Talk:Climate change denial/Archive 33

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Questionable image in article

What is the purpose of the image to the left in the article?

I do not see any reason for it to be in this article, other than to explicitly show that deniers/skeptics are a minority. - ZLEA Talk\Contribs 16:37, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

If no one can find a reason to keep it in the article within the next week, I will go ahead and remove it. - ZLEA Talk\Contribs 22:27, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
It is I believe to do exactly as you said in support of the WP:FRINGE guideline. In articles on fringe topics we should make it obvious what the mainstream is. This article is in the pseudoscience category. Dmcq (talk) 23:00, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
other than to explicitly show that deniers/skeptics are a minority Why is that a problem? An image that supports the main point of the article is a useful image. Why is that a rationale for removing it? Guettarda (talk) 03:41, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Would you put a table of the percentages of White Americans vs. Black Americans and Mexican Americans in select cities in Interminority racism in the United States? My guess is that you would not, so why would you put an image that does the same thing to skeptics in this article. - ZLEA Talk\Contribs 18:19, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
As a skeptic, I resent your use of the word "skeptic" for those crackpots. Skeptic organisations have done the same.
The picture refutes the deniers' pretence that there is still a controversy within science. It shows they have lost, and that only the opinion distribution of the lay populace is still at odds with the scientific consensus.
Your ethnic analogy does not hold water, since there is no science-denying fraction making false claims about those percentages. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:28, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
I gave the link WP:FRINGE explaining the reason. Exactly what is pseudoscience about interminority racism? Dmcq (talk) 19:10, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
ZLEA - I don't understand the comparison you're trying to make here. I'd support a figure if it's relevant and helpful to the reader, I wouldn't if it wasn't. This one is relevant and helpful, so I'd support it. I have no idea about the relevance of a hypothetical figure on an article about an entirely different article - if the figure came from a scholarly work that was specifically about that topic, and used relevant demographic data, in a way that helped the reader understand the topic, then yes, I might. But since I didn't even know that page existed, I don't think you should be pointing to any discussion over there, per WP:CANVASS.
That said, please explain your specific concerns about this figure. Making an argument from analogy is problematic, because I'm guessing that the analogy you think you're making here isn't the same one I'm seeing. Guettarda (talk) 19:24, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
The analogy seemed better in my head than it does it writing. Hob Gadling I am a skeptic myself, and while I see what you are trying to say with It shows they have lost, but in my opinion it shows that we the skeptics are losing (not saying we the skeptics are, it just appears that way in the image).
Also, I just used the word "skeptic" because I was in a hurry and it was the first word to pop into my head. - ZLEA Talk\Contribs 21:36, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
I have no idea what you are trying to say or accomplish, or why. I do not know what you mean by "I am a skeptic myself", nor by "we" as in "we are losing". But I guess that is not important. What is important is: do you still think the image shouldn't be there? --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:54, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
I think the idea of 'winning' or 'losing' over something like this is quite wrongheaded. That sounds like relativism or sophistry to me, that reality will twist to align with our desires. Every day and in every way I am getting better and better sort of thing. Thinking like that will not fix global warming. Dmcq (talk) 22:58, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
The answer to do you still think the image shouldn't be there? is complicated. You've made some good points for keeping the image, but I still see the image as trying to show deniers/skeptics as a minority. Perhaps it could be relocated to a less prominent part of the article, in the Public opinion section.
Dmcq as a skeptic, fixing global warming isn't something I consider when thinking. - ZLEA Talk\Contribs 20:46, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
I have already explained about WP:FRINGE. The image stays where it is unless something better can be done about satisfying fringe WP:FRINGE.
The way you talk about being a skeptic does not sound like a skeptic to me. A skeptic is someone who questions, not someone who buries their head in the sand and wants to remove contrary evidence Dmcq (talk) 23:41, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm sure skeptic is not the word for what I am, but I am busy in real life and don't have much time to think of other words. I've read WP:FRINGE and have found no indication that the image should stay at the top of the page, not even in the Reporting on the levels of acceptance section. - ZLEA Talk\Contribs 16:51, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
Even the the nutshell at the very beginning says why "Additionally, in an article about the minority viewpoint itself, the proper contextual relationship between minority and majority viewpoints must be made clear.". Sticking the mainstream view into a subsidiary section would give undue prominence to fringe. Putting it where it is shows that climate change denial s fringe just like you said at the very beginning of this discussion. Dmcq (talk) 19:43, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
Ok, now I see it. Not that I agree with it, but the guidelines must be followed. - ZLEA Talk\Contribs 20:15, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Another possible variety

This is not a forum for discussing the topic of the article
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I was interested to see that in discussions at Talk:Patrick Moore (consultant) he was described as a climate change denier, despite his current view being that it is happening and is being caused by carbon emissions. But sure enough, our article does describe his view as climate change denial. The several taxonomies described there all include it.

So I'm wondering, does my own current view also meet some (or all) definitions of climate change denial? Basically, I think that it's not proven to be a problem but that there's enough evidence to make action urgent and failure to act downright irresponsible (which was Moore's once too but he's changed his mind apparently). See a double skeptic for it in detail.

I'm not a citeable source, but in that Moore once held this view too, citeable sources probably discuss it somewhere, and if so it might belong in this article too. Andrewa (talk) 02:14, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

This article doesn't mention Patrick Moore so this is the wrong place. Try Talk:List of scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on global warming if you think his talk page hasn't treated your complaint properly. Dmcq (talk) 19:36, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Nor does this issue primarily concern Moore, his previous stance is just another example of this view (and a notable and citeable one, unlike me). So the mention of that talk page was just background. The question here is just, is this view a variety of climate change denial? Yes, a source would be necessary to document that Moore once held this view if that particular factoid were to be included in the article (but a primary source would probably do for that). But what I'm looking for here is a source that says that this view is or isn't climate change denial. That's the first question. Andrewa (talk) 19:40, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
The major thing you need if you think he has changed his views is a source saying so. If you have no source I'm afraid there's nothing much that can be done about what the article says. As they used to put it in Wikipedia Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. Dmcq (talk) 19:47, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
There are certainly primary sources that document his changing views. But again, these are irrelevant to this page unless we can find a (probably needs to be secondary) source that calls this particular view (the one I call double skeptic) climate change denial. That's the question.
It seems to me that if Moore's current views (that carbon emissions are causing climate change but that it's a good thing) are climate change denial (as this article clearly states and sources), then so is the double skeptic view, and that this view must have been critiqued somewhere in RSS, which would document that. It won't be called double skeptic, that term is my own invention.
But by whatever name, it's likely to be called climate change denial in that critique, so that's what I'm looking for. Or, if it's not termed climate change denial (which I think is unlikely given the very broad usage of the term that our article documents) then that's also interesting. Not sure where I'd go from there, cross that bridge then. Andrewa (talk) 19:47, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Wrong article – this isn't a list of those promoting climate change denial, it's about the denial itself in its various forms. If you've got a reliable published source saying there's a novel variety, using Moore as an example, then you're welcome to propose wording based on that source. In contrast, you seem to be proposing WP:OR and asking others to do the OR for you. As for "cross that bridge then", reminds me of Billy Goat Gruff. . . dave souza, talk 20:50, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Me too regarding the goats!
Agree that this isn't a list of those promoting climate change denial, it's about the denial itself in its various forms. And this is another possible form. That's what I'm investigating. The term is very politically charged of course, and the sources we cite as listing the various forms all seem from one end of the political spectrum. We need to be very careful of undue weight.
you seem to be proposing WP:OR and asking others to do the OR for you...well, I'm not. I am asking for collaboration in finding sources. And I can't see what is so objectionable in that.
But it doesn't look good. Nobody has yet attempted to answer the question, they've just tried to terminate the discussion. And may well succeed. Andrewa (talk) 21:57, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Climate change doomers

Michael E. Mann published an article in The Washington Post comparing climate doomers with climate deniers saying they were just as harmful.[1] Prominent doomers include Guy McPherson. Do we cover climate doomerism on Wikipedia? -- GreenC 16:54, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

There's a bit about alarmism at Media coverage of global warming#Claims of alarmism but it's never become a proper topic with some reliable sources talking about it specifically. Perhaps this could contribute to changing that if you'd like to try writing an article on the topic rather than it just being a subtopic somewhere. Or just add that to the media coverage article. Dmcq (talk) 18:17, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Ok good there is a start. That section seems to focus on a slightly different phenomenon, where non-scientist denialists portray legitimate science as alarmist as part of a rhetorical strategy to undermine the science. Doomers would be scientists on the fringe who take it too far, like predicting human extinction in 10 years. Or, those that take up the edge-case worst case scenarios as the likely probability. The phrase "doomer" does seem supportable in multiple sources. Maybe climate doomer since we already have doomer. It could start as a sub-section of Media coverage of global warming with a finer distinction from the Alarmism section. -- GreenC 18:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
The article already at doomer starts out A doomer is a person who believes that global problems of ecological exhaustion—such as overpopulation, climate change, pollution, and especially peak oil—will cause the collapse of industrial civilization, and a significant human population die-off. [2] (my emphasis) The article has been the subject of some controversial, ungrammatical and really strange edits recently... at one stage it read A doomer is a delusional twenty-something afraid of current and near future trends, like clouds or the weather in general,... [3] but I think it has covered the topic of climate change doomer for most of the time anyway. (;-> Andrewa (talk) 07:23, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes it could fit there. My concern is nothing could be included unless there is a reliable source(s) using the term "doomer" otherwise it would be a BLP problem since the term is somewhat pejorative (I doubt the people themselves consider themselves doomers), limiting ability to discuss at length. -- GreenC 14:42, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Agree nothing could be included unless there is a reliable source(s) using the term "doomer". But surely that's obvious? Disagree that BLP is relevant... we require RSS in any case. When specific people are mentioned, whether they call themselves doomers should be mentioned (assuming of course there are sources... but primary are acceptable here). We call Moore a climate change denier even though he denies the charge, and lately at least supports the mainstream science view that carbon emissions are causing global warming. Sauce for the goose?
And none of that seems relevant to whether or not the doomer article covers climate change doomers. It quite clearly does. Andrewa (talk) 01:42, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Would you please stop going on saying that Patrick Moore now agrees with scientists about climate change. As of 12th March he said "Climate crisis is not only fake news, it's fake science" and was quoted by Trump on that. He also said “Of course climate change is real: it’s been happening since the beginning of time but it’s not dangerous and it’s not created by people … a completely natural phenomenon.”. You can read more at for instance [4]. That definitely sounds like a denial of man-made climate change. Dmcq (talk) 13:01, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Lead needs cleanup

Phrases such as 

X claimed to have debunked the alleged hoax in February 2015 when he brought a snowball with him in the Senate chamber and tossed it across the floor.[25] He was succeeded in 2017 by Y ...

are not in the right place. Zezen (talk) 05:01, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Motivation behind climate change denialism

I feel like this article is missing a big factor of climate change denialism: the motivation behind it. If someone could add some information on that it would be very helpful. Xanikk999 (talk) 18:39, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Read through the article, it discusses various motivations. It's complex, see Why Is It Called Denial? | NCSE. More good quality sources on this will be welcome. . dave souza, talk 00:06, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 July 2019

This is craziness. Climate change caused by man is pseudoscience. You people need to get your heads examined. 


97.73.84.115 (talk) 19:32, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 19:42, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

climate crisis

First, before anyone shoots at me, please see my work today at Climate crisis. The phrase is inherently non-neutral. As explained at Climate crisis using the phrase is an effort at reframing to drive action.... i.e., it's about advocacy. This article was using that expression in WP:Wikivoice, declaring that there manifestly is a crisis. We don't do that, we only report what the sources say. An increasing number of sources use that phrase, but it hasn't taken over the world yet. Therefore, I removed "climate crisis" from the lead. Note that the Guardian had to go through their internal process to make the decision to go that direction. We too have our internal processes. Wikipedia editors who want to use this expression in wikivoice without waiting for nearly all the RSs to climb on board need to first get a community consensus. But as it is, we still have to comply with WP:NPOV and WP:ARBCC#Neutrality and conflicts of interest. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:52, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Missing more worldwide information

The article's content seems so US-centric. We need to add more content from other geographical locations and properly divide the article into sections for each country. I am down for splitting the US part into its own article, since the info on the US is so rich. Sociable Song (talk) 01:28, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest, is a more global or non-US content something you have time/skill to add? As for splitting, we're guessing. I might support a split but I'd like to see what we're talking about first. So let's just work on this one here, and we can always split later if enough material shows up to warrant it. (see WP:SIZESPLIT) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:37, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Interresting interview (denial vs denialism)

...on CBC, in english : Keith Kahn-Harris explains the difference between denial and denialism ; URL: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1523940419688 --Lamiot (talk) 05:37, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Are you offering this as a reliable source and if so what article improvements would you suggest? We usually don't just chat about interesting things in the news NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:37, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Change name of article from "Climate change denial" to "Man-made climate change denial".

It more accurately describes the views of those who disagree that climate change is primarily caused by human beings — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:407:C400:3BA:18AB:15CD:AAB0:5154 (talk) 23:04, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

No thanks. The RSs observe there are many flavors of climate change denial. The human cause is only one of them. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:10, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Consensus is not a scientific principle

OK let's try this again. I thought this was the "talk" part...so I'm talking. The phrase, "scientific consensus" is not neutral. It is absurd. Politics works by consensus. Science most assuredly does not. Scientific Consensus is a non sequitur. The main article uses this phrase. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.210.138.199 (talk) 13:58, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

This is answered in the FAQ that you can read at the top of this page. Specifically Question 4 and 5. --McSly (talk) 14:10, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

On using the word “unwarranted” in the lead

While yes, I’m sure we agree that climate denial is quite out there, using the word “unwarranted” as an adjective to describe their skepticism I view as falling under WP:UNDUE and violates WP:NPOV. Most deniers have some form of argument and will link to some form of source to back it up, so I wouldn’t say “unwarranted” is the best description. To amend the lead, we should either take the word out and use no adjective, or change the word to a more DUE on, such as “excessive,” “great,” “extreme,” or another word along those lines. Victor Salvini (talk) 13:31, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Previously discussed quite a bit at [5] and at least a little bit at [6]. I don't see anything new in your complaint here. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:53, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
"Doubt" without "unwarranted" isn't denialism. It's fundamental to separating this category from reasonable doubt. Blurring that distinction is also key to the strategy. Guettarda (talk) 15:34, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I suppose that’s fair, some “skeptics” are normally just deniers who don’t want to admit it. However, we don’t seem to have an article for Climate Change Skepticism, so the creation of such would be ideal to differentiate between skeptics and deniers (I was previously thinking of this article as a 2-in-1 for both doubt and denial). Victor Salvini (talk) 16:47, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Actually, we do. Your research is hampered by the way we treat capitalization. Use normal case instead of initial caps and see Climate change skeptic and Climate change skepticism, both of which redirect to this article, i.e., Climate change denial.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:16, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
More to the point, we have a series of articles on truly skeptical views on the topic. As the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry has pointed out, skepticism is foundational to the scientific method, which has produced the science covered in climate change and related articles. They also point out the denial covered in this article, see Climate change denial#Terminology, and WP:PSCI for relevant Wikipedia policy. . . dave souza, talk 19:40, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Pseudoscience

This article contributes nicely to the pseudoscience it claims to lay open:

  • ' "six stages of denial", a ladder in which deniers have over time conceded acceptance of points, while retreating to a position which still rejects the mainstream consensus:'

Number six on the ladder:

  • 'Whether or not the changes are going to be good for us, humans are very adept at adapting to changes; besides, it's too late to do anything about it'

So Climate change acceptance - which is scientific - leads to political activism, and anyone not stepping in becomes a 'denier'.
Do we consider this to comply with WP:NPOV and WP:OR? --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 20:35, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, you're certainly doing original research, in drawing a conclusion/interpretation from point 6. We can report that Mann has devised this ladder, and that seems to be what we reported. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:52, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
The current text identifies with Mann's extension: ".. a ladder in which deniers have over time conceded acceptance of points, while retreating to a position which still rejects the mainstream consensus." A neutral point of view could be expressed by "whereby" - see if you can live with this. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 11:07, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
This edit looks fine to me, though I'd be interested in other's opinions because this is important to you and to me it just looks like a bit of copy editing. Maybe I'm missing the point. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:17, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
The point could be to demonstrate a neutral POV on the side of an encyclopedia. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 11:19, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Not helpful. I've respectfully acknowledged you see substantive value that I don't see, and a WP:VAGUEWAVE at policy isn't really increasing our mutual understanding of the WP:OTHERSOPINION. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:24, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
I read that edit as well. If any change in the meaning of the sentence was attempted, it completely escaped me. --McSly (talk) 13:35, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
It is the difference between WP stating a fact and citing someone who does it - called 'Neutral Point of View' (afaik). --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 14:30, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Also, your conclusion is wrong. Claiming it's too late is not the same as not stepping in. Claiming it's too late is an action that tries to keep others from stepping in - it is stepping in on the other side.
The deniers' goal is that nobody does anything against climate change, because that would mean interference with the Holy Free Market (climate change deniers are market fundamentalists). The reason they give for nobody doing anything is not important to them. "It's too late" or "it is not getting warmer" are two different kinds of bullshit with the same goal. That is why Mann did his categorizing that way.
If you disagree, publish your disagreement in a reliable source, and we may be able to cite you. Otherwise, bye. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:47, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Too late

The text implies (the sources to say) that "it's too late to do anything about it" to be part of a denial of climate change. Do they say this? If so, there should be a new chapter here: List of scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on global warming#scientists arguing that it is too late to stop climate change --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 11:19, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Science says the more we mitigate, the less we must adapt. Rhetoric strategy by those opposed to mitigation policies include an effort to spread futility, despite fact science says there's an inverse relationship between mitigation and adaptation requirements. (Higher the mitigation, the less adaptation is needed). Policy blockers deny that principle in their futility messaging. We should not have text that feeds the futility messaging, rather we should have neutral text that reports the fact of futility messaging and places it in context. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:28, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Translation from Germany

I removed the hint to translate the german article - which was added by a user:Handroid7 - he was later identified as a sockpuppet of user:Chanc20190325, whereafter both have been blocked. Welcome to the sockpuppet theatre!

Then user:Andol undid this edit, saying I had been "trying to attack and rewrits the German article from a "skeptic's" viewpoint". This is wrong, anybody who understands german (or cares to translate) can view the discussion where I made very clear that I do not object the content but the language of the article - written like an activist mission statement, not an encyclopedic article.
Funny enough, the german article only cites american sources (or their translations).

So, Andol and other members of the campaign who do not hesitate to use sockpuppet-tactics - why don't you provide the missing translation, given that you see seem to be capable of english and that you miss content here? --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 14:50, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't use "sockpuppet-tactics" and I don't know who User:Handroid7 and User:Chanc20190325 are. I only know that you have tried to vandalize the German article on climate change denial several times by miss-quoting the referenced sources to establish skeptical talking-points while deleting key facts from scientific literature. After about ten users clearly stated that your edits are highly problematic you also attacked this article by deleting the hint that this article can be updated with content of the German article. Your agenda is clear: After you failed to bring skeptical viewpoints in the German article you try to prevent this article from being improved with content from the German article. And you're doing that by falsely claiming I'd use sock-puppets. That is a severe personal attack and it adds to your several attempts to rewrite the German (and now also this) article from a skeptic's viewpoint. If you really just had problems with the language (and both your article and discussion edits show clearly show that's not the case, despite claiming the opposite) then there would be absolutely no need to remove the template here, because authors here would be free to use their language. Removing the template only makes sense if you want to avoid that any content is reused here. Its the information, you don't like, not the language. Andol (talk) 15:36, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Ok, then, waiting for your 'improved' translation. Let's see how it survives in the larger english speaking WP community. For the time being, the german article's hate speech language is a plain abuse of the sources it names. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 09:29, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
I don't see any sense in talking to you, if discussions are like this. I've already told you in the German Wikipedia that those passages which you strictly oppose (and now even describe as "hate speech") are taken directly from scientific publications and represent the state of knowledge about climate change denial. Andol (talk) 01:11, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
What I oppose is the language of these passages, propably caused by translation (from the english original) just focusing on content and not on the language and scientific attitude. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 18:08, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
If you hope for more support from climate change deniers here, you will be disappointed. English Wikipedia is actually even less pseudoscience-friendly than the German one. The text will be fine. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:52, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Reference 115

"These factors are already taken into account when developing climate models, and the scientific consensus is that they cannot explain the observed warming trend.[115]" Reference 115 does not show how climate models are taking natural forcings into account. I reality very few, if any model, contain the influence from ocean oscillations, cloud cover change (=solar insolation change), or cloud feedback in any correct way aside from parametric guesswork. Some of these factors, if ever addressed at all, are given (non-varying) constants, which hardly can be said to be taking these effects "into account".

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.2015.0146 https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00165.1?mobileUi=0& https://www.nature.com/articles/329138a0.pdf?platform=hootsuite

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0038.1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4683514/ https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/challenges-enso-today%E2%80%99s-climate-models "..The challenges in modeling ENSO are nevertheless plentiful. They all have to do with the complex interactions of the oceanic and atmospheric processes involved—and there are many (seen in the figure above)."

No, not all natural processes are taking into account in the models and they also assume an initial state of equilibrium, which of course, never is reached. Reference 115 does not make an effort to show that all natural forcings are taken into account. We don´t even KNOW all natural forcings.192.44.242.200 (talk) 13:15, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 November 2019

{{subst:trim|1=

Climate Change Denial is a political term. Climate Change has also become a political term. Real scientists do not discuss the climate in such a hot headed way. We need to find a less derogatory way to describe scientists who do not see CO2 as a clear and present danger to the earth. That's basically what it comes out to. Demonizing serious thinkers who believe CO2 plays a very minor role in climate is a disservice to humanity and is of no benefit to the earth or its climate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucythewhale (talk • contribs)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. NiciVampireHeart 09:35, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Climate scientists do not see CO² as "a clear and present danger", but rather the excess thereof. Also, as it was explained above, please be specific in what exact move you would like to be performed. - Munmula (talk), second account of Alumnum 12:32, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Misspelling in article

“Sceptical” should be spelled skeptical. Thjared (talk) 06:16, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

No, it should not. See [7] Retimuko (talk) 07:01, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Interesting, I had never seen it spelled this way. Just for consistency why is this one different than the rest of the page? Thjared (talk) 05:08, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Oh, that is a good point. I agree that we should be consistent within this article (except for quotes). I see about 98 occurrences with "k" and about 36 occurrences with "c". I would like to invite other editors to share their opinion whether we should make this consistent one way or another. Retimuko (talk) 18:26, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Retimuko, One option is to go with the majority. Another is to look at the earliest inclusion of the word (earliest post-stub), per MOS:RETAIN. I'd lean toward the latter. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:31, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Retimuko, Caution: if a consensus is reached, and someone decides to fix with a search-and-replace, note that some of the terms are in quotes, so should be skipped, i.e. not changed. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:36, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
It's just a regional difference: "skeptical" is the standard spelling in the US, while "sceptical" is used in the UK and other natively English-speaking countries. In Canada, both forms are acceptable. See WP:SPELLING. Also, according to MOS:ENGVAR, there is no preferred spelling, except if a page has "strong national ties" with an English-speaking nation or if it has not but some variance is already widely used in it. - Munmula (talk), second account of Alumnum 12:32, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposed change to the first sentence of the lede

re [8]. Elaborating on both my edit summaries. One of the sources says specifically "unwarranted". Removing it seems inappropriate and a pov violation. --Ronz (talk) 04:47, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

This proposed change consists of two parts. 1)Added words "existence of" 2)Removed word "unwarranted".
1)Denial includes denial of scientific consensus. Original article does not address that. Here's couple refs [1]
[2]
2)I think we can agree that word "unwarranted" carries negative connotation. Going back to POV rules, I will quote it Prefer nonjudgmental language. While the source, you refer to, does have word unwarranted,- it does not use it as part of definition. So, in this case, we are arguing over presenting denial as "doubt" or "unwarranted doubt", where you would outright dismiss any arguments. How is this nonjudgmental?
Nemesid (talk) 11:35, 22 December 2019 (UTC)NemesidNemesid (talk) 11:35, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
1. "Contradicts existence of scientific consensus on climate change" would mean: if I deny that the climate is changing now because of humans, but not that there is a consensus, I am not a denier. That is not the usual definition.
2. It's the definition. If it is warranted, it is called "skepticism". If it is unwarranted, it is called "denial". If you remove all negative-connotation words from an encyclopedia, it stops being an encyclopedia and becomes a Pollyannapedia. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:17, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
The two sources offered say it all, being examples of climate change denial. This is a non-starter. Please note that ArbEnf applies here. --Ronz (talk) 17:26, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

One way to evaluate a climate-change prediction is to see how it compares with similar historical predictions. There are many recorded predictions about climate change that can be gotten from old newspaper and magazine articles. Apparently, the substantial majority if not all of the extreme climate-change predictions did not materialize (predictions such as all the Arctic ice melting in x years, oceans rising alarmingly in x years, etc.). Most of the predictors may have strongly believed their predictions. It seems to be rare, unfortunately, for scientific confidence and boldness to change to caution and humility when a prediction is proved false.Dfwlms 23:36, 13 February 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dfwlms (talk • contribs)

That is a bad way of evaluating them, since newspapers and magazines tend to write about more interesting stuff more that about everyday stuff. And interesting predictions are less likely to come true than everyday predictions. So, you are suggesting to use a data base with an inherent preselection bias. Rookie mistake.
Another rookie mistake, which is also in your suggestion, is trying to answer a question not by looking at the relevant data but by looking at the answers to other questions that seem to be similar but are actually unrelated.
But the main problem is that we are not allowed to do our own research - see WP:OR. That is a good thing too, because most of us are really bad at doing research and suggest bad ways of evaluating questions.
By the way, the Arctic is melting right now. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:58, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Ah yes, the old global cooling fallacy – see the source on that page. . . dave souza, talk 11:17, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I think unwarranted should stand or should replace with a different term. Objecting to scientific consensus is legit if the consensus is a weak consensus (i.e. 80% support). Climate change deniers deny the overwhelming scientific consensus (i.e. 99%), not just a weak consensus.--Chuka Chief (talk) 15:21, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2016/12/14/fact-checking-the-97-consensus-on-anthropogenic-climate-change/
  2. ^ https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/putting-the-con-in-consensus-not-only-is-there-no-97-per-cent-consensus-among-climate-scientists-many-misunderstand-core-issues

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2019

It is prefered that I do this myself, as this is part of a university assignment and I am unsure whether this request would be picked up on by the system used to measure our contributions to Wikipedia. However, if this is not possible then I will have screen captures of this request, and will have to hope my Professors had accounted for this.

I would like to edit "Taxonomy of climate change denial" in reference to: Carrus, G., Leonne, L., Panno, A. “Attitudes towards Trump Policies and Climate Change: The Key Roles of Aversion to Wealth Redistribution and Political Interest.” Journal of Social Issues 75.1 (2019): 153-168. Clarke, E.J.R., Klas, A., Kothe, E.J., Ling, M., Richardson, B. “Mitigation system threat partially mediates the effects of right‐wing ideologies on climate change beliefs.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 49 (2019): 349-360. Calderwood, K.J. “Discourse in the Balance: American Presidential Discourse About Climate Change.” Communication Studies 70.2 (2019): 235-252.

Directly after 'the President denies "the meaning of the science, which is that we must keep carbon in the ground"', the paragraph should be continued with:

An example of "climate denial of the status quo sort", Presidents Bush (senior) to Obama were found to frequently center discussion of climate change concerns around economic growth (economic-foregrounding)- though there was a larger discussion of climate change by Clinton and Obama.[1] Other Presidents were not analysed.

[End of first addition.] Further, the end paragraph on psychological barriers could be developed further. Carrus (et al) and Clarke (et al) have researched how climate denial is associated with: support for Donald Trump; wealth-redistribution aversion; right-wing authoritarianism in specific forms; and, social dominance orientation in specific forms. Given this research exists, it is in line with the purpose of Wikipedia to include it in their account of climate denial. As such, I would like to continue the final paragraph of the taxonomy section with this:

Regarding ideological world views, it has been shown that the following ideological standpoints can be connected with climate denial:

1. Upholding current society through acceptance of social norms and traditions of society (conventionalist right-wing authoritarianism, RWA-C). 2. Supporting inequality through supporting behaviour designed to subordinate other groups (dominant social dominance orientation, SDO-D) 3. Supporting inequality through prefering intergroup inequality (anti-egalitarian social dominance orientation, SDO-E).

Specifically, the presence of: RWA-C predicted all forms of climate denial; SDO-E predicted denial of humans causing climate change and denial of the significance of human impact; and, SDO-D significantly predicted the denial of climate change existing.[2] Other research supports more direct claims that identification with the Republican party, and support for Donald Trump are also significant factors in climate denialism; however, this is attributed to an aversion to wealth redistribution.[3]

[End of second addition.] FallRose (talk) 00:15, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Calderwood, Kevin J. (2019). "Discourse in the Balance: American Presidential Discourse About Climate Change."". Communication Studies. 70 (2): 244.
  2. ^ Clark, E.J.R.; Klas, A; Kothe, E.J.; Ling, M.; Richardson, B. (2019). "Mitigation system threat partially mediates the effects of right-wing ideologies on climate change beliefs". Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 49: 354–356.
  3. ^ Carrus, G.; Leonne, L; Panno, A (2019). "Attitudes towards Trump Policies and Climate Change: The Key Roles of Aversion to Wealth Redistribution and Political Interest". Journal of Social Issues. 75 (1): 159–161.
 Not done: The material presented here is certainly relevant to the article, but the form presented is simply far too complex and reliant on too many concepts that require further definition. Goldsztajn (talk) 22:08, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Consensus is not scientific.

Talk pages are not forums.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I cringe every time people run this argument, and having that graphic in the top right is terrible. Science has never been about consensus, otherwise 99.99% of scientists would have agreed the world is flat. Please, use solid arguments not sophistry. This isn't a popularity contest. 121.210.33.50 (talk) 07:21, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Addendum: This is a talk page for improving an article. The article lede starts with the most fallacious argument presented by our side, hence my bringing it up. Jumping on my comment and censoring the talk page assuming I must be 'a climate change denier' rather than a debunker of pseudoscience online who is irked by weak arguments from our side is irrational and ill founded. Before censoring talk pages it might be worth asking yourself why you're even here if you're detracting from the project by removing content and discourse rather than contributing to it. 121.210.33.50 (talk) 08:51, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Please read the FAQ at the top of the page. --McSly (talk) 12:08, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

"Global cooling denial" listed at Redirects for discussion

Information icon A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Global cooling denial. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 June 15#Global cooling denial until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. buidhe 00:21, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Unwarranted

This has been discussed before. "Removed the word "unwarranted" because the word is pure opinion" - That's bullshit. This is a definition. If someone has warranted doubts, he is not a denier. But there is nobody like that anymore. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:09, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

That isn't quite the argument I'd make. Instead I'd put it that every argument that claims to provide an empirical basis for rejecting the consensus that has then been considered by experts has been found not to well-founded. — Charles Stewart (talk) 15:15, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

"Unwarranted" is editorializing. The article conveys the same quality of information without loaded words like "unwarranted". Should we replace it with "ridiculous" "childish" "backward" of "fascistic" or would those other propaganda words make it look even more biased? OrbitalBundle (talk) 15:47, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Again, that is bullshit. "Climate change denial" is defined in the article as "denial, dismissal, or unwarranted doubt that contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change". If someone has warranted doubts, he's not a denier and not subject of the article. Yes, denialists are also ridiculous, childish and backward, especially their chief, Fraud Loudmouth Combover the First. But that, unlike "unwarranted", is not part of the definition and also not encyclopedic.
So, what is your problem? Why do you want to call people with warranted doubts "deniers" too? That would be a clear misnomer. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:17, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

It introduces "unwarranted" POV language into an article and gives the "deniers" more "proof" that the discussion around climate change is being politicized by otherwise reasonabable people. The deniers don't need your help or mine to look like cranks.

Let the science speak for itself. Evolution is a fact. Vaccines don't cause autism. Organic food is no more healthy than intensively farmed food and significantly more expensive. We are able to monitor and analyze climate trends in a way that has never before been possible, and there are data about temperature trends that are concerning.

As always there are people who would rather believe in God and conspiracies and UFOs and contrails. The use of shrill propaganda insults the intelligence of reasonable people and tends to make them question the entire message as a result.

Also, misnomer is a word often misused by people who actually mean "logical fallacy." Misnomer just means "using the wrong name for something." OrbitalBundle (talk) 19:42, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

I know what the word means. That's why I used it. Calling someone a "denier" who has warranted doubts would be a misnomer. The wrong word for something. Will you stop talking about irrelevant stuff and answer my question? Why do you want to call people with warranted doubts "deniers"? --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:29, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Also, we have reliable sources for that definition. See here, source 3 in the article. Reliable sources are stronger than you. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:32, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

OK mate. OrbitalBundle (talk) 13:44, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Why deniers hate the label

The term "denier" is hated by those it is applied to and vigorously argued against, but this aspect is only hinted at in the article.

I suggest we have a section addressing Micha Tomkiewicz's characterisation of AGW as possibly causing a "self-inflicted genocide" [9], [10] and p 30 of [11], which received a lot of angry reactions, e.g., [12]. I suggest this because I think it could provide a useful way to introduce the claim "it's unfair to draw a moral equivalence between the Shoah and rejection of a scientific consensus", those who think such an equivalence isn't unfair, and those who think that is not what the term "denialism" is getting at. That said, it'd be a tricky section to write adequately, which is why I am raising the idea here on talk first. — Charles Stewart (talk) 15:11, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree with what you are saying I support it.Plunging Bear (talk) 18:14, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

A newish view

See https://web.archive.org/web/20200702151725/https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare for a recent view. Andrewa (talk) 02:24, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

To save anyone else the bother, just to find out who etc, this is a post by Michael Shellenberger. Sample news story about it NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 03:01, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! But my question is just, is this a form of climate change denial, and if so do we have sources that say this? It seems possible that we do. Andrewa (talk) 05:22, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Just an observation... you didn't ask that question until now. Personally I'm not sufficiently interested so I will bow out of this discussion. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:16, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

He has been labeled a "luke warmist".

“Luke-warmists” may be defined as those who appear to accept the body of climate science but interpret it in a way that is least threatening: emphasising uncertainties, playing down dangers, and advocating a slow and cautious response. They are politically conservative and anxious about the threat to the social structure posed by the implications of climate science. Their “pragmatic” approach is therefore alluring to political leaders looking for a justification for policy minimalism.

The most famous is Bjorn Lomborg. We could include a section on luke warmism as a class of denialism. There are enough refs to 'luke warmist' (or 'luke warmism') online and in books to justify this section or even an article. Surprising it has not been done yet. -- GreenC 12:16, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

In the article, there is discussion on what is being done to prevent climate change denial, besides the section where it discusses people who have changed their position where are the results of these preventions?Christopher Dalmau (talk) 21:24, 11 October 2020 (UTC)Christopher Dalmau

Not NPOV

This article is not written from a neutral point of view.

Monkey3217070260 (talk) 07:49, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, the wiki hive mind has many blind spots. Greglocock (talk) 08:55, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Any specific concerns? A general "this isn't neutral" doesn't much help to improve it :) CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 10:21, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Easy to guess. Both contributors erroneously believe that WP:NPOV says that we should give equal weight to science and crazy conspiracist anti-science ideology. Both should actually read that rule page, especially the WP:GEVAL part of it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:54, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Oh great a self confessed mind reader. Shrugs. Greglocock (talk) 22:13, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
No, a mind guesser, with lots of experience debating WP:PROFRINGE editors. If the guess is wrong, the solution is... gasp! ...to correct the error and tell us how it really is. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:24, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
Science isn't a point of view. HiLo48 (talk) 10:47, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
No but the article should be treated with a NPOV. I'm not going to die on a hill for this one, it is too political, but it really glows with the usual double standard of wiki hive mind hypocrisy. To pick an easy one People who have changed their position only includes example of people who now support the preferred position, as opposed to the examples that went the other way. So the title of the section is neutral, yet the examples are all one way. Not Neutral. Biased. Cherry picking. Selective quotation. All the usual crap. Greglocock (talk) 22:08, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
"...it is too political" Only because those who saw what they believed was a financial threat made it so. I was there at the beginning, assisting with the computing side of some of the earliest models. The people involved had no political motivations or goals. They were doing pure science. The political right made it political. Everyone else has always been simply presenting science. HiLo48 (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
We present information based on reliable sources. If you can find a reliable source explaining how and why a denialist came to reject climate change after embracing it, give it. But you should read WP:FRINGE. Denialism is a fringe position which is held mainly by ignorant laypeople for ideological reasons, and we have to portray it as such. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:19, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
So given the the lede seems to imply that some people who call themselves skeptics are denialists, does that mean I can include people who have moved to a lesser embrace of the wiki-approved theory of climate change? Actual skepticism is not denialism of course, however inconvenient that may be. Greglocock (talk) 21:47, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Rather than "a lesser embrace of the wiki-approved theory of climate change", it's clear you mean "a lesser embrace of science". Wikipedia has a bias on matters like this. It's biased towards real science. HiLo48 (talk) 22:45, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
If you think you have a good source, you should present it here on the Talk page. It will probably be rejected because the source is an unreliable denialist outlet, but you can try. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

"Climate change is a hoax" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Climate change is a hoax. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 28#Climate change is a hoax until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Sangdeboeuf (talk) 12:49, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 July 2021

Please remove the animated gif image at the top of the page, which is titled: "Academic studies of scientific..." - (or at least place it at the bottom of the page). It is very unclear and distracting, and it shows as the preview image when a link to the page is posted on social media. LDixon007 (talk) 07:19, 9 July 2021 (UTC) LDixon007 (talk) 07:19, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. I agree that the image doesn't add much, but there in consensus to include it at this time. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:27, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Rather than remove the image, I stopped the animation. If someone objects to changing the source image that way and reverts it, we can make a new non-animated image and use that instead. This kind of animation is truly obnoxious, imho; anyone disagree? Dicklyon (talk) 17:35, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

By changing the source image file, you have, without consensus, changed the appearance of the image in all (~eight) articles that use the file (not even counting talk pages and portals).
Text in Version 4 does not cover arrays of green ovals.
I made the original image an animated GIF to visually emphasize the ratio of green ovals to gray rectangles. This emphasis could only be achieved with the researchers' names removed, so that all the green ovals were visible at once. I mildly oppose the still image for this reason, but consensus should rule. In my experience, a couple of editors have written that animations in general are distracting, but none have said they are obnoxious. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:50, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I saw the point of the animation, and the use on multiple articles. And I posted here after my bold edit to see whether there's consensus for this. You can of course revert if you want to, per WP:BRD. Dicklyon (talk) 20:18, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
I'd rather wait for consensus. As a compromise, I can re-do the still image by placing the researchers' names outside (above and below) the mostly-green oval arrays, omitting the numerals ("93%", "97%", etc) since the numbers are reflected in the oval arrays themselves. That way, the green-versus-gray is visually communicated without the distraction you find objectionable. This compromise enlarges the image a bit, but that degree of enlargement may be acceptable. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:43, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
Good idea. Dicklyon (talk) 03:21, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
 Done The numerical values weren't obvious from the ovals alone, so I kept the numerals ("93%", "97%", etc). —RCraig09 (talk) 03:26, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 8 July 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Clear consensus against a move for these articles. (closed by non-admin page mover) SkyWarrior 03:27, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

– Compound modifiers are usually hyphenated. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:54, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

  • opposed because climate change is not a compound modifier. Rather it is an open compound noun. For example MerriamWebster says "In modern use climate is often found paired with change. This compound noun (climate change) may be defined, in brief, as “a change in the climate of the earth,..." https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/climate-word-origin NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:22, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    • That's what a compound modifier is: a compound of two or more words (nouns, adjectives, whatever) that modifies another word (in this case, "denial"). Hence "denial of climate change" = "climate-change denial". --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 11:41, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
read your link again. Because the word "climate change" contains a space its tempting to see it as two words. Your link describes a compound modifier as two words, right? Well and open compound is a single word with a space. Since it is a single word (not two) your link describing compound modifiers is not applicable. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:02, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
A single word with a space???? EEng 12:05, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Yes, that is the definition of an "open compound noun". As I indicated above, Merriam Webster recognizes "climate change" as an example. For a general discussion on these types of words see grammarly here NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:09, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Quoting from that link: "open compounds (spelled as two words, e.g., ice cream)". "Climate change" sure looks like two words to me. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 12:15, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Well you started seeing them as distinct separat words so I can understand how confirmation bias might lead you to read "Spelled as two words" literally, to jive with your preconception. That's human nature. But its clear to me, supported by Merriam Webster, that "Spelled as two words" is just another way of saying "containing a space"NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:22, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Keep reading: "The most common spelling quandary writers face is whether to write compounds as separate words, one word, or hyphenated words.". According to Merriam-Webster, a word is (my bolding): "any segment of written or printed discourse ordinarily appearing between spaces". I don't see how a compound containing a space can be considered a single word. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 13:13, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
And as long as we're being ultra-nitpicky, the word is "jibe", not "jive". --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 13:18, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
"jibe" of course, thanks. However, you're grammar OR is great and all, but you're ignorning the proof reading FAQ from AMS (see below). Here is source #3. You've supplied some of your own grammar research but nothing specifically supporting your view that "climate change" needs a hyphen in these examples. Got any pinpoint sources that disagree with the three I have already provided? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:16, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
And as long as we're being ultra-nitpicky, surely you mean your grammar OR, not you're grammar OR. And not to put too fine a point on it, proofreading is one word (or maybe it's one word that has a space in it?). EEng 14:56, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Mea calpa, so shute me.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:53, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Even better source, this is "Frequently Asked Proof Editing Questions" from the American Meteorological Society "Per Chicago 6.80.....(blah blah blah)..... “Gulf Stream” and “climate change” are open compounds. (bold added)
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:27, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Only on Wikipedia can there be a debate about whether a word can contain a space. EEng 12:56, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Well if you believe that and think attempted dismissive humor is appropriate, then you're not a grammar nerd or involved in technical writing and editing to put food on the table. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:32, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm a published author in American literary criticism, the history of medicine, and computer science; for many years I wrote expert reports for intellectual property litigation; and my old English professor at [name of breathtakingly prestigious institution of higher learning redacted] sought my opinion on whether a book he was writing was really worth publishing. So, actually, I've got more than the chops needed to decide when dismissive humor is warranted. EEng 14:56, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Lamb or pork? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:53, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Suey. EEng 16:18, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Well as long as we're being nit-picky, you said you had more than enough chops, plural, so from our article Chop suey I would guess you must have done some comparative cooking of different recipes, using each of chicken, fish, beef, shrimp, and pork. I think I wanna eat at your place! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:04, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm only allowed to cook for the warden. But since I'm here I'll update my original dismissive humor by observing that only on Wikipedia can there be more debate about whether climate change needs a hyphen than about climate change itself. EEng 23:44, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
  • oppose - Of the first 30 hits on Google scholar, 29 write it without a hyphen. While I'm not sure about the grammar (without feels better to me), I think we can trust the scientists that study this. FemkeMilene (talk) 12:41, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
  • oppose - consider WP:CRITERIA under "naturalness". The vast majority of peolple search for "climate change denial" and not "climate-change denial". The unhyphenated form is the common search term, so we should be using that. Evidence. Chumpih. (talk) 13:30, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don't think I've ever seen "climate change" written with a hyphen.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:03, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose Climate change denial is clearly the common name regardless of grammar. Lennart97 (talk) 14:12, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Might be worth asking, "who would be helped by this change?" VQuakr (talk) 15:07, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Definitely-not. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:25, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose as original research trying to introduce terminology not in sources. . dave souza, talk 21:36, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
The rare potentially screwed up example is only evidence that it has been, once in a while, printed in that manner. So I agree with you there - that has indeed happened. But this fact doesn't shed light on any applicable grammar rules, which can be found in the various sources I already provided. It would help if you provided a single contrary source, discussing "climate change" and applicable rules of grammar. I doubt you'll find any because open compound nouns might look like two words, but by definition they are really one noun with a space in the middle.... even if some copy editor screws by adding a hyphen once in a while. In particular, in case you didn't already look, my third grammar source specifically talking about climate change was just a url so I will call extra attention by repeating it and hyperlinking the title.... "Survival guide to climate change … hyphenation" Suggestion for climate eds that might be a good reference to bookmark! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:20, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
"Definition of open compound: a compound whose word components are separated by a space in printing or writing" (Merriam-Webster). Note the plural "components", i.e. the separate words that form an open compound. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:40, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose Climate change being hyphenated is very rare. Wikipedia reflects reliable sources and the vast majority of sources don't do that. I don't see the point in renaming. Saucy[talk – contribs] 11:07, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment even if there is no consensus to rename Climate change denial, I hope users will consider the other pages listed, especially Soft climate change denial. The phrase "soft climate" is used by some sources to refer to mild climates for growing certain crops. So there's some potential ambiguity there. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 05:19, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
opposed to renaming the other two also for the same grammar reasons. By way of example....
"cotton blanket" ... where 'cotton' is a single word which happens to be a noun used as an adjective, no hyphen
"soft cotton blanket" .... a descriptive adjective, preceding 'cotton' where 'cotton' is a single word which happens to be a noun used as an adjective, no hyphen
Take out the single word "cotton" and put in the single word "climate change" also substituting denial for blanket of course, and there you go. That said, soft climate change denial would be better merged into climate change denial or moved to List of climate change neologisms, because the one article is about three different newly coined words, lumped together by virtue of Wiki ed's admittedly reasonable WP:OR but OR nonetheless. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:22, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
A better analogy to Soft climate change denial would be something like "soft cotton blanket maker": an adjective followed by a compound noun adjunct followed by a noun. Now, is this construction about a maker of cotton blankets that are soft, a soft maker of cotton blankets, or a maker of blankets using soft cotton? Would a hyphen help clarify it? I think so. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:38, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
(sigh) As this article is not Climate change denialist (refering to a person), I'll wait while you defend your assertion that "blanket maker" (a person) produces a better analogy.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:01, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
Both "maker" and "denialist" function as nouns. But if you like, we can replace "maker" with a more abstract noun: soft cotton blanket making. Really not too difficult. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:15, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
Even better: soft cotton blanket selling where "soft selling" would be the equivalent of "soft denial". --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:41, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Support and please strongly discount the opposition from people who don't have a basic grasp of English punctuation: When an open compound word is used as a compound adjective that precedes the noun it modifies, it should be hyphenated. Dicklyon (talk) 17:38, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    That is not a quote from the source. In fact, I quoted the source in small print in a later comment below and the excerpt says the dead opposite of what you claim it says. See below.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:39, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    What do you mean it's not a quote from the source? I copied it directly from there. Yes, they also have the high school exception, but I quoted the general rule. Dicklyon (talk) 22:31, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    Trout to me, and I apologize. I must have flubbed my Cntrl-F text search when I looked before. You are quite right. On the other hand, they are talking about open compound words and the examples given are adjectives whether before or after the noun they modify. The section's point is before (hyphen) after (no hyphen). The more specific section (open compound nouns) which I quoted trumps the general "open compound word" section which appears to be only talking about open compound adjectives. My apologies for the earlier oversight once again. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:00, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    Enjoy the trout. The idea of "open compound word" is a new terminology to me, but I get what it means, whether we apply the term "word" or not. Looking for books that use this, I find they still recommend inserting a hyphen when it's used as a modifier: "...a strong cold-chain infrastructure. (Cold chain is an open compound word when it is used as a noun; however, it is hyphenated when it is used as an adjective.)". See? Dicklyon (talk) 03:15, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
    (Edit conflict)
    No that wouldn't help, because according to the grammar source shared by @Dicklyon: "Ice cream" is an open compound and gets no hyphen when used as an adjective. (ROFL....) Dicklyon's source agrees with me, saying two of the open compound words, “ice cream” and “high school,” are commonly used as adjectives as well, as in “ice cream social” and “high school student.” Even though in each of these examples an open compound word (“ice cream” or “high school”) is being used as a compound adjective that precedes the noun it modifies (“social” or “student”), no hyphen is needed. Think of this as the “high school rule” if that helps. As used in “high school student,” “high school classroom,” “high school prom,” and “high school graduation,”... (Bold added) −
    NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:34, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    "High school" and "ice cream" are used there as examples of the exception of an open compound being so commonly used and recognized that it has become conventional to not bother with the hyphen; of course, a lot people don't bother with the hyphen in general, even when it would help the reader, because they don't understand or care about that. E.g. RCraig09, who shows by his comment just below that he doesn't understand that it means for a compound noun to be used as a modifier. Dicklyon (talk) 20:25, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    Indeed, ice-cream sundae is a less common but still significant construction. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:30, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    Google stats showing how common a common typo occurs are not really compelling. I've asked multiple times for a source, any source, discussing grammar that supports your view. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:05, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    Not an RS, but discussing the sometimes hyphenation of ice cream. Various books discuss that one, but it's hard to find an accessible preview online. The n-grams show usage patterns; you can check lots of other cases to see that the prevalence of typos in the database is completely negligible. Dicklyon (talk) 22:43, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    Google Ngram Viewer searches for words and phrases in published books. I doubt they're all typos. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:46, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    exception of an open compound being so commonly used and recognized that it has become conventional to not bother with the hyphen – So why isn't "climate change" like "ice cream" in that way? How do we tell? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:47, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
    Well, that's easy. Search this thread for my username and open the various links I have contributed. There are already lots of sources. The simplest to understand is the style guide from NPR, which using copy and paste from my prior comment says "Climate change: no hyphen in all uses" NPR Style Guide NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:40, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
    • Here, "Climate change" is a noun, not an adjective. Ergo, no hyphen. I support the ice-cream-sundae-idea, though. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:27, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    It's a noun, but it's being used to modify another noun, denial. Hence it's a noun adjunct, i.e. a noun used as an adjective. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:21, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    It is a leap to go from (a) noun adjunct to (b) adjective. Your inference seems faulty. Your link to the noun adjunct does not overcome the principle in Dicklyon's Writing Cooperative article: "As used in “high school student,” “high school classroom,” “high school prom,” and “high school graduation,” the compound word “high school” (in all these cases used as a compound adjective) is read as a single, widely recognized term, so no hyphen is needed." —RCraig09 (talk) 20:37, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    So why are you leaping to adjective? It's a compound noun used as a modifier. And "climate change" is a relatively new compound, not of the same status as high school or ice cream. Dicklyon (talk) 20:41, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    "Twas not I who jumped leapt from noun to adjective. The point is that, just because a noun phrase functions as an adjective, does not mean it is an "adjective" requiring hyphenation, within the meaning of the Writing Cooperative article which I've quoted above. And in no way is "climate change" a "new compound"; the IPCC was formed in 1988 and the term was used in a scientific paper at least as early as 1975 (ref). "Newness" isn't determinative; being in "common use" is the test according to the Writing Cooperative and the term "climate change" gets 206,000,000 Google hits today. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:17, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    Quoting from your link (my bolding): "When an open compound word is used as a compound adjective that precedes the noun it modifies, it should be hyphenated." The important thing is how the term is used, not whether it's categorically an adjective or a noun. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:28, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    "Used as an adjective" (aka as a "modifier") is not a claim that it's an adjective. It's a noun phrase used that way. Dicklyon (talk) 22:31, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) That article has a quote from Fowler's Modern English Usage describing noun adjuncts as "adjectival nouns". So yes, they function as adjectives. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:45, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    Hooray, we finally agree on something. Noun adjuncts are indeed a kind of adjective. here is another source for that principle. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:13, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    You asked for a source on grammar that supports using hyphens in compound noun adjuncts. Well, you just provided one: "open compounds (as health food) ... may be used attributively with an inserted hyphen (as in health-food store)" (source: Merriam-Webster). --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:11, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
    From the LA Times' Daily Pilot: "Adjectives, which are a type of modifier, describe nouns: a large store, a nice day, an efficient employee. But in English we can use nouns the same way ... Hyphens are used in compound modifiers ... In most of professional publishing, the rule is that you should insert these hyphens whenever they help, especially when a lack of a hyphen could create confusion". Hopefully we can now dispense with this noun-versus-adjective nonsense and focus on making things understandable for readers. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:14, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
You have made zero attempt to show any ambiguity. In fact, as I have reviewed style guidelines and more nerdy grammar references, the not-cast-in-stone rule is to leave it out when the phrase is very familiar. Climate change was specifically listed as an example of a familiar phrase where it is left out. As no one has ever appeared on this talk page complaining that the title was ambiguous (at least in a way related to hyphens/no hyphens), how are you going to show us that the lack of prior complaining has just been an oversight? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:53, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
I already said how Soft climate change denial is potentially ambiguous. This could mean either "soft denial" of climate change – or denial of changes to a "soft climate". Staying with the ice-cream analogy, a comparable term would be something like soft ice cream selling. Does that mean soft-selling of ice cream, or the selling of soft ice cream? --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:48, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
Do you have ambiguity arguments to make on either of the other two titles in your proposal? ( climate change denial or Psychology of climate change denial ) If no, will you please withdraw the proposal for those two at least? Then we can focus on soft climate change denial since it is the one you claim is sufficiently ambiguous to require a hyphen. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:56, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm sure the users here are sufficiently lucid to decide which of three options they support. I would prefer to let the discussion run its course. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:00, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
So along the way I learned that hyphenating open compounds is not as clearcut as I thought when this started. The determining factor... all of the cited sources agree... has to do with familiarity of the term and ambiguity et cetera. All of the cited sources specifically talking about climate change say no hyphen. You have no ambiguity arguments for two of the titles for your proposal, and have not even acknowledged cited sources saying "climate change, no hyphen" (paraphrasing). But you won't withdraw the proposal for those two? That's making busy work for your co editors, IMO. As for soft climate change denial point of order.... I have a completely unrelated reason to oppose that name change, and would like to have that discussion separated out to discussion issues of WP:Notability and WP:NEOLOGISM and content not matching the WP:TITLE.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:07, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
You can make those arguments here or start a WP:MERGE discussion when this one is closed. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:12, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
Debating a question of hyphenating a title that violates WP:PRECISION on an article of questionable notability seems like a superb way to waste the community's time. I'll ponder process and get back to you. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:53, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
Please don't. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:26, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
As soft climate change denial is a trivial page in this subject area I guess I'll just not care about merging that one for now. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:40, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Specific "climate change" style guide advice from various sources

Except to go back and apologize if I made a mistake somewhere, I think this has pretty much run its course. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:47, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

  • Yes, the climate-change-hyphen deniers will have their way. Dicklyon (talk) 17:47, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Hyphens are a figment of our imagination anyway. Regardless of context they simply do not exist. humor alertNewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:59, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
    Now that's just an existential fallacy. ––FORMALDUDE(talk) 03:08, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Certainly, the big question remains, however..... does hyphen denialism need a hyphen? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:02, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
    Certainly not, except when used as a modifier (hyphen-denialism bruhaha). Uniform rules mean you don't need to ask. Dicklyon (talk) 03:32, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I had hoped we were lightening the mood just doing humor, but I guess not. I note you made a vague bitter wave at the style guidelines, claiming they are uniform. But you didn't quote them. Our "unifornm" rules are full of "may" type language, and the MOS section on hyphens links to compound modifier which in turn acknowledges the existence of the very exception debated here at length... whether a hyphen is required for familiar open compounds serving as adjectives. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 08:57, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
    My approach (not everyone's) is to uniformly work to make the content as accessible as possible to the reader who is not already in the know. There's no downside to hyphenating open compounds when they're used as modifiers, so in my opinion we should do so uniformly, even though the MOS only suggests it as a good idea that might help. Most of the comments in this discussion are from people who completely don't understand; nevertheless, I bet the existence of hyphens in such contexts helps them, by tying together things that they might otherwise be briefly confused by. Sure, my mood is darkened by this conversation; sorry. Dicklyon (talk) 01:52, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
  • opposed Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 19:57, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose. MOS:HYPHEN describes cases in which a hyphen can help clarity or disambiguation, but this is neither of those. The phrase is not commonly hyphenated, and there is no reason to do so here. Andrewa (talk) 20:05, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
  • opposition Current title is best fit for title naming WP:CRITERIA. Has the most usage in reliable sources. Other encyclopedias like EB when they use the term don't use hyphens. Now, if we can add hyphens to |accessdate= I will be most happy. -- GreenC 01:37, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose. "Climate change denial" is the common name. Adumbrativus (talk) 08:34, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Neutral I have no strong feelings one way or the other. And I'm surprised at the amount of debate going on as it seems a relatively inconsequential move. ––FORMALDUDE(talk) 08:46, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
    Relative to what? It's not more or less consequential than other move discussions about uniformly applying our style guidelines. Dicklyon (talk) 03:33, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
    Relative to the average reader, who will not see a difference. Consequential discussions about uniform application of style guidelines requires some sort of impact to the reader in my opinion. Though I'm sure there's other scenarios that warrant these types of discussions, I don't see how this is one of them. ––FORMALDUDE(talk) 05:05, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose because the term (and article) is "climate change" and not "climate-change". Given the near-unanimous opposition I think that WP:SNOWBALL is appropriate here, by the way. BirdValiant (talk) 04:25, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Arguments in oppostion

  • "climate change is not a compound modifier. Rather it is an open compound noun". Lame; wrong; it's an open compound noun used as a modifier in these titles.
  • "Of the first 30 hits on Google scholar, 29 write it without a hyphen. While I'm not sure about the grammar..." Obviously but the grammar is what's relevant here. The hyphen signals the reader how to parse it.
  • "consider WP:CRITERIA under 'naturalness'. The vast majority of peolple search for "climate change denial..." That's what redirects are for; how people search is pretty irrelevant, when the grammatically more clear version is just as natural.
  • "I don't think I've ever seen 'climate change' written with a hyphen." Your unawareness of what's in books is not relevant.
  • "Climate change denial is clearly the common name regardless of grammar." But grammar and style matter and that's what we're talking about; there's not disagree on what the common name is.
  • "Might be worth asking, 'who would be helped by this change?'" Yes! And the answer is anyone not already familiar with how to parse these compound compounds.
  • "Definitely-not." Is that a spark of creativity I see?
  • "original research trying to introduce terminology not in sources" No, this punctuation/styling of the terms has been shown to be used in numerous books, etc.
  • "Climate change being hyphenated is very rare. Wikipedia reflects reliable sources and the vast majority of sources don't do that. I don't see the point in renaming." Actually, WP does still all the time, using the somewhat less common styling because it helps the unfamiliar reader; that is the point.
  • "MOS:HYPHEN describes cases in which a hyphen can help clarity or disambiguation, but this is neither of those." Obviously we are arguing that this covers it: To link related terms in compound modifiers:[a] Hyphens can aid ease of reading (that is, they can be ease-of-reading aids) and are particularly useful in long noun phrases
  • "Current title is best fit for title naming WP:CRITERIA. Has the most usage in reliable sources." But "most usage" is not really what we go by; we have style guidelines designed to help the unfamiliar reader these compound compounds.
  • "Climate change denial" is the common name." Again, no argument about the common name, just the styling of it to help the reader.
  • "the term (and article) is 'climate change' and not 'climate-change'." Yes it is but that totally ignores the point of context and helping the reader figure out what words to group together.
So, I find nothing here that actually addresses our style and naming guidelines, just mostly a bunch of people who don't understand how hyphens help the reader to group the right words together in compound compounds (or compounds used attributively, if you prefer). Dicklyon (talk) 00:43, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
Don't forget WP:DEADHORSE! Most of your comments ignore or misunderstand why we use the most common usage for titles. This is a typical conversation BTW, those arguing for proper grammar vs most common usage. I've seen dozens over the years. This one is characterized by lack of clarity over proper grammar (it's complicated), but clarity on common usage. It is not surprising which side is getting snowballed. -- GreenC 01:41, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
In this case, "climate change denial" without the hyphen IS both "proper grammar" and common usage. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 03:36, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Semi-protected edit request on 23 October 2021

The use of the language “climate change denial” and “unwarranted” is overtly political, not factual. Simply remove it or express it more objectively.

It is a judgmental or normative expression. “Denial” further is normative not simply factual. The language ignores the scientific process which requires opposing positions be expressed and evaluated. In this process consensus is not particularly important. Prior to the 1960s plate tectonics was dismissed as a fringe theory, and those who took that position could rightly have been described as going against the scientific consensus, however, as evidence mounted, they proved to be right. The “rightness” or “left ness” politically speaking of purveyors if these positions are not relevant. 174.77.3.153 (talk) 15:45, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: Please see FAQ item five above. In a nutshell, scientific consensus is important because it represents the outcome of the review of a huge body of evidence by a large number of experts in their field. Per WP:FRINGE, Wikipedia does not give equal weight to fringe viewpoints. And in the 1920s (though perhaps not the 1950s) Wikipedia would have described plate tectonics as lacking in evidence, though it's worth noting that there wasn't hard evidence against plate tectonics either. User:GKFXtalk 19:18, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 November 2021

This article is in clear violation of NPOV policy. The entire opposing stance on this topic is presented as fictitious by the author. 71.255.130.67 (talk) 14:11, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:20, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

A possibly useful RS:

  • The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial[1]
  1. Science denial
  2. Economic denial
  3. Humanitarian denial
  4. Political denial
  5. Crisis denial

Valjean (talk) 00:49, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Maslin, Mark (November 28, 2019). "The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial". The Conversation. Retrieved January 14, 2022.

Five climate change science misconceptions – debunked

Another good RS:

  • Five climate change science misconceptions – debunked[1]
  • Climate change is just part of the natural cycle
  • Changes are due to sunspots/galactic cosmic rays
  • CO₂ is a small part of the atmosphere – it can’t have a large heating affect
  • Scientists manipulate all data sets to show a warming trend
  • Climate models are unreliable and too sensitive to carbon dioxide

Valjean (talk) 00:50, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Maslin, Mark (September 15, 2019). "Five climate change science misconceptions – debunked". The Conversation. Retrieved January 14, 2022.

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So, blogs are reliable sources now?

This amusing attack page is using assertions made by non entities in self published works. Great Greglocock (talk) 22:40, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

There are almost 300 sources so we're not going to know which you're talking about. Yes, blogs can be used depending on context and author. See WP:SPS and WP:PARITY. VQuakr (talk) 00:00, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
As an example the most recent edit (thanks for your low effort answer) http://web.archive.org/web/20080509185419/http://www.giveupblog.com/2006/09/denialists.html No idea who the author is but Rev Dr is not a likely birthname. So we have a blog post written by an unknown person confidently expressing opinions which are then repeated in this hilarious article. Greglocock (talk) 04:59, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Cut the attitude, Greg. You make a low-effort, context-free whine, we're not going to go running around like headless chickens trying to guess what you are talking about. VQuakr responded just right to you. — Charles Stewart (talk) 05:22, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Duh human's react to recent events. Bit of a clue, right charlie? Greglocock (talk) 11:00, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
  • After the last contribution, it was not that difficult. I followed the link Greg posted, found a blog named "giveupblog", found a link to it in the most recent edit, and deleted the bloggy source.
    Of course, posting the difflink and saying "giveupblog" would have made it easier. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:54, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Thanks Hob "difflink and saying "giveupblog""-How does that work, sounds handy? Greglocock (talk) 11:00, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Well, you could have said, "This diff used a blog named 'giveupblog' as a source", or even "The article uses a blog named 'giveupblog' as a source", and everybody would have known what you were talking about. Instead, you relied on other people thinking the same way you do and looking at the same things you did. Bad approach. Does not work.
Why do I have to explain this to someone who did his first edit in 2004? --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:59, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
"9745 edits since: 2003-08-01"... -- Valjean (talk) 17:29, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Sorry I thought you were talkin about some tool. Yes OK, I'll just do it in future. Greglocock (talk) 20:19, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Greg, your comments here look rather battleground, and deleting sources without discussion here looks a bit WP:POINTy. You evidently don't like majority views on the topic, but please don't be disruptive. . . dave souza, talk 13:00, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Hob, your edit removed the source being disputed, which is interesting as an early discussion on the topic but not a source for the statement in the article. As cited in Diethelm & McKee (2009). "Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?", European Journal of Public Health, the statement appeared in Hoofnagle M, Hoofnagle C. What is denialismAccessed on 29 November 2008 Available at: http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/about.php (archived)– these were the sources previously cited in this article, before this edit "Setting the historical record straight and giving due recognition to all those involved in the precise definition of denialism" added the disputed source, and substituted an earlier version of Hoofnagle & Hoofnagle. According to Diethelm & McKee, "The Hoofnagle brothers, a lawyer and a physiologist from the United States, who have done much to develop the concept of denialism, have defined it as the employment of rhetorical arguments to give the appearance of legitimate debate where there is none,5 an approach that has the ultimate goal of rejecting a proposition on which a scientific consensus exists".
The Hoofnagle's own blog dated 18 March 2007 is of interest for the record (and says it was "Adapted from Give Up Blog's post with permission", apparently referring to the earlier disputed post), the ScienceBlogs version of 8 September 2007 has the advantage of profiles of the authors and other useful links. ScienceBlogs was at the time an invitation-only blog network selected by the editors of Seed Magazine, not just random bloggers, and was generally reliable in areas of the author's expertise: in this instance it's the original source cited by an academic paper and a book on climate science. Both of which are also cited. His profile suggests Chris Hoofnagle may be one of the authors, but I've not so far confirmed this. . dave souza, talk 12:43, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Ambiguity?

Opening sentence: Climate change denial, or global warming denial, is denial, dismissal, or unwarranted doubt that contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change, including the extent to which it is caused by humans, its effects on nature and human society, or the potential of adaptation to global warming by human actions. (Is the intention to include those who deny "the potential of adaptation to global warming by human actions"?) Drsruli (talk) 03:29, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Book Question

Does a mention of "State of Fear" belong on this page? Drsruli (talk) 03:39, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

This Entire Wikipedia Article is Completely Misleading

Nothing here suggesting an improvement to the article; closed per WP:NOTFORUM.

This Wikipedia page takes it as 'fact' that there is climate change instead of just describing a different point of view based on true scientific evidence. And because of this slanted view - the content totally lacks credibility. Basically, a waste of time.

No different than a Wikipedia entry on 'Climate Change' that is entirely made up of how stupid people are that would actually believe in something as ridiculous as climate change.

Every negative entry in this article can be met with scientific retort... so the article should be written as a matter of viewpoint, not a matter of fact. MAGNUM 8-13 (talk) 18:09, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

This is just empty rhetorics. You can say exactly the same things about the article about the shape of the Earth, with the same justification, and people actually do say the same things there.
If you have retorts, publish them in reliable sources (WP:RS). When they are accepted by a consensus of scientists, come back here. Until then, this is just WP:OR and not allowed here. Bye. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:29, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia, and congratulations on your first edit. I've collapsed this conversation as contrary to the purpose of an article Talk page, but you're welcome to comment here if you have specific suggestions of how to improve it (e.g., "replace 'ABC...' in paragraph P with 'XYZ...', according to reliable reference R"). General complaints about the topic according to your own opinion is not what this page is for. Once again, welcome! Mathglot (talk) 18:51, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
@MAGNUM 8-13: Wikipedia can be a frustrating place, because everything needs to be supported by a reliable source. You are welcome to cite information from conservative media which rebuts the narrative in this article. Perhaps try The Federalist. Ooops....can't use that one. Maybe Breitbart News. Hmmm, never mind. Hey, I know a media source that might publish some rebuttal-worth content; it's the oldest newspaper in the United States, founded by a signer of the Declaration, and has the third largest circulation in the country...the New York Post! Sorry, don't use that one. Well, you can always use Mother Jones, the most left-wing publication in the US. Perfectly ok! Also, Wikipedia is very cautious of "fringe theories", like the "Covid from a lab" conspiracy theory, and that fringe theory that Hunter's laptop isn't Russian disinformation. Happy editing! Magnolia677 (talk) 17:56, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
While I share the frustration that we have fewer conservative news sources that meet our standards for reliable sourcing, I don't think it's relevant here. We're basing the key terminology on peer-reviewed sourcing instead. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:38, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
Merely using "denial" in the descriptive phrase is pejorative, expressing contempt for dissenting views. What is your null hypothesis? What is your global warming function? We don't advocate or deny. We reject or accept. We use science, not faith. We don't slander those with whom we disagree. 2601:643:4300:74D0:66D:5B92:C96D:2373 (talk) 06:29, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia has no choice but to follow the reliable sources, and denial is the term that they use, therefore, that is the term that Wikipedia must use. You say "denial" is pejorative, but if it is, your argument is not with Wikipedia, but with the preponderance of reliable sources who label the topic that way. On the other hand, the only person labeling it "pejorative" is you, and unfortunately, without backing your claim with sources, you're just whistling in the wind. This discussion continues to offer nothing in the way of improvement to the article and amounts to mere whining, and thus is contrary to talk page principles; it should be removed or collapsed. I'd do so myself, only I've already collapsed previous discussion once per WP:NOTFORUM so I'll hold off doing so again, though it richly deserves it, but I support anyone who wishes to do so. Mathglot (talk) 06:50, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

"Loaded" language

Tying the word "denial" to climate change is disingenuous at best and unnecessarily provocative. The only other common conjunction with "denial" is "Holocaust denial". By creating the phrase "climate change denial" authors are trying to put it on a par with Holocaust denial and imply that it is therefore the realm of conspiracy theorists with a malevolent agenda rather than genuinely skeptical people who remain unconvinced of the arguments that have been advanced so far or that the science is settled (science never is). 2607:FEA8:E3C1:FE00:7155:9364:73EA:F944 (talk) 17:54, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Tell it to the authors of the reliable sources we quote in the article. When you have convinced them, you can come back here.
Also, it is indeed the realm of conspiracy theorists with a malevolent agenda. I am sorry you have been misinformed into thinking it is not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:03, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Two definitions of the word of the word “sceptic” –
a sceptic is a person who has doubts about things that other people believe (Collins)
a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions (Oxford)
Using the word “denier” is ad hominem attack because it links the concept of global warming scepticism to the Holocaust and those individuals that claim that it never happened. It is a deliberate disingenuous attack of those that question anthropogenic global warming. Furthermore, the phrase “global warming” was purposely changed to “climate change” so that news-worthy weather events, hot or cold, wet or dry, could be attributed to increasing carbon dioxide levels. Consensus is not science. Is the modern day global warming period correlation or causation? The bottom line is that those who take an alternate view, by dictionary definition, are sceptics, just like Gallileo Galilei, the sceptic of his day when 100% of scientists believed in geocentricism. TerryTwmba (talk) 05:56, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
Many of the reliable sources we cite consider skeptic a euphemism, lending credibility to a pseudo scientific viewpoint. Discussion on Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, not on opinionb of individual editors. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 06:59, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
I am in accord with Femke's comment. PS - obviously, "global warming" causes "climate change"; it was the Republican George W. Bush administration that tried to emphasize "climate change" over "global warming" because CC sounded less alarming. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:09, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
I repeat: Tell it to the authors of the reliable sources we quote in the article. You cannot just willy-nilly change the content of the article to agree with your fence-sitting position instead of with the consensus position of the reliable sources. See WP:OR. Your conclusions from dictionaries and your ignorant opinion that climate change deniers have a somehow more realistic position than Holocaust deniers do not matter. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:33, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Edits suggestion

Remove the last line of first paragraph that positions climate change denial as the wrong point by calling it propaganda or add another line saying some meteorologists have found shifting climate to normal occurrence (I can quote a research paper just like they are giving the example of some social scientists) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.233.9.101 (talk) 05:13, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree, this article has significant NPOV problems. I would certainly take the word "unwarranted" out of the first sentence if we want to have any neutrality. Who gets to decide what's warranted and what's unwarranted? Fnordware (talk) 23:42, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
Sounds like you are arguing for WP:OR. Please note that WP:AE applies. --Hipal (talk) 00:40, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
Scientific consensus is determined mainly from climate scientists, not "some meteorologists" or "some social scientists". It's reliable sources (cited in the article) that determine what is unwarranted doubt in light of the body of peer-reviewed literature. —RCraig09 (talk) 02:46, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
Who gets to decide what's warranted and what's unwarranted? The reliable sources decide that. In this case, the reliable source which the article links to, the one which uses the word, the one we got the word from. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:34, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

New term for climate change denial

I often see climate change denial simply referred to as 'climate denial'. Should we add this to the list of "also known as" terms at the beginning of the article?

Examples:

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-climate-chaos/exxon-and-the-oil-industry-knew-about-climate-crisis/exxons-climate-denial-history-a-timeline/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/21/climate-denial-far-right-immigration

https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/climate-science-denial-why-and-what-to-do-about-it

https://www.beforetheflood.com/explore/the-deniers/the-climate-denial-industry/

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/climate-deniers-117th-congress/ Alexcoleridge (talk) 22:26, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

People who have changed their mind.

There should also be mentions of Patrick Moore, Michael Shellenberger & such people, who have changed their mind but in the other direction. At the moment the article is quite one sided and seems like just another tool to denigrate people that have a differing opinion. Sarka9000 (talk) 14:46, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Do you have reliable sources for this? HiLo48 (talk) 00:52, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Patrick Moore was an environmental activist, early member and also the president of Greenpeace. For Patrick we already have a Wikipedia article which brings this up, these days he is considered "denier":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore_(consultant)
And for Schellenberger, "In 2008, Time magazine named Shellenberger a Hero of the Environment.":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger
(It is mentioned for example, that he was an anti-nuclear environmentalist, founded Breakthrough Institute, which is “focused on making clean energy cheap through technology innovation to deal with both global warming and energy poverty.”)
Also for Schellenberger we have these TEDx talks, where he brings this up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALPEpV4w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciStnd9Y2ak Sarka9000 (talk) 04:12, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
In my opinion, Judith Curry would also be worth mentioning:
"In his 2010 profile on Curry, journalist Michael Lemonick reported that Curry began paying attention to outsider climate blogs after they attacked a 2005 paper she co-authored, which related increasing hurricane strength to global warming. Rather than dismissing their comments, she had discussions with attackers, including Christopher Landsea and Patrick Michaels. She began participating in outsider blogs, such as Climate Audit, where she found the discussions very interesting, as opposed to "preaching to the converted" at mainstream climate science blog RealClimate. Despite the amount of what she describes as "crankology", she thought the time was well spent to avoid groupthink.
Curry had previously accepted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Curry Sarka9000 (talk) 04:25, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for that info, but really, I'm not interested unless a leading climatologist changes their mind. HiLo48 (talk) 05:12, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
I fail to understand your position. Many of the people in this section at the moment are politicians, authors, activists and such. And you think a climatologist doesn't meet the criteria? Sarka9000 (talk) 14:44, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Maybe that whole section needs to be removed? I don't really see the advantage of a random selection of (mostly US) people being convinced that climate change is real. As written, it does not feel neutral with words like "admitted", using the euphemism "skeptic" and so forth. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:16, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
I think the point in this section is that many readers might be interested what kind of people belong to this "group" and what is the reasoning behind moving from one "camp" to the other, but I also think that there should be a wider perspective and neutral language (if not in direct quotes). But in current form maybe it could be removed. Sarka9000 (talk) 16:29, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
"Neutral language" is a bad idea for articles about pseudosciences. See WP:FALSEBALANCE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Agree. There is no point to this. It is enough to say that the consensus has become clearer and clearer, we do not need anecdotal evidence for it in the form of names of people. That sort of "reasoning" is what the denialists typically present, because they have nothing else. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Arguments and positions on global warming

One much used argument is missing, being the one that the consensus papers are badly argumented and/or use bad statistical methods and are just a tool to "nudge":

https://judithcurry.com/2015/12/20/what-is-there-a-97-consensus-about/

https://jcom.sissa.it/article/pubid/JCOM_1605_2017_A03/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2016/12/14/fact-checking-the-97-consensus-on-anthropogenic-climate-change/ Sarka9000 (talk) 04:45, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

These all critique quite old papers, so they're not really relevant for this article (and yes I know our article is very much out-of-date). Newer consensus papers (f.i. [13] see a higher agreement than 97% in the scientific literature. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:20, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
There have been similar posts & publications of most (if not all) of those consensus papers, I'll see if I can still find them somewhere on the net. But anyway, these arguments are still in quite active use. Sarka9000 (talk) 16:51, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Of course you can find people disagreeing with the science. The difficult task is to find reliable sources disagreeing with the science.
  • The Curry link is a primary source and a blog, so twice unuseable.
  • The JCOM link does not seem to say anything against the scientific consensus. Looks useless.
  • Forbes Contributors is a journalistic source - see WP:FORBESCON, and the author is someone who has profited from damaging the climate but has no expertise in climatology. Twice unuseable. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:59, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2023

Display opposing viewpoints, consensus is just globalist sanctioned, paid for 'science' just like Covid consensus. Cite; R Cortland 4-22-2023. R CORTLAND (talk) 20:04, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Also, seeing as you've apparently cited yourself, see WP:OR and WP:SOAP Cannolis (talk) 20:10, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Attribution

The attribution in the sentence beginning with Writing in a 2011 piece for The Nation, Naomi Klein argues that organized campaigning to undermine public trust in climate science is associated with conservative economic policies, introduced here, is not needed. That is a well-established fact, already noted by Merchants of Doubt. It should not be sourced to Klein in the lede but to Merchants in the body, see WP:LEDECITE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:04, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Agreed; done. Mathglot (talk) 07:26, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Richard Muller

Richard Muller is mentioned as somebody who has "changed his mind". There are several sources showing that this statement is false. It was a stunt to convince fence sitters. He has never changed his mind regarding the IPCC conclusions. One of many sources showing his stance before "coming out" as leaving "climate skepticism" : "Global warming. There is a consensus that global warming is real. There has not been much so far, but it’s going to get much, much worse. The thing I would tell the president is that the global warming, according to the global consensus — that’s the IPCC scientists, who won the Nobel Prize — the global warming of the future is going to come from the developing world. It’s the exploding economies of China and India and Asia that are going to be responsible for the CO2."

http://physicsandphysicists.blogspot.com/2008/11/q-with-richard-muller.html

and this source (2003)

"Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate. I would love to believe that the results of Mann et al. are correct, and that the last few years have been the warmest in a millennium."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2003/12/17/233493/medieval-global-warming/ Medieval Global Warming and finally this:

"November 3, 2011

“It is ironic if some people treat me as a traitor, since I was never a skeptic — only a scientific skeptic,” he said in a recent email exchange with The Huffington Post. “Some people called me a skeptic because in my best-seller ‘Physics for Future Presidents’ I had drawn attention to the numerous scientific errors in the movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ But I never felt that pointing out mistakes qualified me to be called a climate skeptic.”

Richard Muller, Climate Researcher, Navigates The Volatile Line Between Science And Skepticism" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:861:51CB:F150:D5B4:E7A6:AE05:F923 (talk) 13:07, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

“Denialers”

The word “denialers” in the lede should be corrected to “deniers”; “denialers” is not a word. 156.57.88.131 (talk) 14:48, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

 Done —RCraig09 (talk) 15:28, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

CLAIM

[14] WP:CLAIM does not have a caveat for people we disagree with

A caveat is not needed since WP:CLAIM does not even say we should avoid the word at all costs: Instead, it says we should consider rewriting. I considered that, and it is not necessary.

This is not about people we disagree with. Mo Brooks and Jim Inhofe are both ignorant laymen, and what they say is obviously false. (Obvious for everybody who has read Scientific consensus on climate change and Climate change denial, who knows basic science and can tell it from bullshit.)

  • sea level rise is caused not by melting glaciers but rather by coastal erosion and silt that flows from rivers into the ocean makes no sense unless one is very ignorant. Coastal erosion and flowing silt have not increased in the last decades, melting glaciers have.
  • he had debunked the alleged hoax when he brought a snowball with him in the U.S. Senate chamber and tossed it across the floor makes no sense unless one is innumerate. Global warming is about average temperatures. It does not say that all temperatures everywhere are higher every day than the previous day, or whatever fantasy Inhofe imagines. (This one is by far more ignorant than the first one.)

We do not do WP:FALSEBALANCE, and we do not pretend that the bloviations of buffoonish ideologues have scientific merit. Read WP:FRINGE and WP:CIR, and maybe WP:YWAB, if you still think that "claim" is inappropriate.

User:Spicemix replaced the "claim" language, following WP:BRD. I reverted it, following WP:BRD, and User:CWenger reverted the revert, ignoring WP:BRD and starting an edit war. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:08, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Brooks and Inhofe obviously don't know what they're talking about, but we can express that without using biased language. We don't need to beat our readers over the head with it. Should we ignore WP:BLP for these guys too? –CWenger (^ • @) 15:17, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
Should we ignore WP:BLP for these guys too is not an honest question because it suggests that I want to ignore WP:CLAIM. I am just reading CLAIM as it is. Instead, you are reading something into it which it does not say. I just explained that it does not say it, and you can check and find out it does not say it. "Claim" is a perfectly neutral word in the sense of WP:NPOV, and there is no "beating over the head" about it. Why should articles confirm to rules that do not exist? --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:28, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
Reading WP:CLAIM again I think you're right. I happen to disagree with the guideline and think we should avoid "claim" altogether and instead describe how somebody is incorrect rather than using biased language, but it probably allows it here. –CWenger (^ • @) 15:54, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
The essential point about WP:CLAIM is that it is a facet of WP:NPOV. In a sneaky way we are encouraging the reader to come to an opinion. This particular article is crammed with verifiable scientific facts demonstrating the reality of manmade climate change. Why should we want to poison it with non-neutral language? We should be saying we don't have confidence in the evidence. Also, and this is a connected point, we should not be intemperate with our language in this discussion. It is not for one editor to revert with the word "bullshit" and then when themself reverted to cry "edit-war". Spicemix (talk) 15:57, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
Thank you Spicemix, you expressed it more eloquently than I could have. It's almost like we're treating our readers as mindless and by using "claim" we're saying "brace yourself, the incoming statement is 100% wrong", rather then simply letting the denialists state their opinion and then refuting it. –CWenger (^ • @) 16:03, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment. I think people use "claim" to be polemical, to use rhetoric to try to advance an argument, but it's counterproductive. The reader is going to feel condescended to. Who needs it underlining that bringing a snowball into the Senate is not science? Cheers, Spicemix (talk) 18:18, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
Coming from WP:FTN, I'm absolutely with Hob Gadling here. WP:CLAIM doesn't even say we should avoid "claim", it says To say that someone asserted or claimed something can call their statement's credibility into question, by emphasizing any potential contradiction or implying disregard for evidence. In this particular case, we absolutely want to call their statement's credibility into question. Every case in this article we use "claim" or "claimed" describes a statement we would have no problem describing as false in Wikivoice. Loki (talk) 16:42, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
WP:CLAIM is part of the manual of style, a warning against misusing it, when WP:GEVAL is policy, about the importance of avoiding to present a false balance like if everything was opinion. It is appropriate to use wikivoice for facts but to describe as claims the contrarian arguments. The latter, however, would not even deserve mention unless they already are by decent sources that themselves put those claims in perspective (WP:BESTSOURCES, WP:DUE). —PaleoNeonate – 10:58, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Project 2025

Haven't seen any mention of this yet on Wikipedia.

Conservatives have already written a climate plan for Trump’s second term — Politico, 28 July 2023

The 920-page blueprint, whose hundreds of authors include former Trump administration officials, would go far beyond past GOP efforts to slash environmental agencies’ budgets or oust “deep state” employees.

Called Project 2025, it would block the expansion of the electrical grid for wind and solar energy; slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice office; shutter the Energy Department’s renewable energy offices; prevent states from adopting California’s car pollution standards; and delegate more regulation of polluting industries to Republican state officials.

If enacted, it could decimate the federal government’s climate work, stymie the transition to clean energy and shift agencies toward nurturing the fossil fuel industry rather than regulating it. It’s designed to be implemented on the first day of a Republican presidency. 72.14.126.22 (talk) 15:32, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Negative temperature anomalies in a warming climate

The occurence of negative temperature anomalies in a warming climate has been a point of contention by climate change deniers in the past. However, research conducted by a group of Swiss scientists in 2020 concluded, that from 2012 onwards, an anthropogenically forced signal of climate change can be found from global temperature anomaly data on the basis of any single day. [15] [16] Djacco1 (talk) 11:43, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Reversion of content re Ramaswamy's unsupported claim in Republican debate

User:Moxy, please explain your reversion of this edit. Ramaswamy's unsupported claim that "more people are dying of climate change policies than they actually are of climate change", with no other candidate countering him on it, joined with other content in my post, clearly qualify it as the latest conspiracy theory that is the subject of that section of the article. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:24, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Its junk news WP:NOTNEWS that has zero international relevant. think more junk should be trimmed....like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Moxy- 21:33, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
@Moxy: When 100% of candidates in a major party of a major country that emits the most greenhouse gases per capita (A) do not acknowledge that humans are causing climate change, and (C) do nothing to dispel the lie that climate change policies kill more people than climate change itself−−it is more than "news". Nor is it "junk". Do you understand A and B are completely against established science? —RCraig09 (talk) 22:04, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
Why do we care what some random politicians say? How is this related to "Conspiracy theories"? Moxy- 22:09, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
We document such notable things. It's perfectly good content, so I'm restoring it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:42, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
"more people are dying of climate change policies than they actually are of climate change" sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 22:55, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
American junk....it's a general problem with these articles full of non-experts Americans. Quotes from irrelevant people on the subject that will be historically Irrelevant in months O well. Moxy- 01:04, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
We document history here. Much of history is irrelevant to us now, but it tells us what happened at that moment of one or two seconds in the distant past. At the time, some of it didn't seem to have any ten-year relevance, but now we know it did and why it did, and the only way we know is because someone at the time wrote down what seemed like an unimportant factoid. That's why we document what RS say, and why we don't document what unreliable sources and junk sources say. That is trivia, but what's reported in multiple RS is not trivia.
When historians in the very near future want to place the blame for why civilization is gasping its last breath, our children's lives and security are shattered, and climate refugees and chaos disrupt every fucking thing, they will be able to read Wikipedia and know whom to blame because we documented what RS said at the time, even though it might not seem to have had much long-term relevance. We are not in a position to make that judgment, so we just do our job. We document the "sum total of human knowledge" as it's found in RS. We just do it, even if it makes no sense to us.
We're documenting how RS describe the foolishness of some very powerful and influential people. You don't have to like it, but this is what Wikipedia does. Maybe you don't belong here since you disagree. For someone who's been here so long, I am shocked at the extremely deficient CIR attitude you reveal. As long as your disagreement stays away from editing articles, no harm is done. As long as you don't gripe and waste our time, you can lurk, but do it quietly. Stick to articles that aren't controversial or where you disagree. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:44, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
... "American junk" .... "non-experts Americans" ... "irrelevant people" (all those who will be in the running for the U.S. presidency) ... "historically irrelevant" (in the critical stages of fighting climate change that will affect the future of the planet) ... all comments from someone with >121,000 edits. And I thought Canadians were supposed to be polite! :-) —RCraig09 (talk) 04:22, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
It does not belong in articles about science, like climate change, but this is an article about people who spout exactly this sort of junk. It does belong here. --Hob Gadling (talk)

Top science publisher withdraws flawed climate study

Top science publisher withdraws flawed climate study

Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:14, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks worthwhile, including the point that two of the paper's authors were "physicists Franco Prodi and Renato Angelo Ricci" who "were named as signatories of the World Climate Declaration, a text that repeated various debunked claims about climate change, an AFP fact check article found." That's Agence France-Presse, Climate 'declaration' recirculates debunked claims | Fact Check, Roland Lloyd Parry, Updated on Friday 09 September 2022. Both are worth adding . . dave souza, talk 19:09, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
Go for it. I'm traveling, so it's a bit difficult for me right now. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:37, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
Hope you have a good journey, I've got to give priority to several other articles so can't take this on for a bit yet.. . . dave souza, talk 15:32, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion about overlapping articles

For those watching this page, please take a look at a related discussion at WikiProject Climate Change here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climate_change#Update_Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change_with_IPCC_AR6. Over there we are currently discussing there how various similar articles fit together (and which ones may need merging), namely these articles which probably all overlap to some extent:

Your inputs would be welcome. EMsmile (talk) 08:31, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Article too long, needs culling

I think this article has become too long (65 kB (10031 words) "readable prose size"); it needs condensing and culling. There is content here that could be moved to climate change in the United States to make this article less focused on the U.S.. EMsmile (talk) 11:22, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

The Table of Contents seems to show the article is well organized and easy to navigate, so it's hard to eliminate any sections altogether. Maybe the older or more microscopically detailed sentences from non-notable people could be removed, per WP:NOTNEWS. But I think this topic is still important enough, and the article viewed enough, to warrant a "long" article (~474 views/day over the past 365 days).
Sadly and embarrassingly, the US is home to a political party that embodies denialism, so that much of the US content is proper in this ~high-level article. Since climate change is a global phenomenon, CC denial also has global importance, so it's not relevant only to Climate change in the United States. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:59, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Well, if the main climate change article can stick to a reasonable length (55 kB), then I think this sub-article should be able to as well. As per WP:TOOBIG, articles over 60 kB "probably should be divided or trimmed, although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material". I am particularly concerned given that we might merge some content from climate change conspiracy theory and from global warming controversy to here.
And yes, climate change denial is shocking in the U.S. but it also does exist in a bunch of other countries. Even my home country (Germany) has a fair share of it, amongst the far right (AfD) supporters. Not the main party of the country but still. So I think we should be mindful of not focusing this country on the U.S. more than necessary - making it seem like just (or mainly) a United States problem... EMsmile (talk) 22:26, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Looking at the current section sizes, the sections on "history" and on "lobbying" seem overly long maybe. See also related (new-ish) article history of climate change politics which we might be able to interlink with the history section better. (I am not actually sure if the article history of climate change politics is indeed needed or not, see talk page discussion there). EMsmile (talk) 22:28, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Removed further reading list

I've removed the "further reading" list as I would say it's impossible to curate it on an ongoing basis and making it globally relevant (not just publications about the U.S.).:

EMsmile (talk) 22:46, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

The section climate change conspiracy theories

I was just looking at the section on "climate change conspiracy theories". Firstly, this could be replaced by an excerpt from climate change conspiracy theories. Secondly, these last two paragraphs that were added recently are overly specific to the US and could be condensed or moved to climate change conspiracy theories, and grouping them in the respective type of conspiracy theory, i.e. getting rich / dying of CC policies.. I mean these two paragraphs : 

++++++++++

An April 15, 2023 tweet by Republican U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said climate change was a "scam" and that "fossil fuels are natural and amazing", saying that "there are some very powerful people that are getting rich beyond their wildest dreams convincing many that carbon is the enemy".[1] Her tweet included a chart that omitted carbon dioxide and methane[1]—the two most dominant greenhouse gas emissions.[2]

When a moderator at the August 23, 2023, Republican presidential debate asked the candidates to raise their hands if they believed human behavior is causing climate change, none raised their hands.[3] Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy claimed that "the climate change agenda is a hoax", and also that "more people are dying of climate change policies than they actually are of climate change"; none of his competitors challenged him directly on climate.[3] After investigating Ramaswamy's latter claim, a Washington Post fact check found no supporting evidence.[4] EMsmile (talk) 11:22, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Click at right to show/hide references

References

  1. ^ a b Greene, Marjorie Taylor [@RepMTG] (April 15, 2023). "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸" (Tweet). Hapeville, GA. Archived from the original on April 18, 2023 – via Twitter. described in Al-Arshani, Sarah (April 16, 2023). "Marjorie Taylor Greene says climate change is a 'scam' and that fossil fuels are 'amazing'". Business Insider. Archived from the original on April 18, 2023.
  2. ^ "Overview of Greenhouse Gases". EPA.gov. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2016. Archived from the original on April 17, 2023. See pie chart for carbon dioxide and methane emissions totalling more than 90% of greenhouse gas emissions.
  3. ^ a b Peoples, Ssteve (24 August 2023). "Presidential debate shows how GOP candidates are struggling to address concerns about climate change". AP News. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023.
  4. ^ Kessler, Glenn (25 August 2023). "Vivek Ramaswamy says 'hoax' agenda kills more people than climate change". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Ramaswamy's staff did not answer our queries on this statement — though it responded to another one. That's often suspicious. It usually means the staff doesn't have data to back up the boss's claim. Despite diligent searching, we could not find any study that accounted for such deaths. ... He earns Four Pinocchios.
EMsmile (talk) 11:22, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
These two paragraphs are specific to the section /* Conspiracy theories */, which is not unduly long. The content shows how conspiracy theories have reached the highest levels of government in the U.S. which emits more GHGs per person than almost all other countries—and is therefore important to this article as a whole. Excerpting always brings the problem of how the excerpted material "fits" into the flow of the article, which in this case is particularly problematic because of the vagueness of the opening paragraphs of Climate change conspiracy theory. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:44, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Well, the article is overly long and bloated (see my comments in the other section of the talk page). Those particular politicians in the U.S. are not that important that these 2 examples should take up that much space and a quote box on the right. After all, this article is called "climate change denial" and not climate change denial in the U.S.. Yes, its per capita emissions are high but so are those of other countries. If we looked we could probably find similarly stupid quotes from all sorts of politicians around the world, they probably exist from politicians in Brazil, China, Hungary, even Germany (e.g. from far right politicians). Let's try to make this article less U.S. centric and move less important examples e.g. to climate change in the United States or its sub-articles. And once the merger is done with Climate change conspiracy theory then the disadvantages of an excerpt become a mute point. EMsmile (talk) 22:21, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm not against the principle of shortening this article, but "those particular politicians" are extremely notable because they are the leaders of the dominant party in the highest-emitting-per-capita major nation in the world (see graphic). Greene is effectively a major force in that party, and with Trump, an epicenter of climate stupidity that is epitomized in the Green quotebox. Yes, we "could probably find similar quotes" from others—"If we looked", but it's not about quotes per se; it's about speaker notability and global influence. These two paragraphs aren't among the ones that should be culled. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:40, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Merge global warming controversy into here?

has been proposed by @EMsmile

  • Support because they are closely related topics and it would get rid of a title with the word "controversy" Chidgk1 (talk) 18:48, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose Denialism as opposed to skepticism and alternative explanations are quite different animals. Greglocock (talk) 20:58, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
In my opinion, denialism is the overarching term here. Things like "skepticism" and "alternative explanations" are just variants of denialism. I think this comes out quite well in global warming controversy and also in climate change conspiracy theories. I do worry though that climate change denial is currently overly long and bloated and would require some trimming before other content could be merged to here. EMsmile (talk) 22:16, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
See also the explanation that we give in our own terminology section to explain that "skepticism" is really just part of denial: Climate change denial#TerminologyEMsmile (talk) 22:35, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, skepticism is fundamental to the scientific method. See Cargo cult science, and in particular read what Feynman said about integrity in his speech. Greglocock (talk) 23:11, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
You're confusing things. I think the terminoloy is well described in the first paragraph of our terminology section: "Climate change skepticism" and "climate change denial" refer to denial, dismissal or unwarranted doubt of the scientific consensus on the rate and extent of global warming, its significance, or its connection to human behavior, in whole or in part. Though there is a distinction between skepticism which indicates doubting the truth of an assertion and outright denial of the truth of an assertion, in the public debate phrases such as "climate skepticism" have frequently been used with the same meaning as climate denialism or contrarianism EMsmile (talk) 23:31, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Support this or similar proposal. Global warming controversy should be eliminated as "controversy" is a fabrication of deniers. Climate change denial is as good a destination as any, for some of the content from Global warming controversy. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:26, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose While denial and conspiracies is a subset of the whole, the controversy also encompasses the political and economic struggle to figure out how to translate the very real problem into action (or inaction). If anything denial and conspiracies stem/arise from the controversy not the other way around. -- Kim D. Petersen 13:54, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
What you describe is neither the scope of this article currently, nor are those "controversies": They are just discussions, people grappling with difficult decision making processes. You could otherwise likewise have articles called "renewable energy controversies" or "nuclear power controversies" (actually there is an article called Renewable energy debate and one called nuclear power debate). Do you want one called climate change debate? I can't see that to be workable. Actually that term currently redirects to here. - I think those issues around climate change are best discussed in the relevant sub-articles and then linked to from the main article on climate change. I.e. discussions on how to best do climate change mitigation should be at climate change mitigation. Discussions on what individuals can do to help should be at individual action on climate change and so forth. Otherwise what you would be creating is a new list type article which would list all topics that are relevant to climate change and that are being debated & discussed. We already have e.g. Glossary of climate change as well as Index of climate change articles.
I wonder if what you are thinking is needed could instead be shown at climate action. I've just started a section there about the barriers to climate action. Not sure if it'll work like this. EMsmile (talk) 20:45, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
Comment: Given the comments above about inappropriate naming, would it be better to rename global warming controversy, rather than merging the two articles? Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 18:29, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Hi, if I understood you right then your proposal is similar to one I made yesterday on the talk page of global warming controversy here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Global_warming_controversy#Some_culling_and_updating_(ahead_of_potential_merger). I had written there "An alternative option could be to rework this article to become one that just lists past and ongoing debates (calling it purposefully debates not controversies). It could then be renamed "climate change debates" and contain quite a few excerpts. It could be a bit like a landing page to point people to the right sub-pages. A bit similar to climate change action (but longer). Thoughts?". Sorry for having the same/similar discussion on two talk pages. It's just hard to know who has which page on their watchlist, that's why I thought it's good to write on that talk page as well. EMsmile (talk) 16:19, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Support : Given discussion at global warming controversy, I now support the idea of moving SOME relevant parts of that article into Climate change denial. Other aspects of that article would be more appropriate elsewhere. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 19:58, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Support Coming from the move discussion at the other page, I greatly support this proposal. The entire notion of a separate article on "controversy" or "debates" is in contravention of the scientific consensus that there is no major debate on whether climate change should be tackled as a serious problem. The part about "Debates over most effective response to warming" that isn't about denial is just a duplicate of Economic analysis of climate change. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 06:44, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
OK, so where do we go from here now? Note on a related discussion that my move proposal at the talk page of global warming controversy was now closed and result was "not moved": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Global_warming_controversy#Requested_move_22_November_2023 . So what's the way forward now or do we just leave everything as it is (not very satisfying)? EMsmile (talk) 22:40, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
The above arguments that are on-point, favor dismantling the GWControversy article. The issue is that a "controversy" doesn't really exist, so the arguments that don't directly address this issue should not carry weight for consensus. The GWControversy article should be merged out of existence and replaced with a redirect to CCdenial. A fraction of what's still in the GWControversy article might be moved... somewhere, not necessarily here. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
OK by me. Just not sure if we can say that consensus has been reached. I think I'll copy your comment across to the talk page of global warming controversy and see if final consensus can be declared there. EMsmile (talk) 09:30, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
I've removed the merger tags now as there is no content left at that article that could be moved to here. EMsmile (talk) 16:19, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Climate obstruction and delay

In recent years there as been published a growing sum of papers and books on the obstruction of climate policy, of which climate change denial is and has been an important part, but only one part. Recent research is broadening its scope to include more means to obstruct meaningful climate policy, for example climate delay. While climate denial is still growing strong (especially ideologically motivated denial), especially business now focuses more on non-denial-delay and disinformation, because it is much more credible than outright denial of facts that have been established for decades. I think Wikipedia should reflect that, because this entry cannot cover the whole action and strategies of the climate change counter movement and is therefore limited. In my opinion, there should be another entry on the various ways of climate obstruction, to bundle every part of it. As many companies drop the hard denial and use softer disinformation with half-truths, strategies of delay, and feigned support for climate mitigation this article on its own becomes increasingly to narrow. I think, currently we lack an overview article that bundles all the different strategies of climate obstruction to guide readers to articles on the different strategies, they search for (such as climate denial, climate delay and so on) Literature for writing that entry could be:

Ekberg et al: Climate Obstruction. How Denial, Delay and Inaction are Heating the Planet. Routledge 2023

Lamb et al: Discourses of climate delay. Global Sustainability 2020, doi:10.1017/sus.2020.13

What do you think? --Andol (talk) 17:15, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Interesting idea. I think User:Chidgk1 proposed something similar somewhere: to create an article called climate change misinformation. Personally, I am hesitant to create a new article (they usually linger with low pageviews), I am more active on merging smaller articles together. Note we also have psychology of climate change denial. And by the way the article climate change denial is way too long at the moment and needs to be reworked (see my comment above). EMsmile (talk) 21:03, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
This is the related discussion thread that Chidgk1 started at the talk page of WikiProject Climate Change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climate_change#Having_the_right_articles_and_redirects_about_misinformation_and_disinformation EMsmile (talk) 08:51, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Hm, climate change misinformation could be even better than my suggestion. It's scope would be even broader. Andol (talk) 20:14, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
What would be the structure (table of content) of such an article? EMsmile (talk) 21:50, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
Just a first thought, but important parts would be "History", "The Climate Change Countermovement (grouped by actors such as corporations, think tanks, contrarian scientists, front groups, astroturfing groups, conservative/right wing politicians, media and blogs, social media (following Dunlap and McCright)" and then the different ways of disinformation, such as denial, delay (following Lamb et al.), lobbyism, greenwashing etc. I think, some parts could be taken from the current article on denial (e.g. the whole part on lobbying), so that the focus here would be stringently on denial. Andol (talk) 22:46, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
That sounds like the new article would overlap a lot with climate change denial. Or would you suggest to move sections from climate change denial to the new article? Would climate change misinformation be the daughter article for climate change denial or vice versa? The article climate change denial is currently way too long, so if content could sensibly be moved to a sub-article (or a parent article) that would be good. EMsmile (talk) 09:15, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with the caption for the image in the lead

I disagree with this recent edit as I think the current version of the caption is not as clear to a global audience as my version was. My proposal was brought a snowball to the U.S. Senate floor in 2015 in the middle of winter to "provide a real life example that the globe is not warming". User:RCraig09 changed it to (how it was previously): displayed a snowball on the U.S. Senate floor, explaining, "so it’s very, very cold out. Very unseasonable". It was February in Washington, D.C.. My thinking:

  • "Brought" is a simpler word than "displayed" but OK, could live with "displayed".
  • That statement about "very cold" is very unclear for anyone who is not into U.S. politics. What was he trying to say? What is the sentence "it was February" meant to say? This is not winter everywhere in the world but middle of summer in the Southern hemisphere.
  • Note that the same image is also used for the lead of Psychology of climate change denial. There my proposed caption was brought a snowball to the U.S. Senate floor in 2015 in the middle of winter to "provide a real life example that the globe is not warming". He seemed to imply with this action that the continued existence of snow in the United States could be used to disprove that climate change is real.
  • By the way, I don't think it's good practice that both articles use the same lead image. EMsmile (talk) 15:52, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
Directly quoting the denier is more effective than an oblique reference. Separately, mentioning both February and Washington, D.C. makes it crystal clear that it was winter. We disagree about how intelligent our audience is. Separately, "He seemed to imply..." is blatant editorial commentary. Separately, an image may well be appropriate for use in multiple articles; I'd be interested to see established Wikipedia policies or guidelines that say it's not "good practice", or just another subjective editorial opinion. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:48, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
I expected you to disagree with me (as you were the one who chose the image and caption in the first place if I remember right). That statement "so it’s very, very cold out. Very unseasonable" is very unclear. I guess it was sarcastic but this doesn't come out clearly. Remember we are writing for the general public. I only figured out what he meant AFTER reading that CNN article. I don't think we should repeat this statement in the caption for the climate change denial and also for Psychology of climate change denial.
Why do you insist on saying "it was February", why not simply "it was in winter"? Not all readers would know either if snow in winter is typical for that location in the U.S. or not.
Come to think of it, I think it's basically not a suitable photo for either article. Let's brainstorm and come up with a better one.
Regarding the lead image in general, it is meant to tell the reader that they have arrived at the right place. For that reason, in most cases, the lead image is unique to the article title. Show me any featured article where two featured articles use the same lead image? I would argue this is not good practice.
How is this image suitable for Psychology of climate change denial, in which sense does it convey any of the psychology aspects? If it does then why isn't it explained in the caption?
I am curious to also hear from others about this image and caption. EMsmile (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm don't know that this is the best image to have in this article, but the point of this anecdote is that Inhofe (a fairly commonly quoted denier in a very public space) has no idea what he's talking about. He was somehow trying to show that because there was snow, there is no global warming. He was not being sarcastic, he was (by all accounts and by impressions based on what he's said elsewhere) totally sincere; he's just an idiot. - Parejkoj (talk) 00:05, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Yes but this doesn't come out clearly in the caption for someone who is not familiar with US politics. They think here is a senator and here is the U.S. senate so this must be serious/true/sincere. I thought my proposed caption was better but it was reverted as being too editorial: brought a snowball to the U.S. Senate floor in 2015 in the middle of winter to "provide a real life example that the globe is not warming". He seemed to imply with this action that the continued existence of snow in the United States could be used to disprove that climate change is real.. How can we explain to readers who know little about the topic why he brought the snowball and what he was trying to say and how idiotic that was (without being "editorial"?) EMsmile (talk) 08:43, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
I think we could totally just remove the image: it's a funny and sad anecdote about a prominent denier, but as you say, it rather falls flat for people who don't know who Inhofe is or who don't follow US politics. Having this picture at the top of this article says "here's an example of stupid stuff deniers do", but I don't know that we really need that. - Parejkoj (talk) 18:13, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

While you are having fun with this, at least he didn't make the following ludicrous claim in 2000 According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. "Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said. That is the level of stupidity we are dealing with. Greglocock (talk) 20:56, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Since "denial" is an abstraction, it is difficult to find an image of something physical that would represent "denial". But a picture that says "here's an example of stupid stuff deniers do" is exactly what this article needs. The Inhofe picture is the perfect vision of the righteous-but-ignorant denier. Within a few hours, I'll add to the caption a reliable source's response to Inhofe's stunt that should further explain the obvious. (I reverted the earlier caption because it was a Wikipedia editor's explanation, and not a reliable source's explanation.) —RCraig09 (talk) 21:18, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
The new image caption is better than before although I do worry that it got rather long now. If we need this many words to explain what the image is showing then this might mean it's not the right image to use. I'd like to brainstorm to find a better one. But in the meantime, I would like to propose to make the caption clearer still. This is because the quote "very unseasonable" is just so confusing. He was meant to be ironic, right? How about like this (in bold the main differences): American Senator Jim Inhofe, a well-known climate change denier, displayed a snowball on the U.S. Senate floor in winter 2015, in a town where snow in winter is normal, saying "it’s very, very cold out"[1] as if to mock predictions of global warming. He also ignored the fact that local weather in a single location is different from global climate change.[2] (with the two refs still to be put back in).
Mentioning that the year 2015 was warmer than previous years is not necessary; because even if that year wasn't a new temperature record, the whole snowball stunt would have still been equally silly.
I think my wording is not "editorial" but it explains what happens to the readers, and is no different to what the CNN article said or implied. EMsmile (talk) 23:09, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Inhofe did not mean it ironically; he was serious in his belief that cold weather refuted global warming. We did not "need" the caption to be longer in the first place, so a longer caption in no way implies that it's the "~wrong image"! Your also-lengthy proposal arguably violates WP:SYNTH by adding wiki-editorial commentary—unnecessarily—to what the present caption makes painfully clear to the reader using reliable sources. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:33, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
You seem unable to put yourself into someone else's shoes: What you find "painfully clear" is not clear to me, and possibly others. Why not give it the benefit of the doubt? Also, I am not the only one to suggest that the snowball image is sub-optimal (e.g. scroll up to see the comment by User:Parejkoj). The wording of "very unseasonable" is not clear. And how can you be sure that he was not being ironic/sarcastic? When I read the CNN article I see there "He then resumed his speech with a smile on his face that indicated he was quite pleased with his demonstration." (I don't doubt that he is serious about climate change denial). Anyhow, the information from the CNN article is too short to really know what was going on.
The CNN article also said "as a real life example that the globe is not warming." I think this sentence would be worth quoting and this is what I meant with "as if to mock predictions of global warming" - which I don't think is editorial but saying the same thing as the CNN article but with other words. But if in doubt, then why not quote that sentence word for word? Could be like this: ...displayed a snowball on the U.S. Senate floor in winter 2015, in a town where snow in winter is normal, saying "it’s very, very cold out"[1] which was probably meant to be "a real life example that the globe is not warming." EMsmile (talk) 09:32, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
NB: this image was not the lead image until 10 December which is when I moved it there, something which I now regret. At that time, the caption was this which in my opinion was very unclear: Republican U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe holds a snowball on the U.S. Senate floor to show that "it's very, very cold out. Very unseasonable." It was February 26.. The new caption is indeed better. The exact same image is also at Psychology of climate change denial so the caption there also needs to be improved in the end. (have changed that now) EMsmile (talk) 09:32, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
Inhofe is a non-scientist. His audience was non-scientists. His message was sarcastic, no ironic, and—putting ourselves in the shoes of a those non-scientists—needed no further explanation.
The image here actually needed no further explanation, especially a wiki-editorial explanation.
The sentence re 2015 being the warmest year globally, puts Inhofe's stunt in perspective: the lead image's caption could show Inhofe was dead wrong. The image is perfect for showing the righteous ignorance of deniers. 17:07, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
For comparison, the Imhofe image also appears in the German Wikipedia article about this topic (but not in the lead). There, the caption is quite simple and rather good, I would say (except it misses out the explanation on who Imhofe is): Jim Inhofe in 2015 during a Senate speech where he used a snowball to argue against the existence of global warming. (translated with Deepl). EMsmile (talk) 10:25, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Options for a different lead image

Data has been cherry picked from short periods to falsely assert that global temperatures are not rising. Blue trendlines show short periods that mask longer-term warming trends (red trendlines). Blue dots show the so-called global warming hiatus.
A cartoon to describe the different stages and behaviours of climate change denial from "what is climate change?" to "nothing is proven!" to "even if it exists...it's a huge opportunity for business!".

For comparison: the main climate change article uses this image for the section on denial: EMsmile (talk) 09:39, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

For comparison as well: this is the image I have now added to psychology of climate change denial - I think it fits really well there: EMsmile (talk) 09:50, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
The cherry-picking image shows one tiny aspect of denial, less suitable for denial as a whole, and is technical in nature.
The cartoon shows broader, non-techy reasoning. However, it has WP:PRIMARY sourcing issues because the sourcing is essentially a caricaturist (Mester)'s representation and not a climate analyst's reliable description of denial. It leaves open the question of how the caption could source the cartoon's content, without resorting to wiki-editorializing.
The Inhofe image is iconic, and should be retained somewhere in this article if not in the lead.
Wherever used, the cartoon's caption should not merely regurgitate the image's content verbatim. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:37, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
I've changed the cartoon's caption at psychology of climate change denial now and also above. Compare also with the caption that is used for this cartoon at the German Wikipedia article: "Cartoon by Gerhard Mester on the different stages of climate change denial" (translated by Deepl) EMsmile (talk) 16:37, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Sentence on "false flags"

I am not really happy with this sentence that was added earlier this month. What is meant with "false flags" and does it really work for us to have one statement with six references? Should it be broken up into more specific statements rather than all lumped together? I mean this sentence:

False flags and controlling the weather: Extreme weather events, including wildfires and floods, have been attributed by conspiracy theorists to laser beams, deliberate actions by government or the antifa movement, and weather engineering such as cloud seeding.[1][2][3][4][5][6] EMsmile (talk) 21:30, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Shayan Sardarizadeh and Mike Wendling (2023-08-16). "Hawaii wildfires: 'Directed energy weapon' and other false claims go viral". BBC.
  2. ^ Tiffany Hsu (2023-08-30). "Falsehoods Follow Close Behind This Summer's Natural Disasters". New York Times.
  3. ^ "Pilots get "really violent" threats after online rumors wrongly pin devastating floods on cloud seeding". CBS News. 2022-04-08.
  4. ^ Marco Silva (2022-07-07). "Australia floods: Unfounded cloud seeding claims spread online". BBC News.
  5. ^ Laura Paddison and Paula Newton (2023-01-17). "A climate conspiracy theorist said the government deliberately lit wildfires. He just pleaded guilty to starting 14 himself". CNN.
  6. ^ Jason Wilson (2020-09-20). "Officials baselessly linked 'antifa' to arson before wildfires, documents show". Guardian.

EMsmile (talk) 21:30, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with false flags, which is about actions by humans blamed on other humans. Laser beams and so on is about naturally caused events (on which humans in general have an influence via climate change) blamed on specific humans. The title sounds like WP:OR. The first source connects the claims to politically motivated activists seeking to downplay the potential impact of climate change, so it is not WP:SYNTH to add it here. (I cannot access the second, and the third makes it difficult for me, so I stopped checking.) That does not mean it is relevant enough to include. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. I've deleted that section now because it's unclear and messy; would take too long to tidy up; likely repetitive with what's there already. EMsmile (talk) 08:31, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Content about climate change denial scientists based on the memoirs of Kevin Trenberth

I plan to add a bit of content about climate change denial scientists based on the memoirs of Kevin Trenberth. Link to his memoirs here (well worth a read): http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7sf3160, see e.g. page 95. This is what Kevin wrote to me by e-mail: "I have a section in my memoir on deniers of climate change: see attached. These are the main ones I encountered although there is much more in memoir about problems when the Denver Post wrote an editorial about me and I was subject of numerous talk-back shows. - The current section on deniers seems much too long. The web site https://skepticalscience.com/ should probably be featured more prominently."

Regarding that website, we currently only have it under "See also" (Skeptical Science). I am trying to think of ways to give the website skepticalscience.com more limelight. What I’d need is a publication about it that talks about its impacts, I guess. I wonder if the title of the website is a bit problematic now: when I see “skeptical”, I equate that with “climate change denier”. But his website is to fight back against climate change denial. Wondering if they've ever thought about changing their name. EMsmile (talk) 10:04, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

It is the denialists that should change their moniker from "skeptics" to "denialists". Scientific skeptics have complained about science deniers stealing their word, quite a while ago. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Yea, probably too late though. I think the climate change deniers have done a thorough job of hijacking that term for themselves. We'll probably have to accept that and find a different term to what used to be called "scientific skeptics". Maybe "investigators of science" or "curious scientists" or whatever. EMsmile (talk) 22:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Won't fly. It's the accepted name since the 1980s. There have been falied attempts to rename them ("Pseudoskeptics" from opponents, "Brights" from proponents). But this is too far away from improving the article, so, let's stop it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:46, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
you're right. :-)
If we want to add some statements about the skepticalscience website and work, we could perhaps use these publications (John Cook is a key author and was founder of skepticalscience long ago).
  • Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Ecker, U. K. H., Albarracín, D., Amazeen, M. A., Kendeou, P., Lombardi, D., Newman, E. J., Pennycook, G., Porter, E. Rand, D. G., Rapp, D. N., Reifler, J., Roozenbeek, J., Schmid, P., Seifert, C. M., Sinatra, G. M., Swire-Thompson, B., van der Linden, S., Vraga, E. K., Wood, T. J., Zaragoza, M. S. (2020). The Debunking Handbook 2020. Available at https://sks.to/db2020. DOI:10.17910/b7.1182
  • Cook, J. (2020). Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change: How to Understand and Respond to Climate Science Deniers. New York, NY: Citadel Press. EMsmile (talk) 10:22, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
I've added that content now from Kevin's memoirs where he listed names of well-known climate change scientists who can be labelled as deniers. I think this is useful information. (their climate change denial views are mostly visible in their Wikipedia articles if people click through to that) EMsmile (talk) 10:35, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Moving some content of psychology of climate change denial to here

I know this article is already too long, and I plan to look for ways of condensing and culling in the next week or so. But in the meantime, I've looked at psychology of climate change denial more closely, trying to strip that one back to the pure psychology content. There are two sections where I feel we have a lot of overlap to here and that maybe some of that should be moved to here: the content in this section (conspiracies): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_climate_change_denial#Conspiratorial_beliefs and this one (which is about terminology and "soft climate change denial" (used to be a separate article but was merged)): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_climate_change_denial#Soft_climate_change_denial . Thoughts? EMsmile (talk) 22:19, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

OK, I've brought across some content from the psychology of climate change denial and reworked that one a bit. I think that's probably all that I'd bring over from that article for now. EMsmile (talk) 09:15, 7 February 2024 (UTC)


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