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RE: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#.22RfC:_Oppressive_editing_and_page_ownership.22_at_Talk:Global_warming

As I wrote at the ANI started by 2over0, I support global warming 100%, but I think it is a really bad idea to squelch dissent. Global warming editors have a good reason to complain, for years, one side has been unequally represented on the global warming pages, and editors have been unfairly blocked repeatedly. The behavior has been so bad that journalists have written negative articles about global warming editing on wikipedia.

2over0, let editors vent their frustration here, or it will only lead to bigger drama and frustration later.

Moderating conversations is harder in the short term, but squelching dissent always makes for much more drama and headache later. Ikip 18:49, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Airing grievances is fine - in fact, that is why we have Dispute resolution. It is only that it is being done here and distracting from discussion of improvements to Global warming. The archived discussion remains available for anyone who would like to start a related thread at any of the several venues mentioned above, or anywhere else appropriate that I might have missed. Thank you, though, for your input - the possibility that it could in the long term be more productive to let the discussion play out here is why I asked. - 2/0 (cont.) 19:00, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree completely with Ikip, above. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 22:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ikip's comment is based on a fundamental fallacy. S/he says, "one side has been unequally represented", but in the science of global warming, there is only one 'side': the science is now settled; those who try to dispute that are not working, published, practicing scientists, but bloggers, journalists, politicians, members of the public, and a very vocal minority paid to do so by Big Oil dollars. The place where there are two sides to the argument (those who get the science and those who don't) is in Public opinion on climate change. This article is the parent article about the science. There are sub-articles for all the education, politics and discussion that is going on worldwide. --Nigelj (talk) 22:49, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is your opinion. There really is no basis for excluding one entire side of an issue or debate. the fact that you would say that there is only one side, highlights the real issue at this entry. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 22:56, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Ikip and Sm8900, seems like some folks are working a POV with no conclusive source support, that's a serious issue with behavior reminiscent of owning the article. Particularly where scientific opinions are concerned. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 00:56, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I think that Sm8900 and ZuluPapa5 have lost me in their "opinions" and "POV with no conclusive source support" statements. The article seems pretty well representative of the science behind the issue (which IMO is more useful than a summary of journalists' opinions), and being based on the scientific reports, it is certainly conclusively supported by its sources. Am I just misunderstanding what you are trying to say? Awickert (talk) 03:09, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Awickert, that comment sounds a tiny bit disingenuous; is it possible that you already do know what we mean? anyway, we mean that a group of editors have prevented this entry from fairly presenting both sides of the debate on this. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 05:41, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, then I did understand what you said. But I don't agree. I see this article as fairly presenting all scientific sides to the debate (albeit very much simplified). I don't see it presenting all political sides. And I think that this is OK because the politicians aren't the experts and this covers the science. Is your point that this should cover public controversy in a broader way? (Note that outside the USA, I'm not even sure if I know what the public controversy is.) Anyway, I think that this is the root of the problem - you and ZP5 are saying that others are being biased, while we say that we are trying to be unbiased by including only science and none of the political mishmash. Awickert (talk) 06:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@ Awickert: pardon me for arguing for a side of the debate that I happen to think is wrong, but you seem to be defending a content fork that is dangerously close to being a POV-fork. If this were my decision to make, the main article global warming would be a discussion of the political debate, and the scientific aspects of global warming would be shuffled off into a sub-section or a minor secondary article called, say, 'Global warming research'. That's because global warming (properly understood) is primarily a social/political issue: the science of global warming was around for a good decade or two before it got any public notice, most people today are not interested in the scientific aspects except to the extent that scientists give thumbs up or thumbs down to particular political points, and the problem itself is a political problem that requires political solutions - scientists' only business here is to confirm that the effect is real, and leave the solution to the effect to the rest of the world. Yet you seem to be arguing that the main article on global warming should be strictly about the science, with no reference to the political debates at all (except for what amounts to a cast-off in the last section). I cannot see any justification for that belief; please enlighten me if I am missing something.

I think the approach best suited to wikipedia policy would be to move the current Global warming controversy article to this page, and merge this page into Scientific opinion on climate change. That would resolve the appearance that this is PoV-forking without doing anything to minimize the power of the scientific perspective. What problems would you have with that? --Ludwigs2 07:15, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm about to go to bed, so I hope that this is coherent. (Important to note: I am not one of the main contributors to this article.)

• This article has been strictly about the science for many years, and that since the subject is rooted in public interest in science, having the global warming article about science seems OK to me. But (2 paragraphs down), I do think that we can reach some agreement.

• "content fork that is dangerously close to being a POV-fork": I would disagree because citing a wide swath of scientific publications IMO satisfies WP:NPOV, but I believe that you disagree with me because you believe "global warming" to be more importantly a social phenomenon than a scientific conclusion.

The first bullet is legacy, let's forget that. The second is more important. I think it's better for Wikipedia to be an educational resource, showing people what the professional scientists are doing, than to simply cite newspapers (many of which bungle the facts) for information on an ongoing debate that they probably already know about and may already have an opinion about. I therefore feel that forking this whole article off to a research section would be an unfortunate, and could turn this article from a good, scientific one into a mass media extravaganza.

Here's my thought: In a heated issue, is is better to dispassionately present the facts as the experts best know them instead of reiterating the opinions of commentators (who have varying degrees of qualification to competently comment). So if anything, I would add more information on research to this article instead of less. But facts can also be about what politicians are going to do about the issue, and that is important as well. So I wouldn't mind reworking both the "Responses to global warming" and "Debate and skepticism" sections into a single section about response proposals and related political debate. But this would need to be discussed by everyone here, as it would be a non-minor change.

My view in short: In matters of science in an encyclopedia, science should not be subordinate to popular belief. In matters of politics, facts should be presented dispassionately. Awickert (talk) 08:03, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further discussion

one of these days I'm going to have to put a "Warning! Political Scientist as Work!" sign on my sig. I don't disagree with anything you've said here, but from my perspective the observation that numbers of voices are loudly bungling the issue is an interesting and important fact - more important in some ways than the facts that are being bungled. the scientific debate over global warming is pretty much a done deal; to my knowledge there hasn't been a fully accreditable scientific statement against global warming since the mid-90s. The political and social debates over global warming, however, are just now getting their second wind, and you can expect them to continue for years yet. besides which, the only reason global warming is a public issue at all is because it pits the vested interests of corporate entities, nation/states, and the mass of humanity against each other in political spheres. scientists need to tell us whether global warming is real, yes, but how are scientists going to help us deal with the balance between (say) China's deep interest in industrial growth and the geometric increase in pollution that entails?

matters of science should not be subordinate to popular belief, sure; but the question is which science we are talking about. I'd say this problem falls squarely in poli sci territory, not climatology.

but you're right, it's way too late to debate these things effectively. pick it up again tomorrow. --Ludwigs2 08:30, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is Global warming primarily a political/social issue? If there were no science, then what would the politicians and political commentators be talking about? Scientists aren't giving the thumbs up and thumbs down, they're the ones going to the economist, who go up the politicians, and who ask whether they can get a thumbs up or down on a certain policy. It would be nice if it were the other way around, and the politicians and political commentators went up the scientists and asked: look at my news report or my slideshow, is it remotely accurate? From the news sources, even reporters reporting on "a recent study found such and such", seem to get the facts wrong or misrepresented. However, I think we could do a better job describing the politics of global warming, but I don't think it should be the main focus of this article.

Is having the science be the focus a PoV content fork? Everything is a PoV fork, and maybe it's just the epidemiology PoVed part of me that saying that this mentality is spreading like a disease. How often do we get a proposal to include, say Climategate, and that to oppose would eventually lead to a NPOV violation? Why can't the discussion's subject stick to relevance, or notability, and not move to embittered PoVed editors who warp and oppress and manipulate and lie? (We haven't got lies yet, have we? Ludwigs2, you lie that a resolve is to have politics at the forefront. !. ?. :P. ?.)

You're right, let's assume you're right. To resolve this PoV-fork we'll move Global warming controversy here and move Global warming to GW research merged with Scientific opinion on climate change. Global warming controversy is over 120 KBs long with several PoV-forks that are now being proposed to be moved back (Climate change denial, Climate change consensus). Politics of global warming, well we don't even have enough editors interested in objectively describing an un-objective issue to build it beyond the bare-bones. I think if we followed through, it wouldn't resolve a content PoV-fork, it'll do the opposite. Because then WMC will have a foundation to introduce green party rhetoric, Rush, Al Gore, and on. Look, there's a lot of interest in politics, but not in an neutral or objective manner. If there were, I wouldn't have to ask for the fourth time (see Archive 55), that paragraph four could be improved in the section "Debate and skepticism", and from there we can improve our coverage of the politics of global warming. ChyranandChloe (talk) 09:48, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ludwigs is right. there are major dimensions to this issue not discussed in this entry, due to the ongoing fixated view adopted by a group of editors. the entry should be more encyclopedic, and cover more societal aspects of this issue and topic. -Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:38, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

hmmm... if there were no science around GW, then we'd all be blithely tumbling down the path to our own species' extinction. But we seem to be blithely tumbling down that path even with the science. Heaven knows I don't want to sell the scientists short, because without the scientists the activists wouldn't have a leg to stand on, and the environment would be largely uninhabitable by the end of this century. but it's the activists who are going to avert the disaster if the disaster is going to be averted, because averting the disaster means changing the way people think about their world.

and me, I never lie; I am the soul of goodness and mercy. Also, I have this marvelous beachfront property in Florida for sale if you're interested...

I'm new to this page, so I can't speak to the troubles it has seen (though I can imagine them, given what I know about the real-world political tribulations). But I don't think that primary sources from advocates or critics who aren't scientists have much of a place in the article. as far as I can see it, the article should have this kind of a structure:

• outline of the political debate
• pro and con position statements from notable primary sources (brief and succinct, without much argumentation)
• discussions of pro and con positions from secondary sources
  • scholarly viewpoints
  • notable advocacy position from both sides, clearly presented as advocacy
• position of scientific perspectives in the political debate
  • scientific results, en claire
  • public and private sector politics surrounding the scientific results
• real-world ramifications
  • political problems dealing with climate change (national and corporate counter-interests, mostly)
  • worst and best case environmental scenarios as presented by opposing sides

I think that covers all of the relevant issues and includes all sides of the debate fairly, while controlling the spread of yakkity-yak (material that comes from relatively uniformed primary - e.g. pundit - sources, in all its endless glory). Might need to spawn content forks from some of these; just have to be careful not to let the content forks run way like rabid raccoons. --Ludwigs2 14:38, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the science. There are other articles about the politics. --TS 14:43, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

thanks Tony, but I've already addressed that particular point above. please don't make me repeat myself. --Ludwigs2 15:13, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's simpler than that: this article is about a globe that is warming. Global warming is the title and that is what it is about. The measurement and modelling of that warming. The only way to measure the warming of the earth is by scientific measurements and computer models. The warming of the earth is not something you can measure with opinion polls or focus groups. All of that comes under reactions to the warming of our globe. That's why all the subarticles are about the politics, economics, public opinion, crimes, conferences, etc. Read the words of the title. --Nigelj (talk) 15:27, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I had read your earlier comments, Ludwigs2. I'm just concerned that you seem to be persisting in redefining this well established article to be on relatively subsidiary subjects already covered by subsidiary articles. It's a bit like going to the evolution article and proposing that we cover the subject, in that article, from the point of view of politics and religion rather than science. It isn't going to happen. --TS 15:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can imagine that a political scientist might sincerely think that more people come to Wikipedia looking for material on the politics bubbling around the topic, than for (scientific) information on global warming itself. But that is a matter of speculation, and the phrase "global warming" primarily denotes a physical phenomenon of climate, not a political phenomenon. If we really want to make it easier for readers to find the political material, we can put a "see also" at the top of this article. But even that seems wrong to me. Bertport (talk) 15:54, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@ Tony: first off, it is not up to you to decide what is and isn't going to happen on this article; that should be a matter for debate and consensus. I understand the value of hyperbole like that, but please don't make the mistake of believing it's true.

That being said, your analogy doesn't hold any water. Evolution is and always has been primarily a scientific issue; one with strong religious overtones, that unfortunately produce some nasty political conflicts, but the debates there have always centered on issues of pedagogy (the teaching of evolution) and so the entire discussion still falls within the realm of science (since science is one of the primary sources of knowledge for educational purposes). questions about global warming, however, invariably focus on political and social behaviors - it is not about teaching people the science of global warming except to the extent that science is useful to teach people about the ethics of global warming. This article as it stands is a very nice explanation of the science of global warming (and I wouldn't want to change that), but as such it is an entirely secondary point in the greater debate about global warming (which has to do with the questions about what, if any, social or political actions should be taken).

and please, don't insult my intelligence with Sesame Street arguments (Global warming is about a globe that is warming - yeeee...); If I want to play word games I'll do a crossword.

@ Bertport: I believe people come to wikipedia looking for both kinds of information, and I believe wikipedia should provide both kinds of information, and I believe that it should be provided with an appropriate structure. I think it's safe to say that anyone who comes to wikipedia looking for scientific information on GW is doing that because they are curious about the political debates on GW and want information in that context; I sincerely doubt that many people come to wikipedia thinking about the science first with the politics a distant second. if you believe, however that a significant proportion of the 20k hits per day this page gets are from people whose main interest is in the details of of how climatology is done, well... you are free make that argument. --Ludwigs2 17:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it's likely that most of the reader traffic to this article now is sparked in some way by the political maelstrom. But that doesn't mean they come here looking primarily for description of the politics. I came here looking for authoritative information on global warming, which means scientific information on the physical phenomena. I am secondarily interested in what Wikipedia might have to say on the politics, and I can easily find that when I look at the table of contents for this article and see a section on "debate and skepticism", and if the summary there is not sufficient for me, then I can easily follow the "see also" links there. This article is about global warming, and the politics are a related topic. The science is, quite properly and obviously, the primary content for this physical phenomenon. Sorry if you think it's a Sesame Street argument. I'm sorry you seem to need this spelled out for you. Bertport (talk) 17:48, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, since you haven't really responded to my argument, the best I can do is shrug. I think I've shown fairly effectively that the proper context of this issue is the political debate, and that the science of it is only one (albeit it interesting and important) move in that greater discussion. that's even implicit in what you said: looking for 'authoritative' information implies the presence of information which is not authoritative, which implies a enclosing, non-scientific environment... people can and will do what you've suggested regardless (scan through for the parts that interest them) whether the focus of the article is on the science or on the political debate, so to my mind that's a non-issue. The important issue is whether we have framed the article correctly with respect to its real-world manifestation, and it is pretty clear that this article fails to do that. Which is why I suggest that this article may suffer from PoV-fork issues, and why I recommend it be restructured as I suggest. Now, if you disagree that the science should be considered as a sub-facet of the political and social debates of global warming, please let me know what reasons you have for thinking that; I've already stated why I think it should be seen that way. let's put your reasons against mine so that we can make an effective comparison. --Ludwigs2 18:57, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We have responded to your argument. It's very simple. This article is about global warming, as indicated by the title. You want the article to be about something else. Your interest belongs in another article with a title that matches your topic. Bertport (talk) 22:54, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well, I can see that that is your belief. Unfortunately, your belief has no basis in reason (at least none that you've demonstrated), and so I'm afraid I'm going to have to dismiss it as an unfounded ideological claim. Your collective opinion is noted, and I will do my best to accommodate it when I discuss the issue with those who are interested in pursuing a rational analysis of the issue geared towards improving the article. thanks for your time. --Ludwigs2 23:28, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ludwig2 is completely right. the way that articles at Wikipedia grow and develop is by editors being open to each other's differing ideas about what each article should contain. there really is no basis for any editor or any small group of editors deciding that only their subject matter is acceptable, and everyone else's ideas should be rejected immediately and categorically. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 01:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Steve, "Ludwig2 is completely right" followed by paragraph written in such a manner that no one will disagree with, but does not address central point: science or politics or PoV-fork. Discussion is a covenant. Your objective isn't to ensure the comment makes you "right", your objective is to convince the other editors on a specific set of actions. That doesn't seem to be happening. And right now I'm not sure if you want me to address you, Steve, or Ludwig2. For the next 14 comments up there hasn't been a single question. No one is convinced, and no one is asking why. What do you think? ChyranandChloe (talk) 08:06, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I thought we were already having a specific disagreement about a specific set of proposals. so that's what my comment was meant to address. EOM. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:22, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further discussion 2

(E/C) As a reply to Ludwigs2's proposals (now far above), in my experience, a lot of people who I meet have vastly less knowledge about global warming than does the average Wikipedian here. Many people don't think that the science is anywhere near a done deal, and the overwhelming majority of these people have the news media as their primary source of information on the topic. My point is that a rehash of this article into what political commentators think, thereby making the science secondary, will remove a place that people can look for well-cited science behind global warming. I'm really afraid that this will instead turn into the exact same sorts of things that they get bombarded with every day by end-of-the-world-is-near radicals and the it's-no-big-deal or its-a-hoax crowds as well. People deserve to know about the details of the science, which is notably absent from a lot of public debates. That being said, this article should (and does) provide links to a number of articles that do cover the controversy, and I think that the coverage of political ramifications and controversy could be improved. Summary: A ton of people are unfamiliar with why global warming is an issue, and we should present facts instead of repeating mass-media stories. Awickert (talk) 19:07, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to satisfy myself with a brief poke here. discussing GW in terms of its status as a political debate is not, not, not equivalent to making a rehash of what political commentators think. that suggestion is hyperbolic to the point of farce, and it ticks me off a bit that you went there. what I am suggesting is framing the issue as a political discussion which has strong scientific elements (which is precisely what it is in the real world), not opening the page to bunches of mindless commentary that would violate numerous wikipedia guidelines and give everyone headaches. please try to keep the discussion on a realistic and productive tack, thank you. --Ludwigs2 19:26, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the problem is that in my history on these talk pages, once the political debate is opened, all sorts of editors want to add all sorts of content - the slippery slope. I think that my other issue is that I don't in my mind disconnect political debate from advocacy. And I'm going to hop down from my polite high horse and ask you to WP:AGF, because I really intended those comments to be a productive dissemination of my views. I try my very hardest to be polite, and I will not tolerate another attack on my character based on your assumptions. But thank you for further clarifying the political debate section that you suggest; I think I'm going to think about this for a little while and wait for the more primary editors of this page to weigh in. Awickert (talk) 19:43, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies. I needed a day-after-christmas nap (which I've now had) and was a bit more snappish than I intended to be. Of course you're right that once the political aspect is opened it needs to be monitored to keep it within reliable secondary sources (because people who don't get the sourcing distinction will try to insert all sorts of nonsense). I don't think that's a deal-breaker, though, since I'm sure there are a lot of reliable sources out there discussing the political debate from a nice, neutral distance. it's fairly easy to tell in this debate when a source is acting as a primary political voice and when it's taking a secondary or tertiary perspective. --Ludwigs2 23:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you want an article that states only one side of the story then the article title should make that clear as in, for example, 'The scientific case for AGW'. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:41, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in that case, let's change Geological history of Earth to "The scientific case for Earth history", as a large number of English speakers believe Archbishop Usher's calculations, and their side of the story certainly is being neglected. Awickert (talk) 18:40, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is the problem, some editors want to put AGW on a par with, say, evolution but the two are nothing like equivalent. There are no serious scientific doubters of evolution, these who question it come mainly from a specific religious background. On the other hand, there is a significant minority of scientists who do not accept AGW to various degrees. These are spread throughout the scientific community. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I absolutely agree with Martin. There are no serious doubters of evolution. There are many serious doubters of the Global Warming Hypothesis. It is on a par with the Efficient Market Hypothesis which most economists broadly accept, but which is also doubted by many. (For that reason, even the firmest of believers in EMH insist it be called a 'hypothesis'). I love SUV's (talk) 18:58, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I have to disagree with the two of you. There is no serious scientific opposition to global warming, and GW shares that much in common with evolution. GW theory is the best scientific explanation available by far for the climate effects that we currently see in the world. That doesn't mean it's true, of course; it just means that there is no other theory available which has the same degree of explanatory power. all the opposition to GW theory comes from non-scientific venues, and it is all basically of the form "We have no other theory to offer in its place, but we object to the conclusions of this theory". nor do these non-scientific venues state precisely why they object to the conclusions of GW theory, though one gets the impression it is not on any particular methodological ground. --Ludwigs2 19:11, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All right, I still disagree with "The scientific case for AGW" because that makes the science secondary. but I think we can come to terms about evenly presenting scientists' views. Yes, there is a very small minority of scientists who disagree with global warming being an issue, and an even smaller minority of climate scientists who do so. Their publications should be and (as far as I've seen) are presented here with appropriate weight to their significance in the scientific community. If you know of significant papers that are skeptical of global warming, please bring them up. Awickert (talk) 19:13, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is more to the subject than scientific opinion/papers. This article is titled "global warming". It should therefore be a WP:SUMMARY of all of the major issues involved: the science (which should be elucidated in a subarticle science of global warming), the politics, the economics, the controversy, the effects, etc. We have subarticles for all of the rest, but I don't see how anyone can deny that there are significant political, economic, and other issues to discuss here. This is my objection to "this article is about the science". Oren0 (talk) 20:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Oren0, that we should cover broader aspects of the subject, but it seems quite clear on the science that it is not in the same class as evolution and that there is another side to the argument that has not been properly represented here. We should, of course, retain a high standard of sourcing but there certainly is no case for deleting any dissenting opinion on the talk page.Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:13, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OrenO has it right. There should be space and balance for all sub-topics. I suppect the main topic could benefit from a special wiki project task force. This might make for a good solution after the next RfC from an ANI result. The article is well written, how to expand it (to all realms of reliable sourced study) is what this discussion should focus on. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 04:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am a bit puzzled returning after Christmas. So is this thread about conduct or about some people's feeling that their particular POV is underrepresented? Where we go next depends what the problem is. --BozMo talk 08:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're on the right track BozMo, however in place of "conduct or POV" try "conduct and POV". Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 16:04, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As you will know by now there is a separate process for the two of these. I hope there isn't a bad faith attempt to push a POV under a smokescreen of pretending a conduct issue here? --BozMo talk 16:44, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The conduct issue relates to a group of editors blocking an effort to balance the existing POV in this article by a group of editors. could we please try to not get bogged down in the terms and semantics of describing this issue? thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:55, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I thought there was a consensus that the current article was pretty NPOV? Otherwise consensus would establish to move it. But anyway that this is really an attempt to shift the POV is clearer--BozMo talk 12:17, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

BozMo, what is going on here? did you just start reading this discussion? or do you enjoy making slightly ornery-but-quite-disingenuous statements? did you just get here? of course this whole discussion is about whether this article is NPOV. there's really no reason to innocently state that "you thought this whole article is NPOV." what's next, telling me Wikipedia is an encyclopedia? thanks for pointing out that you feel this is an attempt to shift the NPOV. Hey, can you really see all that from here? :-) :-) Ok, thanks, EOM. ----Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 13:55, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(break):::::::::::::::P'raps I would enjoy your discourse more if you told me where and why you think the article isn't neutral, which you imply you do? Meanwhile I liked the walrus version better :-) --BozMo talk 13:57, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

:-) :-D hey, many thanks for your tip of the hat to my foray into comic writing!!! I deleted that in the concern that it might be taken the wrong way. thanks, though...all in jest. anyway, i think I'd prefer to simply let the discussion develop for the moment, as it already is in other sections of this page. I was merely adding my assent to some points raised, and have no problem if the main issues are discussed elsewhere. thanks.--Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Does the politics outweigh the science?

@ BozMo: let me get this discussion back on the track that I started it on. first off, here's what I'm nt trying to do:

• I am not interested in evaluating the conduct of editors, singly or collectively. The only conduct issue I worry about is when editors get stubborn and closed-minded, which makes proper discussion impossible, but people on all side of this issue (and every issue on wikipedia) are occasionally guilty of that
• I don't think it's fair to put it on an emotional level and say that some people's feelings are hurt because their PoV is insufficiently represented. In my view, it's a more analytic problem than that.

What I am concerned about is that this page is creating an implicit PoV-fork by focussing primarily on Global Warming science. Global warming is first and foremost a political issue - it was a political issue long before people began studying it scientifically and it will continue to be a political issue long after science comes to a definitive conclusion about the effect. the only reason GW science has the public attention that it has is because a number of (what I would consider unscrupulous) political figures thought it might be a good idea to attack the science politically. By focusing on the science we get a deeply unbalanced article, because the scientific position is almost uniformly pro-GW.

I mean, this is a great article about GW science as written, but it's a fairly lousy, biased article about the GW debate, which should be the first and foremost consideration. --Ludwigs2 05:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

it was a political issue long before people began studying it scientifically -- tell that to the ghosts of Svante Arrhenius and Guy Stewart Callendar, to name only a couple of the better-known. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 05:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If that was intended as a rebuttal, I don't quite see the point. so, you have two (maybe some more) scientists back to the early 20th century positing CO2 production as an environmental factor, science which went largely unnoticed outside of the scientific community until the advent of green politics near the end of the century. at that point it took off as a relatively well-funded scientific sub-discipline (because of social and political interests). and again, soon (I'd argue it already has) the existence of GW will become a well-established scientific principle; do you think that's going to stop the political/social debates? Science will tell us it exists, and as soon as it does, the political world will have to figure out what to do about it. I mean honestly, IMO the primary reason the science is contested is because political actors want to stave off the point where they will be politically obligated to make fundamental changes in waste-handling practices. or were you reaching for something else? --Ludwigs2 06:13, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was pointing out that the science has a long history; lots of people think it's something newfangled. Pistols at high noon or would you prefer the pig dung? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 06:19, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ok, thanks for pointing that out. I don't disagree. --Ludwigs2 06:43, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above exchange looks like this:

Ludwig - "This was a political issue before it was studied scientifically."

Boris - "No, it was studied and discussed scientifically before it got any political attention."

Ludwig - "Oh, you're right."

So, end of discussion, and now we can move on to other things, right? Bertport (talk) 11:29, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bertport: thank you for a marvelous misinterpretation of the discussion that manages - simultaneously! - to be self-serving and to avoid the point I made entirely. you should have been a politician (assuming you're not). but in fact, what really happened here is this:

1. Boris asks what strikes me as a nonsensical question
2. I ask for clarification
3. Boris responds that he is just clarifying a detail (one, incidentally, that has no real bearing on the problem)
4. I acknowledge his clarification, because there's no point in getting bogged down on side-points

Your choice here is either to go back to the original statement I made and pursue it properly, or to try to transform Boris' rather off-topic comment into something significant. I'm curious to see which you choose. --Ludwigs2 14:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to boil down to the Sesame Street level of what words mean. "it was a political issue long before people began studying it scientifically" is what you wrote. I understand you also think that the politics is more important, or more interesting, or more (something good) than the science. But this article is about global warming, not politics. There are other articles that exist to cover your interest. Bertport (talk) 15:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

so: it's you're claim that global warming is a scientific issue more than a political issue because...? (this is an opportunity for you to make an actual argument for your position). If you'd like, I'll refactor my original comment to read "it was a political issue long before people began studying it scientifically in any serious way", but I would hope that you would AGF and not indulge in that kind of pettiness. --Ludwigs2 15:23, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sesame Street. What do the words mean? [1] Bertport (talk) 15:28, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Scientific opinions are a subclass of politics which attempt to apply objective arguments. Global warming will always be a political issue, until aliens (perhaps from Sesamme Street) get involved. Then there will be a new form of politics. This discussion belongs in philosophy of science. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 17:36, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is nonsense. Physical phenomena are the subject of science, not politics.Bertport (talk) 17:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

both of those statements are a bit off the mark. Physical phenomena are the subject of science (among other things); human action is the subject of politics (among other things); where human action involves physical phenomena both sciences apply, in their respective proportions. generally speaking, where science enters into politics it becomes political, but where politics enters into science it does not become scientific, if that helps any... --Ludwigs2 18:13, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you acknowledge that the words "global warming" denote a physical phenomenon? This is fundamental to the discussion, because you are questioning what the proper topic of the article is. Bertport (talk) 17:11, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you asking that in the context of the GW debate, or in some simplified abstract sense? pretty much everything you care to talk about can be reduced to a physical phenomenon if you try hard enough, and there is no question that the warming of the globe (to go back to SS reasoning) is a physical phenomenon which needs to be analyzed by scientists. this article, as it stands, does a very good job of doing that. In the context of the global warming debate, however, Global Warming has become a euphemism for something akin to "the degradation of the environment by human action". you can see this because some of the anti-GW arguments don't deny that the globe is warming but ascribe it to natural phenomena, and some of the pro-GW arguments aren't all that hung up with the globe actually getting warmer but look instead to dramatic environmental shifts of any sort. so to answer your question, Global Warming refers to potential physical (environmental) results of human behavior. is that the kind of thing you mean by 'physical phenomenon'? --Ludwigs2 17:34, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm asking that in the context of this discussion here. You seem to think that the article titled "Global warming" should be about politics, not about "global warming". "Global warming", as seen in the wiktionary link provided above, refers to a physical phenomenon, not a euphemism for something else.Bertport (talk) 17:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, do you understand the logical connection between the title and the content of an article?Bertport (talk) 17:59, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

and I've answered you in the context of this discussion here, so I'm not sure what the problem is. 'Global Warming' (in the context most readers will be familiar with) is neither exclusively not primarily about the science of global warming. The science is fine, but the science (aside from its interest as a purely formal investigation) mostly amounts to "that which scientists can contribute to the political debate". --Ludwigs2 18:13, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but this is getting silly. There are articles about politics and global warming, where your views most certainly will be appreciated. But this article is about the physical phenomenon - just as the Encyclopedia Brittanica one is. While politics is interesting, it is not the base of everything. Science would exist without politics. You are correct in saying that "what to do about what science says" is a purely political issue - but the reverse "science only exists to contribute to politics" is a fallacy. The science on global warming was already in place when the political debate started - read Wearts The discovery of global warming. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to entertain the notion that the point is silly, but I can't yet see any argument that demonstrates that it's silly (and please, no straw-man arguments - no one believes that the science only exists because of the politics). The argument you and bert are making amounts to an editorial claim - to whit: "We as editors have decided that global warming means the physical phenomenon, and so it is." Editorial decisions are necessary, I'm not objecting to that, but editorial decisions should be defensible through some kind of reasoning. I've made a decent argument that the editorial decision made is misguided, and that the decision should have been that GW is primarily a political issue. I am clearly interested in hearing reasonable counter-arguments, but tautological restatements of the status quo don't really satisfy. can you give me something better? --Ludwigs2 18:39, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(afterthought) put another way: if this article were called "Global Warming (science)", and another article were called "Global Warming (politics)" I'd have a lot less of a worry about PoV-forking. that kind of a set up would be clear. However, with an article called "Global Warming" should be primarily (as I've been saying) about the political debate, because the science only factors in as an important element of that debate. see the issue? --Ludwigs2 18:17, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You need Politics of global warming, Mitigation of global warming, Economics of global warming, Adaptation to global warming etc etc. There is a whole slew of articles on the policy (and economic) issues. Global warming (per definition) is the physical phenomenon. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:26, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

all of which (to my mind) should be content forks of a properly written "global warming" article which outlines the political and scientific issues in proper proportion, no? --Ludwigs2 18:44, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think I do see the issue. The issue is that you harbor your own, unsupportable notion of what the phrase "global warming" means. The dictionary does not support you.Bertport (talk) 18:25, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

good thing we're not writing a dictionary, then... --Ludwigs2 18:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(from above) The process by which science advances exists within human politics (ala peer review). Politics is how groups arrive at conclusions. Any discussion undergoing evolution requires an analogous political discussion to evolve. To leave it out, is uncivil and treads on authoritarianism. The science deserves greater weight than the underlying politics, however politics are a factor not to be ignored. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 19:48, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Under verifiability by a reliable source, I am challenging Ludwigs2's assertion that "Global warming" is more of a social/political than science. What you believe the subject is irrelevant to verifiability, this is not a forum. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:17, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody in the Super Secret Cabal RFC above mentioned that a big problem with this article is the uneven use of references. Well it strikes me that if there's so much cohesion that editors are accused of acting as a cabal, we ought to be able to reach an agreement on what referencing style to use.

I suggest that we might use template:citation. It's pretty compendious and is suitable for inline references or for references at the bottom of a page. Since this article refers to some sources again and again and the content of the article evolves quite slowly, perhaps the latter method could be adopted. --TS 06:16, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with TS on this. We should use this template and move all references down into the reflist template as done in the Climategate-article.Nsaa (talk) 13:21, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree.

1. Wouldn't that make it easy to loose references? Change a section of text, but forget to remove the citation buried with 139 others.
2. If you look at the souce, {{Citation}},[2] {{Cite journal}},[3] {{Cite web}},[4] and on are just special cases of {{Citation/core}} or {{Citation/patent}} where appropriate. Cite journal and such were created to make it easier to tell whether the citation is from a scientific journal or a web page. And in terms of consistency? They all use the same engine to produce text. So it makes no difference style-wise to use {{Citation}} or {{Cite journal}}.

Fix the references that are just URLs, that should probably be our first priority. I believe we need consistency, but have something else in mind. ChyranandChloe (talk) 10:39, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how forgetting to remove a citation would cause a reference to be lost. What you describe would result in a spurious extra citation. For the cases where a citation is referenced multiple times and the first instance gets removed, there is now a bot running that restores the original citation to the remaining first instance. ~Amatulić (talk) 06:51, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree with TS, but at the same I think that fixing bare URLs would be the first priority. ~Amatulić (talk) 06:51, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is worth citing in the article, but I want to see if there's a consensus for including it before I add it. If the consensus is against including it, then I won't add it. What do others here think of it? Grundle2600 (talk) 03:34, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The actual scientific paper can be found here. Grundle2600 (talk) 03:39, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The abstract isn't much to go on and our library doesn't have the full paper yet. Thus I don't yet have an opinion other than the standard advice to wait and see if it has an impact on the field. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 05:14, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for looking and commenting.Grundle2600 (talk) 12:50, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can get the gist of the argument at http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/%7Eqblu/Lu-2009PRL.pdf. It's mostly about how CFCs are dissociated. Lu claims that the major pathway is low energy electron attachment to water ice particles in the polar vortex. The first half of the Physics Reports paper summarizes lab work on the process.

Lu claims that this is what drives polar springtime ozone depletion. When he steps out of the lab into the atmosphere, things get very shaky. His claimed correlations are pretty weak and not very well quantified. His model does not include a whole lot of things that we know are happening, including cooling of the stratosphere by increases in greenhouse gas concentrations see http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/aboutus/milestones/ozone.htmlhttp://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/aboutus/milestones/ozone.html and http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/20c.html esp. the latter.

The correlation of the ozone with temperature in the stratosphere is a whole lot better than with the Cosmic Ray flux, although Lu is claiming that the CR flux is doing the cooling. Anyhow, the global warming claim comes from Lu claiming that the ozone depletion is exported from the polar area, which leads to a warming of the troposphere because extra UV is available. He doesn't think to think that this would mean that warming of the Southern Hemisphere would be a lot more than of the Northern Hemisphere if this were true, and that much of the observed warming is in the winter, before his mechanism kicks in.

And oh yeah, for your CR fans, he disses Svensmark.Eli Rabett (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:23, 29 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]

As far as I know the CO2 hypothesis is quite unproven (people need to understand the diff. between in vitro and in vivo). This article should include alternate hypotheses. On a related note, you may want to include links to the papers that make reference to the 5% decreased strength of the magnetosphere over the last 150 years - that would presumably allow cosmic rays to influence our atmosphere more (assuming they have an influence). Of course, I suggest the curious-minded look up youtube videos of Wilson chambers to see how clouds might be seeded in this manner. I'd think that this would promote cooling, but only if the influx of cosmic rays has remained constant. Cheers. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:28, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This source (Neftel et al.) is referenced to source the following statement: "These levels are much higher than at any time during the last 650,000 years, the period for which reliable data has been extracted from ice cores." This source, however, does not support that statement. The source discusses CO2 concentrations from about 1750. I inserted the dubious tag not because the statement itself is false, but because an inappropriate source is being used. I think the source wanting to be used is Spahni et al., 2005. (Keep in mind, though, Spanhi et al. dicuss CH4 and N2O. Petit et al., 1999, discuss CO2 as do Siegenthaler et al., 2005). Cheers. ~ UBeR (talk) 19:03, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed it, since no one else would. ~ UBeR (talk) 20:04, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The section 'Radiative forcing' begins 'External forcing is...'. If the section is about radiative forcing, why does it begin like this? Also the definition of external forcing is weak: 'processes external to the climate system'. Any processes? Thought processes? Surely some qualification is needed. Processes which have some measurable effect on the climate system?I love SUV's (talk) 09:53, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've rewritten some of that bit (and retitled the section) in an attempt to clarify. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:35, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I made one important change [5]. Surely processes (such as thought processes) that have no influence on the climate are do not fall under the definition? I'm not an expert, do revert if I am wrong. I love SUV's (talk) 21:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's awkward wording. Why not "external influences"? ~ UBeR (talk) 21:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Very good. Be my guest.I love SUV's (talk) 21:50, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone explain why the Divergence problem is not mentioned in this important article? There is a lot about this in the evil capitalist right-wing press, and there is even material on it in Wikipedia.

"While the thermometer records indicate a substantial warming trend, many tree rings do not display a corresponding change in their width.[1] A temperature trend extracted from tree rings alone would not show any substantial warming. The temperature graphs calculated in these two ways thus "diverge" from one another since the 1950s, which is the origin of the term."

Why is this not mentioned in this article? The fact that it isn't surely gives credence to the evil right-wing view that Wikipedia is being manipulated. I love SUV's (talk) 09:33, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[update] I uploaded the chart above as, surprisingly, it does not seem to have been included in Wikipedia anywhere. A question: in the many articles about 'scientific consensus' in Wikipedia, is there anything about the consensus on the Divergence problem? I have skimmed through the literature and the only consensus I could find was that the problem is itself caused by anthropogenic global warming. I.e. the failure of the tree ring evidence to support the global warming hypothesis is itself caused by anthropogenic global warming. I love SUV's (talk) 10:46, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The divergence problem is a possible (not necessary, as the divergence can be explained by a number of other factors) problem for tree-ring based temperature reconstructions. It's not a problem for the basic theory of anthropogenic global warming, since the warming is well-attested in the instrumental record, and the basic mechanisms have been understood since long before we could measure the effect. --Stephan Schulz (User talk:Stephan Schulz|talk]]) 11:16, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You say, the basic mechanisms [of global warming I presume] have been understood since long before we could measure the effect. Pehaps you could tell me what these are. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:09, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The enhanced greenhouse effect caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and the positive feedback of water vapor (note vapor, not clouds, which are made up of droplets or crystals, and are much less well understood). See Svante Arrhenius. ----Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:37, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is the positive feedback of water vapour that well understood? ^{[citation needed]}I love SUV's (talk) 19:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:13, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. But the article on greenhouse gases says "Other important considerations involve water vapor being the only greenhouse gas whose concentration is highly variable in space and time in the atmosphere and the only one that also exists in both liquid and solid phases, frequently changing to and from each of the three phases or existing in mixes. Such considerations include clouds themselves, air and water vapor density interactions when they are the same or different temperatures, the absorption and release of kinetic energy as water evaporates and condenses to and from vapor, and behaviors related to vapor partial pressure. " Is this variability also well understood, and predictable? That was behind my question. I love SUV's (talk) 22:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't doubt the divergence problem isn't a problem for the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. My point was, why is this problem so little discussed in the main article? Indeed it's not mentioned at all. You have to hunt around Wikipedia to find it. Why isn't there a section saying e.g., that there is an apparent problem with the temperature record, but this is not a problem for the basic theory of anthropogenic global warming, since the warming is well-attested in the instrumental record? There could then be a discussion about the consensus among scientists about why the problem exists. Is there a consensus among scientists about why divergence exists, by the way? Also, is there any literature on why it is called 'divergence'? Presumably because there is evidence of correlation between instrumental record before 1950s? If so, what is the measure of correlation? What are the statistical tests used to distinguish such correlation from mere chance? It is quite easy to find apparent correlation in randomly generated data samples. And so on. I love SUV's (talk) 13:28, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@ Martin - yes I would also like to know what basic mechanism has been 'understood'. Many of the papers I have looked at state categorically that the feedback mechanism (on which climate models depend) is not well understood at all. I love SUV's (talk) 13:33, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

E.g. here [6] "Many facets of the earth's climatic system are poorly understood. A significant uncertainty associated with the modeling of future climatic changes is due to deficiencies in the understanding of, and in the incorporation into the climate models of, several interactive climate feedback mechanisms." So why is Schulz saying that it is well understood? I love SUV's (talk) 13:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is understood well enough to make predictions for the temperature rise due to a doubling of CO2 concentrations within some reasonable interval of a few K. We don't understand the climate well enough to make a prediction without having to specify an uncertainty. Count Iblis (talk) 13:46, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The divergence problem applies to some forests (and really, not all forests) in the extreme northern hemisphere. It does not seem to apply to southern forests, though this could be because of paucity of samples. It's a bit of a fringe subject and until recently didn't even have a Wikipedia article. I wouldn't expect to see it covered in this kind of article. It is covered in dendroclimatology. --TS 13:48, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry why is it a 'fringe subject', given there is a considerable literature on it since the 1990's, and why does it not apply to this article, given that dendroclimatology is one of the underpinnings of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis? It is also essential to understanding climategate. If the instrumental record, which is patchy in the early periods, is all we have to go by, it is difficult to distinguish the current warm period from noise. I love SUV's (talk) 14:14, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We're not journalists and we don't put our opinions into the articles. We just report on the science. The divergence problem is not a major part of climatology; nor is it regarded as a major problem in climatology. The current warming trend would still be here even if we discarded all of dendroclimatology. Contrary to your claim, the current warming trend is clearly distinguishable from noise. --TS 14:22, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not a journalist. Wikipedia is an important reference work. Given the considerable popular belief that the divergence problem is a problem, why can't that be in the article. If it really isn't a problem, why can't there be a short section saying so? If the current warming is distinguishable from noise, why not a simple explanation of why this is? All this denial and talking down to the plebs actually makes me more suspicious than ever. I love SUV's (talk) 14:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, but you are asking for your own opinions to be put into the article. For instance you think there is "considerable popular belief that the divergence problem is a problem" (I doubt whether one person in 1000 has even heard of it, but my opinion on this is no better than yours).

And you also seem to be mistaking this encyclopedia article on global warming for some kind of newspaper piece. You want us to address "popular belief". There are other articles about popular beliefs concerning climate change. This one is about the science. If you think talking about science in an article about the science is "denial and talking down to plebs", you should probably find an article about a non-science subject where this style of encyclopedic writing about science will not be a problem for you.

And here I must stop encouraging further responses. Nothing in this discussion is about this article on the science of global warming at all. --TS 14:41, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. Google 'divergence problem climategate' for evidence of the popular belief I referred to. 2. Please explain why the divergence problem is nothing to do with the science of global warming, given my arguments above (namely that there is a considerable literature on it) 3. Reasonable reply to my other argument above, namely that there should be a short section about the divergence 'problem' and why it isn't a problem. I love SUV's (talk) 16:46, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article isn't about 'popular belief'; whatever can usefully be added to the science by dendroclimatology has been added by the scientists, and published and discussed in their peer-reviewed papers. The whole of the science of GW has been, in huge detail. Do you really think that you and a few bloggers have thought of something all the scientists, the peer reviewers, the publishers etc have missed? If there was anything like that that was missed, there would (or very soon will be) peer reviewed papers altering the established science. There is no such thing; if there is, let us know; if it's just the right-wing press, then forget it - grown-up science isn't so easy that everyone can just turn up and have a go any time they like. --Nigelj (talk) 16:59, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You entirely mistake my point. Where popular belief is widespread and mistaken, isn't it the job of a reference work to address that? By explaining carefully and clearly why the belief is wrong. I am simply asking that there be a short section about the divergence problem and why it isn't a problem. I love SUV's (talk) 17:04, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@ Tony's claim that "The divergence problem is not a major part of climatology", see e.g. D'Arrigo 2008 [7]: "... reconstructions based on northern tree-ring data impacted by divergence cannot be used to directly compare past natural warm periods (notably, the MWP) with recent 20th century warming, making it more difficult to state unequivocally that the recent warming is unprecedented." (p. 301 and passim). That is the crux of the problem.I love SUV's (talk) 17:08, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I love SUV is totally right here. there is a consistent precedent at Wikipedia for articles to cover significant patterns in public opinion, public debate, etc etc. this encyclopedia has many entries on popular culture such as TV series episodes, etc. (before you all jump on my statement, I'm not saying the global warming article is like a tv series article.) nothing at Wikipedia precludes giving coverage on a global issue like this one as it relates to trends in public opinion and debate. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:20, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually that's not quite my point, Sm8900. My point is that a popular reference work like Wikipedia should be educational without treating people like morons. Thus, instead of given long lists of things that scientists think, it should also explain carefully, with appropriate citations, why scientists think it. I don't see any harm in a section on the divergence problem that clearly explains what the problem is, and then clearly explains why most scientists don't think it's a problem. See Fermi problem. I love SUV's (talk) 17:28, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article is already 99 kilobytes long just going through the established science: we can't go into every idea that is wrong as well, discussing what the idea is, as well as why it's wrong. --Nigelj (talk) 17:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes but there is a lot of irrelevant material in there. The article should simply explain what the global warming hypothesis is (there is confusion in the introduction about that, too), what the scientific 'consensus' is (there is consensus about different things), and the basic reasons why scientists believe the hypothesis. These are: 1. radiative forcing 2. the feedback effect 3. the temperature record. It should record carefully any qualifications that scientists have. If you look at the literature, which I suspect you haven't, you will see that many scientists have reservations, and many express varying degrees of doubt and uncertainty. That is what a good article needs to do. I love SUV's (talk) 17:16, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, some of the sections aren't really science at all. The section on the environmental impact is highly speculative, so also the section on the economic impact (economists can't even forecast what will happen next year). As for the sections on 'mitigation' and 'adaptation' ... The final section on debate and scepticism has nothing to do with debate and scepticism.I love SUV's (talk) 17:21, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See also the article Spherical Earth which I quite like. It doesn't have long lists of academies and scientists who hold the consensus belief that the earth is spherical. By contrast, it explains exactly why scientists think it is spherical. Why can't this article do the same? I love SUV's (talk) 17:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No original research exists as an answer to your main argument. If you have a case for removing some of the material from the article as irrelevant to the science, then make it. --TS 17:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you stop telling me what literature I haven't read, and go and read the archives of this Talk page, where all this has been discussed before. Then go and look at a few other scientific articles on WP (real ones, not 6th - 3rd century BCE science) then come back and tell us how to structure a scientific article. --Nigelj (talk) 17:43, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have looked back as far as the archive 48 and find only one fleeting reference to the divergence problem. I love SUV's (talk) 17:56, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shifting the goalposts back again? I was answering your points about making this article more like Spherical Earth, removing all the 'irrelevant' material and 'confusion', and restructuring it to explain 'why'. You hadn't mentioned divergence for the last third of this thread. --Nigelj (talk) 18:10, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid we haven't got off to a good start, have we? I love SUV's (talk) 18:27, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@tony My main point, expressed above, is that instead of given long lists of things that scientists think, a good article should also explain carefully, with appropriate citations, why scientists think it. I have emphasised the bit that you may have missed. @Nigel - D'Arrigo 2008 is actually quite a recent paper. I love SUV's (talk) 17:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The DP is an interesting part of dendroclimatology but is of little improtance to GW overall. given that dendroclimatology is one of the underpinnings of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis? is wrong, so the conclusions you draw from it are similarly wrong. See-also http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/what-if-the-hockey-stick-were-wrong/ William M. Connolley (talk) 21:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fine, in that case, as I have argued, there should be a section in the article that covers this important misconception. Plebs like me who read the Daily Express somehow got the idea that it was important. If that is wrong, and millions of people like me, it is important to correct such misconceptions in such an article. I love SUV's (talk) 21:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK I have just read this [8] on your recommendation. It is very long-winded, but the argument seems to be that even if one of the underpinnings of the GW hypothesis, namely that the current warm period is not just a fluke, we still have the 'forcing' arguments. And then it concludes that there is some uncertainty about how strong the effects of forcing are. I love SUV's (talk) 21:46, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't you take a look at Britannica's article on global warming?

Here it is.

Now the Britannica is still the most respected encyclopedia on earth. How do you account for the fact that it doesn't pander to misconceptions? --TS 22:50, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At first glance, I am a little put off by the Britannica entry for the use of "forecast' and 'prediction' terminology. I suspect the IPCC shuns this lexicon for "assessment" and "projection" or the like. It is good to see this wiki article seems to have better terminology congruence than Britannica. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 03:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fine, in that case, as I have argued, there should be a section in the article that covers this important misconception - this is a problem we've struggled with wrt other issues. It is hard to have a section on problems that are not scientifically large, but which have been blown out of proportion in the popular media. Because it isn't too hard to find good scientific articles about the DP, or about aspects of it. But you won't (obviously) find scientific articles saying "the skeptics have got carried away about this" William M. Connolley (talk) 11:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the sections at the end are nothing to do with the science of GW. Namely

• Mitigation - suggest removing most of this, particularly material like
  • "Many environmental groups encourage individual action against global warming, as well as community and regional actions. " This is activism, not science.
  • More activism: "Some indigenous rights organizations, such as Survival International, Amazon Watch, and Cultural Survival, have raised concerns over the fact that not only climate change affects the tribal people most of all, as some measures to mitigate the problem are equally harmful for them.[99][100][101][102][103] Survival international came to public with the report, The most inconvenient truth of all, which documents the impact of the biofuels industry, hydro-electric power, carbon-offsetting and forest conservation schemes on indigenous communities worldwide. The organization argues that some climate change mitigation measures have led to exploitation, violation and in some cases destruction of land recognized as belonging to indigenous communities. The International Forum of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change has expressed similar concerns. Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, explains that “projects that victimise the people and harm the environment cannot be promoted or marketed as green projects”.[104]"
• Adaptation - perhaps mention the sub-article, but again, this more science fiction than science - 'even colonization of Mars [has] been suggested'.

I love SUV's (talk) 18:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It does rather look like there are double standards being applied here, with a strict science only policy being applied just to sceptics. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I am all for science. Science is not about argument from authority, but rather about explanation. Mostly the former in the Wikipedia articles about GW, plus a sizeable amount of ranting. Climate change denial is particularly bad. I love SUV's (talk) 18:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could you explain what explanation you think is missing from this article? There are extensive wikilinks to articles on the details of the science, as you know. --TS 20:36, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@Tony: Links are generally bad when it is possible to give an explanation in the body of the article. Any science article should give a clear and coherent and succinct explanation of why scientists believe x. In this case (correct me if I'm wrong), the reasons why scientists believe the global warming hypothesis (namely the hypothesis that the earth is continuing to warm, and that the increase in temperature in the last 100 years is not merely a random accident) are

• Empirical evidence: The temperature record, which suggests that the increase is not merely a random accident.
• Theoretical model: Radiative forcing by anthropogenically introduced factors (CO2, mainly)
• Theoretical model: Feedback

As to what is missing. There is no explanation in the article about the statistics of temperature records, nor about the need (very important in science) to distinguish random fluctuations from changes caused by an underlying process. For example, current economic theory, the Efficient Market Hypothesis holds that there are no such things as trends in stock markets - the 'trends' you see are just the result of humans trying to see patterns in events that are essentially random. A lot of that theory involves careful definition of randomness, and types of randomness. I don't see an equivalent section in this article.

The explanation in the article of radiative forcing is somewhat better, but goes into unnecessary detail - the section on Greenhouse gases can't decide whether it is about the increase in CO2, or the effect of that increase. The stuff on aerosols and soot tends to confuse the whole thing - that should be left to a sub-article.

The role of feedback is hardly explained at all. That (I believe) is an important part of the hypothesis, yet the section discussing it is a strange list of things with no obvious purpose. There is no heading section that ties the three parts of the hypothesis together.

The section 'climate models' is all rather uncertain. It needs a summary at the beginning to explain what scientists conclude from their use of models, and perhaps some material on the uncertainty that is attached to models. I love SUV's (talk) 21:36, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think you'd be best off dealing with the "more activism" section first. Doing even one thing is hard; trying to deal with multiple problems at once is impossible. As to the stats: you may want to head over to the attribution article in the end. There is an answer for your stats, which is that people agree the rise is unusual / unprecedented; but following that leads you to attribution. Not that its well covered there, either William M. Connolley (talk) 11:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The multiple problems are due to ownership, pure and simple. I've added some observations based on my attempts to improve things many months ago at the AN/I Oppressive editing and page ownership at Global Warming. Only after commenting did I realise the thread had already been marked "Nothing for admins to do" - when what it should have said was "Wikipedia is censored and there's damn all anyone is going to be allowed to do about it". MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 15:47, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try WP:RFC/U. --TS 16:51, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I can be bothered - in any case, the destructions say "Before requesting community comment, at least two editors must have contacted the user on their talk page, or the talk pages involved in the dispute, and tried but failed to resolve the problem." However, if there was someone willing and capable of getting the articles back on track, I'd be pleased to support them. My name can be used as one of the people who've attempted to resolve the issues on the TalkPage of the article concerned and been ignored. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 17:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You may add my name as well. I was politely told, "No Sane Wikipedian would try to mediate this article' when I requested informal mediation, and after watching the back and forth since I made the original request, I agree. The ownership cabal here simply must have their tactics brought to light and the fundamental nature of the article should be changed. The irony is, I AGREE with them but the tactics here used by both sides makes the article need an extensive review and revision by disinterested third parties. It is too important to simply leave as is. Manticore55 (talk) 02:26, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This revert [9] undid my work here.

; CO₂ release from oceans : Warmer water can release more CO₂. As ocean temperatures rise some of this CO₂ will be released, contributing to the global warming cycle. Conversely, this is one of the main reasons why atmospheric CO₂ is lower during an ice age. There is a greater mass of CO₂ contained in the oceans than there is in the atmosphere.

; CO₂ release from oceans : Cooler water can absorb more CO₂. As ocean temperatures rise some of this CO₂ will be released. This is one of the main reasons why atmospheric CO₂ is lower during an ice age. There is a greater mass of CO₂ contained in the oceans than there is in the atmosphere.

BozMo (talk | contribs) (Undid revision 334580127 by Mytwocents (talk)think you made it less clear. At least most people think of the sea as water firs)

I don't know Bozmo was trying to say with his explanation

Just a few keystrokes undid my work. Now I am forced to defend my work. Perhaps, after much effort, a direct explanation of the feedback on warming temperatures/ co2 release from oceans will be allowed to remain in the article. All of this takes precious time and effort. Mytwocents (talk) 18:38, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I tried a more neutral wording. Let us see how this goes. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your effort. I would describe your edit as a textbook example of a neutral paragraph. Mytwocents (talk) 19:06, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I tried to say I see this as an issue of clarity, and thought you made it worse. Martin has clearly made it better both than before and than your version. However I personally still don't like the word "absorb", which you did at least replace. It definitely seems to be the wrong word. I would be looking for a word more like "contain" which is static not dynamic but contain isn't quite right either. --BozMo talk 20:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Absorb" is a good word, used a lot elsewhere and pretty easy to understand. Otherwise you might consider "sequester" or "uptake." Cheers. ~ UBeR (talk) 20:24, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are not getting the objection. Uptake and sequester and absorb are all dynamic (how much it takes in, units of "per time") whereas the actual issue is not the rate of transport in and out of solution but how much can be contained in solution. Actually AFAIK the rate of transport in and out (how much can be added per hour up to saturation) increases with temp whereas the saturation level decreases with temp. Anyway its the wrong word and I thought I would acknowledge that m2c did well to try to replace it. --BozMo talk 20:42, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I see what you're saying, but I don't think you are getting my point, which is that the words I've suggested are used frequently, easily understood, and common within the scientific literature. Maybe "store" would suit you better. Cheers. ~ UBeR (talk) 10:16, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the most striking thing about the above sentence is this one: "As ocean temperatures rise some of this CO₂ will be released." This is (iirc) incorrect. (or at the very least strongly misleading) - CO2 will only be (net) released if the Ocean CO2 content are in equilibrium with the atmosphere. If there partial pressure of CO2 on the Ocean surface is higher, then it will still absorb despite getting warmed up .... It will just absorb less. During glacial transitions CO2_atmos is in equilibrium with the Oceans, and thus when it warms/cools the reaction will be a release or an absorption. But if (as currently is the case) there is an imbalance between CO2_ocean and CO2_atmos then it will only slow down the absorption. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:41, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I support the resolution we are working towards. glad we could work this out. thanks!!! --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 03:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Assumptions about the ocean's carbon capacity here are like for homogeneous test tubes. Multi phased absorption and adsorption are underway in the ocean's many diverse regions. The amounts of carbonaceous life the oceans can grow and carry are currently unfathomed by folk bent on targeting stacks and tailpipes. I am for stick to the sources and attribute. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 04:33, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can't quite parse the above, but here is a fairly good quick-and-dirty intro. There's also Chapter 7 of the AR4 (specifically, let me see... subsection 7.3.4). Bottom line is that it's a lot more complicated than just saying that solubility of CO2 in water decreases as temperature increases, and our explanation in the article is not very good. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:45, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Boris. In all, the Feedback section could benefit from a basic intro to the Carbon_cycle before advancing the possible acceleration mechanisms. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 17:52, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, everyone should have a look at Carbon_cycle where it can be seen that humans release about 5.5 Gt of carbon annually into the atmosphere whilst around 90 Gt is exchanged with the surface ocean in the same period. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so let's have a reasonable Carbon Cycle summary with a "See: link" in this article to property set the stage for "forcing"? Don't want to push this on folks, before talk. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 21:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was about to point out that there is already a published disputation of Scafetta and West, Krivova, Solanki, and T. Wenzler have challenged the Scafetta and Willson reconstruction

N. A. Krivova, S. K. Solanki and T. Wenzler “ACRIM-gap and total solar irradiance revisited: Is there a secular trend between 1986 and 1996?”, Geophysical Research Letter 36, L20101, doi:10.1029/2009GL040707 (2009) available tat http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0911/0911.3817v1.pdf when it got reverted to eliminate the reference to S&W. Fine by me.

The gist of KS&W is that S&W used an inappropriate model (one that Kivova had created for telescopic observations to bidge the gap between satellites. Another of Kivova's models is more appropriate, and yields a small decrease in solar irradiance.

At best S&W is pretty out on the limb there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eli Rabett (talk • contribs) 01:11, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the only problem with Scafetta and West's work. See, e.g., http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011639.shtml Michaelbusch (talk) 21:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've drafted a new FAQ entry.

Q22: What about this really interesting recent peer reviewed paper I read or read about, that says...?

This is intended to answer people who want to push new scientific papers prematurely into an article. --TS 21:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]