It’s perhaps a debatable opinion, but I think the main way that a lot people found out there actually was such a thing as the climate skeptic blogosphere, was that its existence was highlighted by the alarmists themselves. In the complete absence of any PR budget, it was actually the alarmists who by attacking it, inadvertently spread the word that there was an alternative narrative on offer from a small skeptic community in the blogosphere. That mistake was the shape of blunders to come.
The alarmists, like all compulsive fanatics, simply could not abide any opposition, no matter how small, sciency or obscure it was, and let’s be frank here, in the early years, those three adjectives described the skeptic community quite accurately. Innocuous though it was, they just couldn’t leave it be and had to go after it, because that’s the elemental nature of fanatics.
full essay here