourite ones has to be Climate Sight which aims to explore what the public know about the environment and what is actual scientific knowledge. The owner of the blog, Kate Alexander claims on her “About” page that she started writing the blog to keep herself sane. I interviewed Kate to find a bit more out about her blog and why she likes doing it so much. Read below to see my interview with her.
Q:When did you start the blog and why did you become interested in the topic?
A:
“I became interested in climate science when I was about fifteen. I joined the environmental club at my high school, purely as a way to get involved, and subsequently had my name drawn out of a hat for a spot at a one-day youth climate change conference. There were local scientists speaking at this conference, discussing everything from global climate projections to how oxygen isotopes could be used as temperature proxies. I was absolutely fascinated, and began to read more and more about climate change on my spare time. I was particularly influenced by Greg Craven's Manpollo Project.
Before long, I began to get frustrated with all the silly arguments surrounding climate change - carbon dioxide levels lag temperature, global warming stopped in 1998, and so on. There's a very comprehensive list of arguments and rebuttals here. Worst of all, the people spreading them around didn't seem to care less whether or not they were credible and reliable. Here we were, on the brink of what could potentially be humanity's greatest challenge, and people were arguing about GISS's adjustment of the urban heat island effect in YouTube comments. It was absolutely ridiculous.
I needed an outlet for all of these thoughts that were swirling around inside my head. Left to my own devices, I probably would have done no more than start a newsletter for my environmental club, but luckily, I have a very computer-savvy friend who said to me, "Kate, you need to start blogging." He did some research on different options for blogging software, and set me up with a WordPress account.
This was in April of 2009, and I never expected that people would actually be interested in reading and sharing my articles. I just needed to write them all down, and maybe send the link to my friends and family. However, before long, the blog really took off.”
Q: Where do you get your ideas from?
A:"I subscribe to a dozen or so climate blogs, my favourite of which are RealClimate, Only In It For The Gold, and Deltoid. That helps me keep up with current events and publications, and often gives me inspiration for new posts. Discussions with friends and observations of public opinion will also spark new ideas. This year I worked my way through most of the local library's climate change section, which solidified and broadened my knowledge.”
Q: Do you have help with the blog?
A: “I write and manage the blog myself, although there is the occasional guest post, and the idea for one of my most popular posts was thought of by the same friend who set up my blog in the first place.”
That’s the end of the interview as it was done by email although if you want to see her site for yourself visit www.climatesight.org to get to her blog. I want to say thank you to Kate and I promise that I will keep following her blogs.
