I've actually slightly missed Wednesday by an hour - I blame blogger and a last minute search for two more blogs to make 100. Phew! 
What better expresses the green philosophy and way of life than a hierarchical list ranking comrades against each other? Nothing I can think of off hand - that's what. Rather than go into the whole thing again I'll simply list previous posts on this in the order you should read them if you don't what what on earth is going on. Read these first, second, third, and fourth.
Congratulations to everyone concerned and a special mention will of course go to the very deserved top ten, who are:
- Kitchen Witch, who by (cunningly) writing well, humourously and above all consistently has developed a small blog community around KW. This blog has the absolute honour of being named best green blogger 2006.
- Peter Tatchell
- George Monbiot
- The Past; Present; and Future
- Philobiblon
- Paul Kingsnorth
- Earthquake Cove
- Life is complicated but beautifully simple
- Caroline Lucas
- Making Waves
But these results are those determined by my application of Iain Dale's original system - and blogs, being what they are very much dominated by personal taste - and therefore highly controversial. It's for that reason that I've set up a poll for the "People's Choice" where you can choose any of the top ten as your personal favourite - a poll I'll allow to run until Midnight of the 6th of December (ie two weeks time).
Hold on, hold on though - what about the other 90? Well, just click here they are all there, just waiting for you.
Where next?
In the course of doing this task, which was far more time consuming than I'd anticipated, I've come across a number of common problems in different forms. Not just the constant reoccurance of the Son of Moto template but a number of real ABC's of blogging. So I thought I'd offer my services to anyone (on the list or not) who wanted advice on how to improve their blog - and I'd give my opinion. You are of course at liberty to ask anyone in the world - I'm no expert - but I am volunteering for the job.
As a favour to me what I'd like you to do is give me something in return. No, not money. I know what a tight bunch you are - what I'd like to know is what you like most about blogging, where *you* think your blog could most improve and where you think *my* blog could most improve. If you'd like to do that please do email me and we'll chat, hopefully bringing the green blogosphere closer together in the process.
Annie Leonard and co. (
Adrienne Mayor (
Ed Howker and Shiv Malik
Floella Benjamin (
Mark Watson (
Tim Jackson (
David Wilson (
Clive Lord (
Nickie Roberts
26 comments:
Gawd! I'm chuffed! :)
Thanks for your thoughts - how nice.
*rushes off to think of something green to write about*
Only seventh best - there's some foul play going on here.
Actually I was very excited to come seventh. It's great that you put the effort in to produce this, - hopefully it will increase the profile of greens in the blogging world.
Yes, thanks Jim for all your effort. The Coffee House is new to the list at 33! Looking forward to reading through all the others.
Earthpal "Importantly for me, it's brought all the Green bloggers together - under one roof so to speak." Yeah, I think this is really important - one of the weaknesses of the green blogosphere is we aren't talking to each other. If we can build more of a community out of this that would be great.
Me and Natalie Bennett are organising a Green Bloggers fringe for the next green party conference in Swansea which I hope will also help - perhaps we should think of some other stuff to do too!
Peter - foul play is always at work!
Matt B - yes - so many blogs so little time
do I have to sell more singles? do I rerelease some old tunes....
Are you planning a pop career Derek? You're post has made me think I should be playing the old cheesy top of the pops theme when people read the top 100!
I'm delighted to have been mentioned and will continue doing my bit.
Three of my Blogs in the top 100, I'm pretty pleased with that :~)
I regard Son of Moto as the Green "house style", so I'm sticking to it for the party blogs.
P.S. could you please correct your spelling of Croydon in your UK Green Bloggers list :)
This is great stuff, and I'm thrilled to be at number 6! The only slight niggle I would introduce is that some of those featured - Monbiot and Lucas, for example - are not actually blogs. They're websites featuring articles published in the press.
Does this not skew the purpos/definition a little? Or would confining yourself strictly to blogs simply produce a very small number? (this would be depressing!)
Keep up the good work though!
Spelling corrected: thanks for the spot!
Lucas' blog definately is a blog - it's just provided by the guardian. I believe she can post there as often as she likes, although it doesn't necessarily make the paper / front page.
Monbiot's is slightly more irritating as he doesn't allow comments, which meant I thought about it for a while. Basically he lost marks because of it but I eventually decided to allow him in, poartly based on the format/approach he takes.
I wont keep on about son of moto - although I will say full on primary colours (or black) are perhaps slightly less elegant than other possible choices.
As a locally focussed blog, (Although the Ribble Estuary is of International Significance when it comes to birdlife, and the Atlantic Salmon, Europe's 10th most endangered species depends on the Ribble) we were very pleased at Save The Ribble to find ourselves at number 13, especially as we have only been blogging for 9 months.
What is special about our blog is the way we are involving both the local and the online community in campaigning to defend our river from some pretty crazy development proposals.
Great idea to make a top 100 - it provokes thought and discussion, and generates a very useful list.
What I liked about the save the ribble blog that it was a genuinely group effort, and connected directly to action - but more than that as a formally single issue blog it still had variety and range, which is why it is (I think) the highest ranked single issue blog.
I think it might also be the highest blog using "Son of Moto" - make of that what you will
Good choices.
OT: Just heard on the news, that jazz singer Anita O'Day died of pneumonia.
Caroline Wilson's blog GoodGreenPR is worth a look as she is interested in the potential power of PR to change people's behaviour around the issue of recycling and other green living. People can be cynical about public relations, but if we can help promote greener actions and encourage others to motivate their organisations to become more environmentally conscious that must be a good thing.
So will you be compiling another list in 2007, then? I agree with t'others that it's a damn good idea to have lots of sites with green interests listed somewhere, under one umbrella, or something.
Oh, and thanks for the compliments. My head will get awfully large at this rate... which could prove painful given the tiny nature of my house! ;)
I hope there will be a similar list in 2007 as this one seems to have been very helpful for a number of people.
I hope the force of my argument has persuaded Iain Dale that Greens should be included in his other lists and if so I think it would be a good idea if he took it over (although I'd be happy to provide support if he wanted it) as it will get wider and broader profile.
If he'd prefer me to do it again then I guess I'd be happy to - with the support of you guys and girls. Inevitably some blogs will die or go downhill, others will improve and new blogs will be launched - it would be rather exciting to compare... looking forward to it already
The truth for bloggers is that you are only as good as your last blog post, and the truth for greens is that you are only as green as your last emission,,,
Isn't there a green blog blogring then?
jax - I don't think so. The nearest thing there is to this is Green Bloggers and now the 100 best list - if you know how to set up a blogring go for it and let's get everyone signed up!
Thanks for setting this up jimjay. We're pleased to be number 17!!!
Thanks for including my blog 'Organic Jac', which tries to cover Welsh green stuff/news as well as further afield. I'm very chuffed to be only three places below Greenpeace at 21!!
Cheers and love the blog
Ella - OrganicJac.blogspot.com
P.s. CityHippy's blog is now frozen because he gone to do great things at Natural Collection. He used to organise a 'Carnival of Green' where each week a different green blog would host the carnival and give a round up of other green blogs. I will check out whether this is still running......
wow - im on the list! that's great! * though ive been lax in updating as we're so overworked at these charities ! i think it's great to see so many bloggers brought together.
cheers
I think it would be a shame if Iain Dale got hold of this. He's clearly not someone who knows or cares much about green issues, and his list, if his current efforts are anything to go by, would be tiresomely Westminster-focused. I think others can do better.
I'd be happy to help out next year, or even to host it myself if you don't have time/inclination.
Paul, perhaps as Mr Dale is a keen Tory we could propose he outsource the green section to us!
That way he could include the Greens in his compelation (which benefits both him and us) there's less work for him and we still have some ownership over the finished product.
Having a small team to share the work next year would be great!
Definitely worth thinking about. Another thought is that you could get the Ecologist to sponsor it - not necessarily financially (though that would be nice) but just in terms of publicity - good for the list and for them (they also have their own blog, which I sometimes write for). Could raise its profile. I could put you in touch when the time comes.
That's a really interesting idea. In fact why stop at the Ecologist... Red Pepper, Green World and others might also be keen...
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