Talk:Climate change/Archive 96

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RFC: Food and health section

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Responding to the request for closure at WP:CR. In general, editors preferred option B over options A and C. However, the reasoning primarily addressed the length of the section, without addressing the other points of discussion (which have been presented extensively in the Discussion section as well as the associated DRN). Since most editors did not discuss those issues, this RfC cannot provide a conclusion on them.

Since the RfC was presented as a choice between two drafts, there was little room for other editors to offer further refinements. At this point, I would recommend starting from option B and adjusting as necessary, which could possibly involve incorporating the content from option A that editors view as the most important. In particular, I would recommend breaking down the dispute to identify the specific points of disagreement, and addressing those points individually. If necessary, RfCs may then be created for those specific points. As always, content that is rejected due to length can also be placed in sub-articles, such as those indicated in the hatnote.

Finally, I commend the editors of the article for collaborating effectively on a topic that often induces strong emotions. Sunrise (talk) 05:31, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

---

Which of the following sections should be used in the Food and health section?

Robert McClenon (talk) 04:47, 17 April 2024 (UTC) RfC restarted Bogazicili (talk) 17:24, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

A.

Human health

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[1] Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet have warned about the irreversible harms it poses.[2] According to the World Economic Forum, the most likely future scenario is of 14.5 million deaths caused by climate change by 2050.[3] Of those, 8.5 million deaths are associated with flooding, mostly because flooded areas expand the range of malaria. By 2050, the range of vector-borne diseases may expand to reach 500 million more people. Saltwater intrusion caused by sea level rise will also add over 800,000 cases of hypertension in coastal areas.[4]

Under the same scenario, around 1.6 million people will die in heatwaves by 2050, primarily those aged 65 and older, and 300,000 more will be killed by wildfires.[5] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity are already associated with excess deaths.[6] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[7]p. 988 These and other climate change impacts are also expected to substantially increase the burden of stress-related mental health conditions.[8] The overall healthcare costs from climate change impacts would exceed 1$ trillion by 2050.[9] If the emissions continue to increase for the rest of century, then over 9 million climate-related deaths would occur annually by 2100.p.63

Food supply

Climate change has strong impacts on agriculture in the low latitudes, where it threatens both staple crops and important cash crops like cocoa and coffee.p.788 Agriculture will experience yield gains at high latitudes, but will also become more vulnerable to pests and pathogens.p.794 Extreme weather events adversely affect both food and water security, and climate change increases their frequency.p.9 Food prices spike after climate shocks.p.794 An increase in drought in certain regions could cause 3.2 million deaths from malnutrition by 2050, primarily in children under five. Many more children would grow up stunted as the result.[10] Under higher warming, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10% by 2050, as less animal feed will be available.p.748 Marine animal biomass decreases by 5% with every degree of warming, reducing fishery yields.p.718

In isolation, climate change is expected to increase the risk of hunger for 8 to 80 million people by 2050.p.725 However, total crop yields have been increasing since the middle of the 20th century due to agricultural improvements, and in spite of climate change.[11]p.832 By 2050, the overall number of people suffering from undernourishment and the associated health conditions is likely to decrease by tens to hundreds of millions.[12] Food security only worsens by 2050 in some combinations of severe climate change and low socioeconomic development,[13] but if the emissions remain high, it will likely decrease after 2050. This would be due to diminishing fisheries and livestock counts, and due to more frequent and severe crop failures.p.797

B.

The World Health Organization calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[14] Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet have warned about the irreversible harms it poses.[15] Extreme weather events affect public health, and food and water security.[16][17]p. 9 Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[18][19] Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events.[20]p.9 It can affect transmission of infectious diseases.[21] [22] According to the World Economic Forum, 14.5 million more deaths are expected due to climate change by 2050.[23] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity are already associated with excess deaths.[24] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[25]p. 988

While total crop yields have been increasing in the past 50 years due to agricultural improvements, climate change has already slowed the rate of yield growth.p. 9 Fisheries have been negatively affected in multiple regions.p. 9 Agricultural productivity was negatively affected in mid- and low-latitude areas, while some high latitude areas were positively affected. p.9 An increase in drought in certain regions could cause 3.2 million deaths from malnutrition by 2050 and stunting in children.[26] With 2C warming, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10% by 2050, as less animal feed will be available.p.748 If the emissions continue to increase for the rest of century, then over 9 million climate-related deaths would occur annually by 2100.p.63

C. Something else - Please provide a complete section.

Please enter A, B, or C (with the text) in the Survey. Please do not respond to the statements of other editors in the Survey.

Survey

• C1, When the dust has settled on text content, convert the agreed prose to a scannable layout, decrease word count, restructure text to chronology of current, 2050 and 2100. Example based on a merge of A and B:

Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[27].[28][29][30]p. 9 [31][32] Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events[33]p.9 leading to increased illness and death.[34] [35]

Currently

• 30% of the global population live in extreme heat and humidity associated with excess deaths.[36]
• Food prices spike after climate shocks.p.794
• Climate change has slowed the rate of yield growth.p. 9[37]p.832p.9p.788
• Fisheries have been negatively affected in multiple regions.p. 9

2050, The most likely scenario

• 14.5 million deaths [38] by flooding and malaria [39], malnutrition by droughts, heatwaves, wildfires.[40]
• risk of hunger for 8 to 80 million people.p.725 Many children grow up stunted.[41]p.797[42]
• Agriculture yield gains at high latitudes, but more vulnerable to pests and pathogens.p.794
• With 2C warming, global livestock headcounts declines by 7-10%, as less animal feed will be available.p.748
• Marine animal biomass decreases by 5% with every degree of warming, reducing fishery yields.p.718

2100, The most likely scenario

• over 9 million climate-related deaths annually.p.63
• 50% to 75% of the global population would live in extreme heat and humidity.[43]p. 988
• substantial increase of stress-related mental health conditions.[44]

Uwappa (talk) 09:03, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

• I support option A because I think it makes sense to split it into two sections: one for health and one for food security. I have not dug deeper into which option uses the better references or numbers but Option A seems good to me. EMsmile (talk) 10:18, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

• Edit: None of the above Regarding A, the article is already over long, and particularly the section on impacts on humans relative to nature. We should be aiming to have less text in this area, not more. I am strongly opposed to A for this reason. B is generally alarmist rather than informative, and I get into specifics in a discussion with I2K down below. In my opinion the existing wording is better than either A or B. To progress, I think incremental changes would work best, targeting specific complaints with the existing text.Efbrazil (talk) 16:40, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
• Both A and B are very well written. Kudos to everyone who's worked on this. I prefer option B as it is more succinct and easier to understand. The shorter we make a given section, the more people will read it. Option C is not bad, but MOS:USEPROSE discourages this style for good reasons. Option B feels easier to read than C for me. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:07, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
• Shorter B Kudos too to the editors and please make it shorter still Tom94022 (talk) 20:12, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
• Preferring B as more concise while keeping the gist. However, A's division of the material into two subjects has its merits. I object to the C approach given above, on two grounds: we should not "listify" content that can be presented as normal prose, per MOS:USEPROSE (WP is not a Powerpoint presentation); and WP is not in a position per WP:NOT#CRYSTALBALL to be trying to make predictions about the future and assign probabilities to them. To the extent any RS do the latter, these are particular researcher's opinions, and have to be attributed, and given WP:DUEWEIGHT.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
• I prefer shorter one, which is B. Article is already overloaded with information. It would actually make a sense to create separate sub-articles if we want to elaborate more on some points. A b r v a g l ^(PingMe) 14:40, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

• C2, shorter scannable version of B, with current, 2050 and 2100

Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[45], posing irreversible harms.[46] Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events[47]p.9, affecting public health, and food and water security.[48][49]p. 9 [50] [51] Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[52][53]

Currently

30% of the global population live in areas where extreme heat and humidity are already associated with excess deaths.[54] While total crop yields have been increasing in the past 50 years due to agricultural improvements, climate change has already slowed the rate of yield growth.p. 9p.9 Fisheries have been negatively affected in multiple regions.p. 9

By 2050

14.5 million more deaths are expected.[55]. With 2C warming, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10%, as less animal feed will be available.p.748 An increase in drought in certain regions could cause 3.2 million deaths from malnutrition and stunting in children.[56]

By 2100

50% to 75% of the global population would live in extreme heat.[57]p. 988 If the emissions continue to increase for the rest of century, then over 9 million climate-related deaths would occur annually.p.63

Uwappa (talk) 12:03, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

@Efbrazil: I understand your (and others') objections to option A based on length, but remember this discussion from the start of February, when many of us were looking to cut material from the "Causes" section, and you had yourself proposed removing 4-5 paragraphs? This option is still very much available: we simply couldn't do it at the time because Causes of climate change wasn't a live article yet, but it is done now. In fact, it often intentionally duplicates the current article, precisely to make it easier to cut from here. Thus, if we do in fact remove 4-5 paragraphs from causes but add 2 paragraphs here, on food and health, we will still ultimately have a shorter article.

I also think that every sentence in A provides unique and distinct information our readers would likely not know otherwise, but then again, I would think that as its author. I realize that all the editors who have so far voted for B may still want the section to be shorter rather than longer even after we condense "Causes". If so, which parts of A would you consider to be the most "skippable"? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:25, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for reaching out. If we want to cut back the causes section that's fine, but I see that as a separate issue. It's not like the overall article has a word cap, it's more about relative weighting and preventing bloat. I don't feel strongly enough about cutting causes to try and push cuts there, but if you do then go for it. I agree that it is arguably too long as is.

Secondly, I don't see a need to grow this section in terms of relative weight, for a few reasons. I'm opposed to giving more weight to human impacts than we are giving to nature and wildlife. Humans are much more adaptable than much of nature and wildlife, and certain ecosystems that have taken millions of years to evolve may be extinguished. Further, a lot of the content regarding agriculture and health is highly speculative and suspect, verging into the mushy, advocacy based world of social "sciences". We can make solid predictions about the physics of climate change, but we can't say with any certainty how humanity will react and adapt. Efbrazil (talk) 17:49, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I think it's quite hard to decide what the right weight is for different content. I am not in full agreement with your reasoning against expanding the content about effects of climate change on human health and food/agriculture. I don't think it's mushy nor advocacy based. What's mushy about the content at effects of climate change on agriculture?

But overall, there is probably no objective way to decide how much space to give to which content.

What I find a bit sad is that people who had to vote for A or B, seem to mostly just vote based on the word count of A and B: almost everyone seems to favor B because it's shorter. Probably the proposal A could also be made shorter if there was a word cap. I am assuming that the differences in the two versions go further than just their word count though?

Are people disagreeing that there should be two sub-headings: "human health" and "food supply"? I think those sub-headings make sense as they are distinct topics and it makes it easier to find them in the table of content in this way. Then again we do have a whole sub-article on effects of climate change so perhaps the whole section on "Impacts" here needs to have a rethink & re-focus.

And I think we should progress the discussion about condensing the "causes" section but I don't know how to go about it. We have a discussion thread above with 28 comments but it got stuck. Re-start it with a new section or someone rekindle it?

@User: Abrvagl We do have two sub-articles for these topics: (effects of climate change on human health and effects of climate change on agriculture). EMsmile (talk) 14:04, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I've added the "section sizes" table to the top of the talk page so that it's easier to compare the length of sections. The Impacts section has 30 kB, the Causes section has 32 kB and the "Global temperature rise" section has 29 kB. "Impacts on humans" has 11 kB. EMsmile (talk) 14:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Kudos for that, quite an interesting approach. I will take it on board. The thing is, that reader would rather prefer a small pre-read and a link to more details, which they can explore if interested, than an overloaded article, which reader has to scroll through to find a part they looking for. A b r v a g l ^(PingMe) 16:00, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Typically a section is not just one paragraph. It is fine if we have one section that has two paragraphs, one focused on health and the other on agriculture.

The mushy, advocacy based stuff is when people make sweeping predictions about how many people will die or be malnurished or whatever. Not only is it hard to predict the timing and severity of climate change on a localized basis, we also have no idea how societies and technology will change in the future. Maybe we'll all be dead from bird flu, or AI will produce major advances, or there will be a new world war, or whatever else. Human systems are chaotic. If people could actually predict the future as it relates to society they'd be making a killing in the stock market. Let's stick to the climate and its environmental effects in this article. That's what we know. It is good that we mention health and agriculture, but there's only so much that can be said that isn't either conjecture or too vague to be useful. Efbrazil (talk) 17:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

@Efbrazil: If you consider IPCC or WHO or World Economic Forum, "mushy, advocacy based stuff", then we have a massive problem. Please review Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, WP:RS, and Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox_or_means_of_promotion. Bogazicili (talk) 18:40, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

EMsmile and Abrvagl, my goal with option B was to provide opening sentences/overall summaries (eg: "Extreme weather events affect public health, and food and water security") and giving several specific examples (ie: numbers). InformationToKnowledge's text (option A) is well-written and informative (and I actually used several sentences he wrote), but goes straight into details starting with the 3rd sentence, without giving overall summary/opening sentences. This is also seen in the page numbers of his sources (lots of 700's or 800's from IPCC report, rather than smaller page numbers from Summary for Policymakers or Technical Summary). This is too detailed. InformationToKnowledge had also argued about removing Effects of climate change on human health as an article (see Talk:Effects_of_climate_change_on_human_health#Article_appears_too_large_and_unwieldy_to_be_usable). I think sticking to WP:Summary here and keeping the main article (Effects of climate change on human health) is the better option. Bogazicili (talk) 18:59, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Where did I dismiss the IPCC? All I said is we need to avoid conjecture. It is very easy to cherry pick statements or sources from a position of advocacy, and that is particularly true in the social sciences where there are innumerable possible outcomes. Anyhow, despite you having a massive problem with what I said and then dismissively saying I should educate myself on wikipedia policy, we generally agree on the substance here. Efbrazil (talk) 19:20, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

If that is your position, though, shouldn't you prefer the year 2050 projection for nutrition selected for A, which comes from a meta-analysis of dozens of papers, as opposed to the drought mortality figure from B, which is a fairly cherry-picked number unlikely to be representative of the overall trends in food supply/nutrition-related mortality? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:27, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

InformationToKnowledge had also argued about removing Effects of climate change on human health as an article I would like to clarify that my proposal was to merge that with the general Effects of climate change - following the logic that once we strip out the material from the article that appears to lack widespread support, such as the "people falling through thinner ice on frozen rivers" thing, there wouldn't be much left that would not be better covered in either that article, Climate change and infectious diseases or Psychological impact of climate change.

(I suppose should now say that we may end up being forced to remove a lot of material from that and many other sub-articles in the near future if WP:SCIRS ends up officially adopted in its stricter "cite no primary research findings whatsoever" form.)

I would like to further note that this recent WEF would seem to support this approach. Its title is almost the same as that of the article, about impacts on human health - yet, it is primarily focused on the health impacts from the various extreme weather events (Effects of climate change), mentioning that much of the mortality is from the associated increase in disease transmission (Climate change and infectious diseases) or on food supply (Effects of climate change on agriculture), and also notes the psychological impacts. There is effectively nothing there which does not fit into one of those sub-articles already. Chapter 7 in AR6 WG2 (Health, Wellbeing and the Changing Structure of Communities) does not appear to be very different. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:51, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

A bold alternative: Move away from what-when as it is impossible to predict the future. Go for what-if, climate change scenarios based on the limits from the Paris agreement.

• What is the current impact on environment, nature, wildlife, humans?
• What will be the impacts of + 1.5C?
• What will be the impacts of + 2.0C?

Show impacts in maps, similar to . Uwappa (talk) 08:39, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

That's been discussed before and would be a great thing to pursue, but would start in a lower profile article. Maybe a section in Effects of Climate Change, or even an entirely new article. Efbrazil (talk) 19:04, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

On the contrary, I don't think this would work well at all for this area in particular. Not only would the impacts of temperature thresholds be very different on the societal structures depending on the speed with which they will be reached, but specifically because any predictions of impacts on human populations are meaningless without an idea of the number, distribution, composition, etc. of those populations, and those are projected on a timeline, in accordance to certain scenario assumptions. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:24, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

@Efbrazil I'm opposed to giving more weight to human impacts than we are giving to nature and wildlife. Well, if that is your main objection, then once we remove 4-5 paragraphs from "Causes", that would leave us enough space to both have 4 paragraphs on food and health and to add 2-3 paragraphs to "Nature and wildlife". Considering the work I have done to date on articles such as Extinction risk from climate change or Effects of climate change on biomes (admittedly, more of a work in progress), it wouldn't be overly difficult for me to find reliably referenced material to complement the two paragraphs already present.

In addition, I would think we have some room to condense with the paragraphs which immediately follow "Food and health". Sentences like An expert elicitation concluded that the role of climate change in armed conflict has been small compared to factors such as socio-economic inequality and state capabilities. seem very awkward to say the least, and could be cut at least in part, if not fully. We have already argued over the limited reliability of this passage - In some regions, the rise in temperature and humidity may be too severe for humans to adapt to. With worst-case climate change, models project that almost one-third of humanity might live in Sahara-like uninhabitable and extremely hot climates. as well. There is most likely room to condense a paragraph or two there - and then the entire section devoted to impact on humans would be of similar size to "Nature and wildlife" once that is expanded by several paragraphs - likely even after "Food and health" is expanded to four paragraphs, and certainly if it stays at two.

Further, I noted this comment: B I could live with, but would want 4 sentences cut that are redundant with other areas or are just generally alarmist rather than informative. Would it be those four sentences, by any chance?

Extreme weather events affect public health, and food and water security.[92][93]p. 9 Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[94][95] Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events.[96]p.9 It can affect transmission of infectious diseases.

Because a big reason why the DRN process was originally triggered was my opposition to those sentences, and Bogazicilli's insistence on keeping them. I can present my penultimate proposal before I opted for a four-paragraph structure (after amending it with the WEF data, that is), though I would rather not to. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:16, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, "Causes" is a whopping 1942 words right now. "Impacts" is 1886, so nearly the same. Causes could be shrunk by a bit without any additions to impacts and I think it could be good. I suspect that if you wanted to incrementally try cutting back causes, going slowly and commenting well, that would be well received.

Yes, you understand what I mean about balance with the natural world. I'd certainly rather see another paragraph or two on the natural world before there's another paragraph or two on human impacts.

I spent some time rereading the proposals. On balance, I think the existing text on page is not bad. It does a good job of raising various issues without making dubious claims. Proposal A gets too far into the weeds for me and causes that word count imbalance with the natural world. Proposal B tilts too heavily towards generalized alarmism. As for cuts from version B, the 4 sentences you point to are generally fluffy and could be be folded into other sentences. The ones I was thinking of in specific are...

Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet have warned about the irreversible harms it poses. --> This isn't even specific to human health or agriculture. Too vague and unnecessary, I think everyone at this point of the article is aware there will be irreversible harms.

An increase in drought in certain regions could cause 3.2 million deaths from malnutrition by 2050 and stunting in children. --> Almost all food scarcity is due to distribution issues, and "could" is wishy washy. Why not make a clear claim about agricultural output instead?

With 2C warming, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10% by 2050, as less animal feed will be available. --> Here we have something specific and probably valid, but not interesting given the context. We have a collection of sentences saying "millions will die!" followed by a sentence saying "we might lose a tiny fraction of our livestock capacity". Also, the IPCC report prominently mentions the need to consume less meat as part of conservation efforts. A 10% drop in livestock production would be a good thing for the climate and it's not going to cause problems like starvation and malnutrition.

If the emissions continue to increase for the rest of century, then over 9 million climate-related deaths would occur annually by 2100. --> Why focus on a scenario where emissions continue increasing for the rest of the century, particularly as we don't say how much even, and then attach a bs number to it? Nobody is predicting RCP 8.5 at this time.

In general, I feel like the best approach would be incremental fixes on the existing text, taken slowly. Efbrazil (talk) 22:37, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Proposal A gets too far into the weeds for me and causes that word count imbalance with the natural world. Well, it's been said already that expanding the natural world in parallel would be one way to address the latter objection. As for the former, that's not really useful feedback. Can you at least identify the sentences you take an issue with, similar to what you have done for B?

On balance, I think the existing text on page is not bad. It does a good job of raising various issues without making dubious claims. -Not really. As we have discussed exhaustively on this page in February and March, several sentences are likely to be fairly misleading for a typical reader. I.e.

Climate change is affecting food security. It has caused reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans between 1981 and 2010. - The straightforward read of that paragraph is that the current/2010 yields of those crops are lower than they were in the 1980s - and it would be completely wrong, because the comparison is drawn with the counterfactual present where climate change was not happening, while a clear increase had occurred in the real world.

Up to an additional 183 million people worldwide, particularly those with lower incomes, are at risk of hunger as a consequence of these impacts. - This sentence does not even specify anything. Up to 183 million by when? By next year? In 10 years' time? By 2050? (the correct answer). By 2100? Once climate change passes 2 degrees? Once it is at 6 degrees? Is it the maximum possible impact on hunger? This sentence is so vague that all these readings are equally valid. And again, this finding is relative to a counterfactual 2050, which is not very useful to general readers, which is why A has those two detailed sentences covering the actual projections relative to the present instead.

Crop production will probably be negatively affected in low-latitude countries, while effects at northern latitudes may be positive or negative. - I am surprised you don't seem to consider this sentence "wishy-washy" or too detailed.

Now, your comments about the proposed sentences.

As for cuts from version B, the 4 sentences you point to are generally fluffy and could be be folded into other sentences. I am glad you agree on this, but Bogazicili has been fairly insistent on those specific phrasings, leading up to the DRN.

This isn't even specific to human health or agriculture. Too vague and unnecessary - Well, this phrasing comes from the title, which is The 2023 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: the imperative for a health-centred response in a world facing irreversible harms, and we both felt it was important to cite it here. I suppose we can rewrite this sentence with one or more findings from that report's summary graphic, but it might be best if you can specify which one you wouldn't oppose for one reason or another.

Almost all food scarcity is due to distribution issues, and "could" is wishy washy. Why not make a clear claim about agricultural output instead? - It is "could" to acknowledge that these projections are not set in stone (same point you were making earlier), and the number is for one scenario of several. However, A's final paragraph does discuss agricultural output. Would you prefer some variation of that wording?

Here we have something specific and probably valid, but not interesting given the context. Well, livestock is an important (even if technically skippable) part of the global food system, with a role comparable to fishing, so it makes no sense to mention one but not the other. Not to mention that an effective decimation is not tiny by any means. Literally the next sentence after that figure in the AR6 is: Changes to African grassland productivity will have substantial, negative impacts on the I cite this in Effects of climate change on livestock, but thought that it is "not global enough" for this section. However, I suppose it can be rephrased as With 2C warming, global livestock headcounts are likely to decline by 7-10% by 2050, affecting (can't think of a stronger word right now) the livelihoods of over 180 million people.

Why focus on a scenario where emissions continue increasing for the rest of the century, particularly as we don't say how much even, - I consider this a better phrasing than "high-emission scenario" or "worst-case climate change scenario" or the like. People could have vastly different ideas about what those mean, while this wording is immediately much clearer.

...and then attach a bs number to it? Nobody is predicting RCP 8.5 at this time. - So, you consider this alarmist? I actually view it the other way around. Too many people nowadays appear to believe that climate change would lead to billions dying, global collapse, etc. in the fairly near future. (See Climate change and civilizational collapse#Public opinion for the closest we have to objective evidence on the subject.) Thus, presenting this high-emission figure (again, from the AR6) as the "upper bound" for 2100 is actually likely to surprise a lot of people as "too low" - and those are the people who definitely need to see this, and are likely to scroll past the rest of the article and persist in their thinking otherwise. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 20:16, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

@Efbrazil So...I'll presume you have seen my reply above, even though you only chose to edit your previous comment a little about livestock and not reply to anything else. I'll again say that this 10% loss of livestock will be almost wholly concentrated in the developing nations such as Iran and much of Sub-Saharan Africa, which isn't exactly something to celebrate. And at least some of the benefit in terms of reduced emissions will be cancelled out as the more developed countries would respond by relying more and more on energy-hungry air conditioning and the like to preserve much of the other 90%, as already projected in multiple studies.

Even so, my point is that livestock is hugely important to a vast number of people around the world, many of whom will also be reading this article. If we want to be effective, we need to be able to speak to everyone - including to the people who care more about wallets than lives, and need to be told of the damage to their specific interests. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 20:07, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I didn't reply because I think I made my points, and you made your points. The over riding message I tried to make is that I think you can make more progress working incrementally and slowly on page than you can by continuing this discussion and trying to find consensus behind a grand rewrite. Just start by editing a couple sentences that you think you can dramatically improve without adding to overall word count. Or start by making careful cuts from the causes section. If you work slowly then it lets people disagree with specific edits and they can back them out and open discussion on this talk page. I think you have a good sense at this point of what I will be opposing in terms of content. Efbrazil (talk) 20:50, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I really wish we had more editors participating in this discussion. One would think that proposed changes to a fairly important section of an FA seen by over 3k people daily would attract more interest: particularly during a time of an RFC. Unfortunately, I am not sure if there is a way to go beyond what Robert McClenon had already done to attract feedback without breaching rules on canvassing and such. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 20:21, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I do agree that the food and health section is fairly important. Yet don't expect to much of 3k daily readers. Look at "number of page watchers who visited in the last 30 days" instead, that stands at just 37 today. With only a handful of watchers actively participating in talks, it seems unrealistic to expect a big talking crowd here, especially after months of discussion. My recommendation: go for a shortened version of B, see C2 above and move on. Uwappa (talk) 12:23, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

@Uwappa At a glance, my main objection to that proposal is that it seems to portray the 3.2 million drought deaths figure as being additional to the 14.5 million figure, rather than part of the same estimate. So, we should either have only the combined figure, or another run-on sentence similar to the WHO one it'll be replacing (i.e. By 2050, 14.5 million deaths are likely, including 8.5 million from flooding and waterborne [water-associated?], 3.2 million from malnutrition due to droughts, 1.6 million from heatwaves by 2050 and 300,000 from wildfires. And again, I would not want to skip over the rather important situation where the bulk of projections say food supply would improve by 2050. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 19:57, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

After months of discussion, a DRN and a survey, it is unlikely that a new discussion will yield results.

Please stop. Uwappa (talk) 20:19, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

What new discussion? I objected to one sentence from your proposal, and expressed hope for adding another. Besides, even if I agreed to everything in that proposal now, that wouldn't have meant much unless the other active editors here all agreed as well, and so far, they are all silent. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 08:34, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Uwappa, would you mind striking down your earlier comment in the survey section above with <s></s>? It looks like you voted twice now. Or make a comment that you made an alternate suggestion? Bogazicili (talk) 15:21, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Done: C1 Uwappa (talk) 15:26, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I think for your proposal, there are too many short paragraphs per WP:PARAGRAPH. I also prefer attributions (" World Health Organization calls", "Over 100 scientists writing in", "According to the World Economic Forum"). This shows that a variety of sources have been used (medical professionals (WHO), scientists, business community (World Economic Forum) etc). Bogazicili (talk) 15:58, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I doubt if the paragraphs really are too short. Each does present one idea: the expected situation in a year. Changed C2 from paragraphs to MOS:DEFLIST, definition list, which would be my own preference as a scannable layout gives 47% improvement according to Nielsen, 1997. Yes, I know, Nielsens result are now more than a quarter of a century old and many WP editors still prefer prose. Scannability is still an unknown concept in WP.

I do like the reliability of WHO and 'over 100 scientists', but... to decrease word count, what else to take out? Reliable sources can move to a reference. And they should be reliable as unreliable sources should never be used in the first place. Uwappa (talk) 17:09, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there is any need to decrease the word count with Proposal B (my proposal). Its word count is 240 words. The current text in Food and health section has 243 words. Bogazicili (talk) 17:19, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

For the record, I am opposed to proposal B now, as per discussion up above with I2K. Several sentences are problematic and the existing wording is better I believe. In my opinion, the best approach is not a full rewrite but to make specific edits to the existing text where there is a belief that improvements are needed. Efbrazil (talk) 17:12, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I would prefer the more concise B given we have {{main article}} links for readers seeking more detail. However, I find that B does not convey the same meaning as A, or even the existing wording: B currently states "Agricultural productivity was negatively affected in mid- and low-latitude areas, while some high latitude areas were positively affected". This gives the impression that agriculture in the high latitudes may only be positively affected, which does not contain the nuance that A has ("Agriculture will experience yield gains at high latitudes, but will also become more vulnerable to pests and pathogens"); the existing wording ("effects at northern latitudes may be positive or negative") shows this duality better (though "northern" should be reworded to "higher"). ~ KN2731 {talk · contribs} 11:55, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@KN2731: B describes impacts until now in that sentence, whereas A describes future impacts. The page numbers in the sources are also different. B uses page numbers from summary pages (summary for policy makers or technical summary). The current wording also describes future impacts. Bogazicili (talk) 18:09, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't notice that at first glance. I wonder if that sentence in B should be changed to present perfect tense ("has been negatively affected", "have been positively affected") to be consistent with the other sentences before it describing past to present impacts. ~ KN2731 {talk · contribs} 14:01, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

@KN2731: yes this can be done if and when B is implemented. For now, I'm not changing the text above, since people already voted. Bogazicili (talk) 16:28, 12 May 2024 (UTC) Bump so this doesn't get archived. Bogazicili (talk) 06:04, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

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

Resolving the issue of rapid rates of change

At issue is two versions of events. There is FAR / Bogazicili text here, sourced to SR15 / page 54, which I just removed as being potentially inaccurate:

The modern observed rise in temperature and CO₂ concentrations has been so rapid that even abrupt geophysical events that took place in Earth's history do not approach current rates.

Or there is this text talking about warming following the last ice age. I had added it a while ago in trying to describe the best research on the last ice age. Femke deleted it as recent research, which is fine by me, but I don't know of a more accurate (consensus) science on warming rates following the last ice age:

The warming that followed included a 500 year period when sea levels rose 18 meters (59 ft)

The reason I put the text in I did is that the meltwater pulse seemed like solid, global data. The Bolling-allerod warming article is important to read though. It includes this statement, which contradicts the claim made in SR15:

Records obtained from the Gulf of Alaska show abrupt sea-surface warming of about 3 °C (in less than 90 years), matching ice-core records that register this transition as occurring within decades.

Perhaps the SR15 statement is simply false now as it no longer reflects the latest science. My general view is that we simply should not make claims about how rapid climate change was prior to the anthropocene as the science isn't clear. I'm not saying we should say SR15 is incorrect, but I also don't want to blindly parrot SR15 when what it says is directly contradicted by our own ice age articles on wikipedia. Maybe the SR15 claim still works if it is isolated to CO₂ levels and not temperatures.

I'm hoping we can discuss the actual science here rather than wording or what was in FAR or this study or that study. Is there an expert that can say which claim (if any) is correct and why? Until we have consensus on what the science says, I think it is best that we avoid adding stuff to the article about it. I put an ask on the Bølling–Allerød wiki page for experts there to take part in this discussion. Efbrazil (talk) 17:41, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

References

Sorry, but it is my understanding that we should not discuss the actual science here. Wikipedia reports on reliable sources. We judge content by verifiability not scientific criteria of any kind. We can develop a consensus about content based on sources, but not based on science. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:00, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

AR6 is quite precise. Here's a modified version of my suggestion from above for the body of the article:

Recent changes, such as increase in CO2 concentrations and global temperature, "are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years."AR6 WG1 SPM-9 Including high emission scenarios, future projections of global temperature and CO2 increase for the upcoming 300 years are "similar to those only from many millions of years ago." AR6 WG1 Technical Summary p.44

Bogazicili (talk) 18:18, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

RCraig09, any interest in replicating that graph in AR6 WG1 Technical Summary p.44? Bogazicili (talk) 18:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

@Bogazicili: I don't understand what you mean by "that graph". I think Figure TS.1 Changes in atmospheric CO2 and global surface temperature is far too detailed for an encyclopedia. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

@RCraig09: yes, I mean Figure TS.1 Changes in atmospheric CO2 and global surface temperature (relative to 1850–1900) from the deep past to the next 300 years There are 2 graphs there. For temperature and CO2 increase. Temperature one would look like this [58] but would go back millions of years and would include 3 future scenarios. I just meant the line graphs, not the warming globe images. I assumed IPCC makes its data available somewhere? Bogazicili (talk) 17:40, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

@Bogazicili: Sorry, I'm not motivated to add such long-term graphics. I couldn't readily find a 4-era free-use alternative from the US federal government *.gov. Over the years, I haven't had much luck getting data out of organizations. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:32, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Good, let's put aside the SR15 sentence then. Regarding the AR6 wording, the first sentence you offer seems to talk about the holocene (many centuries to many thousands of years), and that certainly seems defensible. However, I don't know that it is very compelling, as "many centuries" arguably only goes back to the middle ages.

The second sentence is more iffy as it is a projection going hundreds of years into the future and is exclusive to a high emission scenario that I believe is no longer being predicted any more than 1.5 degrees is. Ideally we talk 2.5 C to 3 C and look nearer term. As is it reads a bit like climate apocalypse writing, as in "if the worst happens and no new technologies come along then hundreds of years from now blah blah blah". Efbrazil (talk) 19:09, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

That is what the source says, but you seem to reject it based on personal opinions or personal interpretations. And no, it is not "exclusive to a high emission scenario". Bolding is mine:

For example, there is medium confidence that, by 2300, an intermediate scenario14 used in this Report leads to global surface temperatures of [2.3°C to 4.6°C] higher than 1850–1900, similar to the mid-Pliocene Warm Period [2.5°C to 4°C], about 3.2 million years ago, whereas the high CO2 emissions scenario SSP5-8.5 leads to temperatures of [6.6°C to 14.1°C] by 2300, which overlaps with the Early Eocene Climate Optimum [10°C to 18°C], about 50 million years ago.AR6 WG1 Technical Summary pp.43-44

Bogazicili (talk) 19:17, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

The first half of that AR6 statement you offered mostly repeats what we already have in the "future global temperatures" section. It could be added there, but should be reconciled with the existing statements, and we want to avoid article bloat. That's my personal reasoning at least :)

I think there are 2 larger issues. First, do we want to make any claims about rate of change? My reading from stuff right now is no.

Secondly, should the lead make a clear claim about what is unusual about current climate change? We could focus on CO₂ levels as we are clear on that. For instance, would you be in favor of changing the lead like this?

In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global average temperature is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels.[3][4] Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices add to greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide and methane.[5] GreenhouseThese gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight. Larger amounts of these gases trap more heat in Earth's lower atmosphere, causing global warmingCarbon dioxide levels are now higher than they have been for millions of years, causing Earth's lower atmosphere to heat up.

The basis is later in the article when we say CO₂ levels are higher than they have been for 2 million years. Efbrazil (talk) 20:59, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I took a version of that lead paragraph change proposal and opened a new topic with it down below. Efbrazil (talk) 16:53, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

@Efbrazil I'm sorry, but have you seen anything in my comment from last week? I know it was a long comment and I didn't ping you specifically, but I thought I didn't need to. Quick recap:

1. Bølling–Allerød warming only occurred in the Northern Hemisphere. This is literally the IPCC text: see AR WG1, 715. There are graphics showing how that warming was cancelled out globally by the Southern Hemisphere cooling. Unfortunately, it seems like absolutely nobody who wrote either the B-A article or the Late Glacial Interstadial one was ever aware of this point, so large numbers of people were in all likelihood misinformed by both.
2. Meltwater Pulse 1A cannot be used to draw conclusions about the rate of warming, because completely different ice sheets broke up from the present ones.

To be fair, the sentence from FAR is flawed - mainly because it just says "temperature" and not "global temperature", which means that you can conceivably challenge it with local events like Bølling–Allerød, and because its reference to "abrupt geophysical events" only muddies the waters - my impression is that outside of maybe the Siberian Traps volcanism (and the asteroid, if that counts) practically everything that gets described as an "abrupt event" is actually a continental or at most hemispheric-scale change like the B-A (which is one reason why the term appears to have been used interchangeable with "tipping point" for some time, before getting largely phased out in modern context - see my observations here, for instance), and so shouldn't be brought up in the discussion of global change in the first place.

New suggestion from Bogazicili seems to address this - although it can still be improved. Firstly, I would rather shorten Recent changes, such as increase in CO2 concentrations and global temperature,... in the first sentence to Recent increases in CO2 concentrations and global temperature... If we want to mention any other unprecedented change/increase in the lead, we should do it explicitly. Then, I don't know that it is very compelling, as "many centuries" arguably only goes back to the middle ages is certainly not how that statement was intended to be read, but I can see how this wording leaves open that possibility. So, I would like to bring up the following instead:

Over the last 50 years, global surface temperature has increased at an observed rate unprecedented in at least the last two thousand years (medium confidence), and it is more likely than not that no multi-centennial period after the Last Interglacial (roughly 125,000 years ago) was warmer globally than the most recent decade (Cross-Section Box TS.1, Figure 1). During the mid-Pliocene Warm Period, around 3.3–3.0 million years ago, global surface temperature was 2.5°C–4°C warmer, and during the Last Interglacial, it was 0.5°C–1.5°C warmer than 1850–1900 - AR6, WG1, TS, 28

And later, for CO₂:

The centennial rate of change of CO2 since 1850 has no precedent in at least the past 800,000 years (Figure TS.9), and the fastest rates of change over the last 56 million years were at least a factor of 4 lower - AR6, WG1, TS, 35

There is also CH₄, and we should really go there, too. After all, it's actually more certain than the other two metrics:

By 2019, concentrations of CH4 reached 1866.3 (± 3.3) ppb (Figure TS.9c). The increase since 1750 of 1137.29 ± 10 ppb (157.8%) far exceeds the range over multiple glacial-interglacial transitions of the past 800,000 years (high confidence).

I am not 100% sure on how to integrate this yet (presumably, we are only considering "Temperature records prior to global warming" and "Warming since the Industrial Revolution" right now, and not the lead or elsewhere?) I'll note that the paragraphs we use in those sections are fairly short, and trimming "Causes" would free up more space here too, but again, how to utilize it?

I guess that for now, my main suggestion would be here.

Over the last few million years human beings evolved in a climate that cycled through ice ages, with global average temperature ranging between 1 °C warmer and 5–6 °C colder than current levels. One of the hotter periods was the Last Interglacial between 115,000 and 130,000 years ago, when sea levels were 6 to 9 meters higher than today.

There is again that use of SLR as a stand-in for temperature, which is quite problematic. It would be nice to change this to something like

Over the last few million years human beings evolved in a climate that cycled through ice ages, with global average temperature ranging between 1 °C warmer and 5–6 °C colder than current levels. During the Last Interglacial between 115,000 and 130,000 years ago, temperatures were at most 0.5°C warmer than the current levels, yet sea levels were 6 to 9 meters higher than today.

The issue is that readers would undoubtedly see this as saying that reaching 1.5°C now would result in 6-9 m of SLR, and I don't know how to qualify it so that it's clear this would happen over thousands of years if it did. The wording on sea level rise - In the long run, sea level rise would amount to 2–3 m (7–10 ft) over the next 2000 years if warming amounts to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). - is helpful (and also based on AR6), but how to add any of this into that section in a way that reads naturally? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 04:06, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm fine with changes to the section on temperatures if you think it's necessary. You seem to be arguing with me but I don't know what about. We should probably base things on AR6 rather than SR15 though, as it is newer and seems more precise in its statements in this area.

Regarding Bølling–Allerød, the graphics don't support the "cancelled out" claim as far as I can tell. The IPCC text doesn't make that claim, and the maps you link to show overall warming (just driven by the northern hemisphere).

The larger point is that we only have annualized global temperature estimates going back 2000 years. Past that, the data is increasingly smeared over hundreds to thousands of years or is based on localized studies. That makes it difficult to make comparisons with global temperature changes over the past 50 years. Efbrazil (talk) 15:55, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Regarding Bølling–Allerød, the graphics don't support the "cancelled out" claim as far as I can tell. The IPCC text doesn't make that claim, and the maps you link to show overall warming (just driven by the northern hemisphere). "Northern-Hemisphere wide" is a very specific phrasing which would not be used by the IPCC if the event was global. When looking at the graphic, you also need to remember that a) the ocean always has the majority of the heat in the Earth system; b) Oceans occupy much larger fraction of the Southern Hemisphere as most landmass is in the North; and c) most map projections inflate the size of the Northern Hemisphere.

Either way, there is a reference which says this more explicitly:

The global temperature stack shows a two-step rise, with most warming occurring during and right after the Oldest Dryas and Younger Dryas intervals and relatively little temperature change during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the Bølling–Allerød interval and the early Holocene epoch.

Similarly, although ice-sheet extent and its associated albedo (from ice cover and emergent continental shelves) and orographic forcing decreased through the deglaciation, global ice volume and area changed only slowly or not at all during intervals of pronounced global warming such as the Oldest Dryas and Younger Dryas, and the greatest volume or area loss in fact occurred during intervals of little or no warming around 19 kyr ago and the Bølling–Allerød.

Given all of this, I rewrote that article now. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 14:22, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

The lead is being discussed below. For the body of the article, we need to make 2 additions:

1) Temperature records prior to global warming section, end of first paragraph:

Recent large-scale changes in climate system "are unprecedented in a multi-millennial context." AR6 WG1 Technical Summary p.43

2) Warming since the Industrial Revolution section, at the end:

With intermediate and high emission scenarios, future projections of global surface temperatures by year 2300 are similar to millions of years ago. AR6 WG1 Technical Summary p.43-44

Bogazicili (talk) 17:36, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

The first claim is solid, and I just wish it was stronger. Certainly it seems that we should be able to make a holocene level claim, but it's better than nothing.

I don't know if the second claim makes sense to include in a high level article like this. 2300 leaves a ton of space for CCS and SRM and whatever else to occur in the mean time. The intermediate scenario is not defined in the source (which RCP?) and has medium confidence only, even if you buy an RCP that spools out 275 years into the future. Efbrazil (talk) 23:56, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I would like to note that SRM makes no difference to the background temperature on its own, so "temperatures would be like those of millions of years ago unless planes with sulfur keep taking off every 6 months and do not stop" is not a very meaningful point.

CCS simply prevents fossil combustion emissions from entering the atmosphere (at an exorbitant cost) and makes no difference to the overall CO₂ levels even when it works. I presume you meant CDR, and the costs (including the land/energy footprint) needed to scale it up enough to avoid such temperature rise by 2300 are so immense that it can also be disregarded. I.e. to peak warming at 2.5C in 2095 under RCP 4.5 would require over 10,000 CDR plants operating by 2100, at ~2% of the global annual GDP, consuming over 10% of the global electricity output and likely the majority of the natural gas output as well (apparently that is the most cost-effective way to run this.)

Again, this is assuming RCP 4.5 and that a wartime-scale deployment program begins practically next year. In all, not a very relevant hypothetical even for the more modest goal of avoiding 3 or 4 degrees by 2300. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 01:04, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I think the first proposed sentence sounds too technical. Can we try for something more approachable like Ongoing changes in climate have had no precedent in multiple millennia.?

As for the second, can we also rephrase it more like this:Under high emissions, temperatures would reach levels not seen in millions of years by 2100. Under intermediate emissions, such levels would occur closer to 2300? Maybe this particular page of the TS would not support both sentences, but surely another page of the report would? And it's very likely that there are review papers which also say the same, if necessary. (I know at least one research paper which says this openly, but that is more of a last resort.) InformationToKnowledge (talk) 01:02, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Agreed with Ongoing changes in climate have had no precedent in multiple millennia and added into the article, since there have been no additional comments. Bogazicili (talk) 19:19, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

For the second part, it's clear from the graph but I don't know where that information is in text. So I'll go ahead with With intermediate and high emission scenarios, future projections of global surface temperatures by year 2300 are similar to millions of years ago unless there are objections. Bogazicili (talk) 06:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Changes made. Bogazicili (talk) 11:11, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm confused by sourcing here. The tooltips on page link to this PDF:

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf

That PDF has an SPM section, a TS section, and then chapters. The PDF is also a draft, which explicitly says "Do Not Cite, Quote or Distribute" at the bottom of each page.

So what do pages 43-44 refer to? I couldn't figure it out. The easiest reference point for the statement added to the article is from TS-11 on page 54 of the PDF, which says this: Levels of global warming (see Core Concepts Box) that have not been seen in millions of years could be reached by 2300, depending on the emissions pathway that is followed (TS.1.3). For example, there is medium confidence that, by 2300, an intermediate scenario used in the report leads to global surface temperatures of 2.3°C–4.6°C higher than 1850–1900, similar to the mid-Pliocene Warm Period (2.5°C–4°C), about 3.2 million years ago

Can you clear up my confusion here? Efbrazil (talk) 23:06, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

The linked report was the older version subject to copy editing. Updated the link Bogazicili (talk) 17:33, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion to condense the section on "causes"

(I've brought this back from the archive because I think this needs to be revisited, now that we have a sub-article on causes of climate change. I think the discussion hadn't concluded yet.) EMsmile (talk) 22:40, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

+++++++++

We talk a lot about space constraints here. And I think that is good; the article shouldn't get too big. Suggestion to generate more space: let's take the plunge and move some content from the "causes" section to causes of climate change. This would free up a lot of space for other content. See also move discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Attribution_of_recent_climate_change#Requested_move_29_January_2024 (which has been "stuck" and sadly no inputs from uninvolved editors yet (but I am not surprised; it's not easy for an uninvolved editor to get their heads around it; I think we need to resolve it ourselves). EMsmile (talk) 09:08, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

That would be great. But it's a highly technical section, so I'm not sure who's going to do it. It's also been stable for a long time. Bogazicili (talk) 15:58, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Bold suggestion: Prune, prune, prune the whole chapter down to just a list. No background. Little explanation. No history. No-where-does-it-come-from. No expectations. No what-to-do-about-it. Provide all of that in other chapters, other pages. Move feedback mechanisms to modelling. Keep it simple, no jargon, no abbreviations. Just list the causes.

Sort the list. Main, long term factors first. Put small impact factors last.

1. Carbon dioxide and methane are the main greenhouse gases that trap heat near the Earth's surface.
2. Deforestation. Living trees remove carbon and cool by evaporation. Dead trees release CO2 and can't cool anymore.
3. El Niño causes spikes upto several years while La Niña causes cooling.
4. Vulcanic eruptions have a negligible impact for just several years.
5. The received energy from the sun has not really changed since 1880.

The word count will reduce dramatically. Uwappa (talk) 16:41, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't want this section to become "just a list". It's important to have this section be clear and stand alone. We need to lay the foundation before launching into impacts. I wouldn't want to see the overall word count of the section drop by more than half.

Here is a proposal for cut downs on reading through the sections as they are now:

1. The intro to the section: This is good framing and I wouldn't change it
2. Greenhouse gases: The first 4 paragraphs I wouldn't change. The last paragraph on the carbon cycle could be merged into the section Reducing and recapturing emissions / Carbon sequestration. We'd then just add one sentence to the first or second paragraph of Greenhouse gases that mentions carbon sequestration as an issue.
3. Land surface changes: This is the other cause that deserves top level billing and I wouldn't change it at all.
4. Other factors: All remaining sections I'd stuff into a new section called "Other factors". That includes existing sections called "Aerosols and clouds", "Solar and volcanic activity", and "Climate change feedback". None of those are "causes" of climate change, so they don't belong as a subtitle under "Causes of Climate Change". I'd reduce all those sections to 1 paragraph each so that "Other factors" is 3 or 4 paragraphs long.

So that cuts 4 or 5 paragraphs total. Thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 18:30, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Given Attribution of recent climate change is in a poor state, and this article is FA, I'd suggest a conservative approach, certainly not chopping off large portions. Bogazicili (talk) 20:13, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I've just added the section sizes table to the talk page at the top. It shows that the biggest section is the one on causes (although not by far). This is a hint for me that some trimming of that section could be a good move. The fact that Attribution of recent climate change (possibly future causes of climate change) is in a bad state should not stop us from making such changes.

I like Efbrazil's suggestion of "other factors" (or better wording?) as "Climate change feedback" shouldn't be on the same level as "greenhouse gas emissions" with regards to causes.

The fact that this section has been "stable for a long time" shouldn't stop us from taking a hard critical look at it to see if it can be improved.

I disagree with Uwappa's suggestion. A mere list wouldn't do it justice. But a section with fewer and shorter sub-sections would. EMsmile (talk) 21:13, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

It used to be called 'drivers of climate change' before, which made the feedback section work there. Other factors work if we don't rename the section back to how it was. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 21:17, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

For now I stuffed those sections into a new "Other factors" section, to help clarify that they aren't causes. I didn't want to revisit the section title name, as that change was a long debate. Efbrazil (talk) 21:36, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Promote "3.3 Other factors" to "4 Other factors", so "3. Causes" will be have just 2 subheadings: "3.1 Greenhouse gases" and "3.2 Land surface changes"? Uwappa (talk) 21:48, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Other factors doesn't make sense as a stand alone section, it would need to be something like "Other factors influencing climate", but then you're getting into a laundry list that is already covered in Climate variability and change. I kind of like it where it is, being subordinate to causes. Makes it clear we aren't forgetting these complicating factors, but also makes it clear they aren't the cause. Efbrazil (talk) 22:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

It's all not ideal... But maybe we could call the sub-section just that: "Complicating factors"? I think that could add some clarity.EMsmile (talk) 23:50, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I guess I don't see "complicating factors" as better than "other factors". All it means to me is other + complicated. The other factors are not really "complicating" as they can, in fact, be ignored. They are just background noise or feedbacks that complicate modeling, but don't complicate understanding the cause of climate change. Some stuff like solar variability we're discussing mostly because it's been a red herring used by climate deniers. Maybe you could clarify what you don't like about "other factors"? Efbrazil (talk) 01:21, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

How about same terminology as and move feedback to Modelling?

3. Natural variability

3.1 El Niño & La Niña

3.2 Solar and volcanic activity

3.3 Aerosols and clouds

 

4. Human forces

4.1 Greenhouse gases

4.2 Land surface changes

 

5. Modelling

5.1 Climate change feedback

Describe Natural variability first, before Human forces? Uwappa (talk) 10:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Aerosols are human caused, clouds are not. Also, this is an article on climate change, not natural variability, so I don't think that topic deserves top billing.

I thought about combining other factors with modelling but I think it's best to keep all the factors influencing climate grouped together. How to model those factors is really a separate topic.

The only idea that kind of makes sense to me is renaming "Other factors" to "Other factors influencing global temperatures". That would help with clarity but is wordy. I also don't know if that scratches your itch, as you didn't jump on that idea when I suggested it in edit comments.

So, again, I just don't see the problem with things as they are now. It is an appropriate hierarchy that makes it clear what's important, plus it groups all forces influencing climate. Can you please clarify what the problem is, instead of looking for a solution? Efbrazil (talk) 15:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

The problem is (but it's maybe only a minor problem) that things appear under "Causes" which are not actually causes. Namely these: Aerosols and clouds; Solar and volcanic activity; Climate change feedbacks (as Femke pointed out earlier, they are drivers and the section used to be called drivers). Now perhaps it doesn't matter for lay persons (drivers and causes are kind of similar...) or perhaps we want to make sure we make it very clear (?) (even for me as a layperson I have to think twice if aerosols is a cause or not; since the aerosols are also emitted by human activities...).

So therefore, a sub-heading 1 with the title "other factors" glosses over this too much. Maybe "Other factors that act as drivers but are not causes " as a section heading (too long, I know). Or "Other related drivers". Or "drivers that interact with causes". Or lift it up to become its own main level heading called "Drivers apart from causes" or "Other drivers"?

And since Uwappa mentioned ENSO: the articles does mention climate variability a few times but has no dedicated sub-heading 1 for that. I am wondering if we need one. Could also be a sub-heading 2. EMsmile (talk) 14:42, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree that we should get that article renamed and fixed up before doing much to this article. Maybe some edits here could be moves of content to that article though. Regardless, the renaming should happen first. Efbrazil (talk) 21:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Could you please indicate at Talk:Attribution of recent climate change which of the proposed options you favour? I am just trying to move things along. It's been stuck for a long time (and no uninvolved editors have shown up yet). EMsmile (talk) 23:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Sure, thanks for the ping Efbrazil (talk) 01:13, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

By now, I would actually support something much closer to the suggestion of @Uwappa then what the other editors seem to be proposing. This is because I have done my best to combine this section of this article and the relevant parts of the "attribution" article in my draft of the article on "Causes of climate change", which can now be viewed at my sandbox. Editors are encouraged to comment on that draft wherever they find it convenient, or even edit it directly. If there are no strong objections to the structure of that draft, then I would like to reduce the section here to a cogent summary of that article once it goes live. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:16, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

(moved from above to keep this all together) EMsmile (talk) 22:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

@EMsmile: I think we should be cautious about cutting causes section. First of all, this article is FA. Causes of climate change is a long way from FA quality. So I'm cautious about sending readers to lower quality articles. Also consider the massive difference in page views. When there is still so much scepticism about science, the most important information should still be in the main article. Btw only "about 0.09% or one out of every 1,050 articles" in English Wikipedia are Wikipedia:Featured articles. So I'm cautious about changes in FA articles in general. So I think we should proceed with caution in cutting causes section and expanding other sections. Bogazicili (talk) 22:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Much of Causes of climate change, as currently written, was based directly on the exact section of this article we are trying to condense. In particular, the sections on Land cover changes, aerosols and feedbacks are exactly the same, word-for-word, between the two articles. "Solar and volcanic activity" section is another example. It had been renamed to "natural variability", but is otherwise very similar. If that content is FA while it is here, how does it become less so by simply being moved elsewhere?

Further, those are the sections where a lot of sentences go well and beyond "the most important information". You can argue that they already provide too much detail for a high-level article: i.e. how many people need to see a fairly detailed paragraph on cloud feedback and why it can be different in models when they are simply trying to learn about climate change in general? This is why they are the prime candidates for condensing here, now that they are already replicated in a separate article. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 07:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Why do we need to cut from causes of climate change again? What is being proposed to be expanded? Bogazicili (talk) 09:26, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the reasons that I2K gave as a good motivation for condensing some of the content about causes of climate change (even if we were to not expand any other section). Overall, the CC article is definitely on the long side and "less is more" in this case. (I tried to check the page size with the page size tool but am getting this info at the moment: "Prose size (text only): undefined B (undefined words) "readable prose size""). EMsmile (talk) 11:48, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I see 8,929 words, it's actually at the recommended length (under 9k). I don't think it expanded much since last FAR either. If there is no proposed expansion, cutting from causes of climate change is completely redundant. Bogazicili (talk) 12:11, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I disagree: cutting content (or rather condensing content) is not "redundant" if one doesn't expand at the same time in another section. There can be other reasons for condensing content, and I think I2K spelled out those reasons quite well. E.g. they said You can argue that they already provide too much detail for a high-level article: i.e. how many people need to see a fairly detailed paragraph on cloud feedback and why it can be different in models when they are simply trying to learn about climate change in general? EMsmile (talk) 13:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

How are we assessing DUE weight? It also seems summary style to me as most sections have their own articles, except "Land surface changes" and "Aerosols and clouds" sections. Bogazicili (talk) 15:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I have brought the above discussion back from the archive a second time because I think it still hasn't been resolved. I hope someone will have the energy and time at some point to move the discussion above forward on condensing content about the causes of climate change and relying more on the new sub-article on causes of climate change. Interestingly, that article is getting an uptick of pageviews since March of this year (see here); not surprisingly as that was the time when we changed the name of the article from "attribution of..." to causes of climate change on 13 March 2024. EMsmile (talk) 20:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

As the person suggesting this, can you say what doesn't comply with WP:Summary? Not to mention this article passed FA review, so WP:Summary wasn't an issue before. Bogazicili (talk) 21:44, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I think it's mainly the section called "other factors" that is not adhering to summary style and that goes into too much depth for a high level article. This was also pointed out by Efbrazil in their post above on 6 Feb 24 where they wrote: "Other factors: All remaining sections I'd stuff into a new section called "Other factors". That includes existing sections called "Aerosols and clouds", "Solar and volcanic activity", and "Climate change feedback". None of those are "causes" of climate change, so they don't belong as a subtitle under "Causes of Climate Change". I'd reduce all those sections to 1 paragraph each so that "Other factors" is 3 or 4 paragraphs long. So that cuts 4 or 5 paragraphs total."

The fact that the article passed FA review 3.5 years ago (January 2021) should not be seen as a stifling argument to making other small incremental changes (like we have done for many of the other sections in the meantime). Climate change is a fast moving topic so there will always be room for improvement. As it currently stands, the section on "causes" is the largest section of the article (see the table of section sizes above) and I think it would benefit from condensing. EMsmile (talk) 09:21, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Ok, that's the personal opinion of one editor. Climate change is also not a that fast moving topic. The causes of climate change haven't changed in 3.5 years.

As the person suggesting this, can you provide us reliable overview sources about climate change? What percentage was devoted to the causes? What percentages were devoted to "Aerosols and clouds", "Solar and volcanic activity", and "Climate change feedback" compared to overall causes? And what are the percentages for this article? Maybe a table with these percentages and links to the sources would help, so we can assess WP:PROPORTION.

This is an FA-class article, so some level of conservatism should be expected. You are also suggesting a major change. You have been suggesting this since February, but I have yet to see the sources. Bogazicili (talk) 18:44, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I could do that analysis but I am not sure if it's worth my while. Let's first see what others think. From the discussion above you can see that it's not just one editor who has suggested that (me) but also Efbrazil and InformationToKnowledge. Let's hear from them and others. I won't push for it if there is no chance that it would get consensus anyway. Note also the complication that was highlighted above that "None of those are "causes" of climate change, so they don't belong as a subtitle under "Causes of Climate Change"" (which is why that section became "other factors"). Another good reason for condensing and reworking that section. EMsmile (talk) 13:27, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Pinging User:Efbrazil and User:InformationToKnowledge: would love to hear your thoughts on this. EMsmile (talk) 09:35, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Possible student assignment

Housekeeping edit: there was an announcement about an upcoming student assignment here before (for this course) which has since been deleted. EMsmile (talk) 07:10, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi User:Mirafloree: I am not sure if this article is a suitable article for a student assignment. For once it is protected and cannot be edited by new users. Secondly it's already a featured article so probably not really in urgent need of improvement right now. Whoever guided you to this article, I recommend you go back to them and suggest to rather work on a sub-article, like maybe causes of climate change or climate change in Africa (or any other country or region). Good luck with your assignment! EMsmile (talk) 09:33, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Food and health section

The RfC is now closed. If there are no objections I will replace the current version with B above. B has more up-to-date sourcing and is shorter than the current version. Bogazicili (talk) 11:15, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any consensus for version B up above. There was a discussion that I think expressed a preference for B over A, but not for B over what's there now. I would recommend making a new proposal that includes feedback as per the discussion up above, or making incremental changes to the existing text. Efbrazil (talk) 23:34, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

We can have a follow up RfC comparing the current version to version B above. But we've been discussing this since February, but I don't think anyone said they would prefer the current version. We also had asked you if you wanted to join DRN, but you had rejected. So I'm surprised you seem passionate about this section even though you had refused to participate to DRN. Can you clearly state why you prefer the current version? Bogazicili (talk) 17:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

My edit above dated 22:37, 26 April 2024 (UTC) explains my issues with version B, which somewhat differ from I2K's.

I'm not sure what DRN refers to, but I know I dropped out of things for a while as you and I2K were sorting through things. I was hoping you two would converge on a solution. Efbrazil (talk) 20:50, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Your 22:37, 26 April 2024 message mostly seems to be personal opinions. You said: "Proposal B tilts too heavily towards generalized alarmism". Do you have a reliable source saying why IPCC or other sources are alarmist? Can you provide links, page numbers, and quotes? "Could" is not "wishy washy", it's just scientific writing. Projections do not have 100% certainty.

InformationToKnowledge, do you prefer the current version or version B above? Bogazicili (talk) 16:26, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

In that 22:37, 26 April 2024 comment I listed out 4 specific sentences in the proposal that I don't think add value to the content, and for each sentence I say why. Prior to that, I2K pointed towards several sentences that they didn't think added value. I also got a thanks from EMSmile for my reply above saying there is not consensus for version B. In other words, there is not consensus for version B.

As for the issue of "could", the problem is that it can mean any likelihood between 0% and 100%. Nuclear war could break out tomorrow, or it could rain somewhere on Earth. It is better for forecasts to use terms that are more precise.

Instead of just disagreeing with feedback, please try assimilating it. I've rarely found that feedback is not valid, even if it is sometimes not expressed as clearly as it could be. Efbrazil (talk) 22:56, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

• "generalized alarmism": Please provide sources for this claim. Why are IPCC's numbers alarmist? Please provide links, page numbers and quotes. Otherwise, I can't take personal feelings, thoughts, and other WP:Forum-like discussions seriously.
• "Over 100 scientists writing": This was InformationToKnowledge's suggestion in WP:DRN and I liked it. I like that there a variety of sources, ranging from governmental/institutional sources like IPCC, business community (World Economic Forum) and independent scientists ("Over 100 scientists writing" sentence).
• "Could": Scientific writing rarely expresses certainty [59]. But if this is so important to you, we can change it with "are projected to". There could be other projections though.
• "global livestock headcounts": Again, this was InformationToKnowledge's suggestion in WP:DRN. I accepted it to try to find a compromise. We asked other editors to join to WP:DRN.

As for assimilating feedback, InformationToKnowledge seems to have responded to your feedback with a detailed response [60], but you seem to have ignored it [61]. Did you try assimilating that? Bogazicili (talk) 17:53, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

The reason that discussion ended is we both had issues with the text you proposed, but for different reasons. Since you weren't engaged there was no point in continuing with the discussion. The only path forward would have been to propose new text, and I suggested how, and then stepped back. Now that you've seen the feedback (maybe you missed it before?) I'm still not seeing you show any interest in actually incorporating it. You purely seem to be defensive, as though backed into a corner and fighting back. Why not work from a perspective of trying to understand feedback and find consensus?

Addressing the bullets up above:

• Generalized alarmism refers to the issues I2K was raising with your text. Statements that are not specific are not helpful in defining a topic.
• The over 100 scientists statement is similarly not constructive by being vague and generalized. What type of scientists? What sort of irreversible harms? You could probably write a similar statement about laundry detergent.
• Certainty is 100%, and yes, scientistst should rarely say 100%, but they can say things like "likely", meaning over 50%. The IPCC has a defined vocabulary for how certain they are with predictions.
• Yep, I disagree with I2K on this issue, and said why.

Again, I think incremental fixes will work best. Just look for the sentences for which there was not opposition and roll with them, then we can discuss any specific disagreements here. Efbrazil (talk) 19:34, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello to both of you. I feel bad that I am unable to help in any way as I am just so "lost" on all of this. But I do think that the suggestion of Efbrazil is a good way forward i.e. to make small incremental changes on a sentence by sentence basis. This might help to get other people who are watching this article (and who have switched off from the discussion) back and re-engaged. EMsmile (talk) 20:18, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

We've debated this since February so the discussion seems stuck. I think another RfC would be the way to go. Efbrazil, can you state why you oppose B above and support current text with a one sentence summary so I can add it to the RfC? Bogazicili (talk) 21:36, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Could we not do small incremental changes sentence by sentence, rather than RfC? EMsmile (talk) 09:34, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

For "small incremental changes", I asked for sources, but no sources were provided. You could have also joined and suggested this at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard case. Suggesting small incremental changes without providing any sources and after the lengthy Dispute Resolution Noticeboard process has been completed seems like Wikipedia:Status quo stonewalling Bogazicili (talk) 20:18, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I am just trying to help move this process along. I don't think the RfC has helped so far, or has it? Overall, I am not planning to spend much time on this article myself because it's already in far better shape than many of our climate change sub-articles which also get high pageviews (some of them) but which are nowhere near FA or GA quality, most of them lingering only at C class. So that's why I am currently devoting more of my time to them than to this article. Sorry. EMsmile (talk) 20:35, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Efbrazil said new text was "generally alarmist". I asked for sources about why IPCC and other sources used in the text are "generally alarmist". The process will not move along without sources.

The previous RfC did establish preference for shorter length for that section, so I do think it was actually helpful. Bogazicili (talk) 21:04, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

revert of lake warming story

This is with regard to the revert of claim about lake warming ...

I suggest considering this article in Smart Water Magazine as a possible alternative source. Fabrickator (talk) 23:24, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Interesting - perhaps Effects of climate change on biomes might be a good place for you to write about this Chidgk1 (talk) 18:32, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Changing the current short description?

The current short description of the article is "Current rise in Earth's average temperature and its effects". Firstly, it's on the long side (59 characters and spaces). Secondly, it's limited to temperature but e.g. ocean acidification is not happening because of the temperature increase. Mind you, the first paragraph of the lead is also focused just on temperature. Anyhow, this is my suggestion for a more succinct short description: "Human-caused changes to Earth's climate system". For those not familiar with these short descriptions, see here: WP:SDESC. EMsmile (talk) 21:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

• Keep current description. Previously discussed: the word "current" importantly distinguishes today's CC from ancient climate changes described in Climate variability and change. Also, the first sentence of the lead is not "limited to temperature" but recites its follow-on effects in the very first sentence. Further, though acidification is mentioned in the article,^{(in keeping with various sources, like 'em or not)} a short description need not encompass each parallel concept mentioned in the article. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:46, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the current short description is too long and is trying to be too specific. The guidelines for short descriptions are that they should be short and concise (WP:SDLENGTH):

• "More than 80% of short descriptions use fewer than 40 characters (including spaces).
• Fewer than 3% of short descriptions are longer than 60 characters, and short descriptions longer than 100 characters will be flagged for attention.
• Short descriptions exceeding 40 characters may be truncated in some contexts.
• Because they are intended to be scanned quickly, longer, more specific descriptions can be less useful."

I think our current short description is not concise enough and tries to cram in too many details and focuses itself on temperature. My proposal avoids that by saying: Human-caused changes to Earth's climate system. Another option is "Current changes to Earth's climate system" but I think mentioning the human-caused aspect also sets it apart from Climate variability and change. EMsmile (talk) 07:31, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

While I do agree that the current description is quite long, the points raised by RCraig09 lead me to believe your proposed SD isn't a good replacement. Furthermore, the wording can imply that climate change is completely caused by humans, which is false. I think you should find another way to condense it. _ZZ^Z'S 13:05, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Yet again, you EMsmile promote formal guidelines over substantive content. Nevertheless, a shortened title would be "Current global warming's effects on climate", which reflects how the "GW" article was finally moved to "CC" in August 2020: the article covers both concepts. I can't believe we're counting letters (but it's 43 in my proposal vs 46 for EMs' proposal). —RCraig09 (talk) 19:01, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello, User:ZZZ'S, whilst climate change in general (as per the content of climate variability and change) could be caused by all sorts of things, including e.g. meteor strikes, this article on climate change is focused on the current, human-cased climate change. It says so also in the third sentence of the lead "The current rise in global average temperature is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution".

As to the short description, we need to understand that the short description has a different function to the first sentence of the lead. It serves more as an identifier.

The style guide suggests: "It provides a brief indication of the field, an annotation, and a disambiguation in searches, not for any Wikidata item but for the encyclopedia article itself." Some examples from the style guide: "For an organism: "[type of organism] of [common name or description]" (Examples: "Species of moth", "Group of flowering plants", "Extinct group of molluscs") or Miscellaneous: "Type of [noun]", "Concept in [academic field]" (Examples: "Type of steam locomotive", "Concept in statistics").

So for example the short description, if it was about a person, would not be "Football player from Kenya who won the world cup twice" but simply "Kenyan football player".

So it's not just about length per se but also the type of description how a short description should be set up.

I see the benefit in the proposal by RCraig09 "Current global warming's effects on climate" but wonder if it does justice to the broad nature of our article which also covers politics, mitigation and so forth.

Would this be a possibility for the short description: simply: Contemporary climate change? Or (a bit longer though): Causes and effects of contemporary climate change. EMsmile (talk) 20:49, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

The current SD is far too long at 59 characters, and too specific. I suggest Current long-term changes to global climate. MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:08, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

It should refer to human activity rather than it being a natural phenomenon. How about Current human-induced changes to climate (40 characters)

or Current human-induced global warming (36 characters)? — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 11:58, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Those would work, too, as the article does focus on human-induced. MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:31, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional inputs to this brainstorming, much appreciated! I used to make the mistake all the time to make those short descriptions too long and detailed - I am now trying to improve it for those articles that I've been involved with. How about this: Human-induced changes to Earth's climate? I am thinking "Earth" is worth mentioning because it could otherwise be some other climate. And human-induced might make current superfluous. Human-induced is indeed the more important adjective here than current. Or human-caused, might be easier than induced? EMsmile (talk) 12:37, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I am alarmed by the thought that humans may have already damaged climates other than Earth's — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 12:46, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Those would work, and I agree that your wording avoids the need to include "current". I know you’re aware, but for others who might want to contribute here - bear in mind that since the SD is not a definition of the topic (WP:SDNOTDEF), this shouldn’t be decided by arguing about how much climate change is or is not human-induced. The SD describes what’s in the article, not the underlying topic. It provides among other things a very brief indication of the field covered by the article (WP:SDPURPOSE). MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:49, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

You can leave out 'current' as there is no previous human-induced global warming. So "human-induced global warming" would suffice. Alternative, skip the human-induced and just stick to: "current global warming".

When describing "Climate change", avoid the words "climate" and "change". And yes, you can leave out "Earth". Uwappa (talk) 12:48, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm against using "global warming" in the short description for the same reason as why we changed the article's title from "global warming" to "climate change". There is so much more to this phenomenon than just "warming".

And @User:GhostInTheMachine with other climates I meant e.g. Political climate, Organisation climate. Not so commonly used though. - So my poposal is Human-caused changes to Earth's climate. EMsmile (talk) 14:20, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I suspect that I knew that, but could not resist. Sorry — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 15:04, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Could we substitute "Anthropocene" for Human-caused (or would that beget another long discussion)? -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 14:51, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Please no – Anthropocene has enough controversy of its own. Best to stay with simple words where possible. I also have a mild dislike of apostrophes, so how about Human-caused changes to climate on Earth (40 characters) — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 15:10, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. Also, per WP:SDDUPLICATE, the repetition of both "climate" and "change[s]" from the article's title seems like a missed opportunity (albeit a minor one). Could we say Contemporary global warming? -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 15:46, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

"Human-caused changes to climate on Earth" is better". "Contemporary" is a tricky word with several meanings, and doesn't always mean "modern". It can also mean "something belonging to the same time period as something else". MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:54, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I actually grabbed the word from our {{About}} tag just below the SD This article is about contemporary climate change. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:12, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

We seem to have inched towards a mild consensus. Therefore, I've just changed the short description to Human-caused changes to climate on Earth (40 charactes with spaces). I think it's a very suitable short description. I've also changed "contemporary" to "current" in the two places where it appeared. Thanks to those who participated in the discussion so far, especially those editors who don't normally participate in this article (perhaps drawn from my talk page message at WikiProject Short Descriptions). If consensus has actually not yet reached and you're unhappy, feel free to discussion further. EMsmile (talk) 06:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

2300

@RCraig09 [Updated] It turned out that I mixed up a century and a millennium. Sea level rise will probably occur at another time. For the rest, on the end of the page 632, there is the beginning of a detailed description of extreme scenarios: "It is therefore likely that GSAT will exceed 2°C above that of the period 1850–1900 at the year 2300 in the extended SSP scenarios SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5...". And, on a page 633, the forecast ends: "GSAT projected for the end of the 23rd century [the author talks about the year 2300, which is confirmed by the table just above] under SSP5-8.5 (likely 6.6°C–14.1°C higher than over the period 1850–1900) overlaps with the range estimated for the Miocene Climatic Optimum (5°C–10°C higher) and Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (10°C–18°C higher), about 15 and 50 million years ago, respectively". Xiphactinus88 (talk) 10:27, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

15 million years ago is the Middle Miocene (Langhian age, see here), so the author is referring to the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum. Xiphactinus88 (talk) 10:33, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining, @Xiphactinus88: What still concerns me is the phrasing, "future projections of global surface temperatures by year 2300 being possibly...". I think there's a strong consensus among editors here that we should avoid anything that would reasonably be interpreted as alarmist. "Being possibly" doesn't seem to clearly reflect how extreme the described projections are. Since I'm frankly not thoroughly understanding the techy description, I'm hesitant to make changes myself. I ask you to make it clear, in layman's language, how the described temperature and sea level projections are extreme cases or outliers (if that's what they are). You don't need to explain to me here, but just place the extreme predictions in a context that's clear for lay readers. —RCraig09 (talk) 14:31, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@User:Xiphactinus88: If you want to add further detail on temperature information from geologic timeframes, please consider turning your attention also to Global surface temperature, rather than trying to add too much additional detail here in this space-restricted high level article. EMsmile (talk) 23:01, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Xiphactinus88, it's great you found the page number for this, I was looking for it some time ago. But 6.6–14.1 C is for SSP5‑8.5. Not sure if we want to give the number for worst case scenario. Also the current wording is WP:OR. Bogazicili (talk) 10:14, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

I do not write original research on Wikipedia. The Middle Miocene includes a date of 15 million years ago. However, I looked at other articles now and the authors there write that the climatic optimum ended a little earlier, so I… wanted to remove a link to that page, but all my changes are now removed. I’m sad. Xiphactinus88 (talk) 19:19, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll keep that in mind, thanks😃 Xiphactinus88 (talk) 18:31, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

I meant the previous wording was OR, because of the beginning of the sentence, which included intermediate scenarios: The warming will continue past 2100 in the intermediate and high emission scenarios, with future projections of global surface temperatures by year 2300 being possibly 6.6°C–14.1°C higher than over the period 1850–1900, similar to Miocene and Early Eocene climatic optimums. The part you added wasn't OR, but the whole thing became OR when combined. Bogazicili (talk) 19:25, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Sentence does not make sense

Faults in grammar and punctuation 82.32.10.233 (talk) 11:24, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Which one? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:26, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Can you please provide the sentence so we can complete you edit request? _ZZ^Z'S 11:26, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Drop of readership 2021

Hi everyone, I was just looking at the readership of the article and was fascinated by a sharp decrease of readership between the 2. and 3. of november 2021 ( [62] ). ... Does anyone know what caused that? Edits at that time were few and minor. I guess some redirect changed. Is there a way to find changes to redirect?

I am happy about any input.

Yours, Nsae Comp (talk) 19:08, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

You need to look at both Global Warming [63] and Climate Change [64]. Page was moved in August 2020 [65]. But there still seems to be a drop. Bogazicili (talk) 19:38, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Sorry for my confused question. Nsae Comp (talk) 02:08, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

That sharp drop was due to the renaming but there has also been a general drop in pageviews for this article, and also for other Wikipedia articles. We've discussed the pageview drop a few times on the talk page, see e.g. here in the archive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climate_change/Archive_86#Major_decline_in_our_page_views? . I also remember broader discussions about Wikipedia pageview drops (can't pinpoint atm where). Some of it was thought to be due to the fact that Google searches brings up Wikipedia results in a little box at the top which means readers already see it there (the start of the lead) and don't end up clicking through to Wikipedia. Similarly, some of the answers that Chat-GPT gives to readers' questions come from content in Wikipedia but the reader no longer would have to click through to Wikipedia... I'm sure there are some papers and articles on this issue somewhere. EMsmile (talk) 07:20, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

FYI: the article was moved/renamed in August 2020. —RCraig09 (talk) 12:35, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Food and health section 2

Which of the following versions should be used in the Food and health section? A is the current version in the article and B is the new version. This is a follow-up RfC. A previous RfC was conducted after a Dispute Resolution Noticeboard case. Version B below was preferred over another suggested new version, mainly due to length. In the previous RfC, the current version wasn't given as a specific option. Bogazicili (talk) 21:14, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

A. Current version, 243 words

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. Extreme weather leads to injury and loss of life. Various infectious diseases are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate, such as dengue fever and malaria. Crop failures can lead to food shortages and malnutrition, particularly effecting children. Both children and older people are vulnerable to extreme heat. The WHO has estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change would cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year. They assessed deaths from heat exposure in elderly people, increases in diarrhea, malaria, dengue, coastal flooding, and childhood malnutrition. By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population may face climate conditions that are life-threatening due to combined effects of extreme heat and humidity.

Climate change is affecting food security. It has caused reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans between 1981 and 2010. Future warming could further reduce global yields of major crops. Crop production will probably be negatively affected in low-latitude countries, while effects at northern latitudes may be positive or negative. Up to an additional 183 million people worldwide, particularly those with lower incomes, are at risk of hunger as a consequence of these impacts. Climate change also impacts fish populations. Globally, less will be available to be fished. Regions dependent on glacier water, regions that are already dry, and small islands have a higher risk of water stress due to climate change.

B. Suggested new version, 235 words

The World Health Organization calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[66] Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet have warned about the irreversible harms it poses.[67] Extreme weather events affect public health, and food and water security.[68][69]p. 9 Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[70][71] Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events.[72]p.9 It can affect transmission of infectious diseases.[73] [74] According to the World Economic Forum, 14.5 million more deaths are expected due to climate change by 2050.[75] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity are already associated with excess deaths.[76] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[77]p. 988

While total crop yields have been increasing in the past 50 years due to agricultural improvements, climate change has already slowed the rate of yield growth.p. 9 Fisheries have been negatively affected in multiple regions.p. 9 Agricultural productivity was negatively affected in mid- and low-latitude areas, while some high latitude areas were positively affected. p.9 An increase in drought in certain regions could cause 3.2 million deaths from malnutrition by 2050 and stunting in children.[78] With 2C warming, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10% by 2050, as less animal feed will be available.p.748 If the emissions continue to increase for the rest of century, then over 9 million climate-related deaths would occur annually by 2100.p.63

C. Something else - Please provide a complete section.

Please enter A, B, or C (with the text) in the Survey. Please do not respond to the statements of other editors in the Survey.

Survey (Food and health 2)

• B as the nominator. Version B uses updated sources. It also uses a wide range of sources, such as IPCC, medical professionals (WHO), business community (World Economic Forum) and other scientists ("Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet" sentence). Some of the changes were made to accommodate concerns during the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard process, such as the livestock headcounts sentence. Bogazicili (talk) 21:26, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (Food and health 2)

• It might be helpful to provide a list of the exact differences between versions. I'd also separate out those that are minor or likely to be uncontroversial (e.g. the removal of the acronym WHO in the first sentence), and either add them to the current version first, or leave them out until afterwards. These are edits that probably don't need an RfC, but including them could mean that it's less clear what editors are being asked to evaluate. I'd also recommend formatting the references in the proposal to make it easier to compare them between versions. (This is a general comment on RfC structure, not related to my role as the closer of the previous RfC.) Sunrise (talk) 02:54, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

  Sunrise, because we use short in-line references in this article, changing the references in the current version is a hassle. Some are also bundled references. So, honestly, I don't want to spend too much time on it. The references in the new version are directly accessible. If the new text is adopted, the reference format will be changed accordingly.

  About the differences, feel free to ask questions. To me, the main differences are:

  • Better summary in the new version.
  • Using 2024 World Economic Forum study in the new version.
  • Added baseline for the "By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population may face climate conditions..." sentence into the new version: "30% of the global population currently live in..."
  • I dropped any mention about global hunger projections in the new version. "Up to an additional 183 million people worldwide, particularly those with lower incomes, are at risk of hunger as a consequence of these impacts" comes from a 2019 IPCC source. Newer IPCC Sixth Assessment Report is more measured. But even Sixth Assessment Report contradicts a newer review article [79]. And that review article is published in Nature (journal), so it's a very high quality source. As such, any mention of global hunger in Wiki voice is dropped. I don't think there is any space to go over the differences in WP:Summary style, so a more limited and measured sentence is used ("An increase in drought in certain regions" )
  • "reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans" is dropped because it contradicts [80] Bogazicili (talk) 19:02, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

• If it's a binary, please add wikilinks to Option B as well. (Climate change and fisheries a good new link to add.) Option B flows more smoothly, but there are some changes I wouldn't make. "Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet have warned about the irreversible harms it poses" doesn't seem worth including, it provides no information to the reader other than 100 scientists agree climate change is an issue. Tangible examples of broad concepts, such as specific mention of diseases such as "dengue fever and malaria" help ground the general point. B also has two separate sentences on climate-related deaths, one per paragraph, which feels redundant. CMD (talk) 03:35, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

  • Will add wikilinks if the text gets adopted.
  • "Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet...": They are from different research institutions, not necessarily affiliated with IPCC, WHO, or governments. Using a wide variety of sources was one of my goals.
  • "two separate sentences on climate-related deaths" One is midterm (by 2050), the other is more long term (by 2100). Bogazicili (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

• It's a good idea to use newer sources and I like the overall flow of Option B. I agree with u:CMD that there's no need to mention "100 scientists", I'd replace it with "that poses irreversible harms." Alaexis_¿question? 09:36, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
• Sunrise, Chipmunkdavis, Alaexis, any comments after explanation of changes above? Bogazicili (talk) 20:54, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

For my part, I don't intend to comment on the merits. My intention was to give advice on how I think the RfC could be improved to make it more likely to be successful. I agree with CMD's comment that wikilinks should be added as well. Sunrise (talk) 22:00, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

• Chipmunkdavis and Alaexis, I implemented some of the changes you suggested. What do you think of below?

The World Health Organization calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[81] Scientists have warned about the irreversible harms it poses.[82] Extreme weather events affect public health, and food and water security.[83][84]p. 9 Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[85][86] Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events.[87]p.9 It can affect transmission of infectious diseases, such as dengue fever and malaria.[88] [89] According to the World Economic Forum, 14.5 million more deaths are expected due to climate change by 2050.[90] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity are already associated with excess deaths.[91] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[92]p. 988

While total crop yields have been increasing in the past 50 years due to agricultural improvements, climate change has already slowed the rate of yield growth.p. 9 Fisheries have been negatively affected in multiple regions.p. 9 Agricultural productivity was negatively affected in mid- and low-latitude areas, while some high latitude areas were positively affected. p.9 An increase in drought in certain regions could cause 3.2 million deaths from malnutrition by 2050 and stunting in children.[93] With 2 °C warming, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7–10% by 2050, as less animal feed will be available.p.748 If the emissions continue to increase for the rest of century, then over 9 million climate-related deaths would occur annually by 2100.p.63

Bogazicili (talk) 19:49, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I'd shift some tenses, but otherwise it reads well. CMD (talk) 05:20, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Looks good! Alaexis_¿question? 08:02, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Great, I'll make the changes after a close request. Bogazicili (talk) 12:46, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I have made the changes. There are few differences from above such as sourcing (dropped [94] since it's an editorial, and used [95] instead. Added [96]), copy editing, wikilinks etc. Bogazicili (talk) 18:34, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

References

References
References

Semi-protected edit request on 14 October 2024

Different regions may experience better or worse growing conditions for crops as a result of climate change. Temperature, rainfall, and frost-free days, for example, are all increasing the length of the growing season in practically every state. Longer growing seasons can benefit and hurt food production. Some farmers may be able to plant longer-maturing crops or more crop cycles entirely, when others may require additional rainfall during a longer, hotter growing season. Summiaarif (talk) 01:47, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:28, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Wildfires

In the second paragraph of the lead, the second sentence states among other things that 'wildfires are becoming more common. ' Two sources are cited, one about wildfires. While the idea behind the claim is correct, the claim itself is false. The IPCC source states that ' Climate change is playing an increasing role in determining wildfire regimes alongside human activity (medium confidence)'. This is not the same as wildfires becoming more common. Actually, two sentences later the IPCC states 'Global land area burned has declined in recent decades, mainly due to less burning in grasslands and savannahs (high confidence). ' Instead of using a blanket claim about all wildfires, I propose that we focus on the thing that the IPCC actually says. The source states that 'future climate variability [is] expected to enhance the risk and severity of wildfires in many biomes such as tropical rainforests (high confidence). ' This is a nice high confidence claim that illustrates the global warming-induced threat of wildfires.

Did you check the updated IPCC report, AR6 WG2 p.9: Observed increases in areas burned by wildfires have been attributed to human-induced climate change in some regions (medium to high confidence).? Bogazicili (talk) 15:17, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Good point, it's important to check their latest update. This particular statement is in agreement with their 2017 report, in that some regions have more (and/or more severe) wildfires because of climate change. The 2022 report does not give a blanket statement about wildfires in general. Panoramics (talk) 15:55, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

However, they do say that further global warming will increase wildfires. For example, at page 55 of the technical summary of AR6 WG2, it says 'At a global warming of 2°C with associated changes in precipitation global land area burned by wildfire is projected to increase by 35% (medium confidence).' Panoramics (talk) 16:26, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Scale of CCS

The article currently says:

Although its current use is limited in scale and expensive, carbon capture and storage (CCS) may be able to play a significant role in limiting CO₂ emissions by mid-century.

I feel this sentence could use some attention for neutrality, to accurately reflect the expert consensus on realistic levels of expectations for CCS. The IEA describes "excessive expectations and reliance" on CCS and direct air capture as a common misconception. By mid-century, it envisions CCS and direct air capture to mitigate 8% of energy sector emissions. The current pace of deployment of CCS is nowhere near meeting even that low target. The IPCC stated in 2022 that “implementation of CCS currently faces technological, economic, institutional, ecological-environmental and socio-cultural barriers.”

The current sentence comes across as optimistic, in part because of the "Although..." construction which "can have the effect of calling the validity of the first statement into question while giving undue weight to the credibility of the second" (MOS:EDITORIAL). I'm not sure if the reader will understand what "currently limited in scale" means. CCS is currently capturing one one thousandth of anthropogenic GHG emissions.

I propose changing it to:

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has a small but critical role in reducing emissions. It is relatively expensive and is in operation at only 44 plants as of 2024.

(I will make the citation formatting consistent with article style). Courtesy pings to Dtetta and Femke who were involved in this sentence. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:05, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I think this goes in the right direction: I don't think "significant" is really justified based on current thinking. I have three qualms with the new proposal.

• The WRI source says it "may" have a small but critical role
• The IPCC says "CCS is an option .. ", again not saying it is definitely critical

I further doubt people understand what share of power is produced by 44 plants (0.1%, 5%?). We could be more vague here, to avoid maintenance issues.

I showed this proposal to someone in my team to explain how Wikipedia discussion works, and he noted that the 42 of the 44 plants are CCUS plants (so frequently used for enhanced oil recovery), which makes this feel too optimistic. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:59, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this and for engaging your team.

• The IPCC uses the word critical on p. 28: ...as well as in cement and chemicals production, where it is a critical mitigation option. Later on p. 104 it says that for industry, alternatives to CCS are difficult to represent in models therefore the need for CCS may be overestimated. This may be justification for using a softer phrasing. We could copy from the WRI since it's CC-BY and say "could have a critical but limited role" - would that work?
• Regarding 44 plants and the share of power produced by them, it's even worse than you think. Most of these plants are not power plants; the number of power plants using CCS is 5 (until this year it wavered between 1 and 2, and then China went and opened 3). Maybe instead of giving a number of plants we should say that CCS currently captures one thousandth of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions - is this clearer?
• Regarding the fact that CCS usually means enhanced oil recovery, yep. And this is yet another reason to doubt the idea of CCS playing a significant role in limiting CO2 emissions by mid-century.

Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:06, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Much better, yes! Only a prose quabble left: I'd try to avoid the word anthropogenic. Instead, we could leave it out or say "human-made". —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:24, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Done, thanks! Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

References