Talk:Climate change

Ready for copy-edit?

We've tackled all suggestions from the featured article review pre-review as far as I'm concerned, and also rewrote the mitigation section. Are we ready for a copy-edit before we ask for a proper FAR? Signing off for a few days. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:10, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I vote that we are ready for a copy-edit.Dtetta (talk) 19:22, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I identified and rewrote a very weak subsubsection. Going to wait till to see if that new version is stable. Femke Nijsse (talk) 05:36, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

There isn't any real "see also" section. ~ R.T.G 20:25, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

That's fine, see WP:SEEALSO. Because the article is comprehensive, there aren't many internal links that haven't been mentioned in the body of the text. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:40, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Then I am going to take the liberty starting with global warming potential. ~ R.T.G 08:48, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

That has already been linked from the article (be it not using that jargon), so that one doesn't work. Per WP:ONEDOWN we shouldn't use any unnecessary jargon in this article. Femke Nijsse (talk) 09:22, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I can't find it by searching the source text. ~ R.T.G 09:49, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

It's in this sentence: Global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 excluding land use change were equivalent to 52 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:42, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

FYI at the time of this thread that sentence wikilinked to a redir; on account of htis thread I updated the wikilink to point to the target article, global warming potential. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:22, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I have signed us up. The current waiting list is about a month. I might rewrite one paragraph before then (or not), but am now quite satisfied with what we've got. Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:10, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I've gone over part of it, feedback welcome. HLHJ (talk) 04:07, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Whitewashing alert

This article has severe issues. I will highlight just one:
The article for anthropogenic global warming redirects to here.
...yet it gives no indication that the page has this redirect.

It is clear that major things are broken here. This article could use a large dose of transparency.
It does state that "Climate change" redirects here. The proper action to take is to make the same statement about AGW.
I will leave it to others to fix this, as this only scratches the surface on what is broken here. --Concord19 (talk) 13:43, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

This comment contains two parts.

• A - tangibly, you have a complaint about the AGW redirect. In reply.... there's no policy that says articles must list all the redirects that target a given article. The reason "climate change" is mentioned is two-fold, first that among readers (and even editors) there is a lot of confusion over the terms "climate change" and "global warming". In contrast, a microscopically small number of wonky readers arrive here thinking of the phrase "anthropogenic global warming". Second, the former "climate change" article stood for a long time with a different scope but was recently moved to a different title (Climate variability and change) so we try to provide some basic info about all that in a "you are here" sort of way for returning readers. See WP:HATNOTE for background info on the goals and purposes of providing a statement like climate change redirects here.
• B - the rest of this comment is what's known as a WP:VAGUEWAVE, so there's nothing to reply to.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:23, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

There's no policy? The reason this one example was called out is because this IS the article on AGW. The title has been whitewashed so that the "A" is now assumed. Quote (early statements in the lede):

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that "human influence on climate has been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century". These findings have been recognized by the national science academies of major nations and are not disputed by any scientific body of national or international standing.

Yet it gives no indication that there are plenty of scientists who dispute it. Randall Carlson is one person who gives sound reasons as to why the jury is still out on this issue. So this article has FAILED in presenting an NPOV. One obvious way to lower the global temperature is to INCREASE pollutants. This is what the whole nuclear winter thing was all about.

Now look at the statement from the first paragraph:

Collectively, global warming and its effects are known as climate change.

That is a garbage statement. "Climate change" is a term which is inclusive of global cooling. "Change" is not a synonym for "warming".

Then there are the policies you cite to change the very title of this issue I have highlighted. You, and other editors, have been called out on this general problem that this article has. There is no Manual Of Style policy which instructs me to be neutral with a section title I use here in the TALK space. You'be grossly misinterpreted this policy which is used for helping us with how to write Articles.

And there is irony in you citing Vaguewave while not giving specific example.

Anyone who is not clear on the general criticism, there have been multiple articles which have been conflated here:

- Global warming is a distinct issue from...

- Anthropogenic global warming, and both are a separate issue from...

- Climate change.

And it was the lumping of these all together which is what has raised this flag of whitewashing. The article is so broken that it no longer gives the courtesy appearance that you've been redirected. As this article stands today, it tells the public that it is a forgone conclusion that human beings are the reason for climate change. And dissenting views have been silenced. NPOV fail. --Concord19 (talk) 10:34, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Concord19, it is certain that humans are causing climate change now. We've shown this in the article by citing many high-quality reliable sources (NASA, NOAA, many peer-reviewed scientific articles, IPCC, World meteorological organisation and more). The opinion of one non-expert as Randall Carlson isn't relevant. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:54, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

"Global warming has become a new religion ...because you can't discuss it." ~ Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever

I've already explained that humans have the potential to create global cooling by way of polluting the atmosphere. It was expected that you would readily dismiss Randall Carlson. Now to persist with this whitewashing, you will be required to dismiss this position by a Nobel laureate. And I expect that you and others have already justified doing this. Because these dissenting views are not hard to find.

I intend to LEAVE this article now as being broken beyond repair. I had raised the concern that whitewashing was happening in the article. The immediate response was then someone whitewashing my section title. And attempted to legitimize this by bogusly applying WP. Your reply has made it perfectly clear why this problem here has been persisting. Because a critical mass of editors have stopped looking to present any semblance of NPOV. This fits perfectly with Giaever's assessment, that this has become a religion. --Concord19 (talk) 11:36, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Concord19, per WP:SECTIONHEADINGOWN, it's perfectly valid to make a heading more to-the-point and neutral. Nobel prize winners talking about fields they have no expertise in are about as valuable as you and me in establishing facts. We're discussing it now, but you have not provided any high-quality reliable source (f.i recent review papers in good scientific journals). You might find that contrary to some (US and Australian) media, a disagreement about the cause of climate change isn't present in actual scientific literature. If you're afraid some of us formed a clique, you can always get completely uninvolved editors to weigh in using the Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard, but I don't think you'll get far. Femke Nijsse (talk) 11:46, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

A guy with a Nobel prize in physics isn't smart enough for you? Here is a different guy who worked in the Australian Greenhouse Office as their "main modeler of carbon":

"The climate models ...don't really have a clue about how much warming, or what's causing warming. They're saying it's due to CO2. Obviously it's not." ~ David Evans, PhD

I expect you will have a standard way of dismissing Evans too, as readily as you dismissed Carlson & Giaever.

By the way, some of us remember this big scare from the 70s:

"Climate experts believe the next Ice Age is on its way. ...temperatures have been dropping for 30 years. ...According to some climatologists, within a lifetime, we might be living in the next Ice Age." ~ documentary narrator Leonard Nimoy

Ok, I have said about all that I came to this article to say. --Concord19 (talk) 12:23, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I think Concord19 raises half of a valid point illustrative of the multi-year confusion over naming and scope of topic articles "climate change" and "global warming". I say "half valid" because we're arguing about equally valid meanings of the phrase when both are accurate. What the article now says is half true... global warming and its effectives are indeed known as "climate change". But its only half true because that's not the exclusive meaning of "climate change". As Concord19 points out it has a broader technical meaning that encompasses any-and-all climate change, including global cooling. I would not object to adding a footnote making the meaning used here more clear, and in contrast with the general meaning. The footnote could point to the main article on this broader meaning, Climate variability and change. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:22, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

The position you have taken here strikes me as quite odd. Say that you go look at the Wikipedia article on Natural Numbers, and there you find the lede stating this:

"Natural numbers are known as Integers."

Or you look at the article on Bisexuality, and in the lede there, you find this:

"Bisexuals are people who are attracted only to men."

These are NOT "half valid" statements. These are examples of blatantly erroneous statements. Because they were written by people who clearly have failed to grasp the concept of what they are writing about.

This article on Global warming is laced with blatant errors. And until these bogus statements get fixed, then this will remain a broken article. --Concord19 (talk) 22:02, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

The IPCC has stressed ...

The IPCC has stressed the need to keep global warming below 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) compared to pre-industrial levels in order to avoid some irreversible impacts. This lede sentence makes me uncomfortable, but I don't know how to fix it. The word stressed is probably a word to watch (WP:SAID), and should be reworded. If we use a more neutral 'described' or 'stated', the sentence doesn't feel strong enough for the lede, and doesn't fit into the policy paragraph that well. Any thoughts on how to improve that sentence or paragraph? Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:17, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

The current reference (Summary for Policymakers) merely responds to an invitation to provide a special report; it isn't the actual source of the "1.5" figure. Based on language ("aspirational") from Carbon Brief, maybe something like the following would work: "The IPCC has studied the impacts of the Paris Agreement's aspirational goal of 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) and found that ...." A subject matter expert such as yourself could readily summarize the impacts. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:04, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

A possibility involving a change of reference....something like....

When the IPCC issued a special report comparing the risks of limiting warming to 1.5 versus 2.0 degrees C, the BBC described the scientists as issuing a "final call" which "says that going past 1.5C is dicing with the planet's liveability". IPCC special report, BBC news story

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:06, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

RCraig, you're right that the IPCC is not the source of 1.5. Your sentence also allows us to introduce the Paris agreement into the lede, which I think would be beneficial. I'll work from that one. I'll try to integrate the Carbon Brief article into the body.

NEAG: I'm not keen on introducing the BBC into the lede (or even in the body), as it's a trigger word for loads of people on the right (or in other circumstances left) in the UK. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:43, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Good point NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:35, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy. The IPCC SR15 report was in response to the Paris agreement, not the other way around, as RCraig09 indicated above. Which makes it more difficult to glue these sentences. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:06, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks I'm on it NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:11, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Review of cited literature

Dtetta I’ve been doing a review of the literature we cite recently. Mostly to make sure everything checks out and is up to date, but also as a secondary goal to reduce the amount of sources we cite to make the page load faster (so getting more info out of our higher quality sources to delete the lower quality). In 'your' sections about mitigation, I’ve noticed a few things:

• ‘Solar PV and wind in particular (…) last few years cites a 2014 source, which logically can’t tell us much over the last few years (2015-2020?)

I eliminated the older IPCC reference and replaced it with a more recent set of figures from Our World In Data, and combined that with the existing reference at the end of the sentence.Dtetta (talk) 19:08, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Great! Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:59, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

• Not sure if Dj Tyson is a reliable source, definitely not a high-quality RS that is expected of most cites in a featured article.

Yes the “reliable source” on this particular sentence is an interesting choice. We could just reference Message 4 in National Climate Assessment Chapter 26, which deals with native villages. But the Pacific Environment article has a nice feel of indigenous perspective, which is why I think it’s a better source than the more academic perspective you get from the NCA. My preference would be to keep the current source, but if you want to change it to the NCA report or some similar source, that’s fine with me as well.Dtetta (talk) 00:13, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• A TSC Webmaster was probably not the author, you can leave the author empty if necessary. Is there a better source?

I removed the reference to TSC Webmaster, and moved the citation, combining it with the FAO citation at the end of the sentence. Actually the TSC article is based on the same 2018 paper in Science by Curtis that is referenced at the end of the paragraph. I had chosen this depiction of Curtis‘s work because of the way it graphically shows the continued forest loss in the tropics, which is what the statement that it’s referring to is describing.Dtetta (talk) 21:31, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

:). Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• The headbomb script for unreliable sources doesn't like the Oh, Yoo and Yoo cite; possibly a predatory journal. Do you have a higher quality source for that statement? Preferably a review type of source (global?) that also includes vehicle efficiency standards, so that we don't break up the sentence with a mid-sentence cite.

I replaced the Oh, Yoo and Yoo reference with a more basic description of EPA’s Clean Power Plan by the NRDC. I think that simple example, rather than a more detailed academic analysis, is actually a better way of referencing this particular statement.Dtetta (talk) 15:19, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Would you be able to address some/all of those? Thanks!! Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:22, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Sure - I will look into those issues.Dtetta (talk) 17:12, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• And another one; citation 212 (IPCC SR15 Ch2 2018.) doesn't have a page number. I'm noticing they're even asking for page numbers for long papers at FAR, so report chapters definitely need one. I'm sure the executive summary must contain this information. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:59, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Done. Dtetta (talk) 16:48, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• note 207 cites a press release (daily science), which is often biased in favour of the most recent original research done. Is it possible to find a newer review paper (or of not available, cite the original research directly; it will have a review of other literature in its introduction). Per WP:SCIRS (an essay we're allowed to ignore, but which makes a lot of sense), press releases should generally be avoided. Maybe the other cite alone is good enough. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

mea culpa, I probably added some of the Science Daily citations. Thanks for pointing out the weakness in those. I guess I'm late to the party, it seems whatever citations to this source have been removed already, except for one, from May 2020, about CSS. I think I can clean that up later. The point in the text being made isn't that exceptional so there should be plenty of decent alternatives. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:38, 2 August 2020 (UTC) UPDATE.... please review this diff and incorporate the ref into Harv (which I still don't understand) if ya'll think it is an improvement. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:53, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

I strongly feel experimental geo-engineering techniques (like direct air capture) are undue in this article. The mitigation section is already bulging. Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:15, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

OK by me... it would also be ok by me to reduce the section to a list and links to other articles with almost no text. Personally, I would like to see the world commit to going "all in" on all the options other than nuclear before doing nuclear, but for purposes of our article we need to add that controversial major option. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:27, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy, I don't think a short list would be valid for a FA article. In terms of nuclear; with such long building times, you can't really do it 'afterwards'. You either have to start within 10 years, or it doesn't really make that much sense anymore imo. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:37, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I get that, but to talk more about it we'd have to drift off into FORUM-land, and while that would be interesting and I'd enjoy that conversation, for our purposes here... since nuclear is such a big, albeit controversial, topic in fossil fuel alternatives I think that needs to be mentioned. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:45, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 3 August 2020

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. The raw !vote count is almost evenly split, I think I counted 12 supports and 11 votes, with a handful of neutrals and one "split" thrown in too. But as we know, WP:CONSENSUS on Wikipedia is always formed through strength of arguments not just voting. So, looking at the arguments presented, the support comments present solid objective evidence that the term "climate change" has superceded "global warming" by a large margin. They also presented some evidence that the term "climate change" refers to the phenomenon discussed by this article in more than 95% of cases. So there is solid evidence that the WP:COMMONNAME policy is met. On the oppose side, the principal arguments appear to be - (a) global warming is a more accurate description and a better name all around; in response to this, editors such as Jps agreed with this assessment, but noted that it is not the job of Wikipedia to change such things when the sources overwhelmingly have switched to the alternative name. (b) it was questioned whether climate change really is the common name, but this was rebuffed with evidence; (c) several opposers cited WP:PRECISE, saying that "climate change" can refer to any change in climate throughout the earth's history; this is true but again it was countered, with the argument that "global warming" is equally ambiguous with other warming periods in history, rendering this argument redundant; they also countered (as I noted above) that the in-depth research carried out by Femke Nijsse and others, found that climate change now refers almost exclusively to this current phenomenon. A few editors mentioned US politics, but there is no evidence in the figures of a global divergence, or that the terminology is somehow being driven by the US government. So, overall, I see a consensus to move, when viewed through the lens of Wikipedia's naming conventions and policy. The suggestion to split the article into two separate topics was made by Red Slash, but this was not addressed or supported by any other editor, and appears beyond the scope of this RM, given the detailed discussion that had already taken place, and the general acceptance that the two terms are roughly synonymous.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:37, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

---

Global warming → Climate change – Currently climate change redirects to global warming. This proposal is to reverse that, having the global warming article renamed to climate change, with global warming redirected to it.

The reason for the move is that climate change has superseded global warming as the term used to describe the phenomena of human-caused temperature changes on Earth and their effects, which is what this article covers.

The google books ngram viewer shows climate change being used 12.6 times more often than global warming as of 2019:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=climate+change%2Cglobal+warming&year_start=1980&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3

In google searches in general, climate change has been searched for more than twice as often as global warming over the last 12 months:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=climate%20change,global%20warming&hl=en-US

Putting our article behind a Global Warming redirect lowers its visibility on search platforms, for instance the wikipedia app has auto-complete that requires fully typing "Climate change" to get to the redirect that is "Global warming", and while you are typing it you get suggested article names like "Climate variability and change". Students are going to be told to search for and research "Climate Change", not "Global Warming", and by hiding the name behind a redirect we are confusing and losing some of our audience.

The change is:

• WP:NATURAL WP:COMMONNAME: This is the primary term used for the phenomena
• WP:CONCISE: Being concise eliminates compromise names like "Global warming and climate change", "Climate change (global warming)", and other variants
• WP:PRECISION: While global warming and climate change are used interchangeably in the popular press, in scientific terms climate change includes the effects of global warming, which this article does

A common concern is that "Climate change" can mean climatic variability that is not modern, human caused climate change. User:Femkemilene performed the -10YEARS test on Google scholar. The first 50 articles all used climate change in the UNFCCC definition [1]. User:RCraig09 reviewed >2800 internal WP links to "Climate change" back when the article talked about climate change as a general concept (see Tracking table) and found that ~90% of the links referred to anthropogenic climate change (i.e., the present article) and not to the generic Climate change (general concept). In modern usage, climate change has meanings other than modern, human-caused climate change only when context is added around the term, e.g. "Pre-industrial climate change" (even then, "climatic change" is the preferred phrasing). This is similarly true for a term like "Evolution", which takes on different meanings when qualified differently, like "Political Evolution", yet Wikipedia's article on "evolution" talks only about Darwin's theory of evolution.

Please consider this rename option vs the status quo, as alternatives like forking the article can still be pursued after this name change. Note related article Climate variability and change, which covers non-human caused climate changes (see its talk page for more naming discussions). A relatively recent and lengthy discussion of naming for this article is located here. Efbrazil (talk) 19:54, 3 August 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. OhKayeSierra (talk) 19:54, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this subsection with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support Seeing as I proposed the move. Efbrazil (talk) 19:57, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

*Oppose, but SUPPORT ALTERNATIVE A - Moving Global warming >>> "Global warming and climate change" First, because readers have seen this topic called "global warming" on the English Wikipedia for something like 15 years. Second, because the article is not merely about the heating (global warming) nor about the heating+effects (climate change) but about both of those, in a thoroughly interwoven way, as it should be, given that this is a systemic topic, i.e., what is currently transpiring in earth's climate system. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:03, 3 August 2020 (UTC)Neutral I thought I was back but my heart just isn't in it after all. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:48, 15 August 2020 (UTC)Neutral I thought I was back but my heart just isn't in it after all. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:48, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

At the end of the archived discussion, you said this: "I am happy with either climate change or global warming and climate change. Since I have started an indefinite wikibreak, I'd give greater weight to the opinion of folks doing the work. Thanks everyone! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:26, 23 November 2019 (UTC)". Can you consider changing your vote to "neutral" at least, so you aren't blocking this change? Efbrazil (talk) 21:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC) I shrank my dated words to lessen the appearance this was said in this thread. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:20, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Words I said on my way to possible retirement are past their expiration date, sorry. Really though it would be a shame if the same old opinions make the same old arguments. We need to RFC this and then page regulars might want to be mum for awhile to see what new minds/eyes have to say. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:23, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

supplemental Re Efbrazil's opening argument about one term "superseding" the other, that's true and yet it falls short of replacing the other, as shown, for example by Science Magazine headline editors' use of "global warming" just a couple weeks ago. [2]. Google News searching limited to the past month does return more more for "climate change" but there are still many for "global warming". I've long argued we should have both terms, since both are in common usage.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:56, 3 August 2020 (UTC) Changed to neutral NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:48, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

In another discussion you said this: "if I were active, I'd still favor, in descending order (1) "global warming and climate change" (2) "human-caused climate change" (3, reluctantly)just "climate change". I would be opposed to keeping the status quo just "global warming". NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:32, 20 April 2020 (UTC)" same housekeeping note about my old imported quotes as last time NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:33, 3 August 2020 (UTC) You proposed "Global warming and climate change" in the last discussion and had 4 opponents (I was not one of them). By opposing this rename, are you saying you are planning to successfully push through a rename to "global warming and climate change"? If not, can you see that your opposition here is effectively the same as saying you support no renaming at all? Efbrazil (talk) 23:01, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Since that's rather repetitive I'll just refer to my earlier reply. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:36, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventsGuy: Consider that for auto-complete scenarios like wikipedia's app on iphone, you must have the term begin with the phrase "Climate change" to trigger a redirect to the correct article. Currently, the only way on the app to get to "Global warming" from wikipedia app search is to fully type the term, meanwhile the app keeps throwing alternative articles at you, including "Climate variability and change". Also, consider that if you have a name like "Global warming and climate change" you are raising the question of what the difference in the two terms are. Given those constraints, I'd support a compromise like "Climate change (global warming)" as a title, but not something with "and" and definitely not something that does not begin with "Climate change" as the first two words of the title. Efbrazil (talk) 22:58, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support per my argumentation at Talk:Global_warming/Archive_80#Second_discussion_on_titles_for_potential_move_request. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support. We're lagging behind both popular and scientific sources here. "Global warming" is excessively simplistic, and climate change is by now the dominant term in serious discourse. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:59, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 23:17, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support. It's time. jps (talk) 23:30, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Neutral. The term Global Warming gets immediately to the heart of the changes to the biosphere brought about by the rapid anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Global average surface temperatures have already risen about 1ºC relative to pre-industrial levels, and are expected to reach at least 3ºC by the end of the 21st century. This is a severe rate and amount of temperature change that is unprecedented in the last million years of Earth's history. Indeed, the changes to the climate are largely brought about by the rapid increase in average temperatures, rather than vice versa. In this way, the name Global Warming is most informative of the problem as it immediately indicates the most significant change in the climate, that brings about all the other secondary changes. There is another reason we should not change the name, which is that it appears in some ways to be, if unconsciously, a subtly important concession to those who point to a cold day and say the Earth isn't warming. Keeping the name Global Warming means resolutely standing by the overwhelming evidence that the planet is indeed rapidly warming, and that this increase in temperatures is important. Also, the argument that 'Climate Change' is searched more frequently than 'Global Warming' is invalid, because the Global Warming wikipedia page is the first result that appears when searching Climate Change. (Google automatically shows the Wikipedia page reference to Global Warming.) In fact, the argument only serves to support the case for keeping Global Warming as the title because, one searches Climate Change and 'Global Warming' appears, answering their question. Jmurray1997 (talk) 03:41, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I understand that "global warming" may be the better term, but the fact remains that "climate change" is by far the more popular term. By changing the name, we will greatly boost how many people find this article on wikipedia. Isn't increasing the discoverability of this article most important? Efbrazil (talk) 19:53, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • @Efbrazil: Given that Google displays Global warming as the first result anyway (even when searching Climate Change), I'm not sure the discoverability of the article would be increased, but perhaps the click-rate? People are making good points here and I suppose I wouldn't be terribly against changing the name to Climate change, as long as the first paragraph emphasizing the rise in average surface temperatures is left unchanged. Jmurray1997 (talk) 22:46, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
    • @Jmurray1997: Yes, we are not proposing content changes except term subsitution as necessary (most of the article already uses the term "climate change" anyhow). As for discoverability, a newbie like a student that is just learning about the topic may not click the article as they have been told to research "climate change", not "global warming". Another example is autocomplete issues- in the wikipedia smartphone app you have to type out the whole term to get the redirect to "global warming". It is also likely true that on search engines this article's visibility is depressed since we use a less popular name for the term (we are currently fourth on Google). We want this article to be "featured" on wikipedia, and to get to that point we think we need to be using the correct term for the phenomena. Efbrazil (talk) 21:26, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
    • @Efbrazil: You make some great points, I do think in most cases, the student in your example would end up using the Global Warming article anyways seeing as there isn't much of a wiki alternative. Would it be possible for someone to report on how the Global Warming article is named in other languages? Do their titles translate more often to 'Global Warming' or to 'Climate Change'? It might be a good point to be in line with what other Wikipedia languages are doing. By my reading, there are generally two camps in this debate, those who want to move to Climate Change to promote accessibility and stay up to date with the current naming convention, and those who want to keep Global Warming out of scientific/political principle. There is a small group that wants to keep Global Warming because they think Climate Change will be confusing or misleading, but I don't really see how these arguments are any more valid for Climate Change than for Global Warming. I'm going to change my position to neutral because I'm somewhat convinced by the arguments of the other side, and I don't want to be a block to what could be progress. MurrayScience (talk) 22:20, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
• Strong oppose The fact that the proposal states that the term global warming is "alarmist" and "unscientific" speaks to an "alarming" bias behind the desire to move the page. Rather, it is an accurate description of the warming that the globe is experiencing, with nothing "alarmist" about it, and the fact that the Earth is warming due to fossil fuels is highly documented in the science. There is no need to move it towards a less accurate term that has commonly been deployed to euphemistically reduce the significance of what is, very clearly, a warming effect._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 05:36, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm completely sympathetic to the substance of this complaint. I wish that the term "global warming" had stuck. But it didn't. Wikipedia is in no position to change that. jps (talk) 14:37, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
    • I don't agree that "climate change" is the WP:COMMONNAME. I agree that it's used more, but there isn't evidence that all those 12.6 times more usages refer to global warming, and not just various types of climactic change. It's a much more vague term. Which is exactly why it fails WP:PRECISE in comparison to global warming._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 14:54, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

      Zxcvbnm, In the previous discussion, I actually did sample what percentage of times climate change is used to refer to modern climate change. Both in Google scholar and normal google, that percentage was above 97% iirc. I sampled about 50 articles each. Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:40, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

      Femkemilene Thanks Femke, I found your research back in the climate variability and change talk page and put it into the header here. If you find a place where you did more research let me know.Efbrazil (talk) 19:53, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

• Alright, well, regardless of that, I remain convinced that both climate change and global warming are commonly used in some respect and there is no clear and obvious primary name. As much as people might object to "global warming" being narrow, I also am concerned that "climate change" will function to distort and minimize the topic, being unnecessarily vague for seemingly no benefit. Per WP:AINTBROKE there is no reason to change._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 18:23, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

  Zxcvbnm, fair enough. Just wanna make sure we're all reasoning based on same understanding. :). Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:32, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

  Zxcvbnm Please review the google links above for the popularity of the terms- it's hard to argue for equivalence between use of the terms once you review the data. It's the IPCC after all, and so that's the terminology used in the scientific community, and that's what students will be searching on when going their homework. Please consider the value of increasing the visibility of this page for people that are genuinely curious vs the importance of persisting in the use of a term that has fallen out of favor, even if that term fell out of favor due to malevolent forces. Efbrazil (talk) 19:53, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

When I reviewed >2800 internal WP links to "Climate change" (see Tracking table) I found that ~90% of the links referred to anthropogenic climate change (i.e., the present article) and not to the generic Climate change (general concept), and the ~10% were fixed, so no worries there...or here. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:01, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• Zxcvbnm, the problem is that the term "global warming" is simplistic. The warming of the planet may cause, for example, accelerated melting of glaciers and Antarctic ice, leading to local areas of increased cooling (and potentially diverting the gulf stream, causing some of Northern Europe to become dramatically colder).

  The reason scientists now talk about climate change rather than global warming is not just to counter idiots who try to pretend that a snowball refutes the theory. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:46, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. "Global warming" is more precise than "climate change", which can describe any number of changes to the climate throughout Earth's history. I reject the proposer's notion that "global warming" is not neutral and unscientific. It is a scientific fact that Earth is warming. I would be okay with "anthropogenic climate change", but that is not as concise as the current title. – Anne drew 14:51, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Faulty reasoning - "global warming" just as easily applies to "any number of" climate system warming periods :throughout Earth's history. I think you've assumed an association with this warming period based on the COMMONNAME, but "climate change" can has a COMMONNAME claim to the same topic. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:34, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Both Global Warming and Climate Change can refer to any of these types of events in the Earth's history. Would it be reasonable to add a prefix or a suffix? For example, Modern Global Warming or Human-Induced Climate Change. I agree that these are less concise, unfortunately. Jmurray1997 (talk) 15:55, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
    • That won't solve things, unfortunately. That's akin to WP:Disambiguation; usually we do not use a qualifier for the main topic, only for the lesser well used ones, e.g., Global warming versus Global Warming (Pitbull album). Documented past global warming episodes have names, e.g., Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum and Eocene Thermal Maximum 2. Same with past global cooling episodes, e.g., Younger Dryas. For the common reader, I don't think such disambiguation is needed.... the usual reader isn't looking for or thinking about Paleoclimatology but current status of the climate system. So adding "modern" or "human-caused" won't really resolve anything. The only thing that really will resolve this debate is to use BOTH in the title, and to explain both the technical usage (global warming = climate system warming and climate change = climate system warming + effects of climate system warming) as well as and common lay usage where the two are often but incorrectly used as synonyms. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:14, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
    • I agree with your point about using a qualifier. If we were to combine both terms, I think 'Global warming and climate change' would be the better combination because the causal direction tends to go global warming -> climate change. Jmurray1997 (talk) 16:22, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support per Guy. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:08, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • • In case anyone is confused, "Guy" = editor JzG NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:46, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Zxcvbnm. WP:COMMONNAME actually says, Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. Policy gives us the freedom go to with the more forceful option, regardless of the various ratios quoted above. XOR'easter (talk) 16:24, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Faulty reasoning - for starters you are implying that "climate change" would be "ambiguous or inaccurate" but you have provided no reasoning much less RSs to support that view. Moreover, what the devil does "go with the more forceful option" mean? Are you saying global warming is more "forceful" than climate change? On what basis do you make this claim and how is that not a textbook WP:POV violation? I sincerely apologize for direct brevity of my questions. They are not intended to be battle minded or put down in any way... only to help zero in on a blessed final solution to this perennial debate. Please share further thinking!! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:44, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
    • There are a few relevant sources in the current article's Terminology section about some terms used to prevent confusion. And why bludgeon the process instead of leaving the closing admin to evaluate consensus and the quality of the arguments? —PaleoNeonate – 20:46, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
      • Indeed yes, I will be posting a supplemental analysis pointing out the existence of the terminology section supports global warming and climate change as the preferred rename. But I get ahead of myself. Meanwhile, don't forget AGF please...making rebuttal arguments so the closing admin has the benefit of all of our brain power is hardly a "bludgeon". NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:35, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
        • I probably exaggerated. I think it's the repeated "faulty reasoning" header that raised a flag for me. Arguing is fine, but this looked like a "dismiss this vote" tag or "*buzz* wrong answer". Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 06:42, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
          • It's not my intent to push buttons (yuk yuk)... these long debates are wearisome. I appreciate it when others start with the view from the ISS (e.g, agree... different referenece... wrong policy... etc). Imagine this thread is a messy file drawer of heaps of paper where you have to read through each word of every sentence and organize it all in your head. Now imagine if each comment was in its own file folder and started off with a short label on the folder tab. I wish everyone started off their remarks that way, but that's selfish maybe... it helps me organize all this much easier than reading each word of every sentence and sorting it mentally. That's all I meant. Is there is a more palatable way of generating "file folder tabs" on all these comments and replies ?NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:15, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

  XOR'easter, "global warming" gets 80 million hits to 216 million for climate change. Almost all current scientific papers say climate change. So do most current news reports. The common name has, in fact, changed. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:49, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

  Has the common name changed, or is there still a shade of meaning between the two, with climate change being more general? If there is a distinction, and this article discusses both the general and the specific, then a title like NASA's "Climate change and global warming" would make the most sense, I think. Both terms are used in bold in the lede, after all. XOR'easter (talk) 02:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support as the most widely used term by the general public nowadays in my experience Chidgk1 (talk) 19:29, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support, although I disagree with the OP's characterization of global warming as considered to be a more alarmist term (considered by whom?). Rather, I believe that the main explanation for scientists' current preference for "climate change" over "global warming" is that the public has trouble understanding that the latter term includes not only hotter weather but also much that is not directly temperature-related, such as increased extreme weather events. Because of this common misunderstanding of the term "global warming", some denialists get listened to when they make the (ridiculous) argument that there are a lot of places where it's been unusually cold lately. To the average person, the term "climate change" suggests a wider range of possibilities than "global warming". NightHeron (talk) 21:41, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support, Hurricane winds may cool a place off, but they are definitely strengthening due to the changing climate. Hyperbolick (talk) 23:56, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • That is baseless logic. Hurricanes form primarily in warm areas of the ocean, most of them occurring in summer; therefore hurricanes are evidently associated with heat and hence are a product of rising global temperatures which may explain why record devastating cyclones are becoming more and more frequent. Secondly, cold winds are associated with weather, not climate. Weather is short term, climate is long-term. --HyettsTheGamer2 (talk) 06:32, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:PRECISE. "Global warming" is clear and precise as a title while "Climate change" is ambiguous and potentially confused with Climate variability and change. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:15, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
  • But why then does the Trump administration prefer to call this climate change? Surely they are not fools? Hyperbolick (talk) 04:18, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
    • I would not take much credence for scientific accuracy from an administration that would punish government employees for speaking out on scientific facts about global warming. And that's when their messaging was already influenced by fossil fuel lobbyists._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 03:19, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This article focuses specifically on human-induced climate change that has disproportionately heated the globe in the last few hundred years compared to the last thousand years preceding the Industrial Revolution. It does not cover the naturally shifting climate patterns that resulted in glaciations, ice ages or warm periods in the course of the last billions of years in Earth's history. Therefore, I'd even go as far to argue that "climate change" and "global warming" should not even be redirected to one or the other; one is specific, one is broad. --HyettsTheGamer2 (talk) 02:44, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. While it's true the two are loosely used as synonyms with "climate change" possibly even being more popular today, this article is really about "anthroprogenic warming in the past 150 years". "Climate change" unadorned, in an encyclopedic context (not just a newspaper), can also refer to long-term geological climate change like ice ages and such. So best to be clear: global warming is much more specifically about "the climate change that's been happening in the past 150 years". SnowFire (talk) 02:49, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Rreagan007: @SnowFire: @HyettsTheGamer2: In researching this change in prior discussions we found ambiguity in use of the term "climate change" to no longer be true. Femke Nijsse performed the -10YEARS test on Google scholar. The first 50 articles all use climate change in the UNFCCC definition [3]. We also reviewed popular search and found similar results. Consider that "global warming" can also refer to warming that is pre-industrial, or the article on "evolution" could talk about topics other than darwinian evolution. We understand that the term "climate change" may have been ambiguous in the past, but as of 2020 we believe the data shows that the term "climate change" is synonymous with modern, anthropogenic climate change. Does this help address your concerns? If not, is there another study we could do that would help to address this concern? We believe this change is very important for improving the visibility of this article with the public (e.g. students will be searching for "climate change", not "global warming"). Efbrazil (talk) 21:26, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Efbrazil: You raise a good point that people who search "climate change" won't be looking for climate variability and change. I guess it would be appropriate in that sense to have "climate change" redirect to "global warming". However, I still stand my ground on some issues, and I will have to agree with some of my other colleagues on this discussion page that the term "global warming" emphasizes the unprecedented dangers that the planet is facing in modern times. I understand your argument that the term "climate change" is more commonly used to describe the disproportionate rise in global temperatures by scholarly and scientific analyses, but why should that matter? If we assume that the global community finds a way to stop global warming sometime in the near future, "climate change" will still be a term, though it will no longer be referring specifically to the unprecedented rising global temperatures. As an event in history, I guarantee it will be labeled "global warming". Take World War II. Most people living in the time of World War II simply referred to it as the "War". Because back then, whenever you said "war" people would know automatically what you were referring to. If Wikipedia existed in 1941, would the page about WWII just be called "The War?" Moreover, Darwinian evolution doesn't change; global warming does change, and will inevitably change. In the hypothetical and probable future in which climate change will probably meet a different global trend, that new climactic trend would be the new definition of "climate change" while the past climactic event would be known as "global warming". Just like how World War I was once the "War," World War II also possessed the same namesake not too long after. --HyettsTheGamer2 (talk) 22:55, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@HyettsTheGamer2: This is a bit theoretical- As an encyclopedia we should keep up with how words are being used now. It's the IPCC, and almost every student on the planet is going to be told to research "climate change", not "global warming". "The war" has always been slang for the most recent war- it was the civil war in the US before is was World War 2, and it was WW1 before WW2. If climate change falls out of favor and people prefer a new term down the line (The Climate Crises? Who knows?) then I'm all for switching to that. As User:NewsAndEventsGuy said, Wikipedia follows, we do not lead. See WP:Neutral point of view. Efbrazil (talk) 22:58, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Efbrazil: But haven't you just proved my point by further elaborating on the World Wars? Yes, exactly! "The war" is a slang of a present war, therefore most people at the time referred to it as the "war" whether it be in daily conversation or in the media. The term "climate change" could be considered a slang in that same sense. During World War II, people would automatically know what you were referring to if you just said the "war". During the crisis of global warming, people would automatically know what you are referring to if you just said "climate change". Therefore, I don't think changing the name to "climate change" would be neutral, but instead would be simplistic. Yes, when students search "climate change" they are most likely intending to research global warming. But that problem is already solved on its own, since climate change already redirects to global warming. So why is what students search for a problem? Besides, a lot of people who research Ireland would be looking for the Republic of Ireland and those searching for Great Britain would be looking for the United Kingdom. There are a lot of terms used interchangeably. HyettsTheGamer2 (talk) 03:26, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

@HyettsTheGamer2: Is what I was trying to say was that "the war" was shorthand for "world war 2" in the same way that you could ask somebody if they were caught outside in "the hurricane" without naming the hurricane. "Climate change" is not shorthand for "global warming", it is an alternate term that has been agreed upon by the scientific community and in popular culture. Let me try explaining from a different angle, and that's Wikipedia standards. Wikipedia [recommends using the google books ngram viewer] to establish term popularity as that establishes how often a term is being used in published materials, which is a better measure of long term / official usage than the more fleeting world of popular culture captured by general online search. Climate change is appearing in published materials at a rate of more than 12:1 over global warming according to the ngram viewer, and we have established that those uses nearly all correspond to the IPCC definition of climate change. Regarding redirects not being damaging, they unfortunately are depressing our visibility on many search platforms. For instance, in autocomplete scenarios like in wikipedia's own app you have to fully type out "climate change" to get to the redirect, and while you are typing those words out all sorts of other articles are being suggested to you, most confusingly including "climate variability and change". Don't you think students will be more likely to click our article if it is titled "Climate change" than if it is titled something different than what their teacher tells them to research?Efbrazil (talk) 23:20, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

@Efbrazil: Getting mixed up between "global warming" and "climate variability and change" would be no different from getting mixed up between "United Kingdom", "Great Britain", or the "Kingdom of Great Britain"; when people want to study the Republic of Ireland, they will most likely just search "Ireland". Many people get confused between the country and the island, and many published materials would not regularly refer to the country as the "Republic of Ireland". So it's not like this confusion is unique to "global warming" and "climate change". NASA refers to the topic as "climate change and global warming". They are two related yet separate terms. NASA specifically states that "Earth's climate has changed throughout history." If the name of the article must be changed, it has to be more specific. Using the NASA term "Climate change and global warming" sounds like a more reasonable compromise to me, because the terms are often used interchangeably. And in regards to climate variability and change, how often do published materials really refer to long-term climactic changes as "climate variability"? And if you search "climate variability and change," global warming would also be a topic in the first search results. Therefore, it is evident that "Climate change" and "climate variability" are both applicable to "global warming".[4] Why would just simply removing the "variability" make it a whole other topic? --HyettsTheGamer2 (talk) 05:58, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support. Per Efbrazil's above analysis of WP:NAMINGCRITERIA including nearly inexorable trend beginning in 2007 favoring use of "CC" over "GW" (see graph), and ~recent protracted consensus discussion which strongly disfavors "GW". Importantly, "CC" is the more inclusive term and matches this article's content—distinguished from the narrower articles Instrumental temperature record and Climate variability and change^{formerly "Climate change (general concept)} that are readily linked in hatnotes. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:40, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Supplemental: Caution against non-WP-policy-based reasons—such as political history, political impact, communicating "urgency" or "significance", being "forceful", etc. Such would likely violate WP:NPOV. Also, demanding a third name at this point amounts to an 'oppose' !vote. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:28, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose. In fact, suggest moving it to Global heating to underscore the urgency of the issue. Mikus (talk) 22:05, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

  Mikus, that's not a remotely serious proposal. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:49, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

  JzG, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/13/global-heating-more-accurate-to-describe-risks-to-planet-says-key-scientist - "“Global heating” is a more accurate term than “global warming” to describe the changes taking place to the world’s climate, according to a key scientist at the UK Met Office." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-11/the-language-of-climate-change-crisis-global-warming-or-heating - "Every few years there are calls to replace the term “climate change” with something that aims to emphasize the urgency of the problem (“climate crisis,” “climate emergency”) or describe the alarming phenomenon driving up average temperatures (“global warming,” “global heating.”)" https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/climate-change-should-we-change-the-terminology/ - "In May 2019, The Guardian announced that it was changing the language used around environmental issues. The key difference is that it will no longer use the term ‘climate change’, instead referring to the ‘climate crisis’. At the same time, The Guardian dropped ‘global warming’ in favour of ‘global heating’." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41312-018-0065-5 - "Global heating is happening. The opportunity to prevent it has been missed." https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/29970/pandemic-alarm-climate-change-covid-19-coronavirus-environment/ - "many experts believe that global heating and other environmental disturbances could facilitate the development of more novel viruses" https://ksj.mit.edu/archive/global-warming-vs-climate-change-study-s/ - "Of course, there are continual calls for other names, from James Lovelock’s “global heating” to John Holdren’s “global climate disruption.” And another oldie, of course, is “the greenhouse effect.”" https://www.condenast.com/glossary/climate-emergency - "We are the first generation to face the impacts of human-made global heating and the last generation with the opportunity to avert the climate crisis." also from the same URL: "Global heating is a term adopted to communicate the seriousness of the climate crisis and the urgent need to address it. According to Professor Richard Betts from the UK Met Office, a leading climate change specialist, the term is also more accurate than global warming. While ‘warming’ relates to changes in temperature, ‘heating’ reflects energy flows (heat is energy). Human actions that increase the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere do in fact change the energy flows between the Earth and space." Google yourself for more. — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

All of those phrases are still new enough to be considered WP:NEOLOGISM and we have an article on the drive to adopt such language. Some of this might have potential for adding to our page at Climate crisis. But they're not in common use in the scientific journals (yet) and Wikipedia follows. We do not lead. See WP:Neutral point of view. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:46, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

• Mildly opposed. At Talk:Global_warming/Archive_80#Second_discussion_on_titles_for_potential_move_request I mentioned my concerns with the history of this issue, which, given the current level of climate denial activity, still has some relevance today. My current position is similar to that of NewsAndEventsGuy. I am mildly opposed to changing the name to climate change, although Efbrazil’s data on search interest may be compelling. A key issue/question for me has to do with what the <title> tag on the web page could say. I think the NASA pages on this topic provide a good model for where we should be heading. They seem to rank similarly to WP in terms of what sites show up first in GW and CC searches. They actively work to keep both climate change and global warming highlighted on their website (although their official title is “Global Climate Change”), and their <title> tag uses the phrase “climate change and global warming” in it, thus keeping both terms. If we could ensure that the <title> tag on our article’s page could do the same, i.e. use both terms, I would be more comfortable with renaming the page.

Efbrazil, I know you have a lot of skills in this area...would you be able to figure out whether, if the formal title of the article was changed to “Climate Change”, we could work with the background software to ensure that the <title> tag on the page source code showed something like <Climate change and global warming - Wikipedia> rather than just <Climate change - Wikipedia>, which I imagine, based on the current source code title, would be the default case? The reason I ask this is that I think the prominence of the page in any “Global Warming” searches would be higher if we could do this. Thanks!Dtetta (talk) 18:59, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Dtetta: I think this would be seen as a bug- you click a link to a page, the title of the page should be consistent with name of the page. You can't do script insertion in wikipedia, that would allow for all sorts of evil hacks. I expect the only alternative here would be to have something like "Climate change (global warming)" be the actual title, which would be my second choice after just a straight rename. Efbrazil (talk) 22:58, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with the rationale under the WP:Neutral criterion in the proposal. In their 2014 research on this, The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, indicates that the term “global warming” is associated with: greater certainty that the phenomenon is happening, greater understanding that human activities are the primary cause, and greater understanding that there is a scientific consensus about the reality of the phenomenon - all of which we are trying to communicate in this article. From this standpoint the GW term seems more appropriate, rather than “alarmist”. Further, despite its name, The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, which supports this work, continues to use the term “Global Warming” in its most recent research (2019) on this topic.

I also am strongly opposed to forking the contents of the article. Instead, I would propose looking at topics/sections that could be further condensed, and their more detailed contents moved to related pages, perhaps based on the frequency of search terms related to them, like Efbrazil has done as background information for our renaming decision.Dtetta (talk) 02:55, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

When I look at the Wikipedia:Article titles page, it describes a good Wikipedia article title as having the five following characteristics: Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, and Consistency. After reading through that page a couple of times, I don’t believe there is any significant difference between Climate Change and Global Warming in terms of meeting those policy criteria, and I have not seen anything in this discussion that convincingly supports one term over the other in terms of these criteria. I think the lack of consensus here is partly a reflection of that, and argues for some sort of compromise that recognizes the suitability of both terms as article titles. Wish I had a solution.Dtetta (talk) 03:40, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Dtetta: I pulled the "WP:NEUTRAL" reasoning, as it muddied the rationale for the move, and I may have been using the rationale incorrectly according to User:NewsAndEventsGuy. Given the similarity of the terms, why not go with the term used more than 2:1 as often in search, and more than 12:1 as often in publications? Efbrazil (talk) 22:58, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• Mildly opposed as per Dtetta and NewsAndEventsGuy. Also with a similar position, would support something akin to Modern climate change. On a side note; as a geologist involved with education we distinctly clarify between anthropogenic climate change (which we also call global warming) and climate change. We deal with both when teaching due to the nature of geologic time, so it is very important to be as precise as possible.

If this were moved to Climate change I would be of the opinion that it must then include all research about climate change as in Climate variability and change (i.e. merged) to remain scientifically WP:PRECISE rather than just the focus on recent warming that it currently has. I do not not think this would be good for the page as it would dilute the information on the page currently.

I do not agree that Global warming is an alarmist term and think it conforms to WP:NEUTRAL. It has been, and is still, used as a term about the warming of the global mean surface temperature, see [IPCC SR15] glossary for an example. Jarred C Lloyd (talk) 05:06, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jarred C Lloyd: I pulled the WP:NEUTRAL argument out of the rationale, it was just muddying the waters here. The key point is the climate change is what is used more than 12:1 in academic literature, and more than 2:1 in popular search. Regarding ambiguity in the term, a few others also raised this issue and I tried to address it up top in the rationale- there's been a lot of work put into studying that issue (see "A common concern is that "Climate change" can mean climatic variability...."). Efbrazil (talk) 22:58, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support as the new name would not need to be changed if global cooling were suddenly to ensue. Son of a T-14 Armata (talk) 20:53, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
• Supplemental from NewsAndEventsGuy

• (A) CLOSER per WP:Neutrality please ignore arguments about perception, forcefulness, political usage.... none of that is supposed to matter per WP:Neutrality
• (B) CLOSER per WP:Verifiability please ignore any non-referenced arguments about supposed ambiguity. Global warming can mean any period of global warming such as the PETM [5] but the same can be said for Climate change (Id.) Same ref, correct usage of both terms but neither one meaning today. So all arguments based on supposed levels of ambiguity in average readers minds which are not supported by quality RSs are likely the opinion of the speaking editor and should carry very little WP:WEIGHT.
• (C) Kudos to Efbrazil for analyzing per the naming criteria in the OP. This is what matters, and I mostly - but not entirely - agree with that analysis. The reasons we part company slightly leads me to advocate for Global warming and climate change instead. Let's compare....

(reserved) I am working on the part that goes here and will post it within 24 hrs, if real life allows....

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:36, 8 August 2020 (UTC) I'm bowing out. Carry on. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:48, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

• Saying that both terms have the same exact amount of ambiguity is a massive stretch. I've never heard global warming used to refer to anything besides the modern phenomenon. The term was brought into common use to refer to the rising carbon dioxide levels caused by human activity._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 15:22, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Well I have. Maybe I attend more seminars and read more journal articles? More to the point, I think, is that whether the speaker/writer uses "global warming" or "climate change" if they mean anything other than the human-related one we're now experiencing there is always a temporal qualifier of some sort. So in my view, they are not ambiguous at all, because if the past (or future) GW or CC is meant, the communication always says so. But in any case, what is NOT a stretch is that the closer should disregard WP:Original research, where we're opining on the basis of anecdotal experience. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:37, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

• Supplemental from NewsAndEventsGuy - FYI.... although researchers previously found that using "global warming" vs "climate change" at one time produced different belief/urgency responses in lay audiences, that work was just repeated and the difference has gone away. So opinions above that word choice yields different belief/urgency responses seems to have been overtaken by evolution of language/cognition/education in the general public. I noted this new paper in separate thread but here is a link direct to the paper itself. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:22, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support Global warming falls under the category of climate change, so it only makes sense to change the name of this article to climate change. Lightning1115 (talk) 04:29, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose as ever William M. Connolley (talk) 08:06, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• Split - two separate aspects deserve two separate articles. Red Slash 03:09, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose EN Wikipedia serves the whole English speaking world. Which country are we talking about here where usage may have changed? Australia? India? South Africa? England? No, I think we mean the USA. Honestly, we can't keep changing the name of the most important problem ever faced by a human civilisation to suit the ebbs and flows of the US polital process. The globe is warming, end of. --Nigelj (talk) 07:42, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

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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.

Lead - proposing reversing the order of the last two paragraphs

For a long time... including the (current version (971182934) the lead has concluded with a paragraph that talks about mitigation efforts before talking about government policies to pursue mitigation. Methinks after the science talk about effects we should have the paragraph where governments agreed "Gee, maybe we should do something" and only then go into the policy/engineering stuff about what we can actually do. In other words, I'd like to reverse the order of those two paragraphs. Any objections? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy, I think both way work, so go ahead. I've been thinking about merging the two paragraphs as well (and maybe delete geo-engineering, as undue?). Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:01, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Just as a comprehensive article has to at least mention and link out to subarticles on the nuclear debate, it must do the same for the many ideas of geoengineering. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:07, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

In the body, yes. In the lead, I'm not convinced. Britannica doesn't do it... Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:12, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Oh. Previously I was not distinguishing between lead and body, thanks for clarifying. I'll think about that. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:17, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Responses to climate change generally fall into three categories: adaptation, mitigation (reducing emissions), and engineering (mostly carbon capture and storage and Solar radiation management). I think it's important that the article mention these. Jmurray1997 (talk) 20:17, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Jmurray1997, CCS is more often than not considered part of mitigation than geo-engineering as it prevents GHG from reaching the atmosphere. All other geo-engineering techniques are very immature, whereas mitigation and adaptation get waaaay more attention from policy makers, academics, and society in general. It should definitely be mentioned in the article, but I think it is now proposed as a solution similar to the other two (in the lede), which doesn't make that much sense to me. Femke Nijsse (talk) 20:38, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Some CCS technologies aim to prevent GHG from getting to the atmosphere in the first place, others aim to capture and store carbon from the air, which would be a form of climate engineering. I would also argue that the current state of CCS technologies has similar levels of immaturity to that of other climate engineering technologies, given that the current rate of capture of a CCS facility is generally <5 million tons of CO2 per year, which pales in comparison to the 37,000 million tons per year of CO2 output. It would be interesting to quantify but I wouldn't argue the ratios on Google Search Trends necessarily favour CCS to other climate engineering in general (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=climate%20engineering,geoengineering,carbon%20capture,carbon%20capture%20and%20storage). Jmurray1997 (talk) 20:53, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jmurray1997: good to meet you, I don't think I've addressed you before. These are great comments and for now I'll just say I look forward to thinking about this content and possibly talking more. (Same goes, F) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:09, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventsGuy: It's great to meet you too, I should add that I support switching the order of the last two paragraphs in the lead. I also think it would be important to add one sentence about how the IPCC reported that emissions of carbon dioxide would need to reach 'net zero' around 2050 to limit warming to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels. I think this was an important component of the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C. Jmurray1997 (talk) 22:39, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Responding to my own comment, that paragraph in the lead ends with two sentences about current policies and emission rates, but I'm very interested to know what you think about having one sentence about potential future policies, namely what are needed to avoid exceeding 1.5ºC. We could include this sentence immediately before the two sentences about current policies and after the "IPCC has stressed" sentence. Jmurray1997 (talk) 04:37, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to mention net-zero is the lede. The lede is not allowed to get much bigger though, so we also have to scrap a sentence. I believe the sentence ending with 2028 is a crime against significant digits; it could as well be 2025 or 2040.. So I'm keen to replace that one.

Summary suggestions last two paragraphs lede

NEAG, you're willing to work on all of these?

• Mention Paris agreement
• Rephrase 'IPCC has stressed' (see two discussions above)
• Possibly drop geo-engineering
• Add net-zero (preferably in wikivoice, not in IPCC voice)
• Remove sentence ending with 2028. Femke Nijsse (talk) 06:45, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I think with the edits Guy just made, there’s a good opportunity to replace the sentence about the budget running out by 2028 with a sentence about net zero by 2050 to prevent warming of 1.5°C. We could even link to the wiki article on the ipcc special report. As I mentioned before, I oppose removing climate engineering from lead, I think it works well in the sentence as is. MurrayScience (talk) 14:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposed rewrite for last two paragraphs

What do you think of the following? (Murray... I saw your comment about 2050 about the same time as I was ready to post this. The only reason I didn't incorporate that is I ran out of time. Have at it...)

Draft ver 1) Countries work together on climate change under the umbrella of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which has near-universal membership. The goal of the convention is to "prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system". Acting on the scientific recommendations of the IPCC, which told policy makers there is much greater risk to human and natural systems if warming goes above 1.5 °C (2.7 °F), UNFCCC members are making climate pledges to reduce global warming, primarily by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by adopting low carbon power for energy and transporation, and improving earth's natural carbon sinks by improving agricultural soils and reforestation. As of December 2019 those promises - assuming nations follow through - would still allow average surface temperatures to climb about 2.8 °C (5.0 °F) by 2100, and at current rates of greenhouse gas emissions the carbon budget for staying below 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) would be exhausted by 2028. ........ break ............. The IPCC says the more we can prevent additional global warming, the easier it will be to adapt to unavoidable impacts, but it is still recommended that we invest in improved coastline protection and moving people and development inland, building better disaster management systems, and ensuring food security. Finally, some favor intentional intervention with the climate system, through theoretical and controversial proposals collectively known as "climate engineering". References

Comments? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:41, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

THere is still the question of moving cites out of the lead. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:45, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Are you proposing combining the final two paragraphs? I don’t think favor is the right word because that implies supporting those responses instead of, rather than in addition to mitigation/adaptation. I would use ‘are proposing’. I wouldn’t use the word theoretical because, see mt pinatubo, and other experiments, these are not necessarily less theoretical than the other responses mentioned. There’s also much controversy about other responses, see the opposition to carbon taxes, regulating coal, etc. I would just say: through proposals collectively known as climate engineering. MurrayScience (talk) 15:03, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Redistributing the concepts but still two paragraphs. I flagged the proposed break. Thanks for comments, I'll wait a bit and look at them with any additional remarks that may be forthcoming. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:12, 6 August 2020 (UTC) The first proposed paragraph is about mitigation. The other is about adaptation/geoeng NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:13, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks :). Quite a few comments.

• By not using Wikivoice for IPCC's conclusions, we are breaching neutrality a bit. It leaves the door open for people to think other experts disagree. This might be stronger for people that have heard some disinformation about IPCC.
• Furthermore, using the word we is almost certainly against the manual of style.
• Before posting this, you'll have to adjust the climate engineering part in body (controversial not in there, nor that some people favor this. Who are those people? Is they actually important?).
• I don't think improving agricultural soils is happening; almost all of them are degrading still. It's more of a proposal. If adding, again find High-Quality Reliable Sources (HQRS) for the body.

I think you're goal of linking up these sentences is making it difficult; much more context will need to be added to the already 'full' body, and many of these links are not supported by the sources we have now. Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:13, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Femke, I would support small incremental changes rather than large rewrites. I think for now, replacing 2028 sentence with zero by 2050 has consensus. Let me work on a sentence that could work. MurrayScience (talk) 15:16, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I like the general look of the revised text, but am having a hard time figuring out exactly what it says at present. NewsAndEventsGuy and MurrayScience, would one of you be willing to write out the full two paragraph revision here one more time? That would help me provide comments prior to posting. Thanks! Dtetta (talk) 12:00, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes I'll take a crack at a second version in light of feedback and post below later today.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:32, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Dtetta and NewsAndEventsGuy, please take a look at a small change I am suggesting below. The zero by 2050 sentence was supported by Femke, and it fixes the use of GHG to refer to the carbon dioxide budget. MurrayScience (talk) 15:22, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Real life intrusion I've got three main wiki balls in the air and not enough time, so I'm going to let this part go for now. Thanks to Murray/Femke/Dtetta/anyone else with time to keep at it NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:21, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Zero by 2050 sentence

This is an incremental change to the lead per Femke, please give your approval. MurrayScience (talk) 15:04, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Current version: Under the Paris Agreement, nations are making climate pledges to reduce global warming, but as of December 2019 those promises - assuming nations follow through - would still allow average surface temperatures to climb about 2.8 °C (5.0 °F) by 2100. At the current greenhouse gas (GHG) emission rate, the carbon budget for staying below 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) would be exhausted by 2028. Suggested edits: Under the Paris Agreement, nations are making climate pledges to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but those promises - assuming nations follow through - would still allow global warming to reach about 2.8 °C (5.0 °F) by 2100. To limit warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F), human-caused carbon dioxide emissions would need to decrease to an overall level of zero by 2050. At the current emission rate, the carbon budget for staying below 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) would be exhausted by 2028.

New sources:

• Rogelj, Joeri; Meinshausen, Malte; Schaeffer, Michiel; Knutti, Reto; Riahi, Keywan (2015). "Impact of short-lived non-CO2 mitigation on carbon budgets for stabilizing global warming". Environmental Research Letters. 10 (7): 1–10. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/7/075001.

Comments:

• I changed 'reduce global warming' to 'reduce greenhouse gas emissions' in the Paris sentence to be more precise. 'Pledges to reduce global warming' could potentially refer to geoengineering, CCS, etc. Now we can replace 'average surface temperatures' (probably too wordy for the lead) with 'global warming'.
• I left the part about 'fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030' out in order to be concise. If you think it's important to include, feel free to add it back in.
• By the way, do you think we should avoid using the word 'anthropogenic' in the lead - and use a word like 'human-caused' instead - or at least define 'anthropogenic'? I'm just thinking about the young reader here who may find the subject matter unnecessarily inaccessible by the use of that word. MurrayScience (talk) 16:05, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
  • So this layman waded through SR15 section 2.2.2 starting on page 104; I think its saying for 1.5C in 2100 we need net zero by 2050 if we leave out permafrost thaw, but if we factor permafrost thaw in then the budget is reduced by an "order of magnitude", implying (with "medium confidence") that we need to hit net zero much earlier. Is that how you read it? And do you have any recommended secondary references to backstop our reading of this primary source? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:31, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
    • I'm not familiar with the probabilities on the order of magnitude decrease in the carbon budget due to permafrost thaw, perhaps @Femkemilene: can comment. The 'net zero by 2050' is a widely cited figure however, and was listed under a high confidence paragraph in the IPCC Special Report (chapter 2). MurrayScience (talk) 17:42, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
      • Permafrost + wetlands may take about 100 Gt off the 450 GtCO2 budget, so not order of magnitude (poor wording by IPCC on p.105, but if you read close it becomes clear).
      • Net zero is widely cited, no need to cite that to IPCC really (and therefore not perfectly neutral if we do).
      • I agree that anthropogenic is a horrible word, and unnecessary in front of emissions. If we put an adjective there; NASA and Met office are using 'human-made'.
      • IPCC is never a primary source. It is the best secondary, sometimes even tertiary (f.i. summary for policy makers), source we have. They don't do any research themselves. (still on enforced wikibreak till tomorrow because need to finish thesis. Femke).
        • Good point. I will find another citation that is not IPCC, I think it makes sense keeping the link of 'net zero by 2050' to the IPCC report, because it is a IPCC policy summary as well as a scientific finding.
        • We may even have room now to keep the current rate of emissions sentence, unless there is opposition to this.
        • The one use of 'anthropogenic' in the lead is in a quote, so I'm not sure how we can handle that. MurrayScience (talk) 19:40, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
        • Keeping the IPCC source due to its importance in these policy recommendations, and including a peer-reviewed article that confirms the findings behind the policy recommendations.
        • The current version in the lead is actually technically incorrect (the 2028 sentence should say CO2 emissions but says GHG emissions). MurrayScience (talk) 03:17, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I think the above is an improvement to the current text. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is dropping the word about before 2.8. Uncertainty is often overcommunicated in climate, but here I think it is appropriate to let our readers know this numbers is far from set in stone. Still prefer to drop the last sentence. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:56, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Deleting the sentence referring to the carbon budget and 2028 has a couple of problems from my perspective. One is that the lede, for some time now, has had a consistent message amongst the various ideas it summarizes...that we are currently not doing enough to limit GHG emissions to the levels that the IPCC is recommending and to stay within the 1.5 target. It seems like that idea disappears with this deletion. In addition, that sentence was the one part of the lede that summarized some of the ideas in topic 4 -Future warming and the carbon budget. So I think it’s an important sentence to keep. But if the consensus is it should go, I’m ok with that.Dtetta (talk) 20:46, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

If you look at the current/live version, the 'zero by 2050' sentence encapsulates some of the ideas of limiting GHG emissions, and I think might be easier for the average person to conceptualize than exhausting 'a carbon budget'. Also, zero by 2050 says clearly what must be done to avoid 1.5+, whereas exhausting the carbon budget merely states what is currently happening. I agree though that the idea of a carbon budget is an important concept that we may want include in the lead. If you feel strongly about the 2028 sentence and would like to add it back in, please add back the striked-through sentence directly above as it is a condensed version that works better with the rest. My position is more or less neutral on the 2028 sentence. MurrayScience (talk) 21:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes - adding the net zero 2050 idea to the lede is a definite improvement, and of the two concepts probably the more important.Dtetta (talk) 21:24, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Land surface change

Jmurray1997 and Dtetta. Jmurray has been adding information about GHG emissions to the land surface subsection. In a past discussion, we decided to put all greenhouse gas emissions, including those from land use change, into the GHG emissions subsection and other changes into the land surface change subsection. I think the added material is good (except the Agricultural land is typically supplemented by synthetic or manure fertilizer text, where supplemented should probably replaced by another word). A few requests:

• Could you two (Dtetta was the original writer of most material in this area) figure out whether the newly added text should be moved above
• To make clear people have to search above to find info about GHG, we can add the words as described above in the sentence In addition to impacting greenhouse gas concentrations (...), land use changes affect global warming through a variety of other chemical and physical dynamics
• Dtetta, would you have time to put the cites in the complicated structure we use in this article? (Jmurray: in contrast to most articles, we use these citation standards, which is a pain for a beginner.)
• I'm always grateful for less text and less details if possible. Prose is now at 58,000 characters; which is above the informal size limit of 50,000.

Thank you :). Femke Nijsse (talk) 06:32, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Femke, thank you for supporting these additions. I am totally okay with moving them up to the GHG section, with a link to them. I should be able to reduce my paragraph by about a sentence in that case, and change the supplemented word. Let me see what I can do on that. Also I can try making those citations, although I’m not super familiar with the typical format used here. MurrayScience (talk) 13:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Jmurray1997, welcome to the group! Glad to have the skills you bring to this. By way of backgound, language like the text you have added about the effects of land use change on GHG emissions was in the original text I created, but it ended up being moved to the Physical Drivers of Climate Change>Greenhouse Gases section in order to make that section more complete (and more consistent with the Radiative Forceings figure that helps introduce this subtopic), and to focus the Land Surface Change section on other effects of land surface/land use change, largely albedo. it seems like what you’ve written would fit best as a one or two sentence addition that immediately follows the sentence in the Greenhouse Gases section that starts with “A further 4 billion tonnes of.....”. The first sentence of your paragraph seems a little redundant with that sentence, so I would start by trying to condense the latter sentences in your paragraph into a shorter one or two sentence statement, and add it there. I would be happy to help you with either the language or the citations if you’d like. Also, is it Jmurray1997 or MurrayScience that you prefer? Thanks! Dtetta (talk) 19:32, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Dtetta, I think you make some good points. Later today I'll work on moving my paragraph into that section as you say, and I think that will allow it to be condensed by about two sentences. I think the content describing the basic science of the emissions from soil and fertilizer/NO2 should be kept, given its significance in global warming. I'll also work on the citations too. Feel free to call me Murray, as some here have been doing. :) MurrayScience (talk) 20:46, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Murray - I think that, unfortunately, the sentences that you added to the GHG section are still much more detailed than the text in the earlier part of the paragraph, and make it rather disjointed. For instance, there are several components to the 52 Gt of CO2 that’s referenced in the first sentence. Each of those components could merit a more detailed explanation like you’ve given to the deforestation/agriculture aspect. We could explain how fossil fuel combustion causes CO2, or provide a more detailed statement on how cattle production and rice farming produce methane emissions. I would suggest that your cocepts be incorporated in the following way, shonw in the next paragraph (I include additions based on your text in italics, and some related deletions in strikeout). I think the additional references you bring to the paragraph could also be included at the end of the clauses I’ve added.

——————————————————

Global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 excluding land use change were equivalent to 52 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Of these emissions, 72% was carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning and industry, 19% was methane, largely from livestock, 6% was nitrous oxide, largely from global use of fertilizers, mainly from agriculture, and 3% was fluorinated gases. A further 4 billion tonnes of CO2 was released as a consequence of land use change, which is primarily due to deforestation, in which CO2 is released from soil and dead tree decomposition, as well as from tree burning.

—————————————————

Another thought is that you your statements might be very helpful in the deforestation article, particularly the Environmental Effects>Atmospheric section. And I think that the Greenhouse gases section of this article should include a reference to that Deforestation article among its “Main article” listings, or in a “See also” section that could be added. Dtetta (talk) 19:13, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree it is a bit disjointed, I'll work on getting the more detailed information into other articles and making changes along those lines as you have described. I'll get to this within the next two days. MurrayScience (talk) 19:22, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 August 2020

Change "uncluding" to "including" in the last sentence of sub-chapter "1.1 Regional variation". BlackDragon17x (talk) 13:07, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

 Done –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:39, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Popular culture

We're now missing a paragraph decidated to CC in popular culture. I've been mulling over this for a few weeks, but find it difficult to find the words. The Weart book we're citing has quite a long story about how documentaries as An Inconvenient Truth, and movies such as Waterworld, The Day after Tomorrow have been important for public awareness, and that climate change has belatedly also made an entry in literature culminating in the cli-fi genre. Any takers to improve the section Global_warming#Public_debate with this information and give it a less polarizing name? Public awareness and debate for instance? Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:53, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Net-zero

After the recent edit by MurrayScience, the lede is now more detailed than the body. I don't mind mentioning methane in the lede, but I think it's better if it would be moved to the body, for brevity. If you guys disagree, we will still need to copy the statement about methane to the body. We can immediately get rid of another cite in the lede; this is not a controversial statement, so it's better if there is no cite in the lede per WP:LEADCITE and consistency. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:31, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

P.S. Paris covers a wide range of GHGs. In article 4 it states for instance, they want to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases. Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:36, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I think you’re right about Paris, let’s see what other people think about the lead. It is now about as long as it was before. We mentioned methane and carbon dioxide as the primary emissions earlier in the lead and it so the sentence connects back to that. MurrayScience (talk) 13:04, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I’ve been thinking that the mitigation part of the body needs improvement anyways. MurrayScience (talk) 13:06, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

the mitigation part of the body needs improvement agreed; With the ANI I filed now done, I'm focused on the rename proposal for now. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:08, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Improve mitigation section

Dtetta was responsible for a recent rewrite of the mitigation section. I like it as it is, but I'm sure you can think of further improvements to make. I'll try to give feedback, but might not have time for that before holiday. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:06, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I can't promise that I can work a lot on it, I'm busy with other things right now. If I start working on a re-write I'll do it here in the talk page before posting it to the article. MurrayScience (talk) 14:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Murray, you may also want to look at the archived discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Global_warming/Archive_82#Proposed_Changes_to_Responses_Subtopic. There was a lot of discussion on various issues associated with the rewrite that would help inform any further changes you would like to propose.Dtetta (talk) 16:27, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

The two areas that I am thinking need to be improved/included would be a sentence or two on energy efficiency, as well as a section on Cost (investments) and Benefits (opportunities).There was C/B language in some of my earlier proposals, but for a variety of reasons it did not end up being included. For me the most important would be a sentence or two on energy efficiency in the "Technologies and other methods" section. Dtetta (talk) 17:45, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

A radical idea that doesn't want to leave my mind. Would it be a good idea to split the responses section into mitigation (maybe renamed curbing emissions/curbing climate change..), and put the adaptation section next to effects. This would be similar to the IPCC structure, and also gets rid of the vague Responses section. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:53, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm worried that adaptation would then get lost as a response. I do agree that there should? be a better term than the vague 'Responses'. For improving mitigation, I've listed some important areas. Note that they reflect the latest understanding from the literature on this topic. MurrayScience (talk) 19:10, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Electricity

• For intermittent renewable sources (wind, solar), large scale storage is important (https://www.innovationreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/EIRP-Deep-Decarb-Lit-Review-Jenkins-Thernstrom-March-2017.pdf), this is an important area of research and includes batteries.

This is a good reference. The point about the challenges getting harder the more we move to completely renewable energy might be worth mentioning in the Obstacles paragraph of the Technologies section, and perhaps point 4, regarding lock-in, might be useful in the the Strategies for 2050 section.Dtetta (talk) 22:13, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

• Also for intermittent renewable sources, the continent-scale transmission is important https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544213009912)

This reference is difficult for me to assess, as it is behind a pay wall. But it seems like the general NREL report that it’s based on is fairly comprehensive. There are probably a few aspects of its analysis regarding a highly renewable-energy focused grid that might be useful to incorporate as statements in the mitigation section.Dtetta (talk) 01:29, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for looking into these sources, it seems like you will be super helpful in writing the paragraph, which I plan to seriously begin work on here this weekend. That source does look similar and I will look into in more detail during the writing process. The challenge is to condense the key concepts into a few highly informative sentences, preferably with links to relating wiki articles. I'm optimistic though that we can make some great improvements. And yes, that's a great paper that used to not be paywalled. You can access it on sci-hub. MurrayScience (talk) 02:22, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

• Electrification of home heating, stove, and dryers.
• The importance of base load, which could be provided by nuclear if not storage and transmission. Mention Generation IV reactor.

Industrial Emissions

• Electrification of currently flame-heated processes.
• Mention current research into eliminating chemical emissions from concrete, Haber-Bosch. (https://cen.acs.org/environment/green-chemistry/Industrial-ammonia-production-emits-CO2/97/i24). CCS goes in nicely here.

What about putting adaptation in its own section as well? That's what the German wikipedia has done. That would promote instead of demote it.

I'd venture that most, if not all, of these issues are either already covered (storage), or overly technical (large-scale transmission instead of other modifications to the energy grid. Generation IV reactors are almost certainly undue: f.i, it is mentioned once in the 630 pages of the IPCC SR15 report in the sentence "Low-emission hydrogen can be produced by natural gas with CCS, by electrolysis of water powered by zero-emission electricity, or potentially in the future by generation IV nuclear reactors."

There is sooo much new exciting literature about solutions, so we have to make sure we can determine what is DUE is this article, or which technologies need to go a level below to climate change mitigation. Determining what is DUE can be done by reading summaries of highly reliable sources that span the entire topic, or a big chunk of it. Femke Nijsse (talk) 19:24, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree that many of these are certainly undue, I mainly wanted to give context to fellow editors :). I think improvements should be incremental. Here's what I think is important to have in the article to get up to date with the literature on mitigation: One mention of the word 'nuclear', one mention of the word 'transmission', a removal of the sentence 'Combined, they are capable of providing...' as it suggests a common but potentially harmful misunderstanding, one mention of the word 'intermittent' to refer to intermittent sources (see Variable renewable energy), a pairing of the words 'electrification' and 'heating'. (Incremental stuff.) MurrayScience (talk) 19:40, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Also, we mention carbon pricing, which is very good. We should also mention research and development of zero-carbon technologies, which was a major component of recent political platforms - e.g., Sanders, Warren - and in the European Union, so it has precedent. It's important that we not forget that solar/wind are primarily relevant to the 25% of emissions that are electricity. Aviation, shipping, manufacturing, agriculture, etc. make up a much larger share, and require major innovations in chemical processes, electrification, and, for transportation, battery storage. There's a ton of literature on this, we should - briefly - represent it. Also intermittency is vastly important because it's the major obstacle to massive solar/wind deployment - the literature overwhelmingly emphasize this point. I can start turning this into a real paragraph and hope to begin a draft soon, which I will post in the talk page. Again, any inclusions would be incremental, brief, and important. MurrayScience (talk) 20:29, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Agree with nuclear, not sure about transmission (keeping the article simple), disagree with removal of combined, but curious what misunderstanding you think is implied by it, okay with adding variable, okay with pairing electrification and heating, but afraid it will become too technical.

Both heating and transport can be partially electrified, and a big chunk of it without new technology... About 20% of emissions fall in difficult to abate sectors, meaning that the technology isn't really there yet, so it makes sense to mention this. We now put quite a lot of attention on negative emissions, which I'm somewhat sceptical about and whose importance I believe is an artifact of flawed economic modelling in Integrated assessment modelling (often based on neo-classical assumptions of equilibrium, even when talking about a massive transition). So I'm okay to have a slight refocus there. Note that we already mention electrification, and storage (albeit not battery). Femke Nijsse (talk) 07:05, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Murray - Thanks for your efforts on this. I am generaly of the same opinion as Femke regarding these proposed edits, and would offer these sugestions as well:

• Although they may not always address the specific Electricity and Industrial Emissions issues you refer to, for me, the following reports are still the best general references for figuring out how to frame the text in this section: UNEP Emissions Gap 2019; IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change - although this is admittedly dated by now; IPCC, 2018: Global Warming of 1.5°C; RENEWABLES 2019; IRENA-2050 Roadmap; and Achieving the Paris Climate Agreement Goals, UTS-Sydney.
• It’s important to keep in mind the challenges of managing the word count for this section, which went from about 500 words to something like 1200 words when the early June rewrite was done, and which the Talk Archive link I posted was about.
• One of the guiding ideas for the “Technologies and other methods” section I argued for during the discussion of the June rewrite is that the technologies coverage should: briefly mention the principal mitigation technologies available; describe what they’re able to do in terms of either moving us away from fossil fuel usage; lowering GHG emissions, or lowering GHG concentrations; describe their strengths, downsides and potential barriers to their usage, and briefly mention measures that can minimize those downsides; and give each option relatively equal treatment. I don’t think there was any real pushback to these principles, so I think it would be helpful to keep these ideas in mind when proposing your edits. I do worry that some of what you are proposing would lead to an overemphasis of certain options.
• Think about what is better put here in the GW article, or what would be better done as an edit in the Mitigation or Renewable Energy articles
• I would appreciate it if you could write out the complete paragraph or paragraphs you’re planning on editing and present the edits in an underline/strikeout fashion. It makes it much easier to track exactly what changes you’re proposing. Dtetta (talk) 15:29, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I think we could say something like: Studies have emphasized the importance of electrifying heating, which is most commonly provided by the combustion of fossil fuel in a furnace or boiler. We already talk about heat pumps, by the way, which is arguably way more specific and technical than just saying electrification of heating.

I agree with you completely on negative emissions.

I think that one sentence has the potential to suggest the common misunderstanding that only sufficient land area of solar and/or wind need to be built, which is strongly contrary to the academic literature. I think it could be rephrased to say something like: The available solar and wind power on Earth is sufficient to supply several times the world's current energy needs. The main physical obstacles to capturing this available power include the daily and seasonal intermittency of solar and wind energy, as well as the significant land areas required to capture this power due to low surface power densities. These obstacles can primarily be mitigated by large-scale energy storage systems and continent-scale electric transmission. By the way, a lot of this is repeated elsewhere so it's mostly a rephrasing, rather than an addition.

I think that 20% figure would be very helpful, and would work well in connection to a sentence on research and development; if you can drop your source for it here that would be super helpful. By the way, my sample sentences are written on the fly, so they can be improved and I haven't perfect citations.

Also, I forgot to respond but I think adaptation in its own section would be fine. It should definitely include one mention of seeds too! (https://news.trust.org/item/20190913095309-cdbhx/) (https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/cassava-and-climate-change-boosting-the-iq-of-a-naturally-climate-smart-crop/). Would you want to rename the 'Responses' section, and if so to what?

I'm trying to take a WP:BREAK until the weekend and then I'll try to develop a draft of mitigation here. MurrayScience (talk) 15:27, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Shouldn't respond anymore, and work on thesis (and RSI is playing up), but let me respond to one point. I think the surface power density is utterly and completely irrelevant to the question of whether power sources can mitigate climate change. One may argue that it's bad for sustainability in general, but this is not the article about that. You won't find this prominently in sources about climate change mitigation, but instead in sources about engineering, energy transition and other related topics. (And try to avoid sources about a single country) Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:49, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree we don't need to make any mention about the environmental impacts of requiring large surface areas. By the way we already have this sentence: Environmental and land use concerns are sometimes associated with large solar, wind and hydropower projects.. The sentence of surface power density is extremely widely agreed on as a primary obstacle to solar and wind and therefore fits into the category of "costs, downsides, and potential barriers", per Dtetta. And yes, we can get international sources, which are about solar and wind power. MurrayScience (talk) 16:00, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

References

2020 research - cognitive difference due to terminology has vanished

In 2011, some researchers published results showing that use of "global warming" vs "climate change" produced statistically significant differences in belief/urgency among a lay audience. A replication study (in the USA/UK/Australia) has just returned different results -- to a lay audience there is no longer any difference in belief/urgency just because of the word choice. Political identification still has a strong correlation, but word choice.... nope. I will note this in the concurrent rename thread. I made a new thread so this will be easier to find in the archives in the future.. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:00, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

References