Talk:List of climate change controversies

Possible way forward

There is now another merger discussion to merge this article into climate change denial, see here: Talk:Climate change denial#Merge global warming controversy into here?. An alternative option could be to rework this article to become one that just lists past and ongoing debates (calling it purposefully debates not controversies). It could then be renamed "climate change debates" and contain quite a few excerpts. It could be a bit like a landing page to point people to the right sub-pages. A bit similar to climate change action (but longer). Thoughts? EMsmile (talk) 16:30, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I am still trying to reach consensus for the way forward. My move proposal below was closed and the result was "not moved". I copy below what RCraig09 wrote on the talk page at: Talk:Climate change denial#Merge global warming controversy into here?. Is that the broad consensus? EMsmile (talk) 09:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

The above arguments that are on-point, favor dismantling the GWControversy article. The issue is that a "controversy" doesn't really exist, so the arguments that don't directly address this issue should not carry weight for consensus. The GWControversy article should be merged out of existence and replaced with a redirect to CCdenial. A fraction of what's still in the GWControversy article might be moved... somewhere, not necessarily here. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I've now moved all content out and have begun to convert the article to a list type article. I think this might work. It's basically just a landing page to show people where they can look for more detail. Does that work for everyone? EMsmile (talk) 10:13, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 22 November 2023

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

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Edward-Woodrow (talk) 21:49, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

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Global warming controversy → Climate change debates – I have recently reworked this article to become one that just lists past and ongoing debates (calling it purposefully debates not controversies). I propose to rename it to "climate change debates". It could contain quite a few excerpts and be a bit like a landing page to point people to the right sub-pages. A bit similar to climate change action (but longer). - We also discussed merging it into climate change denial and a few editors have supported this but I think some of its content is not about denial per se but just about past discussions. One of the Wikipedians said "Global warming controversy should be eliminated as "controversy" is a fabrication of deniers.". At a later stage, some of its content could also be moved to history of climate change science. EMsmile (talk) 18:47, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose with every atom of my being: The concept of "Climate change debates" is not substantively different from "Climate change controversy". Both are a fabrication of denialists undeserving of a Wikipedia article, and should be redirected to Climate change denial. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:22, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

  I too supported the proposal to merge to climate change denial, but as you know it has not acheived consensus. So if this proposal is also rejected I think you should make a formal proposal as it seems none of us are happy with the current situation. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:53, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

• Strong oppose: as far as I can tell, all of the "X debate" sections on this page now are almost entirely fabricated debates that are just denialist smoke blowing. These aren't debates in the scientific literature, and calling them "debates" adds credence to them that they don't deserve. - Parejkoj (talk) 21:27, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Perfectly stated. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:36, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I think your view is too simplistic here: As far as I can see there were some valid discussions around various aspects of climate change science and policies. They were often hijacked very quickly by climate change deniers but they were originally valid discussions at the time. For example, the section "Discussions around locations of temperature measurement stations" and "Debates over most effective response to warming". Those debates about mitigation options are now mostly explained in Economic analysis of climate change but they were and are legitimate discussions and not just "climate change denial stuff". Also, the "Antarctica cooling controversy" started off by a discussion amongst scientists; yes, it got hijacked and distorted by denialists. But originally it was simply a scientific investigation which is worth remembering (OK, another approach would be to move that to history of climate change science). - In any case, it feels to me a bit like you are saying any "discussions" around climate change equate to denialism.

See also related discussion here: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:Climate_change_denial#Merge_global_warming_controversy_into_here? Let me ping in two more people, User:KimDabelsteinPetersen and User:Mary Mark Ockerbloom who had commented there. Kim D. Petersen had written there which I thought was interesting: "While denial and conspiracies is a subset of the whole, the controversy also encompasses the political and economic struggle to figure out how to translate the very real problem into action (or inaction). If anything denial and conspiracies stem/arise from the controversy not the other way around." (I had replied there but got no further replies from them) EMsmile (talk) 11:48, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

• Support Although it is not a good title it is better than the one we have now. Supporting this move does not stop anyone editing the article further or proposing another move next year. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:45, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you, to think of this as an incremental improvement but not necessary the "final" situation. I think my proposed title (and scope) would certainly be better than the existing status quo. Merging all of it into other articles may or may not work, time will tell (I don't think all of it would fit at climate change denial; also, that article is already way too big and needs to be condensed).

Looking at the edit history of this article you can see that it's been in existence since 2002 (21 years!). Most of its content was added in 2007. After that it was slowly growing in size until I came along and slashed it down a lot recently. So deleting this article completely might not be warranted. For now, I think it would be a good compromise to re-focus it (like I have done) and to give it a more neutral name. That is what I am proposing at this stage. EMsmile (talk) 08:47, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose I see no reason to doubt that an average reader, who infamously rarely even makes it past the lead, would approach any article with the proposed title exactly as we all fear - as the reason to debate the existence of climate change - rather than as a debate about the higher-level aspects which the supporters of the move want them to see. In that sense, the move would be massively unhelpful.

The main issue is that the current article is very loosely scoped, as a range of arguments about very different things, and of highly variable validity, are all crammed into a single article. In some ways, it reminds me of effects of climate change on terrestrial animals (now a redirect): that used to have anything and everything from impact on domestic cattle to wild bats and birds, to snails going extinct to the spread of pest insects and pathogens - all because "terrestrial animals" is an inherently loose formulation that covers far too many species which often have very little in common, and me and EMsmile had to spent weeks on moving the content to more appropriately focused articles.

This is what I currently make of the article's subsections:

• "Debates around the...Authority of the IPCC" - massive issues with WP:UNDUE, and not in one, but in two ways. Firstly, it gives undue weight to the perspective of deniers and delayers, based on statements from 2000s, which overlooks that a larger and more recent "debate" has been from the other side of the spectrum - the various figures who have accused the IPCC of being too timid and optimistic about the impacts of climate change, with varying credibility. Secondly, even including "both sides" in even proportion would still be WP:UNDUE - if you take a look at scientific consensus on climate change, there have been surveys of hundreds of climate scientists which altogether represent a resounding endorsement of the IPCC. On balance, it seems like we should cover these matters on the IPCC article itself and on one of the "history of climate change" articles (themselves clearly far from ideal.)
• "Emphasizing studies that are regarded as flawed" - the way this is written, I do not see why this does not belong in climate change denial. It clearly has no role in any article about good-faith debate on any aspect of the matter.
• "Funding for scientists who are skeptics or deniers" - This also seems rather out of place for an article which is supposedly intended to examine higher-order aspects of the matter?
• "Debates around details in the science" - for me, the most charitable reading is that this could be used as a basis for something like Uncertainty in climate change science. However, a lot more material would have to be combined (some more from the "delayer" side, like the iris hypothesis, but the majority from the "alarmist" side - i.e. the debates around climate sensitivity or the thresholds of various tipping points) to justify the existence of something like this than what is currently present in that section (Interestingly, it seems like this article did mention some of those things earlier, albeit not in the ideal way, before EMsmile culled all of that.) Everything that is left here now can be reworked to fit History of climate change science: right now, that article effectively tapers off after 1988, with mere two paragraphs describing "Increased consensus amongst scientists: 1988 to present". That article is still mid-sized (34 kB, ~5.5k words), and it can certainly fit a few more paragraphs describing how some figures tried to use these supposed discrepancies to oppose the consensus, and how the science had moved past that.
• "Debates over most effective response to warming" - the article's defenders suggest that this should be the crux of the article, but right now, it's mostly just an excerpt and there's almost nothing relevant there. At the risk of excessive self-promotion: at the start of the year, I proposed to create an article titled "Secondary impacts of climate change responses", which would describe how climate change mitigation and adaptation can have additional benefits if done right (incorporating Start-class Co-benefits of climate change mitigation in the process) and how they can have negative impacts, and how to balance those issues. You can see a very rough draft of this proposal on my userpage here.

TLDR; I strongly oppose the new name of this article, and I believe that its remaining material doesn't belong under the same roof and should be moved to other articles, whether existing or newly formed. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 13:19, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

If you have time to rework it in that way, I wouldn't stand in your way. I just wanted to make sure that the current status quo does not persists any longer. I think a basic name change for now is better than nothing but I do agree that the article has many flaws in its current format (and that it's loosely scoped). Do you have time to move any content that is worth keeping to either climate change denial or History of climate change science in the near-ish future? If yes, go ahead would be my suggestion. EMsmile (talk) 15:47, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Have done your good suggestion and moved subsection →Emphasizing studies that are regarded as flawed - thanks Chidgk1 (talk) 15:17, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose "Debates" can be seen as WP:FALSEBALANCE, since the general scientific consensus is that global warming/climate change itself is not a matter of debate. I think this article should be merged into climate change denial, as when you remove the FALSEBALANCE aspects of it, it's pretty much the same thing. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 08:26, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

  Yes if you can persuade the people opposing Talk:Climate change denial#Merge global warming controversy into here? that would be wonderful Chidgk1 (talk) 14:33, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

  I pretty much reiterated there what I also said here, although keep in mind you aren't allowed to directly ask someone to influence a discussion per WP:CANVASS. Bringing it up in a neutral manner is what should have been done. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 06:49, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose I agree with those above who have pointed out that both "debates" and "controversy" can be interpreted as supporting the idea that there is a lack of scientific consensus on climate change. I think that some good suggestions have been made for reorganizing and moving materials to other pages, and if that can be done, I see it as preferable to renaming. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 19:51, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Oppose - It should be kept as is. 120.28.224.32 (talk) 08:58, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

This is not a vote. You are supposed to give reasons. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:14, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Comment - I think it's good to move some of the content to other articles where it fits, like I have just done with a segment on climate change mitigation which I have moved to climate change denial. However, I still think there could be merit in having a form of "landing page" which then sends people to the relevant sub-articles on a range of topics. We could easily use excerpts for this. With "landing page" I mean a page (with an appropriate article title, to be decided) which basically says "this is not about disputing the existence of climate change. This is about past and present discussions about some specific aspects in relationship to how climate change pans out, how it happens, how fast, how we can deal with it, how the research is carried out and so forth".

We cannot claim that each of those past debates was the work of climate change deniers: Some of those debates were real and valid, e.g. about the siting of temperature measurement devices. They usually got hijacked in no time by the climate change deniers but that's a different problem. So a landing page that provides an overview of the difficult topics could still be useful in my opinion. Unless we say it's not the job of Wikipedia to provide such a landing page. But isn't climate action also a kind of landing page? Or call it a disambiguation page, or a list article.

Maybe the new title should be Topics of discussion around climate change or Climate change discussion topics or List of discussion topics on climate change. Or maybe this would make it too broad and it wouldn't work at all? EMsmile (talk) 10:56, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Note we do have something a bit similar called Index of climate change articles. EMsmile (talk) 10:59, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

"Discussion topics..." (etc.) is definitely too broad. Index of climate change articles serves a valid purpose more succinctly and neutrally. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:45, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"Brownlash" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Brownlash has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 November 30 § Brownlash until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 15:02, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 8 December 2023

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

The result of the move request was: Moved to List of climate change controversies. Per consensus on the alternative proposed title. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 01:20, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

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Global warming controversy → List of global warming controversies – This article has now been reworked to be a list article. It's basically a landing page to show people where they can look for this kind of content. Most of the previous content has been moved to climate change denial. I think it is important to change it to plural (i.e. controversies, not controversy). My previous proposal to change it to "climate change debates" achieved no consensus. Setting this up as a basic list article is a good compromise solution, I think. EMsmile (talk) 11:16, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support - Thanks for all your cleanup work. I think this is in a much better state now, and that rename makes sense. - Parejkoj (talk) 18:08, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support. The proposed title is appropriate given that the article is now mainly a list of links to more specific subjects. ╠╣uw [talk] 18:12, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Per VQuakr below, List of climate change controversies seems preferable, since it's the form used by all the listed articles. ╠╣uw [talk] 11:14, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support great work! VQuakr (talk) 18:36, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

But @EMsmile: why not List of climate change controversies? All the listed items seem to be in the form of the latter. VQuakr (talk) 18:39, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: Yes, I agree, List of climate change controversies would actually be much better. My original thought was to stick closer to the current title but actually List of climate change controversies would work better. Glad to see the supportive responses. Thanks! EMsmile (talk) 16:40, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: I still retain concerns that an article with such a title may be misinterpreted, and that we could see attempts to add denialist talking points into such an article, but I cannot currently think of a better alternative, so I will not formally oppose this.

I should also note if the move happens, as it seems like it will, we would likely need to reintegrate the mention (in the form of links, I suppose) of some of the things which got cut out of this article earlier, such as the iris hypothesis or arguments that the IPCC/mainstream science is too conservative. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 19:28, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, we'd have to watch this new list article to ensure it stays as a list and no substantial new content, especially not denialism stuff, (other than links) get added. Regarding the two points that you mentioned they are already included with links in the article:

• History of climate change science#Discredited theories and reconciled apparent discrepancies (in here you will find the info about the iris hypothesis, amongst others (to be built up in future)
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change#Challenges and controversies (this contains the criticism about the IPCC processes) EMsmile (talk) 08:40, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for comment regarding related articles

I noticed that there are several users who have been quite active in discussions on this talk page, even though I do not usually see them participate in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Climate change. According to WP:CAN, it is perfectly acceptable to request comments on talk pages of related articles, so I would like to do that right now for two articles.

• Scientific consensus on climate change - a highly related article. I voiced several suggestions on the talk page there two weeks ago, yet nobody had commented on them yet in one way or another.

• Climate apocalypse - a controversial topic, and there has been a long-running merge discussion there (in addition to some other proposals) which hasn't really gone anywhere. Perhaps input from editors active here could help to resolve the question.

InformationToKnowledge (talk) 19:38, 11 December 2023 (UTC)