Talk:Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills

Areas that need to be expanded

I've written this article fairly quickly and I freely acknowledge that I'm not an expert in climate science; there are a number of areas here that will need be improved, as follows:

• Citation format - the various newspaper articles are adequately cited but need to be in the proper format as given in Wikipedia:Citation templates.

• The nine 'errors' - I've summarised these from a layman's point of view, but they'll need to be checked. It would also be useful if we could give some kind of scientific POV on these issues (i.e. are they really errors?). Wired Science has published three articles which might be of use here ([1], [2], [3]).

• Response to the judgment - pathetically short at the moment; we need more cited statements.

I'm sure there's more, so please have at it and leave any comments below! -- ChrisO 23:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Following up on my own comment, I've fleshed out the nine 'errors' section, based primarily on a New Scientist piece analysing the issues that the judge raised. Obviously this is just a first go at it, so please feel free to amend it as necessary. -- ChrisO 22:55, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

What about the ice age in the late 1970's.

Time Magazine and others were taking peoples word that the cold weather we were having at that time was the start of another ice age.

I was in college at the time and classes were talking about it as fact.

The same Science was use than as now, Guilty by association,

What they want to belive is what they see. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.39.23.178 (talk) 18:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

See Global cooling. Basically it was a speculative idea which didn't have a fraction of the scientific support or evidence that global warming now enjoys. -- ChrisO 18:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

It's also not relevant to the article. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

In my astronomy class, the 1976 textbook warned of both global cooling and global warming, which would be caused respectively by pollution blocking out sunlight and carbon emissions acting as a blanket. At that time scientists did not know which would have a greater impact, only that they would not cancel each other out. --The Four Deuces 22:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The atmosphere may well have been cooled slightly by heavy particle pollution. In the 1970s we started cutting back on that pollution so whatever effect existed would have significantly diminished since then. Einztein 23:49, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

1. "The case was brought by Kent school governor Stuart Dimmock, a father of two sons at state school, with backing from a number of figures sceptical of the mainstream scientific opinion on climate change that human activity is the main cause of global warming."

The judge's ruling was that AIT itself differed from the IPCC's conclusions. Nevertheless information about who aided the defendant is an attempt to discredit him, and surely doesn't belong in the introduction. Surely individuals with a bad reputation voted or donated to Al Gore's political campaigns. That doesn't prove anything.

2. Other Views

Besides blatantly copying this blog, most of these are just attempts to discredit the ruling. The Carteret Islands being evacuated because of global warming is circumstantial at best.

3. Ruling

This article should contain the actual "Guidance Note" to be distributed to students viewing the film. That was the verdict of the case.

4. Funding controversy

The New Party is not right wing, and the source of his funding is not a "controversy." Include the straightteaching.com reference -- everything else is purely speculation.

5. "Errors"

Putting errors in quotes belittles the high court findings.

Jcc1 22:20, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't address all of these right now (I'm looking into the plagiarism allegation), but IIRC, the judge himself put the word "errors" in quotes, so it's appropriate to do so here, as well. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, so to address all of those complaints:

1. That you think the connection to skeptics is discrediting does not make it so. If you believe AGW is a hoax, then that connection should increase your faith in those bringing the suit. Who was responsible, both directly and indirectly, for bringing the suit is relevant to the article. Perhaps an argument could be made for moving it further down in the article if you feel it disturbs the flow, but it seems to fit there.
2. Yes, the other views are largely attempting to discredit the ruling. They are also quite notable. There are many other notable places that have similar lists.
3. I agree that the actual Guidance Note should be included here if it doesn't violate copyright. Or, if it's long, it should be put in Wikimedia and linked to from here.
4. I have no idea if it's right wing or not (the Wikipedia article on it timidly suggests "centre-right"), and I see no indication in the Wikipedia article about its history of climate change skepticism. This should be cited, dropped, or a combination of both. (I.e., if only part of that can be backed up, that part should be cited and the rest dropped.)
5. I was wrong about the errors being in quotes in the original ruling. That's what I inferred from reading the RealClimate site, but I was mistaken. I agree, it should not be put in scare quotes here. (see ChrisO's comment below) Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:33, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

To reply to these points:

1) The introduction to an article is supposed to summarise the article's key points (see Wikipedia:Lead section). Since the controversy over the plaintiff's funding is a significant part of the story, that also needs to be mentioned in the lead.

2) Nonsense. The New Scientist piece isn't copied, it's summarised.

3) The guidance note is a 56-page booklet. It's available here but we obviously can't include it in the article or upload it to Wikisource as it's copyrighted. I'll add a link to it, though.

4) The cited source describes it as "right wing" and the funding is indeed controversial.

5) Read the judgement. The judge himself uses 'errors', complete with scare quotes. See para 23 onwards. -- ChrisO 22:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the specific paragraph. I had stopped reading after the first few instances of the use "errors". From that point on, he puts errors in quotes several times. I've reverted my change. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:09, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The blog

Given WP:SPS, we need to examine the verifiability of [this blog], which forms the foundation of this entire article.

Additionally, does anyone have access to the full text of the survey mentioned in #3? The blog says "Eight said they believed there was a 40% chance the conveyor belt would collapse if global average temperature rose by more than 4°C above pre-industrial levels." The abstract says "eight experts assess the probability of triggering an AMOC collapse as significantly different from zero, three of them as larger than 40%." While these aren't necessarily contradictory, it would be nice if someone with access to the full text could verify that all eight who chose non-zero probabilities chose 40%+. Oren0 01:26, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the New Scientist blog would be less reliable or verifiable than, for example the Scientific American blog. Also, the RealClimate blog on this should also be included in there. That would help remove the need for the "attribution needed" tag, as a number of scientists are available in the citations provided. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I've seen the sciam blog used anywhere, but the RealClimate blog has been allowed because it's authors are published climatologists. As far as I can tell, Catherine Brahic (the author of this blog post) is a reporter not a scientist. Therefore, I don't see how WP:SPS allows the blog to be used. If you would like to add RealClimate as a reference in this article, provided the author is a published expert, nobody would object. Oren0 06:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

After further review, I'm going to call the accuracy of this blog further into question. The quote "Eight said they believed there was a 40% chance the conveyor belt would collapse if global average temperature rose by more than 4°C above pre-industrial levels" is demonstrably false if you look at the text of the paper she cites. Looking at Figure 5 of that paper (unfortunately I'm unable to post the text here), only 3 scientists predict a higher than 40% probability at 4K, and all of the rest are at 20% or lower. This was a simple one to verify, and I believe that based on this the accuracy of everything else in this blog post needs to be called into question. We shouldn't cite the blog, but should instead look up the blog's sources and cite them. Oren0 06:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

This is not a global warming article! It is about a COURT CASE -- and what was on trial was a "political film" advancing Al Gore's "crusade" (Justice Burton's words). Can someone find other allegations of teachers or curriculum violating "partisan political view" provisions? Those would be much more valuable than long lists of the opinions of every scientist/blogger/etc on every climate change issue addressed in the film. The ramifications of this ruling have far more to do with public education than global warming. The "other scientific view" sections should be replaced with references to wiki articles detailing the science (if not completely eliminated). Jcc1 09:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. After all, the wiki coverage should be related to the coverage we see in Reliable sources. Most of the articles I've seen on this case refer to the science of it, because the 9 'errors' are such a large part of the ruling. We must cover the facets of this case that are being covered in sources, and those facets are in large part the errors. Oren0 17:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Why did you drop this Oren0? On reading that blog it could quite be fairly called an advocacy site. Jaimaster (talk) 08:22, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

If there is no comment here in the next week I am going to remove sources

• 21 (reasons - advocacy blog; inaccurate (per Oren0 above); not notable)
• 35 (reasons - advocacy blog ("Conservative Crackpot"); not notable)

I will look at the Realclimate source and see if the "responses" synthesised from 21 can be recreated with proper sourcing. I sincerely doubt we will find equivilent sourcing to 35 anywhere that is even remotely approaching WP:RS. Jaimaster (talk) 23:56, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Well - i object. 35 has been exchanged with the original source, which is a regular article in the Guardian (something which you should've checked btw.). As for 21, calling it an advocacy blog, is your POV and not supported by any facts. Please reread Ben Hocking's comment above. As for Oren0's original research on the reliability - its just that... OR. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:27, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

"Expert" testimony

"On the basis of expert testimony, the judge also pointed to nine statements...".

Which expert testimony is this statement referring to? The case indicates only Bob Carter (a skeptic) had input resulting in the "nine statements" judgement. This sentence should be clarified. Unless otherwise indicated, I'd like to rephrase this as "On the basis of testimony from Dr. Bob Carter, the judge...". See case: [[4]] Gmb92 04:50, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Hurricane Katrina section

"Hurricane Katrina was likewise caused by global warming."

I'm hoping someone has the documentary or the book in front of them to verify these points. From what I remember, Gore distinctly says you can't tie a single weather event to climate change. His discussion of Katrina was in the context of an example of things to come with global warming. The title of this section seems to be a strawman.

The "other views" section has some inaccuracies as well.

"At the time that An Inconvenient Truth was released, there was no definitive evidence for a link between global warming and an increase in hurricane strength or frequency."

As I recall, Gore, in the book at least, made the distinction between frequency and intensity. There was no consensus on frequency and a growing consensus on intensity. There also had been a good body of work in the intensity issue before the Gore film.

ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/NATURE03906.pdf

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/309/5742/1844.pdf

http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_gfdl.html

"Recent studies have suggested that there may be a link, but the issue remains unresolved.[21]"

One recent assessment was the 4th IPCC report, which stated that it's "more likely than not" that hurricane intensity has increased since 1960 from anthropogenic global warming and "likely" that it will continue to increase going forward.

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_SPM.pdf Gmb92 05:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

"a number of scientists and commentators..."

"However, a number of scientists and commentators[who?] (and Gore's own spokesman) have disputed this characterisation of the nine statements"

This attribution tag has been in the article since October. We need attribution. Additionally, we need to respect WP:AWW, meaning that if you find, say, two sources that dispute the characterization, you'd say that those two specific people dispute it, rather than "a number of" people (unless there's a source that uses similar language regarding some mysterious large number of dissenters to the word 'error'). I removed the sentence in the meantime (two months is long enough) but it was re-added (perhaps inadvertently while trying to undo another edit). I'm removing it again until it has a source. Oren0 19:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

fair enough - your edit wasn't really the one i reverted. It was the one before - but your edit happened in between. Sorry. (it was the removal of the scare quotes that i opposed - since they are used consistantly throughout the judgement). --Kim D. Petersen 19:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Other scientific views?

whose views are these, and why are they really necesary to the article? You have Gore's view and Burton's view, why weasel in more backup for Gore's view?All it does it try too discredit Burton, and reinforce Gore's oppinion on Global Warming, I personally think it should either reflect an UNBIASED alternative view, or none at all, since it really is insignificant to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.158.111 (talk) 22:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's not forget that neither Gore nor Burton are scientists. It's helpful to have a précis of what science actually says on each of the issues, as opposed to what the non-experts said in this case. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

No one's views should be in this other than the defense, plaintiff and judge. Gore was not a party to this case. I'm having trouble finding evidence of other wikipedia entries on court cases that present the viewpoints of people who were not parties to the case, expert legal commentary aside. Plus, any "criticism" from someone other than a party to the case needs to be criticism of a legal nature, not scientific. The entry for Marbury vs. Madison is a good template for how a wikipedia entry on court cases should appear. This entry needs serious work. Nothughthomas (talk) 05:03, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Article probation

Please note that, by a decision of the Wikipedia community, this article and others relating to climate change (broadly construed) has been placed under article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:51, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Who paid the costs?

This might be obvious to British editors, but who paid 2/3 of the 200,000 pounds? What does it signify that this much of the costs, but not more, would be awarded? Wnt (talk) 21:16, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

More 'errors'

I've attempted to separate the concept of what plaintiff's counsel called 'errors' from what the judge called 'departures from the scientific mainstream' (referred to as 'inaccuracies' in at least one reliable source). If I've done it incorrectly, please revert, but the separation is required to avoid making misleading arguments. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

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