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Industrial emissions vs. natural emissions

Do we have any estimate figures in relation to the number of tons of Carbon Dioxide is being produced annualy through industry? I wanted to compare it with the emissions released from a natural source - a volcano for example.--OsirisV (talk) 11:36, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions has 29,321,302 tons in 2007 for industrial CO2 for the world. This does not include land use changes like deforestation. You might also be interested in Talk:Global warming/FAQ, Q5. Volcanoes are comparatively small emitters (but persistent - over geological times, they do play a role). If you look at the overal carbon cycle, human sources are small compared to all natural sources (but then natural sources are very closely matched by natural sinks). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:25, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
Handy link Wikispan (talk) 15:13, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm doing a Global Warming paper and, after stumbling onto the claim that Wikispan presented, I was confused - It seems to be real... but it feels like it's missing something out of the equation. Thanks for the help :) -- OsirisV (talk) 23:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Argument Maps as a way to summarise the debate?

Hi

I would like to propose the addition (e.g. under Further Reading) of links to Global Warming Argument Maps, which summarise key issues, responses and arguments in a visual way (i.e. mindmapping, but tuned for showing multiple viewpoints on a topic).

For example here is an interactive, embeddable Debategraph map on Anthropogenic Climate Change: http://debategraph.org/Stream.aspx?nID=610

...and this one takes you to the top level of Compendium maps based on Climate Skeptic Arguments: http://compendium.open.ac.uk/moodle/file.php/2/kmap/1288889885/ClimateSkepticArguments.html

1. Do you think these are useful?

2. If so, can the page be unlocked so that these can be added?

Regards,

Dr Simon Buckingham Shum

Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University UK, http://people.kmi.open.ac.uk/sbs/welcome

They seem to me to be an excellent example of a possible use of your software, but the arguments and counterarguments presented are far too simplistic, and black-and-white, to add to our more nuanced coverage here. A lot of the statements are sourced from personal blogs (not acceptable as reliable sources here on matters of science or policy), and some are not sourced at all ("missing citation"). Worst of all, they do not represent weight, or degree of belief, or of factual basis, for the arguments presented. Like many down-market media interviews, they sometimes represent views held only by a very few 'crackpots' alongside statements that could be sourced to some of the leading scientific organisations of the world, giving equal weight and credence to both. This is not helpful in a serious coverage. --Nigelj (talk) 18:21, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
It is best to sign with ~~~~,I'll add a welcome template to your user page. You'll be able to edit the page after four days and ten edits - that is a measure to stop drive by editors just sticking in vandalism. That's a good question and the answer could affect a number of other articles. I've raised this at WP:ELN#Are debategraph discussions okay?. It is a bit better than a blog so it might be okay. Dmcq (talk) 18:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
I think I'm definitely against the Compendium one as it is just the Open University as far as I can see rather than an open debating forum. Dmcq (talk) 18:41, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
The "compendium map" is actively harmful. This seems like a social science or journalistic approach in which all statements at face value and of equal validity. Such an approach is orthogonal to the physical sciences, which are based on falsifiability and consistency with observations. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:25, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

On the assertion of consensus - Heartland Institute List

Environmental journalist George Monbiot should not be cited here. In the first place, his op-ed pieces are not reliable sources for non-NPOV reasons. Secondly, this attribution to him is incorrect. The article uses the term "numerous" scientists. In Monbiot's op-ed, he uses the term "many." The second Monbiot attribution [39] is a dead link and should be removed. For that matter, pretty much nothing Monbiot writes should ever make it into anyone's list of reliable sources.

It was Richard Littlemore's reporting at http://www.desmogblog.com/500-scientists-with-documented-doubts-about-the-heartland-institute that "revealed" this issue, not Monbiot. Littlemore is the corect source.

Instead of listing the nebulous "many" or "numerous" how about we use the source? Littlemore reveals that 45 of the 500 scientists asked for their names to be removed.

71.161.112.23 (talk) 06:34, 17 March 2011 (UTC)Random

This The Heartland Institute? And this George Monbiot? 99.190.86.252 (talk) 07:09, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm not original poster, and I don't know enough about George Monbiot to comment on his NPOV, but I think it's worth keeping in the article that The Heartland Institute should be identified as a political rather than scientific organization. This is an organization that lobbies exclusively on behalf of industry, and has a long history of making questionable scientific claims denying any harm from industry practices, as well as advocating massive deregulation across all sectors of business. It would be misleading to include mention of them without explaining the nature of the organization.66.134.4.226 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC).

Poor footnoting

I went to get a broad understanding of the the global warming controversy. After reading the passage two things became very clear. 1) The author is obviously biased, 2) and the author needs to learn how to research better. I noticed that the author makes grand claims about global warming (absolute statements) and when I looked at their footnotes, there was nothing to support the claim. I think that a cite check is required on this article, and it needs to be flagged until done. Thanks

24.131.186.225 (talk) 02:20, 11 April 2011 (UTC)L. A.

Could you give a specific example or two? Sailsbystars (talk) 02:43, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Original poster-- could you explain your accusation of bias? It's my feeling that this article provides a pretty neutral summary of the controversy. If you're planning to assert that this article is NPOV in favor of the scientific consensus on climate change, please check the archives to avoid reopening old discussions. Also bear in mind that Wikipedia requires scientifically-based research and citation, so if you have an objection to the portrayal of the scientific consensus based in personal conjecture or religious conviction, it unfortunately cannot be incorporated into the article.66.134.4.226 (talk) 17:29, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
"The controversy is significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature,[1][2]" I read reference [1] and it was a waste of time. Reference [2] is not accessible. Therefore this sentence should be taken out until reliable and accessible sources can be presented. "where there is a strong consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused mainly by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases." This sentence has been taken out because of the lack of reference. Good luck finding one. "No scientific body of national or international standing disagrees with this view,[3][4]" But no scientific body of national or international standing agrees with the view either. Why present a ring of truth around something that is false ? Dr. Universe (talk) 16:32, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Just because you can't immediately find a book does not mean it is an unreliable reference. Even for references which are a bit more difficult like ones behind a paywall you can get someone here with access to find the relevant section. As to the second point practically all major scientific bodies agree with the IPCC with a couple not holding a position. Dmcq (talk) 17:03, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Add Global warming conspiracy theory

Add Global warming conspiracy theory 99.181.141.126 (talk) 01:36, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Falsifiability

Hi. The article needs a section concerning the falsifiability of the prevailing anthropogenic emissions theory, mentioning its compatibility with existance of natural cycles, and the scientific premises and arguments concerning this factor. Thanks. ~AH1 (discuss!) 18:37, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Can you be a bit clearer and maybe list a few reliable sources about what you have in mind? Anthropogenic emissions aren't a theory, they are an uncontested fact. This fact has nothing (well, very little) to do with "natural cycles". The direct influence of increased anthropogenic greenhouse gases is (part of) a theory. It is easy to falsify in principle, but in practice it's based on extremely well-established basic physics. Climate feedbacks are understood to different degrees, but are, of course, also falsifiable by comparing their detailed predictions (not just "it's getting warmer") with observations. Some of this can be done in the lab, but for others we need observations over climatically relevant time periods - i.e. at least several decades. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:49, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
They're (mostly) falsifiable in theory. Some, however, suspect that, for reasons having to do with political and sociological forces at work in the climate science field and its publications, predictions which fail to match observations are quietly forgotten, their falsification goes unpublished, while the predictions which 'got lucky' are trumpeted. Of course there is no data to support this claim (nor any to refute it), but it is V and N that this claim is made, and as such is relevant content for an article on "Global warming controversy".
If you need convincing of the V and N, I will search for some RS when I have more copious free time. (On an unrelated note, I seem to remember we have clashed before, Mr Schulz. You seem a nice guy, it's a shame we're on opposite sides so much). PT (talk) 13:56, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
  Search away. The evidence for AGW is unequivocable, and the claims for contrarian evidence exceptionalist. This is an old and tired claim, long ago refuted. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:17, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
You have missed the point. This is not a question of whether the claim is correct, but one of whether it is made and in being made contributes notably to the controversy. Unequivocable is not a word, and I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I'm guessing "unequivocal", which means "unquestionable". If you truly believe the evidence for AGW to be unquestionable, then you are logically incapable of analysing the intellectual position of people who question the evidence for AGW (because, according to your set of beliefs, such people do not exist). Guess what this article's about?
Incidentally, I'd like to see some kind of source for your claim that claims of confirmation bias in climatology have been refuted. Wonderful though the scientific method is, it is vulnerable to confirmation bias (see eg. the Millikan oil drop issue) against which the only defense is vigilance. I have yet to see any reliable source (such as a methodology review of climatology carried out by a non-climatologist) demonstrating that climatology is not experiencing significant confirmation bias, and would like to see one if it exists. Note that the lack of a similar source demonstrating the opposite does not in itself constitute a 'refutation'.
You call scepticism of AGW 'exceptionalist' (the wiki article lists several meanings but the one that seems to fit the context is "avoiding normal terms of analysis", essentially special pleading. Blanket application of this label does not make it true; please justify your claims. PT (talk) 01:29, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
You appear to be mistaken about where the burden of proof lies. It is up to you to show that confirmation bias exists, not up to others to disprove your assertion. This is a common logical fallacy; see e.g., here and here for further discussion. The Spirit of Neutrality and Truth (talk) 01:36, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
No, I understand perfectly well the concept of 'burden of proof', and I accept that the claim of confirmation bias is unproven (though I note that that does not impinge upon my rationale for its being covered in the article). However, JJ asserts that the claim has been "refuted", which assertion also carries a burden of proof. PT (talk) 01:55, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, he's wrong there. But might that be because claims of confirmation bias, to the extent they exist at all, have not been made in sufficiently credible terms to bother refuting? I'm not aware of serious claims to confirmation bias. The closest thing I can think of is the so-called "hockey stick controversy," but that was really an argument over statistical methodology rather than confirmation bias. (We're straying into WP:NOTAFORUM territory here, but whatever.) The Spirit of Neutrality and Truth (talk) 02:12, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls.71.30.161.161 (talk) 19:17, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
Also, the claims being patently refuted or not is not a reason for not listing the controversial anti-AGW claims here.

Per Talk:Global warming#Add LA Times resources ...

Per Talk:Global warming#Add LA Times resources ... LA Times per comment on Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change#Add LA Times resources:

97.87.29.188 (talk) 22:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Also see Talk:List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming # Add "physicist Richard Muller, longtime critic of the scientific consensus on climate change (Global warming)" 99.181.155.158 (talk) 03:09, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
If you actually read those talk pages, you'll see the consensus is against adding this material to this article, also. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:50, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
If consensus is what the scientific community needs to prove AGW, then it has been proved. Consensus also drives what's put in WP, so this article must also be unequivocable and true.71.30.161.161 (talk) 19:22, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
No, a couple of Users suggested adding these here, read all the related Talk. 99.190.85.25 (talk) 22:33, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
Wrong again. A couple of users suggested this would be the only place it could be added, but no one other than you seems to be in favor of actually adding it. Please justify. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:02, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
All of them were lying, you say? 99.119.131.205 (talk) 01:38, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I wasn't going to say you are lying, but you've misinterpreted what the users said, in a way that I didn't think anyone with a basic knowledge of English could have done. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Insults and lying, so impressive ... 99.119.131.205 (talk) 02:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
99, I'd tone it down a notch if I were you, you're bordering on personal attacks. Having thought about it some more, I concur with Arthur that the study is not ready for inclusion in any wikipedia articles. Until it actually gets published, there's no way to determine whether it has enduring notability. Sailsbystars (talk) 02:57, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
99: I am one of "them", the "couple of users" that suggested that your efforts on multiple talk pages to "Add LA Times resources" should be consolidated here (as this is the best, and possibly only, appropriate topic for it). But that does not mean I, or even "all of them", favor such addition. The consensus seems to be against, and you have misinterpreted matters. Per WP:TALKNO that is unacceptable behavior, but misunderstandings happen, we understand, just do not persist in that behavior. Your imputation of someone lying, however, is innately uncivil, is totally unnecessary, and not warranted. Reasons adequate for most of us have been given why this study is not yet ready for inclusion, and your advocacy for it is sounding less like misguided enthusiasm and more like POV pushing. You would be well advised to back off. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:01, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Blatant Bias

Anyone with no prior knowledge will surely leave this article believing there ISN'T actually any controversy at all. Is the point of this article to explain why a controversy exists (it does) or to attempt to systematically dismantle every single argument made by scientists who oppose the theory of anthropogenic global warming? If that's the point, why not just merge this article with the global warming article. The two are basically the same anyway.

Not only is this article chock full of missing citations, it's full of statements for which a credible source could not be obtained if one were actually trying to do so and not just pushing a personal agenda.

The purpose of this article is to spell out the arguments against the notion that global warming is man made not make anyone who agrees with said notion look like an idiot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.57.177.161 (talk) 17:08, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

You seem to misunderstand the purpose of this article, which is not to promote fringe arguments, but to describe the controversy. As the article notes, the controversy is largely political rather than there being any controversy within science about the areas of clear consensus. When discussing arguments, as well as describing the arguments, the article should show the majority expert views of these arguments. You also seem to misunderstand the way to use this talk page, which is for presenting properly sourced specific proposals for article improvement, not for generalised complaining. . . dave souza, talk 17:20, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

You seem to misunderstand Wikipedia procedure. If, at some point, our society formally chose to begin referring to facts as "fringe arguments" then you must specify the date. The controversy is not largely politcal. I fear, however, that if I attempt to spell out for you, on this page, the way in which it isn't you might need more tissue.

And if the proper way to use this page is what you've described then you're in an ironic state of denial about the way this site actually works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.57.177.161 (talk) 17:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

See WP:TALK. You may also find WP:NOTAFORUM helpful. . . dave souza, talk 17:53, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
  The irony here is that someone who doesn't even know how to sign their posts charges someone else with "denial about the way this site actually works". - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:14, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The true irony here is that someone who knows enough to know how to sign doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word "lurk."

The double irony is that the guy who claims this isn't a forum is the one defending an article that reads like one.

I really don't think it's necessary to spell out all the arguments for the pro-AGW side in the GW article and then, in the article that lists the reasons why a controversy exists, list them again in retaliation just so that there's not one single paragraph that goes against the dogma without mention of the fact that it's blasphemy. If this isn't blatantly biased BS then at the very least it's redundant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.57.177.161 (talk) 10:45, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

By the way, consensus in science is irrelevant. Science is not a democracy it's a search for the truth. One finding can destroy 100 years of mainstream theory. If Wikipedia is concerned about facts and the truth then this fact should factor into its operations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.57.177.161 (talk) 10:53, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Science isn't a religion ('dogma', 'blasphemy' etc), nor is it (or Wikipedia) about WP:TRUTH. Science is about facts (observations) and repeatability; sometimes it's about theorising about causality, but then that comes back to observable reality and repeatability too. I think mostly here, WP:FRINGE applies: "idea[s] that [are] not broadly supported by scholarship in [their] field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea". There is an established mainstream science of global warming, so in an article about the controversies, fringe ideas must always be put into context. --Nigelj (talk) 12:32, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Science may not be a religion, but some people (typically not scientists) sure behave like it is sometimes. WP:FRINGE, as quoted, would apply to an article on Global warming, the "mainstream idea". If dissension over the science of global warming is strong enough to merit an article, it's strong enough to merit fair treatment. As the unsigned user above points out, this article is either biased or redundant (or both), since it's just another article on "Scientific Opinion on Global Warming" (as if the two we already have weren't enough) masquerading as an article on the controversy (which is an inherently non-encyclopaedic (and un-NPOVable) subject except for the part on Public opinion on climate change which already has its own article (which I think is new since I last got into this whole argument). That article in turn takes a judgemental stance particularly in its 'Issues/Science' section which should, if present at all (highly dubious in any case given that the article is explicitly not about climate science), be about the Issues people have with the Science).
The whole set of GW-related articles on Wikipedia read to me like a vengeful series of moans and bitches about how the evil right-wing media are duping people into not believing the 'obvious truth' of GW. Well let me tell you, I don't trust the media at all, I was educated under a curriculum that takes GW as 'fact', I've formed my conclusions purely by meta-analysis of the science, and I don't believe the warming trend is significantly anthropogenic, nor do I believe that our understanding of complex systems with heterogeneous fluid components is sufficient to make any conclusions about warming mechanisms (or any predictions of future warming) with any certainty at all. The error bars are wide open.
Even if I'm wrong about anthropogenic GW (which, apparently unlike you, I accept is entirely possible), my points about this and the other articles still stand - they are simply not neutral, and some of them probably cannot be given their titles. The whole thing smacks of a crusade, and it's disgusting to watch. And since you seem to judge the validity of someone's arguments by whether they remembered to type four tildes, PT (talk) 13:42, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Do please remember that NPOV is not about a presentation that gives "equal time", but instead a presentation that is weighted according to the prevalence of the literature about a subject. Currently the prevalent view about climate change is that most of the recent warming is caused by anthropogenic factors - thus our articles must reflect this. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't describe alternate views - but when presenting such, we must present it in a way so that the reader isn't confused about which argument is the minority view, and which is majority one. This is what the article does. You will have to be more clear on specific content that may be presented unbalanced, so that we can rectify this. Our personal opinion on where the balance should be, is irrelevant. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:24, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm not arguing for equal time. I'm arguing that an article on 'controversy' about a subject should do more than just present a series of straw men and then use each as an excuse to give another rehash of arguments 'for' which are already adequately covered elsewhere; it should actually document the issues people have expressed with the science and the methods used to produce it. I'm also arguing that the mere existence of a 'controversy' article separate from the 'public opinion' article implies acceptance that both positions are at least intellectually defensible, and that in such an article, using WP:WEIGHT in the manner you seem to be trying to is a distortion. Consider the paragraph beginning "In articles specifically about a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space." (and note that I am not going merely by that sentence, but by the paragraph as a whole). Lastly, and most importantly, I am arguing that this article does not take an impartial tone, instead being written like a monograph with the explicit aim of persuading the reader of a particular point of view. This article does not aim to inform about a controversy; it merely seeks to squash it. So, onto specifics (although one of the biggest issues is the pervasive one of tone).
  • The text and three bullet points immediately after the heading Greenhouse gases. Firstly where it says "Correlation of CO2 and temperature is not part of this evidence"; this is at best misleading and at worst untrue, since the fact that recent warming and emissions are coincident is a major part of the evidence (if the past four decades' warming were replaced by cooling, would we attribute climate change to the emission of greenhouse gases? I doubt it). The charitable interpretation is that the sentence refers to the historical record and palæoclimatology, which is at odds with its juxtaposition with the phrase "recent global warming".
  • Secondly, the mention of ice cores. Up to the words "astronomical forcing", it is describing a sceptical argument - but then it goes on to say "the current variations, of whatever size, are claimed to be timed by anthropogenic releases of CO₂". Claimed by whom? And what is the "(thus returning the argument to the importance of human CO₂ emissions)" doing there? While it is reasonable to include counter-arguments, this isn't one - it's just jumping on the argument and denying it; the counter-argument proper begins at "Analysis of", and everything between that and "astronomical forcing," should just not be there. Besides, the argument that "The ice core evidence suggests that the current rise in CO₂ is a result of warming and not a cause" is a straw man; what really makes the timing of CO₂ and temperature events significant is that they refute the argument (often made in the popular press) that palæoclimate data is evidence for GHGs having a significant warming effect; moreover the fact that previous temperature events were not caused by GHG events increases the prior probability of a temperature event occurring without GHG forcing, by implying that there exist other causes of temperature events. Incidentally, I can't check the citations of this section (60 and 62) to see whether either of them support that bit in the middle, because archive.org is apparently down (still, I can hardly blame the Rouge Cabal for that, heheh).
  • Then we have the second bullet point. It doesn't seem to be reporting on any argument or counter-argument, it lacks citations, and it fails to mention the rather important point that the greenhouse effect of any given gas is not linear in concentration; the text makes it sound like CO₂'s GH contribution has been increased by about 50%, which if the true value of the '9-26%' were 16% would lead to a temp. rise of over 2.5°C. In truth of course the effect is approximately logarithmic, and the modelled forcing is given (in that graph that seems to be on every page) as 0.7°C. Also significant is the fact that CO₂ absorbs mainly in the same bands as water vapour, and therefore the effect of a CO₂ rise is further reduced by (roughly) the percentage of radiation in those bands which is already absorbed by the water vapour. This seems the most appropriate place to report on that argument, which has been made by many sceptics. As it stands, the second bullet point has no good reason to be there and lacks sources to boot. It should go.
  • Under solar variation, the comma-parenthetical "more speculatively" in the second paragraph probably shouldn't be there, as without a source it's basically WP:OR that 'it seems less likely to me that solar variation could have indirect effects on cloud albedo'. Then there is "Another point of controversy is the correlation of temperature with solar variation". This is rather stubby and should at least make some attempt to explain what it means, namely that Lassen's study found a strong correlation between a metric of solar activity and the NH mean temp. over a 100 year period, but that others (I leave it to you to find out who and supply the citations) have disputed this study. At this point I'd also like to mention, as a side note, a little research I did myself, of cross-correlograms of temp to SSN and autocorrelograms of temp against itself, which suggest a lagged solar forcing and the presence of a strong 60-year climate cycle respectively; I realise that this research, being a SPS rather than a peer-reviewed paper, is far from a RS, but you are welcome to do similar analyses yourself if (as I suspect) you are interested in the subject of anthropogenic global warming. Also an argument I see brought up quite often is the suggestion that climate behaviour is mainly cyclical and that the current warming trend is largely due to a mere confluence of cycles (or variations on this theme); I am surprised that this is not at least covered on the page, but I have no RSes for it nor would I know what to write if I had.
  • The section Arctic shrinkage has a very misleading graph: not only does it stop at 2007 (the low point), it also has a y-axis scale that does not start from zero, while appearing at such a small size that the labels on that axis are barely readable and certainly not easily noticed. In fact the whole section is dubious; one of the citations (123, The Cryosphere Today) simply points to TCT's front page which no longer contains any trace of the article, and what exactly is an "Arctic specialist" anyway? Just because the Guardian uses fuzzy language doesn't mean we should copy it - a biologist or even an explorer could be described an "Arctic specialist". Mark Serreze's PhD is in geography; therefore I would probably describe him as an "Arctic geographer", in the absence of any better term.
  • Funding for partisans: The section spins out each accusation of 'Big Oil nasties' etc. into a separate paragraph, but condenses most of the claims of preferential grant funding for AGW-supporting researchers into a single paragraph; it also places the former first. This creates the unbalanced (and inaccurate) impression that the former is pervasive and the latter either consists merely of a few isolated incidents, or is just a story got-up by the sceptics in response to the claims of energy company funding. This section also links to Climate change denial, which article's opening sentence ought to be changed to "Climate change denial is a pejorative term used to describe attempts to downplay, deny or dismiss the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior as being organized, especially for commercial or ideological reasons." or "Climate change denial is a pejorative term used to label as organized attempts to downplay, deny or dismiss the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons." since the term is most frequently applied to accuse of, rather than to refer to, organised denial or connection to vested interests. At the very least the word 'pejorative' should be added, even if the other change is not made (I accept that both proposed forms have wording issues which the original avoids).
  • Support for adaptation strategies should not be in the section marked Changing positions of skeptics, since it is entirely reasonable to propose adaptation as a response to natural warming or even undirected natural variability. For example, nothing about the Richard Lindzen quote at all suggests his position has changed to a less sceptical one. Moreover, Hayward's proposal of geoengineering does not identify him as having changed his position in any way; his article (which should probably be linked) gives no reason to believe his position has ever differed significantly from what it is now - namely, that GW is real and partly anthropogenic but that policymakers are pursuing the wrong strategies for dealing with it. The section as a whole is a train wreck: a rather long section purporting to demonstrate that "In recent years some skeptics have changed their positions regarding global warming" gives only two examples (neither of whom, incidentally, I've heard of). It smacks of an attempt to convince sceptics that 'It's over, you might as well throw in the towel; everyone else is'. The final paragraph ("To be sure"...) is written in a non-encyclopædic style, addresses the adaptation-versus-prevention issue rather than "changing positions of skeptics", and has no source for its claim about what "carbon-cutting proponents" (Who?) say.
  • The second paragraph of the article leader should end "though a few organisations hold non-committal positions, and several individual scientists have expressed dissent.", with 'individual scientists' being wikilinked to the dissenting scientists article, since it currently implies that the consensus is 'unanimous with abstentions', which is only true at the level of national bodies. If you object on the grounds that this information is linked via Scientific opinion on climate change, then equally the rest of that sentence (which is repeating content from that article's leader) should go.
Is that enough to be going on with? ;) PT (talk) 23:04, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Wow, PT, you have done a lot of constructive work here! Let me comment on some of your points:
p.1 "Correlation of CO2 and temperature is not part of this evidence" this is not misleading, since the evidence mentioned is "evidence for recent global warming." I have never heard that global warming was at all claimed to be detected by greenhouse gas measurements. Maybe you confused this with evidence for CO2 being a cause of global warming. So if one argues, global warming itself would not exist because some correlation with CO2 would not be true, this is a completely failed argument. However, I doubt that the source given really does make this claim, so in that sense the beginning of this section seems to be nonsense to me (I agree that it has to be changed)
"the current variations, of whatever size, are claimed to be timed by anthropogenic releases of CO₂" "of whatever size" has to be removed, it is simply wrong. If we put "Most of the current warming - on the other hand - is claimed...", then for the rest of the sentence, I agree that climatologists claim this (I would propose to write something definite like "...is found to be..." ---> if there are climatologists claiming otherwise - which would surprise me - we could mention this here). Other parts of this section are also wrong. E.g. "Studies of ice cores show that carbon dioxide levels rise and fall with or after (as much as 1000 years) temperature variations." This is untrue: The cited source states 600+/-400 years, other papers like doi:10.1029/2007GL029551 state 720+/-370 yr, so clearly CO2 only follows temperature during 1850- reconstrucible past. The rise or fall is not with temperature, but always after! This behaviour is important and only broken in most recent past, which is one argument that something new is going on with climate. This has to be stated in the section. I will later come to other of your points if I have time and motivation. Thank you for your contribution in putting this stuff to the agenda for increasing the sub-optimal quality of this article! --134.76.233.140 (talk) 12:37, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
Historically this article has been treated as a bit of a dumping ground for poorly-supported contentious points, whether made by a contrarian or by an extremist on the other side. That is, when someone tried to argue such points the discussion often resolved to "stick it in the 'controversy' article." I certainly don't agree with all of your objections above but maybe it's time we cleaned this article up. The Spirit of Neutrality and Truth (talk) 23:16, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Another instance of bias which can be substantiated by policy is that throughout this article warmists "found" but sceptics only "claimed", "proposed" or "suggested"; this is a clear violation of WP:SAY. This is particularly pronounced in, for instance, Infrared iris hypothesis (although that section also contains a "discovered" of the iris hypothesis, which is also dubious though not listed on WP:SAY) There are a few instances on both sides where something was "concluded", which I would recommend as the best neutral term for the results of scientific papers and researches. PT (talk) 20:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Your use of the term "warmist" gives away the game, methinks. The Spirit of Neutrality and Truth (talk) 20:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm using it merely as shorthand. I spent some time trying to find a less loaded term while adding that comment, and couldn't come up with one that wasn't hopelessly clumsy and confusing. What do you propose? PT (talk) 20:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Scientists? --Nigelj (talk) 21:47, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
If that suggestion is meant to imply that anyone who disagrees with the consensus on AGW is not a scientist (and for all the WP:AGF in the world I can see no other interpretation), then frankly you're not helping your case. As I'm sure you're perfectly aware, there are plenty of dissenting scientists. Moreover, I was not really using the terms to describe so much people as studies. Please do not vent your personal opinions with snarky comments. More generally, and this is to Short Brigade too, please don't use silly issues like word choice to sidestep serious discussion. PT (talk) 11:50, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
He answered your question. Your question was not about "who disagrees with the consensus on AGW". It was about what other term you could have used in that sentence instead of a word that has no currency outside of "skeptic" blogs where it is used as a pejorative. And given the context you were using, "scientists" would have been a perfectly neutral alternative.

And, incidentally, if the conclusion you draw from the List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming is that there are "plenty of dissenting scientists" then you obviously haven't read it very well. There's a tiny minority of scientists who work in related fields, and a slightly larger number of scientists and engineers in utterly unrelated fields who, nonetheless, are regularly touted by think tanks. See Merchants of Doubt. Guettarda (talk) 12:20, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

No, the term "scientists" would not have been a useful substitute, since the entire point of the sentence was to contrast between "studies whose conclusions directly or indirectly supported AGW" and "studies whose conclusions directly or indirectly challenged AGW". Using "scientists" to describe one side only would have not only failed to be neutral it also would not have adequately conveyed my meaning (if you think it would have done, then evidently I have failed in any case to convey my meaning accurately to you), and would besides have led to a logically incoherent sentence since the sets "scientists" and "sceptics" have non-empty intersection (whether you like it or not).
The conclusion I draw from List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming is that the number of such scientists is non-trivially non-zero. The reason for the use of the term 'plenty' was to indicate that there are enough of them that it's not worth trying to claim that each of those entries actually doesn't count; while there may be some on the list who could be argued to be "not scientists" or "not opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming", the likelihood of such arguments being valid for every element of the list is very slim indeed. PT (talk) 12:36, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

[T]he entire point of the sentence was to contrast between "studies whose conclusions directly or indirectly supported AGW" and "studies whose conclusions directly or indirectly challenged AGW". What you actually said was:

  • throughout this article warmists "found" but sceptics only "claimed", "proposed" or "suggested"

So let's take a look at the truth of it

Found

First three are survey results and a lawsuit

  1. A 15-nation poll conducted in 2006 by Pew Global found...
  2. A 47-nation poll by Pew Global Attitudes conducted in 2007 found...
  3. A 2009 poll by Pew Research Center found...
  4. This lawsuit was found to lack legal merit

Speaking about scientist, the terms "found", "discovered" and "concluded" are generally used

  1. Robert Watson found this "very disappointing"...
  2. Another example of this is in Ruckstuhl's paper who found a 60% reduction in aerosol concentrations over Europe...
  3. Peterson (2003) found no difference between the warming observed in urban and rural areas
  4. Parker (2006) found that there was no difference in warming between calm and windy nights
  5. Other analyses have found that the iris effect is a positive feedback
  6. A 2007 study by David Douglass and coworkers concluded that... This result contrasts a similar study of 19 models which found that...
  7. [Mike Hulme] I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners
  8. Roy Spencer et al. discovered "a net reduction in radiative input into the ocean-atmosphere system"
  9. a report by NASA's Office of the Inspector General concluded

Terms are used for both "skeptic" and mainstream scientists

And "claimed"

  1. Mooney claims that the promotion of doubt...
  2. The main claims of the House of Lords Economics Committee...
  3. [Inhofe's committee] claims to summarize scientific dissent from the IPCC. Many of the claims...have been disputed
  4. one argument against global warming claims that rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) do not correlate with global warming (a "brief", which says that "references...may be found on our website")

"Proposed" or "suggested" has a very different meaning, and cannot be substituted for either "claimed" or "found". But anyway...

  1. Stephen E. Schwartz has proposed an estimate of climate sensitivity of 1.9 ± 1.0 K for doubled CO2.,[103] revised upwards from 1.1 ± 0.5 K.[104] Grant Foster, James Annan, Gavin Schmidt, and Michael E. Mann[105][106] argue that there are errors in both versions of Schwartz's analysis. Astronomer Nir Shaviv also has computed a value for climate sensitivity of 0.35+/-0.09 °K / (W/m2), which is consistent with a variety of historical datasets.[107][108] Petr Chylek and co-authors have also proposed low climate sensitivity to doubled CO2, estimated to be 1.6 K ± 0.4 K
  2. Richard Lindzen proposed an Infrared Iris hypothesis
  3. Others have proposed that temperature increases may be higher than IPCC estimates
  4. The Hartwell paper proposes that
  5. The [Bush administration] report however "does not propose any major shift (direct quote)
  6. James Annan proposed bets with global warming skeptics
  7. A 2006 study suggests that the elevated CO2 levels and the glaciation are not synchronous
  8. Solanki and co-workers suggest that solar activity for the last 60 to 70 years may be at its highest level in 8,000 years; Muscheler et al. disagree, suggesting...
  9. Joe D'Aleo and other climate skeptics have also suggested that the NOAA and GISS temperature records show a warming trend due to the reduction of the number of weather stations used to calculate the average world temperature
  10. Orrell says that the range of future increase in temperature suggested by the IPCC rather represents a social consensus in the climate community, but adds that "we are having a dangerous effect on the climate"
  11. David Legates has claimed that Mann, Bradley and Hughes 1998... serves as an example of climate scientists not abiding by these policies and suggested that legislators might ultimately take action to enforce them
  12. Lindzen also suggests four other scientists "apparently" lost their funding or positions after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming.
  13. Many climate scientists state that they are put under enormous pressure to distort or hide any scientific results which suggest that human activity is to blame for global warming
Conclusions
  • "Found" is generally used for "findings" of studies or surveys, regardless of whether the authors are associated with a "skeptic" camp or not
  • "Claim" is used for dubious assertions...and for Chris Mooney's claim. So if anything, the "non-skeptic" is the one whose statement is called a "claim" even though its veracity isn't actually questions.
  • "Suggest" and "propose" are used appropriately for things that are suggestions rather than conclusions. In numbers 1 and 8 "suggested"/"proposed" is used where "found" might otherwise have been used, but it isn't used to describe "skeptics".

"Found" is associated with scientific studies (regardless of their authors' views). So yes, Nigel's suggestion is a good one - "found" (discovered, concluded) is used for studies by scientists, not merely for those that "supported AGW", but also for those that "challenged AGW".

Since the basic fact of your claim is untrue, I think we're done with this. Guettarda (talk) 19:19, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with your conclusions; if we exclude the (imo) neutral term "concluded" from your list and look only at the "found"s and the "discovered"s, we see 5 studies supporting warming against 1 study which might appear to be sceptical but is subject to heavy qualification in the surrounding text, including use of quotation that looks like scare quotes (and therefore may have the same effect on the reader). As for the "claim"s, you have managed to miss quite a few uses of "claim[ed]" that refer to studies, such as "A few studies claim that the present level of solar activity is historically high" (Solar Variation) and "Specifically, it is claimed that large regions of the temperature record" (Instrumental temperature record, though here 'studies' must be construed fairly broadly; the text in any case is clumsy and needs copyediting). Moreover, your interpretation of which "proposed"s and "suggested"s might better be "found"s is questionable.
However, thank you for making the considerable effort of counting all occurrences; I accept that this particular manifestation of bias is not as large as I had surmised and may not be present at all. Nonetheless, I take issue with two of your closing remarks: firstly Nigel's suggestion may appear accurate to you but it did not convey my meaning, and you are comparing the wording choices based solely on truth (on those grounds, the best wording for any sentence is "One equals one"). Nigel's remark was not helpful or constructive and your argument does not change that. Secondly, your remark that you "think we're done with this" implies dismissal not only of my claims per WP:SAY (which I accept may have been in error) but also of the large list of issues I had posted previously which have not yet been challenged and with which The Spirit of Neutrality and Truth has in fact indicated partial agreement; I don't think it is reasonable to dismiss all of these issues just because the last one presented was doubtful and included poor word choice. Those are real issues and I am worried that they may be being unwittingly buried by this tangential argument. PT 21:00, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Regarding Nigel's comment - it may not have been what you intended, but it was what you said. And based on what you said, he was correct. Your rudeness would have been entirely uncalled for even while you thought you were right. And yet, you not only fail to apologise to him, you continue to be insulting.

So yep, we're done. Your initial claim was entirely untrue. If you find my analysis to be "questionable" by all means, provide your own. Maybe someone will engage you. Me, I see your style of "debate". I have no patience for someone whose "facts" are so mutable. Guettarda (talk) 22:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. He made a one-word remark which I interpreted as rudeness and snark (and I note that he hasn't come back to clarify). I may have failed to WP:AGF, but I have not insulted him at all; I have merely stated that his remark was unhelpful, which I stand by. Moreover, if you think my "initial claim was entirely untrue", you should read further up the page; I made several more detailed claims prior to that which are now being ignored due to this irrelevant dispute. Lastly, your remarks towards me are uncivil (particularly your use of "scare quotes" around the "words" "debate" "and" "facts") and you are not even trying to AGF. If you don't want to engage me, that's fine - no-one's forcing you to participate in this argument. PT 23:14, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Let see: you opened with the pejorative "warmist" which is an entirely unacceptable smear against living people. When SBHB raised it, you stuck by your choice. That alone speaks volumes. Regarding Nigel's comment: I interpreted as rudeness and snark - yes, you chose to assume bad faith, and responded very rudely. And when I pointed out that his comment was entirely accurate, did you apologise? Nope - you continue to assume bad faith, you continue to cast aspersions with your snide comments like I note that he hasn't come back to clarify. He has no need to clarify anything - you are the one who's in the wrong here.

Based on what I have seen here, your style of "debate" involves defending the indefensible, assuming bad bad faith, and continued insinuations of wrongdoing against other editors even after the matter has been explained to you. There's nothing uncivil in saying that I see no point in trying to discuss content with you. Your rudeness I could ignore if I really wanted to, the real problem is your treatment of factual information. Despite the fact that Nigel was right, on the facts, and you were wrong, you still insist on smearing him and playing the aggrieved party. And that's just illustrative of your tone and style throughout this section.

I only speak for myself, but I see no possibility of a happy outcome discussing anything with you unless you adjust your attitude substantially. Guettarda (talk) 20:19, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

This Robert Watson (scientist)? 99.181.137.215 (talk) 04:01, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
While I can understand why someone who doesn't believe in AGW might view this article as biased, this percieved ideological slant can be explained by the general consensus of the global scientific community in favor of AGW-based theories--a Wikipedia editor can only give alternative viewpoints a fair and due representation to the extent available references/sources will allow. Despite what some on this talk page have suggested, peer review and consensus are how scientific theories are validated, and for laypeople (apologies if this is an incorrect assumption) to criticize this system is pointless and counter-productive. This accepted method, by which scientists validate and present their research/theories to each other and the public, might not be certain to produce undeniable truth; that said, the existence of a "controversies" article does not mean this opposition to AGW is credible or significant, (modern geocentrism, intelligent design, and AIDS denial also have articles, and these views ostensibly have less mainstream support than AGW skepticism) nor does it entitle said minority reports an equal representation in the article. Any apparent bias the article may appear to have in favor of AGW is inherent given that the article is based on the extant body of peer reviewed scientific research, which overwhelmingly supports AGW. Editors are able to cite many more articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals by scientists in relevant fields in defense of AGW than in opposition of it. For example, in List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming#references, only one cited source is from a peer-reviewed scientific journal (Geoscience Canada). The rest of the sources come from government agencies, newspapers, science magazines, Congressional testimony or quotes and it can be argued these citations are less authoritative, and rightly should be presented [on wikipedia] as carrying less weight than journal articles. Despite having an impassioned support base throughout the public as a whole, alternatives to the mainstream view have significantly less support in peer-reviewed research and within the scientific community, so it's understandable that in wiki articles (which are only as convincing as the references they cite) one might incorrectly presume an editorial bias in favor of AGW. However, this is a logical fallacy. 96.240.218.211 (talk) 21:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Split up the Political sub-section

Could someone rename the 'Political' subsection or factor it out into something logical please. A lot of the stuff under it is not to do with politics. I think Changes in skeptics views could be a sub-section and add a bit about those who 'cross the line' from one side to the other. The betting sounds more like economics. Overall I haven't got a clear picture how it should be split but I certainly feel how it is now is wrong. Dmcq (talk) 10:27, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I retitled the section. The content of the section was different from its title. I also shifted the betting section and re-titled it. Now things make a bit more logical sense (I think), but there are probably better ways of doing it and I'm open to other suggestions.... Sailsbystars (talk) 20:05, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
You're right, I hadn't considered the betting as part of the scientific controversy but that is a much more appropriate place for it. Dmcq (talk) 11:27, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Consensus on global warming

I reverted twice an addition about the consensus on global warming because the added paragraph didn't actually say anything about whether there is a consensus or not. However the statements were related saying things like no we don't believe a consensus is an important thing and the people were talking in a global warming context. I'm wondering should this sort of thing actually be in? It doesn't actually address the point at hand and I said before perhaps they should put them into the article about scientific consensus because they were more related to that topic. Dmcq (talk) 10:30, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your revert, and I think WP:YESPOV and WP:VALID give the reasons why it is correct: If most academics in the field agree that "The controversy is significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature", then that is what we say. To attribute that to a lone author gives the impression of doubt where there is none. Equally, to devote a whole paragraph to two individuals talking about how people are vulnerable to confusion or intimidation by science they don't understand gives undue weight to people still trying to sow doubts about doubt. The 2010 PNAS paper showing 97–98% agreement among climate researchers is one touchstone for the main weight of this, and most other, global warming coverage. If people want to give 'balanced' coverage to some opposing view of the big picture, they will need to provide citations to peer-reviewed, similar scale, reviews of the peer-reviewed literature. --Nigelj (talk) 15:04, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
Obviously the bit about Oreskes is misleading. With regards to the issue of consensus - it may or may not be worth discussing, but if it is, we need to cite leading experts on the history and philosophy of science, who have specifically delved into the issue. Like, I dunno, Oreskes maybe. Guettarda (talk) 15:14, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
This article cites Weart's The Public and Climate Change (1) for rather trivial poll figures, but misses a lot of meat in The Public and Climate, cont. which notes, for example, that After 1988 "The environmentalists were opposed, and greatly outspent, by industries that produced or relied on fossil fuels. Industry groups not only mounted a sustained and professional public relations effort, but also channeled considerable sums of money to individual scientists and small conservative organizations and publications that denied any need to act against global warming.(115) This effort followed the pattern of scientific criticism and advertising that industrial groups had used to attack warnings against ozone depletion and acid rain (not to mention automobile smog, tobacco smoke, etc.)." It goes on to discuss those who denied that warming was likely to come at all, prominently S. Fred Singer and the influence of reports by the conservative George C. Marshall Institute, endorsed by Frederick Seitz. "Scientists noticed something that the public largely overlooked: the most outspoken scientific critiques of global warming predictions did not appear in the standard scientific publications... The critiques tended to appear in venues funded by industrial groups, or in conservative media like the Wall Street Journal." Weart keeps updating this resource, it's worth a look. . . dave souza, talk 16:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
This Weart; Spencer R. Weart ? 99.181.135.85 (talk) 06:41, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Resource The Inquisition of Climate Science ISBN 978-0231157186

James Lawrence Powell's book: The Inquisition of Climate Science ISBN 978-0231157186 Columbia University Press (publish date: August 11, 2011) 97.87.29.188 (talk) 20:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.181.137.224 (talk)

This page is for discussions about improving the article. If you wish toi do that then try saying why you have stuck something onto the talk page. Otherwise it just looks like spam and we are perfectly entitled to remove spam. How about getting yourself a username if you wish to edit the article constructively? If you can't be bothered to put two words together about something why should anyone else take any notice? Dmcq (talk) 09:35, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I've been watching these pages for some time and see a lot of this fly by, what I consider POV, link spamming. Unless anyone has any objections I propose that all random book, blog or article links that don't state why they should be included in the article, or where they could be used to reference to a salient feature within the article should be removed. I have no problems which viewpoint the link may represent but if there is no clear rationale why the link has been included on this or any other talk page related to climate/environmental issues then it should be removed. To the random IPs who flyby post please include where you think these links could be added. Regards Khukri 13:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I saw it mentioned in Science News but I haven't read it yet, just looked relevant. No added confusion intended. 97.87.29.188 (talk) 17:00, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 68.8.49.153, 15 August 2011

Global warming from carbon dioxide accumulation is a shibboleth. Total solar output is the true primary planetary temperature driver. Carbon dioxide is sequestered in the ocean by calciferous phytoplankton and falls to the ocean floor as calcium carbonate. It remains there until it is released again via volcanic action millions of years from now. Because of this CO2 sequestering process, it may be difficult for the earth to maintain sufficient atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for abundant life as volcanic activity decreases. Temperature depends on the Sun. Life depends on CO2.

Richard Benedict 08/15/2011 68.8.49.153 (talk) 10:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Very interesting, I'm sure you have some peer reviewed sources that demonstrate this. Sorry but we need reliable sources before we can include this, and it's only fair as the other side of the AGW debate have gone to some lengths to provide them, and it would be remiss of Wikipedia to include this new information on the word of an anonymous IP. Cheers Khukri 10:46, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Actually, while "interesting", the kernel of truth is too small to take any action. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:50, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
The grain of truth may relate rather closely to one explanation of the PETM, that plate tectonic movements heated sediments containing carbonate, releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide and methane.[4] Oddly enough, this hypothesis doesn't seem to be covered in our PETM article, a deficiency needing action. . . dave souza, talk 11:53, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

A tag was recently added proposing a merge from Climatic Research Unit email controversy. I strongly oppose this proposal. That article is about a notable event that can clearly stand by itself. It is also a huge article—perhaps too big—but in any case large enough that integrating it would flood this article with undue weight. Plus, it's not that closely related, to the point that nobody has even added a mention of it in the main text. –CWenger (^ • @) 22:14, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I would wait until we see what the rationale was for the merge prior to stating whether we agree or disagree with it. Cheers Khukri 22:29, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
The Climatic Research Unit email controversy is one of many global warming controversies that took place in the popular media, not in the scientific literature. A link to it currently appears in the see also section, but there is no coverage of this "notable event" in this article, in particular, in the "related controversies" or "politics" section. This article is in poor shape, with much of the content either outdated or irrelevant, so I recommend a complete overhaul, including the summary style merging of so-called global warming controversies like the Climatic Research Unit email controversy, the Ben Santer controversy, the Soon and Baliunas controversy, the hockey stick controversy, the Attorney General of Virginia's climate science investigation, and many others. This topic is really not a subset of global warming, as there is little controversy about it. This topic is a subset of climate change denial and should be rewritten to reflect the scope of the manufactured controversies created by deniers. Viriditas (talk) 00:08, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
Note that Ben Santer controversy is not an article; it's a redirect (created by Viriditas yesterday) to a section of Benjamin D. Santer. The section in question has a "main article" tag pointing to Chapter 8 controversy. This in turn is not an article. It's a redirect created by Viriditas just now to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change#IPCC Second Assessment Report: Climate Change 1995. I mention this because these redirects can give the impression there are a lot of articles unnecessarily titled "controversy", which would lend weight to the argument for a radical clean up. I don't know if there are more redirects that have been created by Viriditas like this; it would be helpful if he could update us.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 00:39, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
Note that user Viriditas also deleted a large part of the prior text from that section of the IPCC article and added other text. I can't decide if his goal is to reduce the perception of controversy or to increase that perception. Maybe we should worry more about clear coverage of more contemporary events. AR2 was in 1995 after all.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:48, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
I see. So, I'm a climate denier now, is that it? My edits removed unreliable sources and summarized the subject using one of the best sources available. Is there a particular reason you are talking about my motives rather than my edits? I have ignored Vsevolod's ridiculous and erroneous assertions about my beliefs, but if this nonsense continues, I will file a report on the both of you. Viriditas (talk) 07:44, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
I only claimed to be confused, I never called you anything. If you want me to explain in ANI I can oblige, but maybe you'll choose to start with trying to resurrect Roger Revelle controversy and Ben Santer controversy from my succesful request for speedy deletion. Please file or stop with the threats. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:37, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
We don't deal with motives, only contributions. If you can't tell what my motives are or what POV I hold, that means I've successfully adhered to the WP:NPOV, so you owe me a barnstar. Since you are new and confused (per your own admission) you obviously don't understand the purpose of a redirect, or how the controversy over the use of Roger Revelle's name was established in Singer v. Lancaster and the media controversy surrounding Singer's claims about Revelle, or how the Ben Santer "controversy" is fully supported by the sources used in the Chapter 8 controversy across multiple articles. None of these redirects was an "attack" as you claim, nor is there any evidence whatsoever that I've at any time "attacked" a biographical figure on Wikipedia. Your confusion is understandable, but your willful ignorance is not. You get a free pass on the former, but not on the latter. Viriditas (talk) 13:06, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Please file at ANI or stop mudslinging. I have a different good faith interpretation of events, but I've given up hope we can discuss it constructively. So please file or stop threatening me. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:44, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Nice try, but that's not how we use the term "good faith". You may want to read WP:AGF. You've been assuming bad faith about me from the beginning and commenting on what you think I think rather than on my contributions. Viriditas (talk) 21:14, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. User:Viriditas is under the impression, of which he will not be disabused, that Climate Research Unit email controversy is a "non-event" on the grounds that it did not show anything wrong with climate science. In other words he thinks there was no "controversy" (six enquiries, massive media coverage etc etc. notwithstanding). I get the impression that he thinks people opposing him want the page to be a POVFORK to promote an attack on climate science. His talkpage behaviour is really quite tendentious - see this thread Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#The_CRU_EMails_are_no_longer_considered_a_Controversy for a textbook example of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 02:01, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Viriditas is under the impression...he thinks...I get the impression that he thinks... You must be kidding me. That is the most absurd reasoning I've ever seen in my entire time here. Stop trying to tell me what I think or what you think I think. I've never said a word of any of that, and it appears that you have a habit of making stuff up. You were quite clearly told on the CRU talk page, "That there was a media controversy is not in dispute".[5] In other words, everything you've said is false. Viriditas (talk) 21:21, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
      • You really need to stop with these claims that I make things up, Viriditas. In your own words: "This manufactured controversy isn't a controversy"; "Back on topic: what is controversial about this subject? Why is it a "controversy" and not a "hacking"? Where is the controversy?" - indeed you ask variations of that question several times (and get an answer each time, and from a variety of users). My "impression" was based, inter alia, on this statement, which comes after a few attempts to answer your question: "Please describe the controversy in your own words. It sounds like you are saying that this controversy is about global warming. In which case, I have now added the merge tag to global warming controversy." As for it being a media controversy, that point had been made by myself and others before that statement of yours.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 23:14, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
        • More misinterpretation. Establishing a consensus in a discussion with editors who maintain different views about what the controversy is and is not is only possible by asking them to describe it in their own words. You misinterpreted rhetorical questions that were intended to establish a consensus as some kind of denial of climate change. Cerejota finally answered that question, bringing the discussion to a close. We have achieved a consensus on the talk page, and if it is challenged again (and it will be), we will point to that discussion. I think you failed to understand what was under discussion. You are apparently unaware that this controversy has been challenged day in and day out for years now. The only way to establish a consensus is to have editors answer these questions. Viriditas (talk) 23:29, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
          • In that case, several editors have misinterpreted your rhetorical questions as genuine questions that were supposed to be answered (indeed, you have finally accepted one of those answers - which was a nice summary of everyone else's answers. Great - let's move on). By the way, I have never suggested you deny climate change in any way shape or form. I have absolutely no idea where you get that idea from.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 00:58, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose Khukri 08:02, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment. I've removed the merge tag and replaced it with the move portions from tag per my comments above. Viriditas (talk) 12:18, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Still Oppose on grounds of prematurity Since Viriditas believes (and could be correct) that "This article is in poor shape, with much of the content either outdated or irrelevant, so [Viriditas] recommend[s] a complete overhaul...", then IMO this merge suggestion is premature. Surgeons don't do a skin graft on someone with a gushing arterial bleeder. First they do critical care on the patient's body and THEN they merge stuff in. Same principle. If you think this article is a mess, please clean it up over several weeks (so people can comment on changes) but stopping short of "including the summary style merging of so-called global warming controversies". Once you get the receiving article whipped into shape I'll be better able to appreciate your suggestions about merging in other info.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:37, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Question - Is there a reason that there is no merge to template on the CRU controversy article?Jarhed (talk) 14:33, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Yes, there is a reason. The reason is, there is no proposed merge under discussion. Viriditas (talk) 03:07, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
      • Oh good grief, the title of the talk page section I am writing this in is "merger proposal". I see that the template now says something about moving sections, it is a template that I have never seen before but no matter. The merge process has two templates, one for the source article and one for the survivor. Among other things, this gives everyone who might be watching those articles an indication about what is going on and an opportunity to respond. So let me ask again: Is there a reason that a corresponding source template is not located on the CRU controversies article, which would give everyone watching that article some indication of what is being proposed and a chance to comment on the proposal?Jarhed (talk) 07:06, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose One article has 119 references and the other has 224. These are two independent articles about different things. I see that the suggestion has changed from the entire article to just a few sections. Really? What sections? Why? This seems like a very bad idea with no purpose. Q Science (talk) 16:11, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
    • It's not a bad idea at all; it's how we write articles. There's a new category that's just been created, Category:Global warming controversy. Let's use that as an example. Ideally, all major GWC's would be covered in this article in some way, either through a link or summary style. Essentially, the examples within the category would be part of this article, and they would illustrate certain parts of the article. In this example, the CRU controversy could fit into several sections, such as the "Data archiving and sharing" subsection. This suggestion has not changed, I only used a better tag. CWenger and others jumped the gun, implying it meant something that it did not, arguing against a straw man rather than good article practice. This article is about the global warming controversy, yet makes little to mention of examples of these controversies. The CRU already appears as a see also and should be merged into the body. This does not require a proposal or discussion, it is basically how the writing process works on Wikipedia. Viriditas (talk) 21:14, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
For the record, although I added the missing tag to the CRU article, this is Viriditas' proposal. I don't know if V provided any info about the proposal other than comments in this thread. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:35, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Noting that a parent article should mention its daughter articles and that relevant see also's should be merged into the body isn't a "proposal". It's how we write articles. Viriditas (talk) 21:14, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Your tone is condescending, and your "notes" are nowhere that I can see.Jarhed (talk) 03:08, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
  • oppose topic is notable, if it weren't, AfD would be in order. It is true the article needs work, but that's it - interestingly, I agree with Viridita's reasoning up to the point he alleges a "popular controversy" doesn't belong in wikipedia. Clearly we should give primacy to scientific perspectives, but ignoring popular debates is un-instructive and in fact, unscientific. The greatest scientists tend also to be great popularizers, unafraid to meet head butts in the public arena on the terms of popular skepticism: Einstein, Darwin, Hawkings, you name it.--Cerejota (talk) 22:10, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
    • There is no active merge proposal, so there is nothing to oppose. I never said a popular controversy doesn't belong in Wikipedia, so you must be thinking of another editor. I said that the CRU controversy "is one of many global warming controversies that took place in the popular media, not in the scientific literature", which is a fact supported by the sources. The modus operandi of climate change denial is to use the popular media to argues points they can't get pulbished in the peer review literature. Surely, you know this? Viriditas (talk) 22:15, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
      • Then why are all these people opposing? It is customary to provide a rationale, but one is not needed: the templates are clear. We are SNOWing oppose. And yes I misunderstood you position, striking.--Cerejota (talk) 22:32, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
        • Why are all these people opposing? Because they are responding to CWenger and other editors who maintain that there is a merge proposal under discussion. Good luck trying to find it. Viriditas (talk) 22:35, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
          • (ec) Viriditas added a merger template. This he later changed to a move portions tag, indicating a move of at least some material from one article to the other was being proposed. Viriditas, as the person who placed the tag, which portions do you think should be moved? VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 22:52, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
            • I was under the impression that the merge tag was once used to request summary style expansions of daughter articles. Based on the initial response by CWenger, it became clear that this was now the wrong tag. I changed it to a variation on the move portions tag, which I'm still not clear is correct. I'm trying to get the links in the see also merged into the body of the article, with additional summary style content. I explain this in more detail above at 21:14. We have a description of the controversy in detail, but few illustrative examples have been merged into the topic. Viriditas (talk) 23:23, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Confused? No wonder. But I think I understand now.

  • Originally, Viriditas added a mergeFROM tag to this article [[6]]
  • On his own talk page, in a comment that he quickly deleted, Viriditas denied being the editor who added the mergeFROM tag. [[7]]
UPDATE: Since I believe in admitting error, subsequent comment by V alerted me to an ambiguity in that text which I - in good faith - interpreted wrong. If anyone wants details of that ambiguity and possible interpretations write me at my talk page please. I apologize for my half of that particular misunderstanding, V. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 03:10, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
  • After the mergeFROM was added to this article, a different editor started this discussion about the tag. (see start of this thread)
  • Along the way, Viriditas changed the merge-from tag on this article to a move-portions-from tag. [[8]]
  • Since Viritidas did not tell us of the change in tag, he's left us all flapping while he protests there is no merge discussion. After all, it is now a move-portions-from discussion.
  • I can't find any substantive explanation of how to use the move-portions-from tag, except in the version history for that template where it makes a vague reference to being parallel to merge-from. I'm not sure what that means but it sure sounds like the tags are synonymous, Viriditas' protestations there is no relevant discussion notwithstanding. It was his tag after all.
  • I also see a lot in wiki:help about disruptive editing. Personally, I'm struggling to see Viriditas' contradictory edits, denial of his own acts, and personal barbs in this conversation as anything other than disruptive. I've never accused V of being a climate hawk or a denier, but I do think his conduct in this matter has been disruptive. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:07, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

PS Correction, Viriditas did explain about the wrong tag during the hour I was compiling the above comment (and juggling cooking dinner). [[9]] I still see no difference between merge portions from and move portions from and still view the exercise as a disruption.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:16, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Please stop distracting this discussion. We don't discuss other editors on article talk pages, we discuss topics . To correct another one of your failed conspiracy theories, I said that this merge proposal "was mistakenly opened by another editor because the wrong tag was used". The other editor refers to User:CWenger who started this merge proposal thread at 22:14 and I'm the one who added the original tag. That message was removed from my talk page per WP:DTTR as the offending editor was informed. As for your repeated insinuations that I'm a sooper-sekrit climate change denier pretending to be a warmist who is only interested in attacking climate scientists, you've been making those kinds of absurd accusations and formulating these bizarre conspiracies on multiple pages for the past 24 hours. On this page you even said, I can't decide if his goal is to reduce the perception of controversy or to increase that perception. You need to stop doing this. Go role play somewhere else. You can continue opposing a non-existent merge proposal based on non-existent reasons all you like, but you continue to ignore my actual statement on this matter at the top of this thread dated 00:08. That's right, you haven't addressed a single word I've said. Instead, I'm subjected to a constant barrage of personal attacks and conspiracy theories about my motives, all of which have been shown to be a product of your wild and unrestrained imagination. Address the topic of discussion or remain silent. It is that simple. Viriditas (talk) 00:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
In consensus, reasonable minds can differ, especially when those minds have to interpret (often unconsciously) ambiguities in the written word. If you are convinced there's only one way to read stuff and I've been abusing you, then file your complaint and I'll defend myself by explaining how reasonable minds can extract different good faith interpretations of the relevant and often ambiguous language. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:25, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


We do discuss editors, when editor's behavior is the topic. That said, NandEGuy, you are stretching the definition of disruption here a bit. No one doubts that Viriditas is acting in good faith, and that is enough to know there is no disruption. That said, there seems to be a mistake done, and we should focus on solving it on equal good faith.

In consensus, reasonable minds can differ, especially when those minds have to interpret (often unconsciously) ambiguities in the written word. If you are convinced there's only one way to read stuff and I've been abusing you, then file your complaint and I'll defend myself by explaining how reasonable minds can extract different good faith interpretations of the relevant and often ambiguous language. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:24, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, Viriditas, do you want to propose a merger of a section?


Then my suggestion is we get an uninvolved admin or editor, have them close this section, and then open a new one with a criteria according to Viridita according to the criteria Viridita proposes. Then we can have a discussion according to the criteria.


I am right or am I missing something?--Cerejota (talk) 00:53, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I've got a lot of things on my plate, and lots of things I was supposed to have written yesterday, so I'm a big fan of streamlining the process and discussion. To that end I propose the following:
  • Even though I retracted the merge tag, that doesn't seem to have changed the focus of the discussion, so I would like to retract the current tag as well, including the tag NAEG added to the CRU article.
  • There needs to be a discussion about what to do about global warming controversy child articles and whether they should be represented in this parent topic. An editor recently created Category:Global warming controversy which if legitimate, should be added to related articles and mirror the major coverage in this topic. If not, the category should be removed and deleted.
That's about it for now. I'll disappear from here for a while so that I can finish some other tasks. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 01:10, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
V, you have my blessing to remove both tags. I suggest we officially CLOSE this thread, and start afresh one when you've caught up on your writing. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Agree with tag removal, and also that Category:Global warming controversy needs looking at. It's a category created as the first act by new user:Zetaalfa (in this topic area especially that's a small alarm bell) who has only edited to add this category (SPA alarm bell) and the inclusions in the category appear to be almost entirely climate sceptics and deniers (another alarm bell). It might be benign, but the potential for conveniently mixing up genuine scientific controversies and media controversies is there. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 01:25, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Who or what is "McCright & Dunlap 2000 p. 500."?

Who or what is "McCright & Dunlap 2000 p. 500."? It is currently reference [5]. 99.35.12.88 (talk) 02:22, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

CLOUD

Is there some reason the results of the recent CLOUD experiment, which is documented in Nature, should not be included in the section on Solar variation? Ronnotel (talk) 17:37, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Please post some draft text here, with verifiable citations, so I know what you propose to include, and please review [this article] as you prepare your draft. Thanks, NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:42, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
I think Ronnotel has answered their own question. Following their link to CLOUD we find, "preliminary research ... tentative link ... 'leaves open the possibility that cosmic rays could also influence climate. However, it is premature to conclude that cosmic rays have a significant influence on climate until the additional nucleating vapours have been identified, their ion enhancement measured, and the ultimate effects on clouds have been confirmed.'" This is an article about a controversy, not about preliminary research and tentative links that leave open possibilities. Someone may want to make a controversy out of them, but it shouldn't be us. There's a cartoon somewhere about how research like that ends up as silly headlines in the silly media. --Nigelj (talk) 18:57, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
I think the comic you have in mind is this. I've just today listened to an interview with the CLOUD primary investigator on the Nature Podcast, and he was very careful to state that the results establish no connection to climate change and are only a very preliminary first step to better understand cloud formation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:36, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit Request

How does the 97/100 scientists picture, which is disputed in the footnotes, add anything positive to the controversy page, which is mostly evidentiary in nature.

It seems to just propagate the contention of editorial bias in media: I'd like to see it removed entirely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.118.53.11 (talk) 02:18, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

CANVASS CALL - Proposed policy about overlinking in edit summaries

CANVASS CALL - Proposed policy about overlinking in edit summaries

FYI I have proposed a policy about links in edit summaries; Since this page is often the subject of improper overlinking in edit summaries by various IPs, I thought readers of this page would be an appropriate group to canvass, in case anyone has a pro or con opinion. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:17, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

UPDATE: The proposal failed and voting is closed, though I'd be grateful for comments on my talk page. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Moving forward - specific suggestion for disambiguation with some TBD impact on other pages pending receptivity of basic idea

Prior fracas aside, I agree the article needs work. I've been wondering what broad break downs we could make in the wild and crazy clump called "global warming controversy" and IMO the best way forward is via disambiguation and redirects to appropriate pages. I'm stopping short of suggesting exactly how to dice slice merge and move text around because that would be premature. First I thought I'd float the disambiguation idea itself. Here's a poor stab at a first attempt:

"Global warming controversy" could refer to:

  • Scientific debate about past, present, or future climate change, i.e., debate between researchers based on an assumption of good faith, following the scientific method, and conducted mainly through the peer reviewed literature and various official review panels, such as the IPCC. A brief history of notable events in that process is covered at some page somewhere, a summary of the current mainstream scientific thinking is covered at global warming, and contrary opinions of various individual scientists can be found at List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
  • Political debate about what to do, assuming the scientific position is correct, i.e., debate between government, NGO, media, and the general public about what measures to take, if any, when, and who should pay for it. See some page somewhere
  • Alternative scientific theories advanced in public media, i.e., various arguments used by climate skeptics in blogs and popular press instead of the peer reviewed scientific literature, i.e., ( what should we say? ). Some of these theories are described at some page somewhere some of the contents in this article could go there
  • Allegations of fraudulent scientific data and conclusions, i.e, allegations of legal or professional misconduct as opposed to honest scientific error. An example are the unproven formal allegations of data fabrication following the CRU email hacking. The main article covering such allegations is some page somewhere

At the moment I lack a pithy way to add climate change denialism in this outline, but it surely merits inclusion.

Comments anybody? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 03:42, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

For articles themselves we need to do two things: as much as possible to match the categorisations made in the real world, and also be very careful not to allow media storms to overwhelm our reporting of verifiable information. With regard to that second point, I'm uncomfortable with the use of the words "allegations" and "fraud", as potentially many such "allegations" are without any foundation; literature on denialism shows that getting the accusation out is part of a political strategy, and it's one we would be in danger of endorsing.

What this page covers is a media and political phenomenon, backed by only very, very sparse scientific literature. The page as it is I think makes a slightly unhappy division between political and scientific challenges; some "scientific challenges" are RS-arguably political or quasi-political challenges in the guise of science. In one sense that is inevitable on this topic, but I think we can do a better job than this. Some questions:

  • Is the purpose of this page to act as a list of commonly stated objections? (and should it contain refutations or answers, acting as a kind of summarised skepticalscience?) At the moment it leaves a lot of challenges standing uncountered, giving the impression that they both have validity and have not been answered. This misleads readers. That said, perhaps making part of this article into Global warming (alternative theories) could provide for a clear and delineated article.
  • Is the purpose to identify who has been making these objections to the climate consensus (analysis of political and commercial forces)?
  • Does it/should it distinguish between respectable (ie in the literature) objections, and objections that have received RS coverage but have not appeared in the literature (such as the surfacestations objection, which has been shown to have no merit by RS)? We can't go into the blogs ourselves, of course, only into the secondary literature on them.
Anyway, that's my tuppence hapenny.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 04:19, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Bump... any other comments? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Greenpeace, undue etc.

While we may need to tidy up all the information based on Greenpeace research, it is a misreading of WP:UNDUE to suggest that because it is from Greenpeace we should not give it more weight than our (or in this case one individual's) editorial opinion of Greenpeace's importance. What gives information due weight is the coverage in reliable sources. Soon's funding has not just been covered by the Guardian, but also by the Daily Telegraph, ABC and other sources. It may have been Greenpeace that obtained information, but it's not just Greenpeace that thinks it's important.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 07:27, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

It may be only Greenpeace that thinks it's accurate, regardless of importance. As I said, the Guardian article just quotes Greenpeace without commenting on the accuracy of the data. Perhaps others report that the data is accurately reproduced by Greenpeace. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:46, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
You originally said stated the problem was about due weight, not accuracy - these are two very different things. In any case, as I'm sure you are very aware, Wikipedia bases its content on verifiability, not what you or I think is true. Do you have any reliable sources that suggest that the Guardian is passing on incorrect information? Reuters and ABC may have also been duped into passing on this information. And Willie Soon himself, apparently, as according to the Guardian he accepts it's all true about the money. His Exxon-funded research has also been cited by Sarah Palin in her oil-friendly campaign to stop Polar Bears being a protected species. That looks like it's worth putting in too, to be honest.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 08:17, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
Well the Guardian is right in saying Greenpeace said it. So I think we can therefore say Greenpeace said it and cite the Guardian. I'd be very chary of taking things directly from Greenpeace as I agree they are not a reliable source in this context. Dmcq (talk) 11:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
Remember that FOIA is a legal process with legal penalties for gov't misdeeds, and for the party that obtains the stuff there are both criminal and civil penalties for fraud, libel and slander, depending what they do with it. I'm willing to bet money that (A) the Guardian's attorneys have trained the papers editors to get copies before running such a story, and (B) Greenpeace's attorneys have trained their office directors not to set themselves up for criminal fraud and civil libel and slander damages by providing the media with forged documents.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:00, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
(to early comments) I originally thought the problems with using Greenpeace's statements was undue weight, but, after looking closely, that's not the case in the visible text. I don't know why Greenpeace's paragraphs have more citations than other paragraphs.
In many cases, organizations are not allowed to release documents obtained under the FOIA. I don't know whether this applies here, and we have no evidence (in the Guardian article) that they read or were given the documents Greenpeace obtained. They are just quoting Greenpeace. (Now, it may not be true in British law that quoting libel is usually protected speech, so their lawyers might feel the need to see the original documents.)
As for the proposed content of the article, I agree with Dmcq. The statement that Greenpeace reports the numbers is accurate, and sourced to the Guardian. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:02, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
The Guardian reports that Soon accepts that he took the money. (He only disputes that taking the money might have influenced his research, which we report.) I would take this as suitable evidence of fact checking. In addition, three RS have reported Greenpeace's findings and to my knowledge no one has disputed them. Attribute the information to Greenpeace, but I don't see any grounds at all for concern that we are thereby relaying worryingly inaccurate information.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 02:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
As pointed out to Arthur before, the Reuters version acknowledges that they have seen the documents directly: " ...according to documents uncovered in a Freedom of Information Act request by Greenpeace and seen by Reuters. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
just an aside, Arthur... I've been involved with several federal and state FOIA's in the USA and there has never been any kind of notice of prohibition against re-distribution. Whether the receiving organization has any internal rules is something entirely different. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 07:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
What are the chances that the Kochs, Exxon etc saw all these figures on Rueters, ABC, in the Guardian etc, attributed to Greenpeace and knew that they were made up or erroneous, and they decided not to issue a statement to the contrary, or sue the rear ends off all of the above? Many organisations would love to ruin Greenpeace financially. I think if anyone wants us to maintain the strong hints of doubt that we already have in our reporting (e.g. "According to Greenpeace..." and "The Greenpeace research project ExxonSecrets, and George Monbiot writing in The Guardian, as well as various academics, have linked...") then we need references as to where the doubt is coming from. Saying that there is doubt about these findings, without being able to cite any published counterargument seems wrong to me. BTW this Guardian piece yesterday covers similar ground again. --Nigelj (talk) 14:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
That goes to the heart of why I think we should mention Greenpeace unless the information is discussed as fact elsewhere. It is a lobby group like the Heartland Institute etc. It does not produce peer reviewed scientific papers like the standard of most of the rest of the basis of this article. If Reuters have seen papers then we can take that as fact, things which can be checked would normally be facts, conclusions from facts or implications in their papers should however be attributed to them as all lobby groups pick and choose conclusions and tinge them with their agenda. Dmcq (talk) 15:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
If it were not for the Reuters report, I would agree with Dmcq, because the other references merely say "Joe says Bob is beating his wife" or rather they say "Greenpeace says documents say X". However, Reuters says they have obtained copies of trial evidence consisting of photos of Bob beating his wife, errrr, I mean they say they saw documents produced by government in response to Greenpeace's FOIA request. That's good enough to just report the fact as the fact and cite Reuters. To sue for for libel and slander, one of the legal criteria the plaintiff (Soon/Koch) must prove is that the speaker (us, I guess) knew the statement was false when it was published (or in some jurisdictions its enough to show the speaker had no idea either way and made no reasonable effort to find out). Given that we have all read the Reuters report where they say they have seen the docs, that's a good enough basis for myself personally to go about repeating the facts as being the facts, and not merely "according to". If anyone sues me for defamation I can show that I had a reasonable basis to believe the facts were true. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:43, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

No Scientific Organization Disagrees

I have removed the sentence: "No scientific body of international standing disagrees with this view, though a few organizations hold non-committal positions" ("this view" being "that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused mainly by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases"). This is extremely misleading, if not simply false. organizations that "hold non-committal positions" in fact disagree with the consensus view that our understanding of the climate is complete enough to warrant the confident assertion that global warming is largely anthropogenic. That is, they believe that we cannot legitimately claim to know that global warming is primarily caused by human activity, as opposed to other potential factors. Whoever wrote this sentence is confusing being non-committal regarding the truth of the proposition "global warming is mainly human-induced" (which these organizations are) with being non-committal regarding the truth of the consensus claim that the evidence proves that proposition correct, or even gives us very good reason to believe it (which they are not). — Preceding unsigned comment added by BenDen1 (talk • contribs) 20:26, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Reverted due to poor logic. For example, long ago, I mentioned to a sexy, single, vivacious female housemate that I'd never been dancing and was noncomittal about whether dancing is fun. She took it upon herself to gather up a half dozen really fun girlfriends and they all dragged me out on the floor, just us, for the entire evening. (True story.) This was incontrovertible evidence! Dancing can be fun! Thank god I didn't just refuse saying my noncommital status was synonymous with a belief that dancing stinks. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:56, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
I am non-committal as to the edit itself, but I have incontrovertible evidence that I just laffed my ass off!--Cerejota (talk) 21:36, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Your rebuttal appears incoherent to me (as I suspect it would appear to a large percentage of readers). Please indicate the "poor" logic in clear, literal language. BenDen1 (talk) 21:47, 2 September 2011 (UTC)BenDen

The rebuttal above is straightforward, I fail to understand how you can say that someone being non committal is actually somebody disagreeing. You might as well say they are non committal about disagreeing so they agree. Dmcq (talk) 21:54, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
The petroleum geologists retracted their original statement and what's said here is true. I think perhaps the problem is an old reference attached about Crichton before the AAPG was forced by its members to retract. Dmcq (talk) 21:54, 2 September 2011 (UT

1. It seems like you may not have read my comment that carefully. These organizations are not non-committal in disagreeing with the scientific consensus. To illustrate the distinction involved here: Imagine that someone claimed that the first homo sapien was precisely 5 feet 3.3 inches tall, on the basis of a specific body of evidence -- say, the fact that this person himself was that height. One would rightfully disagree very strongly with this claim -- it is crazy in fact -- even while being non-committal as to whether the first homo sapien was in fact 5 feet 3.3 inches tall. 2. The AASC (not the AAPG) never retracted their statement.

The AASC have no current statement. Their statements only last 5 years unless their membership renews them.
The AAPG issued a new statement in 2007 saying their membership was divided on the subject.
If one thinks a claim that the first men were a particular height is rubbish one one would say there was no basis for such a statement and you think it unlikely, which is definitely not non-committal. Dmcq (talk) 23:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Plus see WP:3RR about the fourth reversion you have just done. Please read WP:BRD as I asked you to about how to edit without edit warring. Dmcq (talk) 23:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Plus please sign your comments using ~~~~ at the end. Dmcq (talk) 23:27, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Let's get to the real issue here. Ben asserts in his opening comment that

"The organizations that "hold non-committal positions" in fact disagree with the consensus view that our understanding of the climate is complete enough to warrant the confident assertion that global warming is largely anthropogenic."

Ben, please specify which outfits you are referring to, and provide links to their current positions. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:21, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's ever really been sourced. What our sources say was that
  1. At time t (2005?), there was only one scientific organization which disagreed.
  2. At time t1 (2007), that organization no longer disagreed.
Even if the first source was accurate, we don't have a source that no other scientific organization disagreed in 2008. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:36, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
You beat me to it, Arthur.... I was holding back on the citing issue to see if Ben would show us some cites to back up his combative sweeping statement. He does have a couple good points ... in particular, what is a scientific organization "of standing"? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:28, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
See WP:CALC. And a multitude of discussions in the past. Its easy to disprove... just find one such organization. The other way around would be to try to prove a negative. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:00, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
To KDP: Applying WP:CALC was nonsense then, and it's nonsense now. We should need a single source which uses the phrasing "scientific organization of national or international standing", as one could argue against inclusion of anything but a national Academy of Science. In fact, the last time it was discussed, the denialists mentioned an organization with some credibility, and the warmists claimed it didn't have "national or international standing".
No, I think the sentence is too vague unless we have a reliable source which says exactly that. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
No, its not nonsense. 1-1 = 0. Pretty damn simple. If you want to change that equation - then find a new one. We have the source for the 1, we have the documentation for the -1. So where is your uncertainty?
And, as ever before, where is the "organization with some credibility" that you claim? Its not enough to come up with a vague notion that there might be such a thing. You actually have to demonstrate it. Pretty simple: It is easy to counter this, all it takes is that one organization. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 05:06, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
I certainly think it follows WP:COMMONSENSE as a summary of the various statements. It does point out a problem in Wikipedia about CALC I think, we can enumerate things but it is counted as original research to give a quick summary. You need pretty good safeguards to stop original research but I would like something in there about summary statements. The problem with the citations here is that whilst they do back the statement they really aren't as good as just having a look at all the statements which is what really shows it.Dmcq (talk) 10:54, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
As to the scientific organizations the criteria don't matter much except that they are a scientific institution with some impact rating producing journals which are peer reviewed, the national or international isn't really important. The nearest to dissent on that that I've seen is some Polish subcommittee which disagreeed with the main society. Dmcq (talk) 11:18, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I just realized that the cites given on Global warming for this point are different than the cites given in this article. Kim's formula (1-1=0) does not appear to be supported by the collection of cites on the former. So if Kim's formula is supported by cites on this page, some or all of those refs should be imported to the former. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:31, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

None of the statements being discussed here were voted on by the membership of these professional organizations. Hal Lewis explained how this stuff works in his resignation letter.[10] Who ever heard of a scientific issue that was resolved by the governing councils of professional organizations anyway? Kauffner (talk) 17:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

All you need to do is check if Pielke, Lindzen and the two or three other sceptics who work in the field have started a scientific organization. Count Iblis (talk) 17:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

If they really believed their own rhetoric about "scientific consensus", wouldn't believers be eager for open membership votes? But, no, Lewis pushed for a vote. APS wanted none of it. Clinging to yesterday's doomsday scenario implies that despite the fact mainstream opinion has moved on and no longer cares, the world is still ending. AGW-land must be a horribly depressing place to live. Kauffner (talk) 23:45, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
WP:NOTAFORUM, WP:TPG. --Nigelj (talk) 08:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Kauffner, your view of "scientific consensus" is really too kind. If you check with the 'policy' run by the Royal Society here Climate Change where it says "Climate change continues to be a subject of intense public and political debate" (note - no reference to 'scientific' debate). Nevertheless this 'Scientific' organization dispenses £47.101m of government funding to support its 'policies'. How such an arrangement can exist in a clean scientific world I think you will agree makes total nonsense of any claim to any form of consensus. --Damorbel (talk) 09:03, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
The surveys take care of any democratic vote type idea. They're pretty clear in their results too. Dmcq (talk) 09:47, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Ah yes, 'democratic' science. Care to list a few achievements of "democratic science"? Or is AGW a (notable) first? --Damorbel (talk) 09:58, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
What exactly is your point except that you can sound sarcastic? If you're not going to go through all the sets of figures yourself and follow all the reasoning yourself then whose judgement do you trust? And by the way even though I am very intelligent I would still trust a consensus of other people who know what they're doing over my own workings. I have been right sometimes compared to consensus but overall I would be an idiot if I placed my money on myself. Dmcq (talk) 10:07, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Dmcq, yes it sounds sarcastic but, whatever the sound, an organisation with a policy about what is right and wrong (freely admitted) in scientific matters cannot have any intellectual acceptability. The mere fact that it is able to dispense millions of pounds must surely arouse deep suspicions as to its political character. Whereas I would deplore sarcasm in a scientific debate, the rather obvious possibility of misdemeanour as far as the money is concerned takes the whole matter out of the field of scientific enquiry and places in the political arena where the possibility of dubious financial transactions should be examined with every means. --Damorbel (talk) 10:48, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Their statement about global warming was a statement of opinion, not a policy. Their policies include things like that people should be educated in science. They got £47 million to dispense because the government believes that they have a good chance of it being spent well by the society. Do you really trust societies better if nobody trusts them to spend money wisely? Dmcq (talk) 13:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
For what it is worth the RS thinks it is policy. The RS has a long history of 'political' science and of being completely wrong on quite a number of important matters. See what it did to James Waterston's work on kinetic theory (Recognition after death), it managed to suppress discussion of kinetic theory for about 50 years. At the time the RS retained the papers it didn't publish, very handily using this rule to suppress rival intellectual matter. What the RS hates now is the free availability of publication on the net, its monopoly is at an end and it is squealing. It is no accident that CRU 'lost' their data and refused to grant access to their 'science'. The idea that this was somehow accidental has an amazingly long history! --Damorbel (talk) 14:16, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
You are misunderstanding that page. They advise on policy to the government and others by giving their scientific opinion. None of that page covers their own policies. Their own policy is under the page priorities. Dmcq (talk) 14:56, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
As to people making mistakes, we all do that. The real question is where would you place your money? And outside of the scientific debate there is the even more important question of where should you spend your money? 15:05, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

If I may interject: we should be hear to discuss how to improve the page. Damorbel, I see from your talkpage that you've been warned quite forceably in the past that talkpages are not places to soapbox. I'm reminding you again.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 15:48, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry you're right. It's silly and practically irrelevant debating about the credentials of Royal Society. Dmcq (talk) 16:08, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
No need to apologise on your part, Dmcq. Sometimes we need to discuss our and each other's understanding of an issue and of sourcing in order to edit pages. (That doesn't, of course, extend as far as propagandising and proposing semi-original fringe research).VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 16:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Let's go back to the discussion in the 2nd section above (scan for first line break, or first use of bold from top of thread). I think the current text is fine because I agree with Kim. As Arthur observed, we had a reliable source that there was just one group in disagreement in 2005 or so, and later we have a 2007 source that says that group became noncommittal. So I agree with Kim that 1-1=0, and -- the key thing for this article -- that's good enough for wiki, at least in 2007. Arthur observes that we have no source saying there was no disagreeing body in 2008. Well so what? So far as I know we have no source saying Abe Lincoln was still dead in 2008, either. If the two sources we have fit Kim's 1-1=0 argument, and that was sufficient basis for wiki to report "no scientific bodies disagree" (or whatever) at the time of the sources, I don't see how the passage of time alone takes away the sources' WP:RS status, or validity of that thought process. Instead, that supported factual assertion would have to be trumped by a third source saying that some new development had occurred, e.g., that some other scientific body of standing decided to disagree. (If anyone comes up with one we can argue whether it is a body "of standing" at that time.) In sum I agree with Kim that the current text is fine. But citations need to be added to similar text in the GW article. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 05:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Please don't archive this yet. I am cross-referencing this dicussion on the Global warming article talk page. Thanks NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:47, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

IPCC citations

Just a notice: due to the bad state of the IPCC citations (incomplete, inaccurate, and even dead) I will be replacing them with a complete and verified canonical form, such as has been implemented at Global warming. I won't be doing any others, though it looks like they need work. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The Article needs a section on scientists of note that disagree.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/14/nobel-prize-winning-physicist-resigns-from-top-physics-group-over-global/
"The global warming theory left him out in the cold."
"Dr. Ivar Giaever, a former professor with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the 1973 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, abruptly announced his resignation Tuesday, Sept. 13, from the premier physics society in disgust over its officially stated policy that "global warming is occurring.""
. . .
""In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of [AGW] is incontrovertible?" he wrote." . . . "The claim … is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period," he said.

How is it that as editors of Wikipedia, we have an article on disputes over Global Warming and it teaches science but not the dissent? Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 15:30, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Not a climate scientist...--Cerejota (talk) 15:38, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
Responding to the question staring "How is it that...?" the answer is simple. This article's scope is about debate over aspects of the mainstream view, not wholesale dissent from the mainstream view. This article cross refs the main article on dissent both in the article text as well as the See also section. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:41, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
He's missing from there and should be added. As far as I can make out he thinks climate scientists have been caught up in a craze, he calls it a new religion, but he has no reasoning behind his views that I can make out. This article is principally about reasons for the controversy rather than just itemizing people who don't like the idea. Dmcq (talk) 16:29, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
If it's notable science it will have been shown in a more reliable source than Fox News, which has rather a poor reputation in reporting climate science. . dave souza, talk 23:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
It was just about him resigning. The only slightly vaguely scientific business was his thing about sayng something was incontrovertible. Even when preparing the IPCC report people didn't say that, they worked with probability distributions of various factors and outcomes and then simplified to various scenarios for public consumption. So I can't really dispute him on that but overall it seemed like a hissy fit over nothing much to me. Dmcq (talk) 00:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
This Ivar Giaever with the wp article referencing Jim Inhofe? 97.87.29.188 (talk) 20:27, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

US media coverage

This may be a good overview source. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 05:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Another Skeptic turned Believer

http://news.yahoo.com/skeptic-finds-now-agrees-global-warming-real-142616605.html

Can we add the name of Mueller to those of Bailey and Easterbrook who have changed their position and now agree with the scientific community about CC? 4.246.204.129 (talk) 17:23, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Climate Change I would say yes. Global Warming I would say no. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:59, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Afd-merger

Merged the small amount of semi-salvageable content from Climate_change_alarmism. There may be some more in the history worth grabbing; doubt it, though. It'll probably need major reworking, and feel free to do what you want with it; just wanted to get the merge done and over. =) 86.** IP (talk) 11:26, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, you've now been bold, and got reverted. This article is bloated already, and probably will have to be forked again, so more content is not really an option. A summary section of Climate change alarmism and Climate change denial is an option though. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:38, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Earlier discussions can be found on Talk:Climate change alarmism --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:43, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
You can't keep an article that was slated to be removed at AfD by claiming BRD!!! If you want to challenge the AfD, challnege it, but there's nothing at DRVm, and you certainly haven't created a new consensus to overturn the AfD yet. If DRV goes in your favour, fine. But nearly a week later with no attempt to overturn the consensus by the accepted process, it's time to put the AfD result in place. 86.** IP (talk) 18:53, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Merging is a discussion issue - not an AfD issue, and the AfD decision was not "slated to be removed" - it was merge. This article is so bloated that putting in more content simply isn't an option. We've already WP:SPLIT it several times, to the point where this really is a summary article - so a summary section is certainly in the cards - but moving everything relevant here? Not really an option. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:59, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
I have listed the article for review of the AfD. Dmcq (talk) 19:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
And now the review has come back as a merge. But that still doesn't moot the problem of doing the merge into an article that is already bloated.
So now we will have to decide what to do. Do we split off some other content, so that there is room to merge? Do we delete some other content? .... Frankly i can't see the room for it - which was why i was against the merger. There is significantly more relevant stuff that has more merit in this article, that we've already thrown out.... Sigh. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:44, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
Putting it into Media coverage of climate change avoids issues of bloat. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:54, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
But that isn't in the words of the AfD - so we can't do so. (this is what people have argued) Either it was a merge to GWC or it wasn't. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:04, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
A concensus can be reached here to move the content to Media coverage of climate change. We can request extra opinions etc on the move. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:11, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps you could state your reasons for thinking that is an appropriate place to move it to? Dmcq (talk) 23:39, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
First of all, Global warming controversy has several sub-articles; Media coverage is the second given, so it's just moving it to a sub-article of the target, which isn't a major change.
Secondly, have you read the content? It's almost entirely talking about newspapers, magazines, and other media reports.
Finally, it's done. Almost the entire article, with a small amount of rewriting, is now on that page, saving only the rehash of the views of scientists. [11]. That includes almost all the content from the old sections Alarmism as a pejorative, Alarmism as an extreme position, and Media coverage, fixed up a bit. I can't see how the only remaining section, "Views of Scientists" - a very poor rehash of this article - is worth saving.
We're done, I think. 86.** IP (talk) 02:30, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Why discuss? or try to reach consensus? 86.** has taken it into hir hands and hir will edit-war anyone who disagrees with hir. Hir knows best. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 02:37, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[striken --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:22, 11 December 2011 (UTC)]
Oh, come on, Kim, there's a time for discussion, but there's a point where further calls for discussion are merely obstructionism. Discussion is all well and good, but the only way to get things done is for someone to put in the work to fix things up and put it in; calls for endless discussion, particularly given posts like this edit, which is an outright declaration that a user has ceased to be acting in good faith, are merely a delaying tactic. I don't know about everyone (and rather suspect you're trying to act in good faith, if possibly misguidedly), but that link tells me that at least one person is simply going to attempt to prolong discussions until people give up, when actually merging content can be done by any competent editor within about an hour. 86.** IP (talk) 02:48, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
So, I am an editor over on the Soon and Baliunas controversy, Hockey stick controversy, and Climate Research Unit email controversy pages. How about we delete repetitions of material on those subjects here or move them there? I can see if I can get the Legates paragraph over there to start if people want? --Shadowy Sorcerer (talk) 04:30, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
In case you've missed it... This article is already bloated, which was the major problem with the merge decision. And the "repetitions" as you call them, are summaries of sub-articles. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 05:12, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
As a side comment: yes, it is bloated. And will be even more so as a result of the merge result, but that is what we are stuck with. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:25, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
My problem with it as well as the bloat is it is wrong. This article is a very reasonable target for climate change skeptic. It discusses the various rational points about that in a fair amount of detail. It leaves things like climate change denial to the appropriate article. Alarmism is more close to denial, in fact closer to yet another article 86.*.IP wants to remove but hasn't figured out what to do with the contents, that is environmental skepticism. They have tagged yet another article they want gone global warming conspiracy without figuring what to do with it either. And the main argument I can see seems to be that there are too many articles. Have a look at Media coverage of climate change and think to yourself, is it really a part of that article either? Dmcq (talk) 20:55, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Differing images, why?

Why is the image on this page different than the one on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming?

Based on two independent studies, each employing different methodologies, 97% of climate experts think humans are causing global warming.[1]
97–98% of the most published climate researchers think humans are causing global warming.[2] Another study found 97.4% of publishing climatologists and just under 90% of all earth scientists think significant man made global warming is occurring.[3]

--SPhilbrickT 14:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Have no idea. I don't particularly like that graph/image, but consensus apparently has been to keep it on several articles. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
The top one is the original, that appeared on skepticalscience.com; the second one is by IanOfNorwich, produced during a long discussion at Talk:List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming/Archive 22#Graphic depicting proportion of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming. It is also discussed at Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change/Archive 14#Infograph - is it relevant? and the section immediately following. I thought that the basic idea of illustrating how big a majority 97-98% actually is was worthwhile perhaps for the numerically challenged. I decided to leave well alone, however, after these long debates, when those with very strong opinions seemed either satisfied or to have lost interest. This even though the situation was left in a way that was clearly inconsistent. --Nigelj (talk) 23:43, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Good summary, Nigelj. It is my guess that Ian just overlooked this article when he applied the consensus to places the first image had been posted. It was my understanding he was going to substitute them all, and on the strength of the prior discussion I will now make the substitution on this page as well, so the climate articles using the image are consistent. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:07, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks NAEG, now it makes some sense, and thanks for fixing it.--SPhilbrickT 14:57, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Some comments on sourcing

I just commented on the AfD review of Climate change alarmism and have come over to have a look and see if this article can be split in a more logical way. What I see here illustrates something that came up recently on our discussions about the emerging source guidance for history articles, WP:HISTRS. That is, that articles on very recent events need to be sourced from the mainstream news media. After a year or so, the first academic articles begin to appear, and they could be in sociology or political science journals. Only after that do the first histories appear.

I think editors of this article would really find it interesting to see how many sociology and political science articles on the politics of global warming have been published in 2010 and 2011. They need to be brought into the article, and the news media sources gradually retired. Eventually they will be primary sources for the article. Some of the sources cited here are becoming well cited key papers in the literature: Boykoff and Boykoff, the Oreskes papers. Now there are articles that cite them, we can look at them too. About the structure of the article and how to split it, I don't know yet, but will keep on thinking. The "Political" section here doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because the whole article is about a controversy. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:49, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

This is indeed a problem with many climate change related articles. I consider it an aspect of the same problems outlined at WP:RECENTISM. Unfortunatley, it takes a lot of effort to fix and most editors aren't willing to go through that effort, particularly on contentious articles such as those in the CC area. Sailsbystars (talk) 22:29, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I would say that most would agree - but that a loud minority would disagree (for the obvious reasons).... --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:10, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Well I am at a prestigious poli sci University and have access to lots of articles. I have been using Global Environmental Politics Jeffrey S. Lantis to go over some of the stuff on Kyoto and the IPCC. If there are other papers people know about, let me know and I will get me hands on them!--Shadowy Sorcerer (talk) 22:51, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Diversion from the surfacestations topic

Moved from the article:
Based on the work of Watts, Stephen McIntyre has completed a reconstruction of U.S. temp history using only those weather stations identified so far as meeting the requirements to be CRN level 1 (excellent) or level 2 (good) stations. The higher quality stations indicate the warmest years in the U.S. were 1934 and 1921, followed by 1998 and 2006.[ref]McIntyre, Steve (4 October 2007). "Gridding from CRN1-2". Climate Audit. Retrieved 15 March 2008. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)[/ref] McIntyre made all of his methods, data and code available for others to reproduce his findings. McIntyre's analysis has not been published in the peer-reviewed literature.[citation needed]
Oh look, it's just based on one of McI's blogs, and isn't really about the surfacestations issue discussed in the rest of the paragraph. We could always start another paragraph on this, citing Gavin Schmidt on the issues at the time, and Skeptical Science noting that at 2% of the Earth's surface that one hot year in the continental US didn't have much effect on world temps. Alternatively, we could leave it out as merely a blog squabble. . dave souza, talk 21:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Soo. I was reading this article and clicked through on the citation that Watt's work showed cooling, not warming. In reading the comments on *that* citation, I ran into Watt's own response in his own words.
Thinking that would only be fair to include, I pasted what he claimed (that the analysis had been on an early, incomplete version of his analysis w/ many errors - although he went on to offer more analysis I didn't feel qualified to comment on)
So. I go back there today, proud of adding something to wikipedia... Aaaaand, I see it is gone. Checking history, I see a bunch of edits, including someone removing it as. "Not a reliable source"
Ok. I can see that someone might claim that for actual elements of data. But, this is the guy's actual response. You know, his own words. From the source. So. What the heck, wikipedia?
Also. If you think about it, what's w/ this RS thingy anyway? surfacestations.org is by the same guy, self-published apparently, but that can be referenced just fine?
And, I checked out his site, it isn't just some personal blog, it seems to get a lot of attention, people putting work on it, lots of press coverage...
If I didn't know better, I'd swear someone removed it just to avoid letting the guy get his say in :(
Oh well. Whatever. Just wanted to put this on here to register my annoyance.
The edit I'd submitted was: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_warming_controversy&oldid=470202624
it was removed in http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_warming_controversy&oldid=470232857
Apologies for any errors on this comment, I don't really know too much about wiki syntax. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.120.146.194 (talk) 20:02, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi, to indent a paragraph add colons ( : ) at the start: if you add a space it becomes unformatted text and rather unreadable. . .dave souza, talk 20:19, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Right, the way to show a change is a "diff". You seem to be saying that this change was undone by this edit which rightly points out that "self-published blogs are not an WP:RS". While Watts was responding in his blog, his arguments are both unreliable and unduly self-serving, see WP:SPS. My feeling is that the issues are well covered without that particular paragraph, we shouldn't give undue WP:WEIGHT to the fringe views of Watts, which have to be shown in the context of how they've been received by scientists holding the majority view. Thanks for trying to improve the article, sorry that in this case your addition didn't last, for pretty good reasons. . . dave souza, talk 20:32, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Got it. Well. This entire page is fringe, right? That's how I got here, clicking on that link off the main article. But, if what the dude is saying is right, he accumulates a bunch of data, and before he does a proper publishing, someone posts an analysis of his incomplete dataset. If that was done in research, that'd be really uncool. The way the article reads right now, it seems like his entire project was smacked down definitively, while he claims it was done on bad data. So, since it is all about fringe anyway, seems only fair to let him defend himself. It isn't like it is in the main (global warming) article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.120.146.194 (talk) 21:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
BTW, that sine bot thingy is really annoying. Screwed up my attempt to clarify my sentences, so I had to go retype it all. Also, I think I'd be better off just avoiding this stuff. Just flippping through history on other pages shows they are pretty darn contentious. Even if *I* think people were being unfair here, it is clearly a fight I don't want to get in the middle of. I'll stick to other areas of wikipedia if I run into something that seems unbalanced.
Since Watts was being defensive about the allegedly premature thing instead of blowing that thing away with actual results from the completed project, one wonders if those little defensive bb's are all he has to shoot? Yawn. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Dude. I dunno. Rest of article had actual data and shit, I was just posting the rebuttal quotes part, since that seemed relevant. Feel free to read the rest of it and tell me what you think?
Also, I went and checked out that surfacestations.org - he has a paper there, which is *later* than the supposed rebuttal on wikipedia. And it *does* make claims about siting. Sooo. Yeah.
I wasn't interested in that since, well, I was just looking into his response to the thing said on wikipedia, and documenting it, but it does look like he has actual data.
So, given that paper is, oh, published, shouldn't a snippet from its preamble or whatever you call these things be there too? Just sayin' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.120.146.194 (talk • contribs)
The important part of Watt's story is "Political issues aside, the appearance of the Menne et al 2010 paper does not stop the surfacestations project nor the work I’m doing with the Pielke research group to produce a peer reviewed paper of our own." That hasn't happened yet, has it? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:12, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Having looked it over, I've removed this claim which essentially is a BLP allegation by creationist Joseph D'Aleo that scientists have fraudulently removed station data: as this published paper shows, "The reasons why the number of stations in GHCN drop off in recent years are because some of GHCN’s source datasets are retroactive data compilations (e.g., World Weather Records) and other data sources were created or exchanged years ago. Only three data sources are available in near-real time." "Independent researchers have shown that there is no truth to the claim that cooling stations were removed, in fact evidence suggests that if these stations were included, warming would be shown to be slightly greater."[12] These extraordinary claims by D'Aleo and Smith are essentially based on self-published sources: one newspaper reported that they had made the claims. We shouldn't be giving this fringe claim undue weight. . dave souza, talk 12:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Hey newsguy. This whole thing is getting kinda monotonous I have to say, for what I thought was a 2 minute edit, but I have this compulsion about internet discussions...
Well.Basically, it does seem he got something published. I went to surfacestations.org and it linked to a paper. Clicking through to the various websites, I eventually got to: http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/05/something-for-everyone-fall-et-al-2011/ Which says something like "The poorest sites tend to be warmer. The minimum temperatures are warming faster at poorer sites than at better sites."
I'm sure there are dueling papers out there, and frankly, I couldn't be arsed to read the whole thing, but it does seem like the paper published on the complete data a year later contradicts the paper cited on wikipedia... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.120.146.194 (talk) 19:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
You said, "This whole thing is getting kinda monotonous I have to say, for what I thought was a 2 minute edit..." Apparently, you were (not) thinking in a context of ignorance about basic wiki ground rules. For all blogs, regardless which side of an issue they are on, they just don't count unless a specific exemption applies. For blogs, see WP:BLOG. For info on what constitutes a "reliable source" in general see WP:RS. For talk page guidelines, such as how to sign your notes, see WP:TALK. Its silly to judge our process if you haven't read any of the basic orientation stuff. I see that your work did remind Dave Souza about a something interesting, so no harm. Just sayin'.... if you want to be effective posting here, please read the same basic how-to stuff the rest of us have read. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Good find, had a dim memory of this. Souleymane Fall, Anthony Watts, John Nielsen‐Gammon, Evan Jones, Dev Niyogi, John R. Christy, and Roger A. Pielke Sr. doi:10.1029/2010JD015146 [13], whole paper put up by Pielke. As John N-G discusses in what we learned, the paper is tentative and has a slightly convoluted message – its abstract states "Temperature trend estimates vary according to site classification, with poor siting leading to an overestimate of minimum temperature trends and an underestimate of maximum temperature trends, resulting in particular in a substantial difference in estimates of the diurnal temperature range trends. The opposite-signed differences of maximum and minimum temperature trends are similar in magnitude, so that the overall mean temperature trends are nearly identical across site classifications." In simple terms, the poorer stations are warmer at night and cooler during the day, these roughly cancel each other out so the paper has no effect on overall temperature trends, but suggests more research into the implications. Pielke also blogs about it, emphasising the uncertainties but concluding with "Q: What about mean temperature trends? A: In the United States the biases in maximum and minimum temperature trends are about the same size, so they cancel each other and the mean trends are not much different from siting class to siting class. This finding needs to be assessed globally to see if this also true more generally.", and calling for further research. John N-G also comments on the statistics and how the review process went. . . dave souza, talk 20:44, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Yup. Or more briefly, the paper does its best to obfusticate the essential matter, that there is no sign of station quality issue in the overall trend William M. Connolley (talk) 21:45, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy, re if you want to be effective posting here, please read the same basic how-to stuff the rest of us have read. A lot of us learnt mainly by doing, by making mistakes and being offered friendly help along the way. E.g. dave souza's advice above about indenting with a colon.

I find the RS issue confusing at the edges too. Anon, you comment: "surfacestations.org is by the same guy, self-published apparently, but that can be referenced just fine?" That prompted me to look and find WP:SELFSOURCE, which says: "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as..." (list of conditions & limitations given there). Hope that helps. --Chriswaterguy talk 02:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Sure, Watts' own blog can be a source for information about Watts' blog (e.g., list of contributors). In this thread, we're talking about Watts' blog comments regarding data and the things some people (allegedly) did with that data, so WP:SELFSOURCE does not apply. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:58, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

No controversy about antarctic cooling?

Discussion before subtopic breakout

The paragraph about antarctic cooling not being an academic controversy seems badly off. The text explicitly claims that the O'Donnell authors agree with Steig, when in fact they rather aggressively disputed this. I will try to make an appropriate edit. Jsolinsky (talk) 20:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

You failed William M. Connolley (talk) 09:50, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the helpful commentary. If you have a reason why this unsubstantiated opinion (that directly contradicts the authors of the mentioned journal article) should be included in the article, please feel free to share it. Jsolinsky (talk) 13:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Your edit wasn't helpful. You're here via [14] which explains the problem. As to personal opinion: you seem to be guessing what authors think William M. Connolley (talk) 14:10, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't read WUWT. I don't respect them because they publish things that they know are false to get eyeballs.
I am here because I engaged in a discussion with Dave Souza in the talk section of the S&B article in which I came to suspect that he was pushing POV, and I checked his other recent edits, which led me to this article. I wound up at S&B because I read Pearce's retraction and the criticism of Wikipedia on Montford's site, and I don't like to see Wikipedia attacked for deliberately supporting the inclusion of false information.
I am not a single issue editor. I have a demonstrated history of working in controversial areas with both sides of an issue to improve articles.
On this page you are supporting the inclusion of highly opinionated and controversial content which you have explicitly admitted can not be supported via RS. The proper choice is to remove it as I have done.
We have engaged in discussions before outside of Wikipedia. I am not unaware of who you are. I am also not unaware of your past history of infractions at Wikipedia.
I encourage you to engage me constructively on the actual content of this article. But if you do not, and continue to revert me based on false assumptions about who I am, I will not stop trying to protect this page from POV pushing. Jsolinsky (talk) 15:01, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I would like to see the proposed change in article text posted here in a new thread that shows the changes with strikeout and underlining. If we can not reach consensus here, then we can always run an RFC on the question. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:27, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

To the extent that a controversy exists it is confined to the popular press and blogs; there is no evidence of a related controversy within the scientific community. Peter Doran, the lead author of the paper cited by Crichton, stated that "... our results have been misused as "evidence" against global warming by Crichton in his novel 'State of Fear'..."[4] Eric Steig states in RealClimate that even the 2010 paper co-authored by Ryan O’Donnell, Nicholas Lewis, Stephen McIntyre and Jeff Condon confirms the overall picture of warming and cooling in Antarctica.[5]

There are actually two separate deletions here that are quite amenable to being handled separately. The first deletion was previously the subject of a citation needed tag by Darkness Shines. Connolley deleted this tag, with the explanation that it would be difficult to find a supporting reference. I would argue that opinionated language which can not be supported by a reference is best left out of the article.

The second deletion quotes from the Real Climate blog in which the lead author of Steig et al claims that O'Donnell et al confirmed their results. The problem with this is that O'Donnell et al have emphatically disputed this. First, I believe that the authors of papers should be given priority in interpreting what their papers say... just like we allow Peter Doran to have the last word about his paper in this paragraph. Second, I would like to know our policy on using climate blogs as RS. Jsolinsky (talk) 16:31, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

William has decided to stay away from this article for a while. Since he was the only editor pushing the deleted content, I am hopeful that the matter has been resolved. Jsolinsky (talk) 17:05, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm curious as to what this comment has to do with content? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:36, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
He was the only editor pushing the content in question. Jsolinsky (talk) 18:17, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Where exactly does "O'Donnell et al have emphatically dispute[] this"? Some citation should be needed for that. (i truly hope that you are not yourself interpreting the O'Donnell et al. paper for that statement). As for Steig comment, he is a published expert author on the topic (see WP:SPS), so the RC blog post is certainly a WP:RS here. Why exactly shouldn't we use it? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:13, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I asked because obviously O'Donnell et al are published expert authors who have made comments on their blogs. And Jeff and Ryan in particular did have some very strong words on Steig's analysis. [[15]] (skip down to the actual content beginning with "ERIC STEIG’s Critique- By Ryan ODonnell") Essentially, Steig completely failed to understand their paper. There are several related communications from Ryan and Jeff that can also be found at the Air Vent.
If we definitely want to write about this, we can go through all of them and include them here. But in my opinion, the better choice is simply not addressing the O'Donnell paper. The global warming controversy article is sufficient without it (and it requires less effort). Jsolinsky (talk) 18:16, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Jsolinsky, you started this section with a misrepresentation: you're wrong to say "The text explicitly claims that the O'Donnell authors agree with Steig", quite the contrary, it said that Steig considered that their paper "confirms the overall picture of warming in Antarctica". That is correct, it doesn't prevent them from disagreeing about details of analysis. The text I added was an update and improvement on an obscure statement, now the section 's been rewritten I don't see it as an essential issue. . . dave souza, talk 20:53, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
The main result of O'Donnell is that Steig et al had a fundamental flaw in its methodology that caused the enormous warming trends of the peninsula to be spread over much of the antarctic, creating an illusory warming in the Western Antarctic (exclusive of the peninsula). The O'Donnell trends were intended to be illustrative (i.e. they don't say "this is what we think happened to temperatures in this part of the antarctic"; they say "If you used this methodology, you'd get this result".) Also, none of these results challenges the result from Chapman that if you use a more recent start date, the entire continent of Antarctica is cooling.
The main NEW result in Steig et al was the pretty picture on the cover of Nature which incorrectly showed the temperature trends from the peninsula leaking over the rest of Antarctica. Otherwise, we already knew that the continent as a whole was warming over that period (see Chapman again). But it was news that Western Antarctica (outside of the peninsula) was warming significantly. As it turns out, it wasn't. Jsolinsky (talk) 21:21, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but NEW != BETTER. On average, science progresses. But not every new paper is more correct than every older paper. I'd agree with "...it possibly wasn't". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:14, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Its not suitable for Wikipedia, but it is a mathematical certainty that the Steig PCs spread warming from the peninsula over the remainder of the content. At any rate, I am not arguing that we need to say this in the article. I'm just saying that we shouldn't say the opposite. Jsolinsky (talk) 23:18, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposed rewrite

Thanks for the markup text. The subsection in question is two paragraphs. You only offered edits to paragraph #2, so I looked at the full subsection and realized there is more work to be done. See my suggested subsection re-write. I don't wish to do battle over your first suggested edit (deleting the negative statement that there is no real scientific controversy) unless someone can point to wiki guidelines for RSs when asserting a negative. As for the Real Climate paper, I left it out for now since we're talking about it. I do not currently have an opinion either way on that reference. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:35, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:35, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I actually see a few of problems with your edit.
First you say "Actual scientific observations show that trends are dependent on season and the timespan over which the trend is computed, but indicate the continent is warming overall. [111][112]" This is not correct and is inconsistent with the sources (the second explicitly gives time frames in which net cooling is observed).
I also don't think that the opening (focusing on Crichton) is a good idea. While Crichton is the most notable example, the issue of antarctic temperatures has been raised by a number of other commentators. The new text focuses more on the Crichton example and less on the general case, which I'd suggest is a mistake.
Finally, if we decide to break out trends in the peninsula and western antarctic, it naturally follows that we should report trends in the remaining (larger) portion of the continent.
On all three points, I would suggest that the previous formulation is preferable. Jsolinsky (talk) 19:12, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Of course this section has to focus on Crichton. His work of fiction is the only thing we have included that claims without question that there is overall cooling. I find it ironic that you ran to Mommy Jimbo to complain about wiki activism and are now POVishly advocating that we focus our coverage on the non-sourced opinions of phantom advocates of overall cooling. If you want to say something about the data analysis by someone else, then name them and the source.
As for the existing source you claim shows cooling, it sounds like you are POVishly confusing the papers discussion of inter-annual variability with its overall conclusions over the entire record.
Finally, I can understand that the strong data from West Antarctica and the peninsula might run contrary to the results from the phantom sources you seem to want us to include, and that might stick in your craw. What can I say? You brought up the subsection, and I decline to change the subject to whether we should split the place geographically. The issue is how do we cover the assertion of Antarctic cooling, given that its primary source was in a work of fiction? Near as I know, Crichton's work of fiction claiming cooling did not split the continent. He was talking about West Antarctica, too, wasn't he? "Strong warming" data in that region is contrary to his story line, and that's all it is..... a novel, cited for the entire continent cooling. If you want to change the subject, name names and sources you wish to offer as a WP:RS for a WP:NPOV revision. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:40, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Your tone in not constructive or helpful. I ask that you retract your accusations about phantom sources and POV pushing, or at least provide some basis for your incivility towards me.Jsolinsky (talk) 20:15, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Here is the line from the abstract of Chapman "Trends computed using these analyses show considerable sensitivity to start and end dates, with trends calculated using start dates prior to 1965 showing overall warming, while those using start dates from 1966 to 1982 show net cooling over the region." The old text very clearly reflected this source which appears immediately after it. The new text does not. Jsolinsky (talk) 20:15, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Crichton was hardly the only person to bring up the subject of Global Cooling. He just happened to be a very popular author. Here are a few others. [16] [17] And I'm pretty sure you can find articles on Real Climate from the Steig et al period that also mention this history, although I didn't find any during my 60 seconds of searching. Jsolinsky (talk) 20:15, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Erh? The first is USA Today on Doran ... Hmmmm. The second is to a rather obscure Canadian defunct TV-station? And is either of these before Crichton? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:10, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, USA Today precedes State of Fear by two years. Jsolinsky (talk) 23:21, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
As to your last point, I once again point out that it is outrageously uncivil and unproductive. There is absolutely no question that the antarctic peninsula is warming rapidly. My point is this: If you are making an argument that Region X is warming, and you support that argument by saying that West X is warming at a rate of R1, then it begs the question, "what about East X?". I'm not actually sure that we need to break it out into two parts (especially since there can be disagreement as to how to break things down). But IF you do, you need to provide numbers for both parts. Jsolinsky (talk) 20:15, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
BTW I've never read or even seen the Crichton book, so I obviously have no comment on it. I have seen many dozens of arguments over global cooling. It obviously strikes me as bizarre to substitute a work of fiction for an actual skeptical meme, even if that work of fiction may have given the meme a push at some point. Jsolinsky (talk) 20:15, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
If you have reliable sources discussing disputes about antarctic cooling, please present these sources: remember that we have to show the mainstream view of the minority arguments, so need sources showing how the minority views have been received. . . dave souza, talk 20:30, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm not trying to argue that there is antarctic cooling here. I am simply pointing out that the skeptical view that the antarctic is cooling, which Steig et al was designed to counter, was substantially more widespread than the Crichton book. The old language: "Various individuals, most notably writer Michael Crichton" handled this quite adequately. Jsolinsky (talk) 20:38, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
The "various individuals" immediately merits [who?] and needed sources. . . dave souza, talk 20:55, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, and since you (Jsolinski) only did 60 seconds of searching I'm not surprised that you apparently did not notice the 2002 USA today article you found is about the same Peter Doran paper cited in Crichton's book and already treated by both versions of the subsection! And your other new source is a teaser, which contains no references of its own, for a series of articles on this subject that were apparently never published. Care to try again? If you find any, don't forget to read them before sharing them. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:13, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I did notice. What I did not notice is where in the USA today article it mentions Crichton's book. It seems that this line of thinking exists quite independently of the book. (you'll note that I had no complaint about using Doran to attack both the various individuals and Crichton. Jsolinsky (talk) 21:27, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
And honestly, what is the point of putting something in this article just to criticize a work of FICTION? If this was limited to Michael Crichton, wouldn't we be better off removing this section altogether? Jsolinsky (talk) 21:27, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
No, because his novel is notable in that it did create a political blogosphere whirlwind, as typified by this Heartland post. But after searching the scientific literature we haven't yet come up with any real bell ringers to support the notion that there is a controversy in the professional lit. But the novel did kick it off in common media. And guess what, the original text you complained about says this controversy lives in common media, not the professional literature. Your own failed efforts at searching seem to prove this negative, but alas we can not cite Jslonski's negative search results as an RS. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:18, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Its not a negative search result. I found dozens of references to the argument. Most of them do not mention Critchon. I already provided two. Here is one citing Steig et al! [18]. Here is RC [19]. I'm frankly surprised that anyone is arguing that this argument has been limited to Critchon. (And again I'd reiterate my belief that if it were confined to a science fiction book, it wouldn't be noteworthy. Anyone who bases their science on fiction is asking to be laughed at.) Jsolinsky (talk) 22:54, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I never said the issue exists only in relation to State of Fear, I've only said we don't have any other sources on which to base our text. But wait... you now say you have more sources and you support that by mentioning the two you already agreed to reject in the other subthread. SHEESH! Give us something with some meat on it, or please stop. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:03, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I wasn't aware that I had rejected any of these. We now have four items.
I'm not even sure why I'm fighting this. State of fear isn't the only Science Fiction book with bad science. Perhaps we should turn the others into controversy articles as well? Jsolinsky (talk) 23:24, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, I thought you did but if you still think there's something solid try a further article edit, and see where it goes. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:02, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Real Climate and O'Donnell

My main problem with the Real Climate paper, is that it is being used to make representations about O'Donnell. But we have a paper from O'Donnell saying that the Real Climate paper doesn't understand O'Donnell and has unsupportable conclusions. If we want to make representations about what is in O'Donnell, we should probably use what O'Donnell says about O'Donnell (just as we use what Doran says about Doran and imply that to the extent Crichton disagreed with the guy who actually wrote the paper, it is Crichton who was in error). Jsolinsky (talk) 19:18, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Substitute the word blog entry for paper in the preceding paragraph. I was responding to a comment that referred to the RC blog entry as a paper, and I didn't want to change terminology in the middle of an argument. But obviously neither RC nor the Air Vent is a journal. Jsolinsky (talk) 20:22, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Glad to see that correction. Both the Steig and O'Donnell papers (not blogs) show warming in the West Antarctican peninsula and to a lesser extent elsewhere, with some modest cooling. Thus there's no scientific "controversy", there's a normal discussion about the best method to get the most accurate results within a broad area of agreement. Any controversy seems to have been a blog spat about behaviour, so probably best to leave both out altogether. . dave souza, talk 20:26, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree with your proposed solution. Jsolinsky (talk) 20:33, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Jdey123's four talk threads

Temperature predictions

The following entry is continually being deleted from this article

"James E Hansen's 1984 climate model (see 1988 paper [6]) predicted a global mean temperature of 1C (see light blue line in referenced graph) for scenario B (the scenario which has most closely matched CO2 emissions) for 2010. The actual observed global mean temperature was 0.63C (see black line in referenced graph).[7][8]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdey123 (talk • contribs) 17:17, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I think, among other problems, you are muddling 'temperature' with 'temperature change', which is pretty fundamental. Then there is the fact that 1984 was a long time ago. Then there is a need for the addition to have some purpose, and to flow within the existing article text. Then there is the need for secondary sources discussing the significance of this graph. Etc. --Nigelj (talk) 17:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
SkepSci covers this common claim, but in itself isn't a rs as far as I know. It might be possible to write a paragraph about this, but reiterating the claim without any secondary source or mainstream context ain't the way to do it. . dave souza, talk 17:45, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
I remember this one, vaguely. When you say "predicted a global mean temperature of 1C" I think you mean "predicted a global mean temperature change of 1C", but in that case, what period are you talking about? The paper abstract says it starts from 1958, and reading from the graph there is a T change of ~1 oc from 1960-2010.
The important point is not to pick stuff out of the paper's graphs, that the paper doesn't itself say - that is classic WP:OR. Neither the abstract, nor the conclusions, makes any prediction of temperature changes to 2010. The discussion of fig 3 (section 5.1) barely mentions 1 oC. So I don't think we should be discussing this as though it were one of the major conclusions of that paper - it clearly isn't. If (as DS alludes) this is indeed a skeptic talking point then we could try to include some kind of section along the lines of "Skeptics point to Hansen 1988 as an example of a prediction which didn't come true." However, that would have to be put into context: (a) with some decent skeptic sources (if that isn't a contradiction in terms) saying so; and also (b) with the people who point out why this is wrong (presumably there are some; http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/ looks to be another such) William M. Connolley (talk) 18:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

From Wikipedia's policy

"Achieving neutrality 

See Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Examples

As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone. Biased information can usually be balanced with material cited to other sources to produce a more neutral perspective, so such problems should be fixed when possible through the normal editing process. Remove material only where you have good reason to believe it misinforms or misleads readers in ways that cannot be addressed by rewriting the passage"

The entry was continually deleted not amended. The suggested changes mentioned by the respondents were minor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.85.47.208 (talk) 11:30, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Non-Neutral?

This WP:SOAP thread lacks specific suggestions for article improvement, such as draft proposed text. Click show to read anyway.

There are some statements here which are non-neutral. The word "Consensus" is used three times and there is absolutely no way to prove this except by counting every environmental scientist in the US and calculating their opinion. The word "Consensus" should be taken out in every case and a more neutral word or sentence inserted. Mugginsx (talk) 20:22, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Just curious... why would we only count the "environmental scientists in the US"? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:30, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
You appear to misunderstand scientific consensus and you are also apparently unaware that from surveys around 97% of experts in the field support the broad consensus. . dave souza, talk 20:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
The specific remarks concerned US Scientists and I do not believe that 97% of the experts support the broad consensus and would like to see the exact reference that substantiates that. If I am wrong I will apologise. I know of no report and do not remember any such survey. Mugginsx (talk) 20:52, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Which survey would this be? Perhaps the one which ended up with 75 out of 77 creating the consensus? Or perhaps a new survey has been done? Darkness Shines (talk) 20:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
I see - so apparently there isn't any such report. I did not think so. I can see why the article is so non-neutral and contentious. Would not touch it with a ten foot pole but since no report of the kind I mentioned has been produced, I still maintain my statement here and at the ANI. Mugginsx (talk) 21:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Evidently you've not looked at the article. A 2010 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analysed "1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers". . . dave souza, talk 21:24, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
[edit conflict]
The sources are cited, you are free to look them up yourself. This page is not for your personal education, even less a soapbox for your under-researched views. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:32, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Mr Souza, the NAS paper you cite is, if I recall correctly, published in the vanity press of PNAS? Is it by any chance the one written by 23 people? Of which only 5 had PHD's? Perhaps a link to this paper would be useful. Darkness Shines (talk) 21:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
How about looking in the reference section of the article? You are wrong in both of your guesses (btw. what is the "vanity press section of the PNAS"?) full citation is:
--Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:24, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Mr Petersen. the PNAS you link to is the vanity press. The article in question is also not peer reviewed. What does it cost again? $50 right? 22:36, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Define "vanity press" in this context (scientific publishing). As for peer-review: The article in question was submitted for review on Dec. 22, 2009, published online Apr. 9, 2010 as well as on paper in the journal on Jul 6, 2010. (PNAS, issue 27, volume 107). So you are wrong about peer-review. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC) Note (since i suspect you got open access wrong): Open access means that the submitters have pre-payed for open-access[20] (currently $1,300) - there is no difference in review between open-access and pay-walled articles) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:57, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but if someone calls PNAS a "vanity press", they simply are not qualified to have this discussion. And that's assuming good faith. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:09, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Last word for me. The article is non-neutral and should allow for alternate points of view for the reasons I stated and which have not be refuted. PhD's are not always correct. It depends what their PhD's are in and if they are biased by the opinions of whom they work for, especially government sponsored, recipients of government grants, etc. As to charges of bias - bias goes both ways. My last word. Good luck on the article. Back to late middle ages or some other such welcoming era. Mugginsx (talk) 21:57, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
You may find the palaeolithic welcoming. . dave souza, talk 22:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Certainly more intelligent. Mugginsx (talk) 22:56, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I have set the neutrality tag on the page again. Looking at the comments to the previous request on this, it's clear that there are large number of people promoting the global warming hyptothesis who are intent on deleting entries that point to evidence against this. Take for example, Dave Souza's comment, that there is a concensus amongst 97% of scientists as to the global warming hypothesis.

There is no scientific concensus on climate science. The 97% of climate scientists myth comes from a paper written by scientists who believe in global warming, in which they googled for papers and determined for themselves who agreed with them or not. http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.full The only opinion poll that I'm aware of undertaken by Bray & Storch 2008 reveals a wide range of opinions amonst climate scientists. http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/CliSci2008.pdf

On 27th January 2012, 16 leading scientists complained about the politics around the global warming hypothesis http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Dave Souza has also deleted entries citing skepticalscience.com which is a site that politicises debate and is not a credible source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.85.47.208 (talk) 11:44, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

A user so clueless he doesn't even know how to sign his edit. I've been reminded that "clueless" could be deemed uncivil, so I will refrain from commenting. J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:39, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
A heads up for everyone else: User talk:91.85.47.208 has been blocked, both on this IP address for abuse of editing privileges (and unblock request denied for disruptive behavior), and as User_talk:Jdey123 for block evasion. As the latter he has also requested formal mediation re eight editors that have removed his various edits; see WP:Requests_for_mediation/Global_Warming_Controversy. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Also note: Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Guide shows Preconditions 1. The dispute must relate only to the content of one or more Wikipedia articles; 2. The dispute must not relate to the behaviour of a Wikipedia contributor (which is the purview of Arbitration, not Mediation); so Jdey123 appears to be barking up the wrong tree. . dave souza, talk 23:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of Bray & von Storch survey

An opinion poll of climate scientists was carried out by Bray & Storch in 2008. The poll found that 34.59% of climate scientists polled were very convinced that most of the climate change was as a result of anthropogenic causes. [9]

From Wikipedia's policy

"Achieving neutrality See Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Examples As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone. Biased information can usually be balanced with material cited to other sources to produce a more neutral perspective, so such problems should be fixed when possible through the normal editing process. Remove material only where you have good reason to believe it misinforms or misleads readers in ways that cannot be addressed by rewriting the passage" 91.85.47.208 (talk) 11:32, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

See WP:WEIGHT, and note that your wording does not appear in the opinion poll you link. Looks like your own spin. . dave souza, talk 23:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of (redundant) paragraph about Hansen

The struck comment below was essentially cut and pasted from this thread above. See WP:TALKsection on "good practices". NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:26, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

James E. Hansen's 1984 climate model's predictions were presented to the US congress in 1988 and helped to bring awareness to the public of the global warming hypothesis. His climate model predictions versus observed temperatures [10] are updated each year by Dr Mikako Sato of Columbia University. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.85.47.208 (talk) 11:26, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

From Wikipedia's policy

"Achieving neutrality 

See Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Examples

As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone. Biased information can usually be balanced with material cited to other sources to produce a more neutral perspective, so such problems should be fixed when possible through the normal editing process. Remove material only where you have good reason to believe it misinforms or misleads readers in ways that cannot be addressed by rewriting the passage" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.85.47.208 (talk) 11:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC) 91.85.47.208 (talk) 11:32, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Useful resource

NCSE launch, continued . . dave souza, talk 21:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

resource from deleted reference? Or another location?

Referencing Science Lessons from Earth's Past by Jeffrey Kiehl (National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist), 14 January 2011: 158-159. doi:10.1126/science.1199380 99.181.133.141 (talk) 10:00, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Can we include a picture of 'Ice Fairs' when the Thames River froze over in London ?

A Frost Fair on the Thames at Temple Stairs, c.1684 (oil on panel) by Abraham Danielsz Hondius (c.1625-95) -- Limulus (talk) 02:08, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming--Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html . . . [Great picture included in the article today.] . . . Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 15:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Please explain, via draft article text with RSs, how you think this would improve the article. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:02, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
The above user supports the argument that because some places are getting colder winters, then they are getting colder throughout the year, and that the rest of the world must be, too. It's an a posteriori argument whereby one event/experience is used to describe everything else as being as such (eg. "Every frenchman I've met has been rude; therefore, every frenchman is rude" - the example I was given in my philospohy class). Basically, he's using a single instance to disprove everything about Global Warming.-- OsirisV (talk) 18:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Whatever the user supports, and I'd not like to guess, the linked Daily Mail article reinforces that newspaper's reputation for misinformation. It starts with the startling claim that "data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997." Can't find a statement from last week, but this recent statement confirms the WMO press release, as graphically summarised in Skep Sci. The Mail then goes on to this news of anticipated slowdown in the sun's activity which is expected to do little to slow manmade global warming: but finds a few of the usual suspects to claim that oh noes we're really heading back to the little ice age. Including frost fairs on the Thames: but according to a better source, "The fair in 1814 was the last one ever, mainly due to the demolition of the old London Bridge in 1831 and the increasing embankment of the river over the Victorian period, such that the river became much narrower and faster flowing, making it more difficult for ice to build up behind the bridges." Indeed 1962–63 was as cold locally as these earlier frost fair years, but ice didn't build up to the same extent. The Mail then throws in some cold Curry who says she can't understand it so it must be too uncertain, and ends with the usual nonsense from Lawson's pet denial project. Wikipedia really shouldn't become an index to climate pseudosceptic claims. . . dave souza, talk 19:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Met Office in the Media: 29 January 2012 « Met Office News Blog – "Today the Mail on Sunday published a story written by David Rose entitled 'Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about'. This article includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre and for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading. Despite the Met Office having spoken to David Rose ahead of the publication of the story, he has chosen to not fully include the answers we gave him to questions ...". This is the official blog of the Met Office news team, intended to provide journalists and bloggers with the latest weather, climate science and business news and information from the Met Office. A trivial but all too typical example of fraudulent "controversy" by misrepresentation in the press. . .dave souza, talk 10:45, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
It could be spun as: "The Thames used to ice over, now it doesn't. QED: climate is warming." :-)
J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:25, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

FYI, that pic of frozen Thames also appears [in this article] about research tying Little Ice Age to a series of tropical volcanoes. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

My reading is that the original commenter was asking if the picture was out of copyright (before 1700 so, yes ;) and thus could we use it on wikipedia? (yes) There's an arguably better pic on [21] which I will be uploading to the commons momentarily. Also, see the article River Thames frost fairs which could use a copy too... -- Limulus (talk) 01:25, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, it looks like the conclusion has been reached that, no, a picture of the Thames frozen over in 1684 has no relevancy to this article.--CurtisSwain (talk) 02:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

As original commenter, I was just pointing out that new data came out the same day as the newspaper article. It shows that for the last 15 years there has not been warming. (I'm a physicist, but not current in AGW.) I would not expect the picture to be in the WP Article until this settles in, but this Article is about the 'controversy'. Let's wait for more collaboration. Here are some points from the newspaper:

  • "... the release of new temperature data [shows] the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years."
  • "Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations ..."
  • "It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997."
  • "...since the end of last year, world temperatures have fallen by more than half a degree ..."

If other WP editors think the newspaper is not credible, it does not speak to the data. We'll see. Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 04:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not a question of what other editors think, it's what the Met Office state about their studies which have been mangled by the newspaper's columnist David Rose (try searching for RoseGate). It's the same old pseudsceptic mangling of data, the actual data can be obtained via the Met Office . . dave souza, talk 10:29, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
PS: The three graphs look credible and very interesting .!. And thanks for pasting the picture in and explaining it! Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 04:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
NOAA graph of Global Annual Temperature Anomalies 1950–2011
Not sure which graphs you mean, however have now found the NOAA Global Annual Temperature Anomalies 1950–2011 graph from their State of the Climate : Global Analysis : Annual 2011 report. Thanks to the splendid US policy of government images being copyright free, this is now available as shown. As the report says, "With CPC ENSO records dating back to 1950, 2011 ranked as the warmest "La Niña year" in the 1950–2011 period of record. Two of the three warmest years on record (2010 and 1998) are "El Niño years"." and from the start of the article, "This year tied 1997 as the 11th warmest year since records began in 1880." This confirms the Met Office summary of continued rising temperatures taken decade by decade. Further clarification is given in Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog : 2011: Earth's 11th warmest year; where is the climate headed? : Weather Underground with interesting commentary on the implications. . dave souza, talk 10:29, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Me again, just to say that there are three pictures now, and the one mention by NewsEventsGuy is not the same as the other two, since there is a boat shown sailing and being pulled on the Thames River. At some later time (per your discussion) the best "painting, dated 1684, by Abraham Hondius" could and should be included in this excellent and only article on the 'controversy'. Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 08:21, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

− My bad about the pics, but due to this rebuttal by the primary source (the Met Office), any further advocacy in favor of the secondary source (the Daily Mail article) will be WP:SOAP. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:37, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

  • What controversy? It's uncontroversial that the Thames used to freeze over down to London Bridge before that bridge was rebuilt and river flow improved. We have one newspaper article by a fairly notorious pseudosceptic newspaper columnist, who is unlikely to be very notable: see David Rose (disambiguation). There's the pained response from the Met Office. This is pretty trivial stuff, even by climate change denial standards. If we give a full explanation of every pseudosceptic claim, this will be a huge article. As it is, a lot of work is needed to give due WP:WEIGHT to majority expert views on the various claims already covered. . dave souza, talk 10:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
At the risk of furthering this thread, which has already gotten to the point of WP:DEADHORSE, I have an honest climatalogical question. I read the entire Mail article (linked above) as well as the Met rebuttal (also above) and my question is this: if the solar effect of a new "Maunder Minimum" would only reduce the global temperature increase by 0.13 deg, then why do the three most recent solar minimums (Maunder, Dalton and mini-Ice Age) also coincide with much lower global temps? This seems to be clearly shown on the temp graphs in both the Mail article and Met's own material and it seems like more than just a coincidence, however I'm only an engineer so I'm sure I'm missing something.
I'm truly not fishing, trying to trap anyone, or looking for mistakes - I'm just trying to wrap my brain around a seeming contradiction. Much Thanks! Ckruschke (talk) 14:46, 15 February 2012 (UTC)Ckruschke
I no expert, but I will tell you what my layman sense of it is.... suppose you have some cash, you split it into three piles, and you invest each pile in a money market account at different banks (Maunder National, Dalton S&L, mini-IceAge Credit Uniton). For a long time they all earn 5% but then suddenly there is a sharp drop in interest rates. Rats, you say. Your earnings are down, and down uniformly. Your buddy, who has just 1/3 that much cash, opens an account at Bank-of-Today. He too experiences the drop in interest rates. HOWEVER, unlike yourself, your buddy steadily builds up the principal in his account by making increasingly large deposits at an increasing rate of speed. So by the time the interest rate fell, his principal was a lot more than yours. Even if the low interest rate is equally applied to all four accounts, he will still be earning a ton more interest than you are. In the latter example, the larger principal in your buddies account is supposed to be analogous to concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. No doubt someone can poke many holes in the example, and maybe its 'way out of the ballpark. Think snow. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:00, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Hmm - the part I'm hung up on is that the Met says that a Maunder Minimum will only drop the increase by 0.13 deg. This means (to me) that the net solar reduction of a Maunder Minimum is only 0.13 deg. So independent of any man-made global warming, the net effect of a Maunder Minimum is only the reduction in glabal temps of 0.13 deg - which is OBVIOUSLY much too little to account for any of the overall populace really knowing the difference let alone causing a mini ice age. So is the Met's statement incorrect (or over-simplified) or...? Ckruschke (talk) 22:05, 17 February 2012 (UTC)Ckruschke
To my simple and not very well informed understanding, the Maunder Minimum drop of .13ºC was enough to push global temperatures a bit lower, and combined with the cooling effects of volcanos this lowered temperatures quite noticeably, to the extent that ice sheets increased and the increased reflection stabilised temperatures at a lower level in what's been nicknamed a mini ice age. Since around 1900 another factor (greenhouse gases) has been causing warming, and that positive climate forcing is much greater than negative forcing would be if another Maunder Minimum developed. So, big plus from greenhouse gases, small minus from solar variation, result still warming. . dave souza, talk 23:03, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
And back then, above-avg cooling from volcanism? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:00, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Now I feel like I'm being argumentative, but we aren't talking about 600 million years ago - volcanic activity wasn't any more prevalent during the Maunder & Dalton Minimums and Mini Ice Age then they were now. You would have had to have several Krakatoa-like events years and years in a row for this to cause temps to fall such that the Thames would freeze over (and other fun things) for the 50-100 years that history recorded. Sorry - maybe I'm just being too simplistic... Ckruschke (talk) 18:27, 18 February 2012 (UTC)Ckruschke
Little Ice Age#Volcanic activity. Also note that the Thames froze over in the 1960s, the temperatures were lower than at times it had frozen over during the LIA but changes to London Bridge increased water flow and prevented freezing at that point. Don't recall any Krakatoa–like events affecting climate in the 1960s. . . dave souza, talk 18:44, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the attempt all. I'll try to get an answer elsewhere. Sorry for turning this into a forum. Ckruschke (talk) 13:20, 22 February 2012 (UTC)Ckruschke

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Proposing editor admits they have no intent of pursuing this in good faith, at least right now....WP:SOAP and disrupt per WP:TALK

There are Wikipedia articles that cover AGW, Global Warming, et.al., assuming that warming is a forgiven fact and that most scientists are united and not defecting. Truth is that many see the cooling trend now. This particular article should emphasize with the Thames picture the cooling side. BUT, I don't have time to participate. Maybe in three years as cooling continues, I will. The vast world-taxation some want motivates many to say an insignificant change in temperature won't be beneficial. For those that see the cooling, (WP readers and editors) they would appreciate the picture. For the many who will cling to Warming, they will appreciate the picture and the nuttiness of us on the other side. Thanks to everyone for all their work.\\ .!. // Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 23:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

What is it you do not understand that colder back then implies warmer now? (Which demonstration is why I think we should have the picture.) ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:51, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
As ever, we need reliable sources verifying that there is a "controversy" and showing majority expert views of that "controversy'. The picture is uncontroversial. . . dave souza, talk 00:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Lead section is too short

The lead section should work as a summarized version of the whole article, but it lacks a summary of the Political questions section and it centers too hard in the science controversies. What are the main highlights of the political debate that should be represented in the summary? Diego (talk) 14:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to suggest proposed additions/changes to the lead. Ckruschke (talk) 22:44, 6 March 2012 (UTC)Ckruschke
I'll do, as soon as I digest the dense History and Politics sections. I was asking in case someone has an already formed opinion of what to include. Diego (talk) 23:10, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Problems with the "97% agree" graphic

I tagged the claim cited to Anderegg as "failed verification", but there are more problems with this graphic. In brief, the statement in the caption that "97–98% of the most published climate researchers say humans are causing global warming." (cited to the controversial Anderegg paper) doesn't appear to be supported in that paper, that survey has serious problems, and other "97%" surveys give trivial agreement that the climate is warming, and that human activities have some impact.. This issue is being discussed at the Talk:List of scientists opposing.... talk page. Hope to see you there, Pete Tillman (talk) 22:42, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Removed: See Talk:List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming#Continued_problem_with_the_.2297.25.22_surveys. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:45, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Wrong Spencer paper

The Internal radiative forcing section discusses 2008 work by Richard Spencer, and then concludes: "Spencer's hypothesis was published in the peer-reviewed journal Remote Sensing in 2011 and following widespread criticism the editor of that journal resigned stating that the paper was "fundamentally flawed" and should not have been published.[130][131]"

This text seem to be confusing two different subjects. The 2011 Remote Sensing paper is not about an "internal radiative forcing" effect, and is several years later. So I'm deleting this text. Guy who reads a lot (talk) 19:57, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

While I'm here, let me note that of the two citations that actually are about Spencer's 2008 work, one links to a blog, and the second links to a redirect which goes to Spencer's blog (and not to a page on the topic discussed, but to the top page of his blog). Neither of these are reliable sources by the Wikipedia definition. I did a google search, and did find that the article is apparently reprinted elsewhere on the web, so I changed the reference to point to that. Guy who reads a lot (talk) 20:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Climate change alarmism merged here??

That's what the hatnote says, but the editor who proposed this apparently merged some of it into Media coverage of climate change, a controversial choice: see that article's talk page, and a cross-ref to another critical discussion at 21:19, 3 April 2012 there (last entry at present). I briefly checked the history page here & didn't see anything merged around then (circa 11 December 2011). Was anything from the deleted article merged later?

I'll probably try to merge some of the deleted material from the old Views of scientists section here sometime. Thoughts? --Pete Tillman (talk) 00:36, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Good idea! Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 02:02, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Alternative hypothesis

It is good to see the new section added: (3) Skeptics' hypothesis, and challenges to it.
A good reference is the website of Dr Roy Spencer, honorary climatologist of Rush Limbaugh:
http://www.DrRoySpencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/
Hope This Helps, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 12:21, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but Spencer is not doing anybody a favour with his self-published pages. They are not reliable sources, and some of his opinons are so weird that he is not representative of the so-called "skeptics", either. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:15, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I disagree and ask you to provide a better climate scientist than Roy Spencer — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 16:06, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

On the "skeptic" side, Christy (if you call him a sceptic) and Lindzen are both much more credible and much less weird than Spencer. Spencer has subscribed to the view that God has created the world to be unbreakable by mankind. That is not a scientific position at all. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:42, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Charles, if you want to add a subsection akin to the one I reverted, please suggest some draft text including your RS-s, so we can focus the discussion on ways to improve the article without WP:SOAP. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:23, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
I'd just like to chime in on the reverted edit... I don't think it belongs in the article for two reasons. First, there is no one single "skeptic" position, and thus it does not make sense to have a section on "skeptic" talking points. Second, the preceding section already includes most of the "skeptic" positions, in the form of challenges to the mainstream (which is the form the vast majority of the "skeptic" talking points). Having an additional section would be redundant. Sailsbystars (talk) 18:36, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Squishy citations; rework needed.

I have been trying to cleanup some of the really atrocious citations (such as dead "webarchive" links to unspecified IPCC reports), and feel quite dismayed by what some editors apparently consider adequate citation. There are enough squishy spots (citations that do not support the text, or no citation at all), even more so than in the CC articles generally, that some serious work is needed. Also, much of the article is getting rather dated, so perhaps it is time to consider whether the article should focus on the current state of the controversy ("news" approach), or try to sketch out how the controversy has morphed over time ("history" approach). ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:30, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

P.S. One of the reasons why we need to get this stuff right: in Googling one quote from the IPCC I noticed that about a quarter of all the hits were exactly as quoted, with the containing language, from this article. We need to be responsible because a LOT of people depend on us. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:50, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

History>Public opinion

Proposals for radical changes to the article content should always be based on reliable sources and not original research.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


This article currently presents the appearance that the history of climate change begins in 1988. This is not the case, and we have an article here on Wikipedia which shows that. A short sentence with a Wikilink at the beginning of the section remedies the situation quite nicely, without distracting from the focus. Evidently, another editor sees this as not being related to the subject of the article, so I submit the matter for wider consensus. Belchfire (talk) 17:49, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I would have reverted your addition but others beat me to it. My comment is limited to the battle regarding earth-science (e.g., I am skipping social sciences, and debates over mitigation, adaptation, and geoengineering). As for earth science, there are two aspects to the "controversy" of climate change
  • (A) SCIENCE: The back-and-forth of practicing scientists as reported in the professional peer-reviewed scientific literature, as they seek to figure out the climate system's details, and
  • (B) POLITICS: The hissing and spitting between those seeking to undercut faith in the scientific process and those wishing to defend it, which has played out in the past 25 years or so
I have always viewed this article as primarily covering the latter, so do not think we should introduce global cooling as you attempted to do. But I do think it belongs. In recent years some partisans have exploited the past (i.e. 1970s) public misunderstanding about global cooling to falsely assert it was the dominant scientific view. Their motive, of course, is to make people lose their faith that scientists have a valid process for seeking the truth about how things work. This is a major tactic underway in contemporary global warming controversy. IMO the only way the history of the public's 1970s infatuation with global cooling is relevant to this article is the story of how that layman infatuation is exploited for contemporary talking points by those on one side of the controversy. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:47, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Let me be a little more clear about what I was trying to do. First, I wasn't trying to make any major addition to this article; as I see it, only a mention and a Wikilink to the relevant article is needed. Second, because we're talking about a theory that was proposed more than 25 years ago, the History section seems like the place for that. Moreover, the beginning of the History section seems like the logical place for purposes of a chronological presentation.
So, NewsAndEventsGuy, if you think it belongs, where would you put it?
And by the way, the content I added did not claim global cooling was the "dominant scientific" view, but global cooling did receive media coverage and it was widely discussed, and there was little or no discussion of global warming during that time. (I was there, were you?) The fact that global cooling was the only climate change theory in circulation at the time might suggest that it was the dominant scientific view within the field, but I realize that AGW proponents will do their best to suppress any such verbiage, so I won't try to insert it. Belchfire (talk) 19:08, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
You seem to be confusing the topic of global warming with that of global warming controversy. And both of these are not theories, but observed phenomena (natural and social). As to "global cooling" (also not a theory) — where are your sources? (That is, other than Micheal Crichton.) You really should do some study, including reading the FAQ at Talk:Global warming. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:49, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps you glossed over the links to the Wikipedia article on the subject of global cooling? Also, perhaps you are confused about the meaning of "controversy", i.e. something that many people disagree about. It would seem that neutral coverage of a controversial subject might also touch upon the fact that opinions have shifted over time, no? Belchfire (talk) 20:01, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps... no, definitely you have glossed over the FAQ. You are definitely wrong on your supposed "facts" ("that global cooling was the only climate change theory in circulation at the time"), and on your conception of "global cooling" as a theory. (Do you even understand what a "theory" is?) You have made several misinterpretations, and you have presented no reliable sources for your view that "global cooling was the only climate change theory" at the time. And as you ignore the points that have been raised there seems little point in additional discussion. Any changes you make will certainly be reverted. Not because of any AGW cabal, but because you have not presented credible case. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:25, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
My goodness. Any changes? Well then, lack of a credible case wouldn't be the motivator, would it? (And I note with irony and a hearty guffaw one of your recent edit summaries: "Arguing from a pre-established opinion is not honest.") Belchfire (talk) 19:49, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Specifically: Any changes that attempt to sow FUD as a propaganda tactic in violation of reality and WP:NPOV (for example [22][23][24]) will most certainly be reverted. Please read the FAQ, again. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 00:39, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
So, a single article in a single journal that portrays your preferred POV is the last word? You people beclown yourselves. The irony of J.Johnson's edit summary is so thick you can cut it with a knife: "Arguing from a pre-established opinion is not honest." Belchfire (talk) 01:01, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
My single refereed scientific reliable source beats your hand of no sources whatsoever. Or is "hearty guffaw" supposed to count for something? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Unexplained reversion of WSJ William Connolley content

Please justify this edit. Thanks. Leucosticte (talk) 01:25, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

If we are going to include this at all then the WSJ is not a reliable source for this, it contains too many factual errors. A good source could be the published ArbCom decision, perhaps Wikipedia's Signpost newspaper could be used as a secondary source. But then, you also would have to write about the lifting of William's sanctions and other such decisions made by ArbCom after the CC case was concluded. Count Iblis (talk) 01:32, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
(ec) It's not my revert, but at a guess the original edit placed an amazing amount of undue weight on a completely non-notable bit of navel-gazing. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:34, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
"amazing" was not the word that came to my mind. It cited an inflammatory opinion piece from the WSJ that appears to be behind a paywall. Being behind the paywall makes it hard to verify that the content of the editorial was under full wsj control (a requirement of or reliable source rules on using editorials). Even if that turns out to be true, its personal news not global warming news and so carries little weight and attacks one of your fellow editors for past transgressions. Our rules say the dispute process is intended to correct behavior not be punitive. The edit was also an assault on the integrity of the project in general. Naughty, naughty. If you find any of this editors' old tweaks still in articles and feel they merit reversion, you have tools to do that. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 03:18, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
The emphasis on paywall is misplaced. While that makes our work harder, that isn't a valid rationale for removal. I can think of a relatively rare situation where paywall is relevant—if there are two, equally valid references supporting a particular claim, with one behind a paywall and the other not, I can understand preferring the free one, but that's not at issue here. There are highly relevant reasons for removing this entry, summarized well by Stephan Schultz; I don;t see the value in dreaming up invalid arguments.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:12, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Add Athabasca tar sands ‎reference?

Regarding Athabasca oil sands ... [11]

  1. ^ Cook, John. "Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming". Skeptical Science. Retrieved 21 August 2011.
  2. ^ Anderegg, William R L (2010). "Expert credibility in climate change". PNAS. Retrieved 22 August 2011. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ Doran consensus article 2009
  4. ^ Cold, Hard Facts Doran, Peter, The New York Times, July 2006
  5. ^ RealClimate: West Antarctica: still warming Eric Steig, Real Climate 1 February 2011
  6. ^ Hansen's 1984 climate model predictions published in 1988 paper [1]
  7. ^ GISS dataset covering 2010[2]
  8. ^ Graph showing Hansen's 1984 climate model predictions vs observed data [3]
  9. ^ Bray, D and H.v. Storch [date=2008. "CliSci2008:A Survey of the Perspectives of Climate Scientists − Concerning Climate Science and Climate Change" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/PNAS_GTCh_Fig2.pdf [Hansen's 1984 Climate Model Prediction versus Observed Temperature]
  11. ^ Why Canada's scientists need our support; Protests by scientists in Canada may seem like a national issue, but their funding cuts could have a global impact 11 July 2012 The Guardian

99.181.159.238 (talk) 02:36, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

As an aside on references, etc.: You are not citing the reference above in support of any material in the text, you are (presumably) offering the reference itself for discussion. Therefore there is no need to put your reference in into a footnote (the <ref> tags). Though as we have discussed elsewhere, it would be useful if you put your reference into a citation template. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:50, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Question about tense

Why does the the article indicate that the controversy is over by using past tense?

"The global warming controversy was a variety of disputes about the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming. The debates were more in the popular media than in the scientific literature, and more in the United States than globally."

Should be

The global warming controversy is a variety of disputes about the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming. The debates are more in the popular media than in the scientific literature, and more in the United States than globally."

In addition, I feel like the second sentence is specifically designed to create bias with the reader by minimizing the legitimacy of the arguments before they have been read. (In addition to being poorly constructed grammatically.) 74.176.78.240 (talk) 15:06, 3 August 2012 (UTC)Davan 8/3/2012

I sorta agree. This entire article suffers from ambiguity as to the exact scope and definition of "global warming controversy". Might as well call it Anything and everything anyone says about global warming. My non flip answer is that some subtopics (individual debates under this all encompassing umbrella title) have indeed been rendered history in even the popular press. Rightwing blogs still carry the its-a-hoax torch, but these are not reliable sources under our rules. So for those topics, past tense is appropriate. HOWEVER, other subtopics listed in the article are still being debated currently, at least at some level, even in the peer reviewed sci press (such as the exact effects of predicted warming, example: today's headlines about Greenland icesheet melting). For these sub-parts, I agree with you that present tense should be used.
So...
Someone would have to tease apart the finished subtopics from the ones still being debated in sources that meet our reliable sources standard. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:18, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Context for Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Group

The last paragraph of the Instrumental temperature record section begins by naming the organization doing the study, but doesn't put it in its proper context. The study was led by a climate-change skeptic, and the article should say so. The way it's written now, it looks like another attempt by the Climate-Change establishment to bolster their results. By identifying the earlier skepticism of the lead scientist, it is more accurately presented as a climate-change skeptic who reversed his position after conducting his study. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 20:20, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

That would be Robert Muller, who recently explained (N.Y. Times?) that he now accepts AGW. But, it seems, only partially, as he is still holding out on a few points. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:07, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
On Facebook, Mann lists "8 fibs" told by Muller in an interview. For example, from the transcript Muller alleged that Mann "has claimed that there was no Medieval warm period" which is blatant nonsense: even the initial press announcement of MBH99 includes comments by Mann, and concludes "The latest reconstruction supports earlier theories that temperatures in medieval times were relatively warm, but "even the warmer intervals in the reconstruction pale in comparison with mid-to-late 20th-century temperatures," said Hughes." . . dave souza, talk 22:42, 3 August 2012 (UTC) facebook link updated dave souza, talk 19:48, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
That's all fascinating, but it's also beside the point. We should describe the author as a skeptic. Do I get any disagreement? —MiguelMunoz (talk) 08:25, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
We should also describe Michael E. Mann as a skeptic, as he self-identifies as such. However, Mann is a scientific skeptic, while Muller continues to be very credulous about claims made by contrarians or others denying climate change science. A better term is needed. . dave souza, talk 10:08, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Coming up with a better word for Muller is a challenge. In his scientific work, he's a classic skeptic, raising valid questions and accepting the results of scientific study. But when he talks to the press, he makes very unscientific and sensational clames like when he says that climate change did not cause Hurricane Katrina. This is as unsupportable as saying it was the cause. He has also misrepresented the views of other scientists. He seems to be promoting his self image as the lone voice of reason. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 18:39, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps a way of putting it is that Muller promotes the idea that he was a "skeptic" and he continues to publicly express contrarian views. "CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause. . . . It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical. I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed. . . . Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, . . . And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period”,"[25] The last two points are contradicted by numerous peer reviewed studies, but he's still spreading misinformation and using that to promote his project while ignoring work by climate scientists. . . dave souza, talk 19:48, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Personally, I would call him an iconoclast, but I'm not sure if that would mean injecting an opinion into a wikipedia article. Maybe we should describe him as iconoclastic.
I'm rethinking the suggestion that we describe him as a "skeptic," since all scientists are skeptics by nature. He was a contrarian. He was a critic. We could even say he was a denier. Or maybe we don't label him at all, and just describe the nature of his criticisms. We could say "Muller had previously objected to the climatologists' conclusions, claiming that their data was subject to an 'urban heating bias,' and made selective use of the data record." —MiguelMunoz (talk) 23:24, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
OK, I added a sentence describing Muller's previous position. Feel free to tinker or object.—MiguelMunoz (talk) 20:48, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Political debate in the US

I reverted this edit by Prioryman (talk · contribs) because, to my eye it muddled too many issues and ended up inadvertently making statements that could not really be supported. First, if as stated in the edit summary global warming is "settled scientifically", then how can there be a "variety of disputes" about the "nature" and "causes" of global warming? That, surely, is actually denialism, which is linked in the hatnote. Second, where are any such disputes active? Not where I live, not in Europe, not in Africa, not that I've heard of in Asia. If political disputes about responses have been raised in the US election campaigns, then we should be clear about that, and not give the impression either that (a) anybody sensible has called the whole of the science into doubt again or (b) that most of the world's population is subject to any current political manoeuvring about it. --Nigelj (talk) 09:03, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you are both partially right. For "nature of global warming" and "cause of global warming" (A) what is the difference, and (B) I agree "was" is the term we should use now. For "consequences of global warming, that debate is very much alive, from parliament to media to science literature so "is" seems the right word for Effects of global warming. I'd be happy to be persuaded otherwise. Anyone? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:30, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I think you are trying to artificially separate denialism from the general category of controversy. The nature and cause are still very much issues of political though not scientific controversy - there are plenty of mainstream right-wingers outside the US, such as Nigel Lawson in the UK, Vaclav Klaus in the Czech Republic and various politicians in Australia, who try to dispute the nature and cause, and there are plenty of media outlets who are happy to give them space to promote their views. Like it or not, politically motivated denialism is part of the controversy and it's simply wrong to state or imply that nobody is now disputing the nature and cause. If you look at Climate change opinion by country, it's obvious that there are still very substantial numbers of people worldwide, not just in the US, who disagree with the cause of global warming. Prioryman (talk) 06:51, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't know about the others off hand, but when was Nigel Lawson last active in the news on the subject of climate change? 2009? 2010? These are not current controversies or disputes. --Nigelj (talk) 21:23, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I might agree with some of that if we currently intend this article to include denialism but the hatnote at [[26]] gives a moments pause. Has there been a recent big discussion about scope of these two articles? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:49, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I almost reverted the recent change ("was" -> "is", and am still thinking of doing so), but Prioryman does have a good point. As a succinct summary, it seems that not only scientific but even legitimate political controversy is entirely past, but denialism continues on some fronts. Perhaps this should be made clearer; with a hatnote? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:21, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
it seems that not only scientific but even legitimate political controversy is entirely past Maybe for the fact it exists and we're doing it, but figuring out the effects is going to be an ongoing issue for years to come. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:36, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Who are we to say what is legitimate political controversy, bearing in mind the requirements of NPOV? I certainly agree that the political debate is not very concerned with scientific accuracy, and probably not good-faith in many cases, but I'm under no illusions that the anti-climate science faction believes very much that it is not only legitimate but that it is defending against what its members regard as a politically motivated attack on their ideological beliefs. I've made some more systematic changes to the lede to integrate the issue of denialism (I think the article will need a small section on that to summarise the climate change denial article). I don't like hatnotes - they're clumsy - so I've tried to work it into the text. See [27] for the changes I've made. Any thoughts? Prioryman (talk) 21:09, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
We have the article about climate change denial, and for many years this was the article about the sensible or 'legitimate' controversies. Now that there are very few of them left, it would be a shame to repurpose this into just another article about denial, under a different name. I think it would be more sensible to keep denial stories together, and keep this article as a record of what its title says it was about. --Nigelj (talk) 21:18, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not proposing that. I'm saying cover the legitimate controversies, but add a short paragraph to link into the denial article. Otherwise you end up with a situation where we pretend that denialism isn't part of the controversy, when it quite plainly is. Prioryman (talk) 21:31, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
<ec> Would separating them not need a lot of pruning? For example, both Myron Ebell of CEI and the Junk Science column on Fox News by Steven Milloy are pretty hardcore denial, in my understanding. From Mann's definition, there are various stages of denial so it's not simple to draw a line between denier and so-called "skeptic". As an aside, Data archiving and sharing also came up in Freedom of Information requests to the Climatic Research Unit where demands were made to CRU for info belonging to NMOs. . dave souza, talk 21:42, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

"I think you are trying to artificially separate denialism from the general category of controversy." Is this statment an attempt to be funny--or just the usual cerebral confusion of a Global Warming Cassandras to exercise his pathology?

The issue is simple: Is current global warming merely the cyclical variation that produced past ice ages and warmings ("Greenland" was not so named because of its ice pack) or is it truely anthrhropogenic?

Until the GW Cassandras come to grips with the causes of the ice ages, all their hysterica will not move anyone thinking person's opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.97.215 (talk) 01:09, 17 September 2012 (UTC) block evasion . Professor marginalia (talk) 19:08, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Was the block evader your colleague Professor Dunning-Kruger? :-) Prioryman (talk) 19:10, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
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