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About HotWhopper

Sou | 2:13 PM Feel free to comment!

I'm a sixties-something woman with an interest in climate science.  I have a Bachelor of Agricultural Science (Honours) and an MBA, public servant then management consultant (mostly to governments, RDCs, universities, NGOs etc.). None of this is all that relevant now that I've retired (or as good as).  Other interests include photography and computers among other things.  (The blog cover pic is a photo of one of the three major fires this century that surrounded our town and destroyed huge areas of forest and farmland, caused the death of a firefighter and killed two local residents.)

I started this blog to shine a spotlight on misogyny and the rejection of climate science. (Yes, they do seem to go hand-in-hand to some extent.)  These days it's mostly about climate. It's not a high-brow blog, it's rife with bad puns and sarcasm and snark.  But the science it refers to is solid.

HotWhopper was inspired by the treatment I suffered back in 2012, when I was banned from the share trading forum, HotCopper, for observing a case of rampant sexism there (one of many).  If you read posts in HotCopper's science and medicine forum pre-June 2012, you might have seen my posts.  MobyT was the name I went by. Go to the story about the Men's Playground to read about what happened, or Gabby's cartoon for a more light-hearted take. The name HotWhopper was coined by a respected science contributor there - and very apt.

Climate bloggers know me as Sou (occasionally SouT and on Twitter as @Sou_HotWhopper).

As featured on...


In the time since HotWhopper was launched (mid-December 2012), the readership has grown to something considerably less than astronomical proportions, but good enough to allow bragging rights from this otherwise modest blogger (much greater than I ever had in the small pond of HotCopper - now more than 6 million page views). HotWhopper has entertained, informed, amused or annoyed people from at least 211 different nations and all continents except, as far as I can gather, Antarctica.  But Google analytics seems to have left that off the map so if you happen to drop in here from Antarctica, please say hi :)

I can't say it's down to my feeble efforts at self-promotion.  Instead all thanks go to HotWhopper being featured on some prominent websites, including Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy on Slate.com  and here (thanks, Phil); Joe Romm at ClimateProgress (thanks, Joe); Capital Weather Gang at Washington Post (thanks, Jason); SkepticalScience (thanks, Dana); Pharyngula (thanks, PZ Myers); The Week (thanks, Ryan); D La Repubblica Blog (thanks Silvie); the Oxford University Press blog (thanks Fuhai Hong and Xiaojian Zhao);  ourchangingclimate (thanks, Jos), Rabett Run (thanks, Eli), Stoat (thanks, William), The Guardian's Climate Consensus the 97% blog (thanks again Dana and John Abraham); The Guardian's the Eco Audit (thanks Karl); Judith Curry's Climate Etc blog (thanks, Judith), John Quiggin's blog (thanks, John); Andy Revkin in DotEarth at the New York Times (thanks, Andy); Dan Satterfield's Wild Science Journal (big thanks, Dan); and in the comments (from other people) on popular sites like Andy Revkin's DotEarth, Dr Ricky Rood's blog on Wunderground.com; SomethingAwful.com, nrc.nl/klimaateuroekonom.cz, The Conversation, Fairfax Media's Weatherzone forum (to a mixed reception), WattsUpWithThat (to an unmixed reception) and even slipping past the mods on Andrew Bolt's blog; plus retweets from "Famous People".  More recently I've noticed people have been linking to HotWhopper at Reddit, mainly r/skeptic and r/climate. Not to forget JulesKlimaatBlog, and H.E. Taylor (RIP July 2014) and Coby, who for some reason picked up on my blog articles from the outset.

Special mention to Tim Lambert at Deltoid, Mike who's WatchingTheDeniers and Tamino for not complaining when I was self-promoting :)

I've also discovered that HotWhopper is rated as a "scientific blog" by Nature.com :) (More here.) It's been quoted in an Oxford University Press blog article, and cited in a related comment article (unpublished AFAIK) by Fuhai Hong and Xiaojian Zhao (re this).

And to Anthony Watts and other climate science deniers, fake skeptics and sexist oafs everywhere, shrinking though your numbers be:  HotWhopper just wouldn't be the same without you.


Email contact: Sou at HotWhopper dot com (convert to normal format).