Talk:Environment of California

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 August 2021 and 17 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Riley Sasukawori.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

List vs Prose

I question the assertion this article would be more effective as prose. The environment is an encompassing subject. Dividing the subject into rational subcategories is difficult because of fundamental cross-linking. Many organizations were formed by or sponsored legislation and deal with one or more media interactions: air, water, climate, soil, land use, habitat, population, waste, recycling, energy, or demonstration projects. Short description of rationale for categorization might be more helpful than extensive prose in guiding readers to articles on subjects of interest.Thewellman (talk) 19:15, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Have a look at all the other environment by location articles. The topic most certainly needs prose. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:50, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion. I have looked at some of the other environment by location articles, but find the topic more often appropriately covered as a prose section of the prose article about that location. Separate articles on environment by location seem to share a common prose introduction varying comparatively little from one location to the next, followed by a short series of paragraphs describing links to main articles. Please accept my compliments for your work on the Environment of New Zealand article; but, after working over 30 years for the California Environmental Protection Agency, I am unconvinced that would be a useful template for California. California has an overlapping state and federal regulatory structure plus agreements with three bordering states and another nation regarding shared rivers. Environmental politics in California are dominated by two polarized parties, rather than a larger number of parties accustomed to compromise. California has a more diverse climate than New Zealand, larger areas of high population density, relatively unregulated border commerce, and migratory fauna crossing to and from bordering jurisdictions. In short, I believe a compact, list-format article is better suited to California's more complicated environmental situation than simplified prose tailored to comparatively isolated locations with less diverse habitat issues. If you are unwilling or unable to make the edits you have in mind, I encourage you to at least share your reasons for believing prose would be more appropriate for California.Thewellman (talk) 03:22, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe Alan is expressing a directive from our Manual of Style, where prose is generally preferred over lists for articles. For the specific guideline, see WP:EMBED#Prose versus lists. More specifically, lists are suggested over prose for child paragraphs, long lists of items, and definition lists. If these embedded lists make up a majority of the article, then we should convert it into a list article. Hence, this should be moved to List of environmental topics of California.

If we do start a new prose article on the Environment of California, I'd like to understand how that would be different from the existing prose article on the Ecology of California. —hike395 (talk) 03:48, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

As well as an overlap with all of the topics in the Environment of the United States there are specifics to the state of California that deserve their own article. There are environmental organisations, environmental issues, environmental policy etc that are specific to California. This article can have a level of detail that Environment of the United States could not have for fear of making a cluttered and long article. Thewellman, you mention "California's more complicated environmental situation". If that is the case then an article is better than a list since all of the complicated nuances can be documented.

I would oppose a List of environmental topics of California page unless all the entries on the list would be annotated. If they are not annotated then Category:Environment of California would suffice. The Ecology of California article shows that there can be articles on topics based around a political jurisdiction even though it is not its correct boundary. Note that there is a difference between ecology (the scientific study of ecosystems} and biophysical environment. The latter is a broader topic and generally includes the effects of human activity. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 04:54, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I would agree a prose article would be more appropriate IF California's more complicated environmental situation could be documented within an uncluttered article of reasonable length; but I haven't seen any volunteers to write that article, and disagreement about appropriate scope is a disincentive to make the attempt. I suggest potential overlap or exclusions would be good topics for preliminary agreement. As an observation, the present Ecology of California article seems focused on habitat characteristics of geography and climate which have subsequently been modified to varying degrees for human habitation; while, as Alan suggests, environment is sometimes considered to focus on human habitat adjustments.

Strangely, comparatively little weight is customarily given to quantifying human habitat needs such as water supply, food supply, transportation corridors, and shelter and energy requirements. Plants and animals thriving in those human habitats are similarly neglected. (I once heard an opinion there were more horses in the Los Angeles metropolitan area than in the cowboy states of Montana and Wyoming. Feral housecats are the most numerous predators in the Sierra Nevada; but cougar populations are rising in suburban Marin County because few people hunt deer there, and cougars following the deer find pet dogs and cats easier to catch.)

Present articles seem to understate the significance of runoff adjustments to California climate and habitats. Winter flooding fluctuations and stream channel scouring have been reduced by dams, while reservoir releases for agricultural irrigation and domestic use often create wetter riparian conditions and lower estuarine salinity through the summer and fall; although draining of historic wetlands has had an opposing effect. (Agricultural use of the Sacramento River delta would be an environmental issue by Alan's definition since summer salinity levels were unfavorable for agriculture until summer releases from Shasta Dam began during World War II.)

Might it be appropriate to emphasize the present human population centers of coastal Southern California and San Francisco Bay as unique habitats in the environment article rather than focusing on the relatively small remaining parts of those areas bearing limited resemblance to earlier conditions? Perhaps those enclaves might better be described in individual articles recognizing their unique park-like features.Thewellman (talk) 07:22, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

A prose article that talks about the interaction between humans, their technology, and the non-human habitat would be useful, I think. This could have three parts: human impacts on the ecosystems, human habitat needs, and human policies towards the ecosystems. That would be quite a worthwhile article, and beyond my expertise to write. —hike395 (talk) 07:30, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I have set up Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Environment by country as a means of getting started on envirnment articles. It can be used for state level environment articles. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

This discussion contains elements illustrating the environment of California. The state has attracted the attention of a diverse spectrum of talented people; and many of them believe they know the appropriate environmental template, but understand they lack the resources and expertise to implement it. Environmental action in the Golden State often proceeds slowly through a long information gathering process followed by workshop discussion meetings. If they reach agreement, that consensus may be legislatively edited and implemented by individuals with little participation in the preceding discussion process. Are we there yet?Thewellman (talk) 18:13, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposal for deletion

While the subject of this article is broad, it corresponds to a large series of Environment of ... articles with similarly broad scope. All of the articles suggested for receipt of information if this article was deleted are already large enough that further additions should cause consideration of subordinate articles.Thewellman (talk) 23:45, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I PRODed this article yesterday. Here is the text of my original PROD, which has been removed without comment by User:Rotten regard:

This article is a collection of content on only marginally-related topics that do not in any way add up to an article on the "Environment of California." The scope of this article's name and intent is probably too broad and vague for it to be salvageable as a coherent article on its attempted subject. The disjointed subject matter in this article are best dealt with individually in more subject-specific articles such as Environmentalism, Transportation in Los Angeles, History of California, California, Demographics of California, and specific city articles such as Los Angeles. The article as a whole does not provide even a minimum of useful information on the "Environment of California." The article also contains severe factual inaccuracies such as the claim that "20th century petroleum extraction made Los Angeles the largest United States city."

I still really do not think this article has any direction or is at all salvageable, or worth the effort that would be required to salvage it. The concept of a series of "Environment of X" articles is, to me, entirely too broad and subjective and will not add anything of value to Wikipedia. I guess I'm going to have to AfD it since the PROD was contested. Darkest tree (talk) 18:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Propsal for title change

While I agree with all the points made by Darkest Tree, I also hate to see so much work tossed in the trash bin. And, though soewhat eclectic, as an article it does have possible merit. I was wondering-- would the article be better off if retitled to something like,

ENVIRONMENTAL CAUSES IN CALIFORNIA or perhaps ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIONS IN CALIFORNIA or something....

I do think that at minimum, the existing article title is highly misleading. The "environment" of California" should clearly refer to the physical condition of the state's natural biota. Describing various environmentalist / environmentalism issues under the header of "environment of California" is a huge disservice to Wikipedia users. And, in fact, if this same nomenclature is also used similarly for other regions of the U.S. or world, I would strongly recommend their systemmatic re-tiling as well! (However, I am not so Don Quixotian as to make such a major realignment myself. Nope! Just call me Pancho, senor!)

Curious to see if this proposal goes anywhere. I'll continue watching this article. Good luck, y'all!

Cynthisa (talk) 08:34, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Disputed links

The External links section contains multiple sites that are very obviously one-sided and are hardly valid sources. Enenews has been routinely spreading false information and skewed facts in order to persuade its readers to go anti-nuclear, this is not something that should be on Wikipedia. Moving on we see "Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility" which is again another very obviously anti-nuclear and one-sided. I'm not sure about EnviroNews but I'm pretty sure the other ones I mentioned are not suitable for Wikipedia. I suggest we remove them from the External links section. Qasaur (talk) 16:58, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

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