Top Twenty Green Blogs

Iain Dale has recently published a Guide to Political Blogging and, in keeping with the blog ethic of many voices from many places, he invited a number of bloggers to write a chapter each on their field of interest. I wrote the chapter on "The State of Green blogging" and compiled the top twenty Green Blogs using a vigorous scientific method based on that used to compile last year's Top 100.

Personally, I'm more of a fan of the chapter than a numerically stacked list simply because it allows you to talk about the good things people do and discuss the pluralism of the green blogosphere in a meaningful way rather than simply assign numbers and award medals. This top twenty certainly does not reflect my personal list of the first twenty blogs I go to on a day - although I think these are all good blogs who deserve their place in the list.

One of the interesting things about "Green Blogs" is that the range from left to right, from respectable to disgraceful to personal is absolutely phenomenal. And what is a political blog anyway? These questions make compiling the list an interesting thing to do, but also impossible to come to any satisfactory conclusion. Thank God for the scientific method.

How can you really compare the blog of an environmental campaign with the personal thoughts of a green leaning academic? How do you compare the blog of a local councillor who uses it to keep their constituents informed to that of a witty green field anarchist who makes no play for respectability? It would be like trying to compare George W. Bush with a donkey. Oh. Actually. That's a bad example.

For good or ill here is the "official" 2007 top twenty as they were submitted to Iain Dale's Guide to Political Blogging.

1. Alice in blogland
2. Sian Berry
3. Tom Chance
   (at the acrewoods hosting collective)
4. Transition culture
5. Derek Wall
6. Jenny Jones
7. Gaian Economics
8. Know your place
9. Peter Tatchell
10. The Ecologist
11. Green Girls Global
12. Earthquake Cove
13. Philobiblon
14. The Void
15. Green Ladywell
16. Barkingside 21
17. Green Jelly Bean
18. Coventry Green Party
19. Conserve England
20. Greenman's Occasional Organ

But wait! There's more!

As tradition dictates (well, I did this last year anyway) we need a people's choice winner too. That means it's time to get voting in The Daily (Maybe) poll (right hand sidebar). May the best blog win. The winner will be announced on 25th November.