Talk:Scientific consensus on climate change/Archive 25

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Difference between opinion and consensus

This edit [1] has the change

Scientific opinion on climate change is a judgment by a scientist, or by group of scientists, regarding whetherthe degree to which global warming is occurring and if so to what degree, its likely causes, and its probable consequences.

This presupposes the consensus and so makes the bit about the consensus being that it is occurring seem strange. I really think this is a wrong thing to do. Dmcq (talk) 21:21, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

That sentence is quite odd, regardless of the edit. It seems to me (not that I have been paying much attention for several years) that scientific opinion "on climate change" actually covers many points, not just the principal points of whether climate change is occurring and the degree (or rate). And "scientific opinion" (as used here) is poorly constrained. E.g.: is an opinion – perhaps on any topic? – by any scientist a "scientific opinion"? How is that to be distinguished from the best available "opinion" from science collectively? I think that sentence needs some work. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:57, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes they are all scientific opinions, but they are normally on a more restricted area that climate change. For instance there's different models predicting different amounts of sea level change but that's not on climate change overall. And possibly more important overall a far as Wikipedia is concerned that's not people mean when they disagree about wheat scientists believe about climate change. As to best available collectively that's what consensus and its strength is about. Dmcq (talk) 10:46, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

This other edit was the alert that made me also revert this one; I of course don't object to improving the article. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 02:02, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes that was simply wrong, it is not 'many scientists believe', it is the strong scientific consensus. Dmcq (talk) 10:46, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Meanwhile, I didn't like the "by a scientist, or by group" [2] so I've removed it William M. Connolley (talk)

• You (William M. Connolley) wrote in your edit description: "I don't think consensus can possibly be by a single scientists. or even really a group. its agreement amongst the bulk of those in the field." I agree! However, this article, and that sentence, is about scientific opinion. A single scientist can possess a scientific opinion. ... I think the problem is with the article itself. I wish the original title had been "Scientific consensus on climate change" because isn't that what the article is about? I would propose changing the the title, but I would never embark on that uphill slog alone.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 14:59, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

In fact that entire change is bad, and the edit desc is not accurate William M. Connolley (talk) 14:15, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

What is this "entire change" of which you speak? And the edit description? If it was a change I made, I would be happy to explain further, or acknowledge my error if it turns out I indeed made a "bad" change. On the other hand, if another editor made a bad change, then I can revel in feelings of superiority for a few minutes. ;^]   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 14:59, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

The one I linked to is the one I'm talking about. In retrospect, I'll concede you have a point on the distinction betweem opinion and consensus, but I don't think it is material (and yes you're right about not taking up the idea of renaming) William M. Connolley (talk) 23:04, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

The article is about the scientific consensus ("opinion") relevant to certain points of the public controversy, not the more arcane aspects of (say) scientific modeling. As the public controversy closely follows industry's plan of attack (deny that GW is happening, deny how fast and how much, deny that is is anthropogenic, deny we can do anything about it), I think the lead should explicitly identify these points of public controversy, then explain how scientific knowledge can inform the public debate. The article could then explain the nature and basis of scientific consensus and why it is authoritative (currently skipped over), and go on to describe the scientific consensus on each of the principal controverted points of GW. Currently the article briefly lists the "current scientific consensus", then describes at length the organizations that support "the consensus" – which is about as interesting as cardboard.

I think it would be better if the title was "consensus". Confounding it with "opinion", invokes common notions of "everyone is entitled to one" and "mine is just as good as yours", which undermine the strength and authority of "consensus". Perhaps we should consider a rename. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:18, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

I pretty much completely disagree with you. Wikipedia has an article on scientific consensus and a link to it is enough when the two different terms are placed together in the lead and it is made obvious they are two different things. You don't help by putting opinion in brackets after consensus. And I think it does nobody any service to remove the target of search about scientific opinion on climate change. The notability of the article depends on the controversy over whether there is a consensus in the scientific opinion, not on the consensus itself. And that is why I was complaining about the lead sentence, yes there is a consensus in the opinion but we should not presuppose that when talking about scientific opinion - that is a result shown by the reliable sources not a starting point. The second paragraph describes the result of study which is that there is a strong consensus. There is no need to describe the basis of the consensus in scientific papers any more than one would expect a listing of medical papers when two doctors agree about a diagnosis. They're there to read the stuff and study the patient and form an opinion. That is exactly what scientific consensus is about, there's other articles about the science. Dmcq (talk) 22:50, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

I believe we could have an interesting discussion on this, but for press of other work I have time only for a brief remark. Quite aside from what "scientific consenus" (or opinion) in general is or why it is authoritative, and aside from whatever the specific scientific consensus on CC is, I agree that the article shows it is broadly supported by scientific authorities. Where our views diverge is in the title: I believe it is quite reasonable that many (perhaps most) readers come to see what the "scientific opinion on climate change" is, and even if it "makes sense", not to see what weight of authority endorses it. Note that I am not saying the latter is wrong or unimportant, only that the title is ambiguous. Whether "endorsement" is taken as the proper topic and focus of the article, or something else, it would be better to have a more specific title.

Re your analogy: our readers are not "doctors" (i.e., experts), we should not presume they are familiar with the nature of scientific consensus. Nor should the readers be required to go to the sources for explanations. The sources support what we say, but having said it we still need to explain what is said, perhaps why it is significant. In particular, even if the article on scientific consensus was good (it's not), this concept is so essential to the topic that a succinct recap in the text is warranted. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:49, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

I haven't the foggiest how you got the idea I was thinking of our readers as experts. However I do expect most of our readers are familiar with the idea of an opinion and of a consensus and have come across the idea of those terms used in a medical context. And even if they are not we have a link off to scientific consensus to explain it just beside the use of the word opinion. And in the lead it says how the consensus is assessed. I would not expect a user to look up scientific 'opinion' or 'consensus' on climate change or global warming if they weren't vaguely aware of what the terms meant. If they were interested in the science of global warming I'd expect a search like 'science of global warming' or even just 'global warming' or 'climate change'. The text may be dry as cardboard to you but that is what the topic is about. It is what sources that talk about scientific opinion or consensus in connection with climate change or global warming go on about. If you feel the article about scientific consensus is not good then please try and fix it but I am not altogether sure that I see it being much improved by someone who thinks the topic is uninteresting. Basically what you suggest is not supported by sources that talk about the topic and so it would be OR to include anything like what you say. Dmcq (talk) 23:28, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to the topic, but to the article. I find it ironic that you say "The text may be dry as cardboard to you but that is what the topic is about", and then "I am not altogether sure that I see it being much improved by someone who thinks the topic is uninteresting." But perhaps you find cardboard of great interest? I do allow that the article on cardboard is more interesting than the one on scientific consensus. And that is all that I have time for today. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:44, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps you have some idea in your mind for an article on a topic which is quite interesting to you and which resembles this in its title but not its content, but do you have any reliable sources that talk about it rather than what is here? Dmcq (talk) 13:36, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Not quite. What I have in mind is that the current title is ambiguous enough to include a number of possibly (to the reader) interesting topics. That the current article is limited to a very limited slice of that domain is not clearly laid out in the lead, so it is quite likely that readers coming here may be expecting something else. It is also in my mind that scientific consensus could be, like many other articles, much better. Having made my suggestion, take it up, or not, as you prefer; I have work elsewhere. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:57, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with J. Johnson (JJ), and I thank him for his cogent argument. I particularly love the phrase, “... which is about as interesting as cardboard.” ;0)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 23:40, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. (And I love "cogent".) Do note that my comments are not meant as compelling, but more like alternatives. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:07, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 2 June 2019

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

The result of the move request was: move per consensus here. (closed by non-admin page mover) DannyS712 (talk) 05:54, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

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Scientific opinion on climate change → Scientific consensus on climate change – If one reads (or even scans) the article, it becomes clear that the subject is scientific consensus on climate change. I posted supporting data (Google Books Ngram; Google Trends; Google Scholar; Text Analysis of article (word & phrase frequency counts and percentages); Google Search volume; and Pageviews) at User:Markworthen/Opinion-Consensus   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 09:00, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Even though we have not reached a consensus yet, I have come to believe that the argument for changing the name of this article is so compelling that it is necessary to take this step of formally proposing the change. Please see the data I posted supporting this proposal. Here is a summary of my argument:

• By wide margins, people search for "scientific consensus on climate change" over "scientific opinion on climate change". It's not even close.
• Thus, the current title does not correspond with the concept (topic) people around the world want to learn about.
• For the past 30+ years, scientists, scholars, journalists, and others have been writing books about the "scientific consensus on climate change", and they have not been writing books about "scientific opinion on climate change".
• For the past 30+ years, scientists, scholars, and others have been writing articles in peer-reviewed academic journals about the "scientific consensus on climate change", and they have not been writing many articles at all (by comparison) about "scientific opinion on climate change".

• Oppose: Personally I prefer opinion as it doesn't prejudge and gives a wider scope but from the way people act, but that's probably too fine a point to push here. Consensus does look like it clearly wins out in searches. I have come to the conclusion that changing to consensus in the title has the danger that the topic would be changed to listing the IPCC conclusions as I describe in discussion below. Mentions of 'Scientific consensus on climate change' are more frequent than 'Scientific opinion on climate change' - but I think now this is because they are descriptions of two different topics. This article on scientific opinion shows there is a strong consensus. An article about the scientific consensus would describe the science and this is already done in Global warming. Dmcq (talk) 11:03, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support: "Scientific opinion" is actually a more "loaded" (suggestive, biased) term than "scientific consensus" because "scientific opinion" supports crude perceptions along the lines of everyone-has-his-opinion. "Scientific opinion" even suggests to laymen that science-is-just-a-bunch-of-opinions and that there is no scientific consensus Simply discussing challenges or opposition to the consensus in the present article ensures balance. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:33, 2 June 2019 (UTC) Generally, scientific inquiries start with varied opinions (hypotheses) but eventually converge to a broader consensus such as we now have. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:34, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd much prefer people give their own judgement on the change rather than thinking about how we can save the ignorant public from themselves. Is there any evidence that people think of scientific opinion in the way you say when they are quite happy talking about medical opinion? Dmcq (talk) 12:38, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

To Dmcq: What you present is a false equivalence: "Medical opinion" is usually a tiny number of doctors (e.g., one) analyzing an extremely limited amount of data about a single patient in a notoriously unpredictable art (medicine)—contrast that with tens of thousands of climate scientists analyzing huge amounts of data about an entire planet in an extensively researched physical science. To answer your question (how people think of "scientific opinion"), besides the dictionary.com definition of "opinion" I presented below, just listen to the Stable Genius president who claims to have a "natural instinct for science" who defends his opinion on climate change by saying "there is disagreement!" With a pitiful understanding of post-peer-review consensus, his perception of "disagreement" tries to equalize all opinions so that consensus becomes, in his view, no better than anyone's opinion. Read the Asimove quote here. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:05, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

You don't have to address me personally on a talk page. The dictionary definition was chopped after the first two entries and left out the ones about professional opinion medical opinion and legal opinion. Trump is not a reliable source of practically anything and his followers know that. There is no reason to try winning an argument at all costs on this talk page, we should be trying to figure out what is best for the article. Dmcq (talk) 21:42, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

To Dmcq: SO! You first conjure the "list of IPCC conclusions" ("Discussion" below, 13:35, 3 June 2019), and when I explicitly say I do not want the article to be "just a list of IPCC conclusions" you say, wrongly, that I do want it to be such (!!!), and eventually you tell me what I mean by "not just a list of IPCC conclusions"!!! You accuse me, falsely, of deception in omitting third and fourth definitions of "opinion"—after I clearly distinguished such narrow and specific (medical or legal) opinions from a broader scientific consensus. You imply, falsely again, that I cite Trump as a "reliable source"—not apprehending that he is a prime example of laymen who do not comprehend the difference between opinion, on the one hand, and scientific consensus, when it has been reached, on the other hand. You then imply, falsely yet again, that I'm here to "win an argument at all costs" but immediately conclude, unilaterally, about "vindication" of your quite murky and definitely minority viewpoint. I supplement J. Johnson's 19:16, 5 June 2019 comment, below, and observe that you would serve us all well if you would simply stop, since your point has been made. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:34, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - pointless fiddling William M. Connolley (talk) 15:54, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

  I value your expertise on the topic but am surprised to see "pointless fiddling" as the only objection (considering the fiddling/discussion aready started). But possibly the concern is also about the work needed to alter the article so it reflects its new scope? Thanks for clarifying, —PaleoNeonate – 01:51, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support it's not opinion, it's consensus. We shouldn't pander to fringe science deniers. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:34, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support. The current title not only gives undue weight to an extremely fringe position, it essentially conflicts with the content of the article. The lead of the article starts with a token one-sentence definition of "scientific opinion", and proceeds to actual summarize the article repeatedly using the phrase "scientific consensus". The body of the article then begins with this insane sentence In contrast to the "scientific opinion on climate change", a related—but not identical—term, "scientific consensus on climate change", is the prevailing view on climate change within the scientific community. The article shouldn't even be jumping through that tortured mess of a sentence. It has two boldings, two emdash, AND and an italics amplifying how unencyclopedic and FUBAR the sentence is. Pardon my language, but why the fuck are we forced to pile three different format-modifiers onto that sentence? I'll tell you why. Because it's forced to emphasize the absurd point: the-topic-we're-discussing-here-is-NOT-the-titletopic-of-the-article. What is the topic of this article, if not "the prevailing view on climate change within the scientific community". Fix the title to match that topic and the entire mess immediately solves itself.
  Skimming the article, most instances of "opinion" should probably be changed to words such as position, consensus, judgment, evaluation, or conclusion. This is not an article on tastes and opinions about music. There is no way an article discussing the shape of the earth would be spamming the word "opinion" on everything. Some scientists may think Relativity or Evolution are wrong, astronomers may refer to astrology as pseudoscience, mythology, or crackpottery, but we don't spam the word "opinion" on everything when we discuss those positions. We especially don't unduly undermine mainstream scientific understanding by slapping "opinion" on everything. Electromagnetic theory and Atomic theory are not just "opinions". Alsee (talk) 18:57, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

I think you're missing the whole point of the article. There are other articles about the actual science. This article is about, well it was about the scientific opinion but now it looks like it will be about the strength of the consensus. It is not about the consensus position as such though which is the problem with the word consensus in the title. This will have to be made clear in the lead just like currently the business about consensus is made clear. That sentence you pointed at was I agree a bad one, it was a relic of a recent contributor who went on and on unnecessarily fiddling about the meaning of opinion and consensus rather than what the article was about. The word opinion was I thought better for showing what the article was actually about. I accept the word consensus is much more often used in the context but I very much hope the topic of the article will continue as it has rather than be mucked up by people trying to turn it into an article about the science. Dmcq (talk) 12:49, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support. A more precise term, more in line (as above) with the actual topic, and avoiding the dismissive take many people have of "opinion". ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:33, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

- Bullseye, J. Johnson. The first two definitions of "opinion" from dictionary.com: "1. a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty. 2. a personal view, attitude, or appraisal". Scientific consensus is carries a much stronger connotation. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:43, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

So how should we talk about a scientific opinion? Does your reasoning apply to legal opinions and medical opinions too? Or do you actually yourself think scientific opinion is a fairly worthless term? Dmcq (talk) 13:02, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

To Dmcq: (if you were responding to me) I was afraid to actually say: "scientific opinion" is in many instances a contradiction in terms (using the word "opinion" colloquially as in the dictionary.com quotation above). In the early stages of an inquiry, there may be many opinions (hypotheses, actually) and no consensus; in the later stages, as today, the opinions converge to a consensus. I think that the article should be renamed, but include a section titled "Views or theories opposing the consensus"—so it's not just a listing of IPCC conclusions as you mention in your "Discussion" section below. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:38, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I was replying to J. Johnson but anyone is free to respond in a talk page. Have you personally not come across the terms medical opinion or legal opinion or scientific opinion and had to look up a dictionary to see what opinion might mean in those terms? Or talking on behalf of an imagined ignorant public who nevertheless manage to search for the terms in Wikipedia? There is already an Opposing section. I get the feeling you have misunderstood what I said in the discussion section - I do not want this article to become a listing of IPCC conclusions. 'Not just' implies to me that you do want it to be a listing of IPCC conclusions and what is currently here would be minimised or removed, what I was referring to as a change of topic brought about by replacing opinion by consensus. Dmcq (talk) 21:21, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I said, explicitly, I do not want this article to be a "just a listing of IPCC conclusions"; it should contain anything falling within WP's inclusion criteria for, in this case, the developed consensus. I didn't conjure an "imagined ignorant public" (???); I referred to dictionary definitions. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:03, 3 June 2019 (UTC)::::::

The expression 'A should not just be B'. It means that A should mostly be B but also have some of something else. Including only what is about the developed conclusion would remove that the article tries to list international societies that disagree with the consensus or link to scientists who disagree. Your dictionary definition excerpt left out 3 and 4 about professional medical and legal opinion which is what would be relevant to 'scientific opinion'. The only reason I can see for putting in the 'dictionary definition' was to support some idea about people not understanding what a scientific opinion is. Overall you seem to be wanting to completely change the article so it becomes a repeat of most of the Global warming article which is being reformatted to follow the IPCC order more closely. That would I think completely destroy the coverage of the topic currently covered by this article. An article should be determined by its topic, not its title. This was set up using 'opinion' in the title as more descriptive of the topic. The point of what I wrote below in discussion is to ask do we really want to change the title which might be used to change the topic and the contents and it seems my worry is fully vindicated here. Dmcq (talk) 21:42, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support for the reasons the nominator (and, in more detail, Alsee) give; "consensus" seems to be the more accurate term and the more common one, even in this very article. -sche (talk) 02:11, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as controversial and violating our WP:NPOV policy which demands neutrality on the issue and not the opinions of one side on the debate in the very title. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 13:10, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support as the existence of a consensus is only "controversial" if you count fringe believers. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:59, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support per nom and above. Paintspot Infez (talk) 18:16, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support The consensus on climate change is only controversial among fringe pseudo-scientists, fraud scientists-for-hire, or highly partisan non-scientists. An article Opinion on climate change might cover both scientific consensus and non-scientific dissent, such as the Trump Administration's partisan agenda. An article like Formation and evolution of the Solar System can cover scientific ideas, excluding religious, pre-scientific or anti-scientific notions. Global warming controversy is analogous to our coverage of the geocentrism and heliocentrism, allowing the scicentific consensus on the topic to be covered without having to veer off into the non-scientific "controversy". Per WP:FRINGELEVEL: "While currently accepted scientific paradigms may later be rejected, and hypotheses previously held to be controversial or incorrect sometimes become accepted by the scientific community (e.g., plate tectonics), it is not the place of Wikipedia to venture such projections." N.B.: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change#Encyclopedic coverage of science and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change#Undue weight. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:17, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support as “opinion” is not NPOV; it suggests that there is uncertainty about the topic. When 98% of scientists concur then it’s consensus. Schwede66 19:23, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support as per above and discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climate_change#Opening_section:_opinion_or_fact, need to give weight to the by-far vast majority who agree on consensus Wiki5537821 (talk) 08:01, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Article title should match article content. Neutrality^talk 15:43, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Discussion

I wrote above I accepted the change because 'scientific consensus on climate change' was used much more frequently than 'scientific opinion on climate change'. I'm thinking now after reading some of the responses that perhaps we should think again about what the actual topic is and whether the places where 'consensus' was used really typify the topic of the article? As far as I can see it the article is not about whether there is a consensus the oceans will rise by 60cm by the end of the century or 30cm or 1.50m. It is about whether there is a consensus in the scientific opinion and how strong it is that global warming is occurring due to human activity plus a few broad brush things related to that. Unfortunately people are taking the consensus as a starting point which would mean there is no point to most of the content, and they are doing this on the basis that even mentioning opinion casts doubt and plays into the hands of deniers. This sort of reasoning would delete the topic of the article altogether even though the topic has been an extremely notable one. It would instead become some listing from the IPCC and other bodies of 60cm or 1.20m water level rise projections as being the scientific consensus. What is the point of listing support from scientific bodies and studies of scientists opinions if the article starts off with the consensus?

So I think we really need to be careful about what we are doing here. Do you actually want to delete the topic and turn the article into a listing of IPCC conclusions? Or should it stay as showing there is a consensus in scientific opinion on climate change? What I would like is a lead for the article with the new title and lets see if it describes the same topic or is it a new topic. Dmcq (talk) 13:35, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Changing "scientific opinion" to "scientific consensus" clarifies what is meant, and avoids some likely misapprehensions. However, it does not resolve which of various directions the article might go, and it neither mandates nor precludes these alternatives. I don't know where you got this idea of "a listing of IPCC conclusions". What I suggested (as one possible alternative) was to explain what the IPCC consensus is in regard of the principal points of public controversy. That is no more a list of IPCC conclusions than the current article is a list of scientific endorsers of the scientific consensus. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:06, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

We already have an article on Global warming. We don't need another article on the science. And we already have articles on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What you are talking about is exactly why I've changed from Accept to Oppose, you want to change the title and then change the topic and change the contents to something that is of more interest to you but is already covered well in other places. This article covers the subject of scientific opinion on climate change well - what is your beef with the article that you wish to remove the topic? Dmcq (talk) 13:55, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

You say the consensus is what the article is about. That is true to an extent in that it is about scientific opinion and it shows how there is a consensus in the scientific opinion. However what you are doing is then doing a switcheroo by saying if the article is about the consensus it should go on about what is in the consensus rather than being about that there is a consensus in the scientific opinion. You have used the word with one meaning when it is about opinion and then switch to another meaning and talk about changing the content to suit the second meaning. That is not clarification of the topic. Dmcq (talk) 14:15, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

No, that is not what I am doing, nor what I have said; your comments amount to misrepresentation. But you're so far out and into the weeds that I don't want to chase that ball any further. It seems to me you are so protective of the way the article is now that you are impulsively reacting to your own fears of a supposed threat, rather than to any likely threats. And you're starting to annoy me enough that if someone were to suggest changes I'd be more likely to support them. Your interests would likely be better served if you just drop this discussion. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:16, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Make your position clear then instead of just saying I have misinterpreted you. Talking about me being protective of the way the article is being written makes me think you want to change how it is written. Say exactly a type of change that you wish to make in the article and people can judge for themselves. I am sorry that you feel annoyed by my asking for some clarity but I do think it is reasonable to ask that you make your intentions clear after you talk about the current contents being as boring as cardboard and that "What I have in mind is that the current title is ambiguous enough to include a number of possibly (to the reader) interesting topics." and on your user page you start with "I have written substantive articles on technical topics". This make me think you would like to see this article changed to a more technical topic. Dmcq (talk) 21:38, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

other eds opinions wanted on a consensus issue

There is a dispute about how we describe the consensus, please join the discussion at Talk:Effects_of_global_warming#consensus_problems NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:49, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Begs to be updated

Yes, it would be good to step out of the weeds and forego titling quibbles for awhile. The energy could be diverted to adding much needed material on the numerous important reports and warnings that have emerged since 2015, particularly since mid-2018. This is an important public information resource which merits regular, non-partisan updates. Cliffewiki (talk) 15:20, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Recent update

@Powelljiml: There are a couple of problems with your recent edits. As the source you have added is by a "James Powell", and the related 2016 source by a "James L. Powell", and your first contributions were to the article James L. Powell, and your user name appears to be a contraction of "Powell jim l", it seems quite evident that you are the author of that paper. While self-citation is not necessarily prohibited (see WP:SELFCITE), it is necessary to avoid any suggestion of self-promotion. And while that article appears a good addition (I can't tell, as I haven't seen it), in such cases it would be better to suggest on the Talk page to add it, letting someone else do the actual edit.

Which would avoid another problem: as I have advised you on your talk page, full citations should be put into templates (such as {{cite journal}}). And if you include the |ref=harv parameter then additional citations of the same source can be done using a {{harvnb}} template to create a short-cite that links to the full citation. (E.g.: {{harvnb|Powell|2019|p=3}}.)

There is also a matter of terminology. For such a large sample size (11,600 articles) "100%" could mean less than 1 out of a hundred, which is not the same as zero instances. That could use some clarification. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:10, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

There's also the issue of the obvious biased language in the abstract. "Denialists have long run out of excuses for inaction and humanity has almost run out of time." Why is this necessary to state? What does it have to do with the study? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.138.224.249 (talk) 18:07, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I've removed the section in question due to a lack of action --RealSaddy (talk) 00:19, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Page must cite a source in opening sentence

The page needs to cite a source in the initial sentence. This source needs to refer to the paper which demonstrations a consensus climate change. "The consensus on climage change was demonstrated by Paper X by Tom Dick & Harry'

Unless there is a paper which demonstrates that, there this page is original research and unsuitable for Wikipedia.

If there is a paper on the consensus on climate change, then this page becomes a page on that paper, not on the subject of the consensus on climate change, again because it would be original research if it was.

You cannot make the consensus on climate change an assumption in the opening paragraph. HarrySime (talk) 22:26, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

New stuff goes to the bottom. And the lede does not need sourcing since it summarizes the article, which is sourced. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:54, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Are you still looking for a suitable source? You might want to check out The Consensus Handbook written by John Cook, Sander van der Linden, Edward Maibach and Stephan Lewandowsky. It‘s available for download here. The handbook provides a brief history of the scientific consensus on climate change and summarizes the research quantifying the level of scientific agreement on human-caused global warming. The authors examine what the public thinks about the consensus and the misinformation campaigns that have sought to confuse people. They also look at how we should respond to misinformation and how best to communicate the consensus. Lastly, they answer some of the objections to communicating the consensus. Not everything might be relevant for the article but some of it might be of interest. —BaerbelW (talk) 19:13, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

The Consensus Handbook

I just came across a source that may be useful to editors in this topic area. Among other things it describes itself as a "brief history of the consensus on climate change" and includes a timeline and discussion of the various misinformation campaigns. Sunrise (talk) 07:45, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

The use of the term "scientific consensus" should be removed

There is no such thing as a "scientific consensus." It is an oxymoron. It goes against the idea and the spirit of the scientific method. (If you doubt this then go look at the wiki page around the theory of the atom.) It should never be used in regards to anything scientific. It's use hints that the only argument one has is one of authority and not in the value of postulate and value of the evidence. A lot of scientists backing an incorrect theory doesn't make that theory correct. And how many times has that happened in the history of science? Too many. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.113.206.208 (talk) 12:12, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Forumshop much? See [3].

Reliable sources disagree with you. Reliable sources win. Bye. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:18, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

This is the fourth (1, 2, 3) time you are posting this exact same rant. I feel as if someone is looking for a block. Kleinpecan (talk) 12:59, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Go ahead. It still doesn't make you right. Pretty soon it will just be you and your fellow ideologues in your own Wiki echo-chamber. And what use is a wiki that is driven by ideology and approved thinking rather than critical thought? "Established science" and "scientific consensus" are self-contradictory terms; they are oxymorons. This isn't a rant, it is a sober statement of fact. I have ALL the history of science to back me on that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.99.33.171 (talk) 07:03, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Cool story, bro. Kleinpecan (talk) 07:24, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

AAPG and AIPG - next time someone wants to edit

In May 2020, AAPG announced a new position statement on climate, although one seems to need an APG Explorer account to see it, and the main webpage doesn't seem to have it, although I did not look too hard. However, this blog post includes the statement. Maybe someone can find an RS of it.

In December 2020, AIPG announced a new climate change position statement.

The Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) has a rather different 2020 statement, which actually starts by citing excellent climate scientists:

"The Earth is continuously undergoing climate change, but the current rate of increase of both temperature (Diffenbaugh and Field, 2016) and atmospheric CO2 levels (Zeebe et al., 2016) may be unprecedented in the past 66 million years, per currently available data. Since the mid-1800s, it has been understood that small changes in atmospheric gases, including CO2, can alter the Earth’s climate. (For a good historical summary, see Ortiz and Jackson, 2020; for two of the seminal papers, see Foote, 1856, and Arrhenius, 1896). Currently, we rely on global climate models, modern data collection, and research advances to predict future changes and to understand the details of the rapid changes that have been observed over the past 150 years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are extremely likely to be the dominant cause of observed climate warming since 1950 (IPCC, 2014). The IPCC goes on to conclude that impacts on natural and human systems will be significant and include risks to "health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth" (IPCC, 2018)."

JohnMashey (talk) 21:59, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

"findings" vs. "claims"

The last sentence of the introduction reads:

"[...] and a 2021 study found that consensus exceeded 99%."

The word "found" should be change to "claim", since the current wording is misleading. The cited study states that roughly two thirds of sampled papers indicated no position on human-induced climate change, but the authors eventually grouped this category together with the papers endorsing the statement. In other words, 99% of sampled papers did not reject human-induced climate change. This is a big difference, and it means that the 99% consensus is not a "finding", but merely a "claim". Assshowtime (talk) 15:17, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

 Done: "found" --> "concluded". —RCraig09 (talk) 15:27, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

I think "claims" still is a better term. I sampled a couple of references and find them very biased and agenda driven. Ref 6 (Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming) says for example in the abstract "Tol (2016 Environ. Res. Lett. 11 048001) comes to a different conclusion using results from surveys of non-experts such as economic geologists and a self-selected group of those who reject the consensus. We demonstrate that this outcome is not unexpected because the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science. At one point, Tol also reduces the apparent consensus by assuming that abstracts that do not explicitly state the cause of global warming ('no position') represent non-endorsement, an approach that if applied elsewhere would reject consensus on well-established theories such as plate tectonics. " If you survey dog owners vs cat owners, each will claim they are the best pets. How can one claim only climate scientist opinions matter? Geologists have inputs due to different forms of evidence a climate scientist would have minimal expertise in. The discussion needs to include both, as well as physicists for more detail about greenhouse theory, radiation, conduction, dynamics of jet stream, accuracy of earth based sensors, etc. Experts in modelling need to be consulted; obvious inaccuracies have been ignored largely. And comparing climate science to plate tectonics trivializes climate science, which seems to be the common tactic- making it all about CO2 which is ridiculous but easy to sway the politicians and the unscientific masses. And as Lindzen says, how many of the top students went into climate science? How credible are they as a whole? (hush hush).

This "consensus" is based on what assumptions? Data? Are they valid? What has changed in the last 10 years? What about clouds and cosmic rays? Why was there a mini ice age in the 1600s during a sunspot minimum? Or is that outside the scope of climatologists? Do we need some physicists on board?

Then there is the graph of temperatures showing the peak in 1934ish, drop until early 80s then rising. No comments on this. But the temp averages usually compared go from early 1900s-->1950 (lowering the average), to ~1982-->2016, a peak (raising the average). Yet the slope of the latter is similar to 1900-1934. Then the flattening, then the rise again. This needs to be addressed. What did CO2 do? It must have increased massively during WWII. Maybe all the smoke from WWII caused it? If so then we need more coal ash. China and India must be helping things then.

And later reference 12 is cited, Highlights of the Findings of the U.S. Global Change Research Program Climate Science Special Report, which shows Arctic ice from 1984 (end of cold spell) to 2016 (temp peak). Yet 2020 was much higher and 2021 globally (N and S pole) is currently ABOVE the earlier average from 81-2010.

This entire article is lacking honest scientific reporting and has little credibility in my opinion. Rkcannon (talk) 02:50, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

It does not matter what you think. We will not cast unwarranted doubt on scientific papers by violating WP:CLAIM.

Your bad reasoning works only on those who are already motivated to believe it, that is, denialists. When higher expertise leads to higher acceptance, that means that rejection is based on ignorance. The rest of your reasoning is excuses, false assumptions, naive overconfidence paired with underestimation of experts' competence, fantasies, anti-science framing, and conspiracy theories. Most importantly, articles are based not on attempts at reasoning by editors, but instead on what reliable sources say. See WP:RS and WP:OR.

I corrected your indentation, see WP:INDENT. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:44, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah so I'm a denialist, conspiracy theorist, overconfident, illogical, anti-science, and more, because I don't blindly accept the article as true. Assumptions are based on data, and as data increases, assumptions may need changed. And there is always the danger of groupthink, bias, financial interests, and politics. This is a subject with immense financial and political interests, and much groupthink, I think. My background is Engineering so I'm naturally skeptical. Engineering is much less forgiving. Time will tell who is right.--Rkcannon (talk) 08:01, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I told you that your reasoning was bad and that Wikipedia does not work the way you think. The conclusions about your person are yours, not mine.

The financial interests are there, and they work not towards science, but towards denialism. Which is mainly a thing for scientific laymen, such as engineers. But Wikipedia talk pages are for improving the article; they are not Speaker's Corner. Go preach your viewpoints somewhere else. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:08, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Consensus of Humans as the Primary Cause

The paper used to claim a 97% consensus (Cook et. al), as well as every other paper showing a 97-98% consensus does not state that the consensus is that humans are the primary cause. The data in the Cook study, along with Doran & Zimmermann, Oreskes, and others -show that 97% agreement is reached by by defining the consensus humans activity having at least a slight effect in addition to natural warming. This is also true for the scientific societies that say they agree with the consensus. To say there is a consensus that humans are the primary cause of warming is fraudulent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.7.49.106 (talk) 16:54, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Based on the 2017 National Climate Assessment

No.

From Cook 2016: "The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%–100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al (Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024) based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. A survey of authors of those papers (N = 2412 papers) also supported a 97% consensus. . . . Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that humans are causing recent global warming. The consensus position is articulated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) statement that 'human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century' (Qin et al 2014, p 17)." (emphasis added) —RCraig09 (talk) 16:24, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

The use of the term "scientific consensus" should be removed

There is no such thing as a "scientific consensus." It is an oxymoron. It goes against the idea and the spirit of the scientific method. (If you doubt this then go look at the wiki page around the theory of the atom, or the page on the Scientific Method.) It should never be used in regards to anything scientific. It's use hints that the only argument one has is one of authority and not in the value of postulate and value of the evidence. A lot of scientists backing an incorrect theory doesn't make the theory correct. And how many times has that happened in the history of science? Too many. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.86.126.94 (talk) 20:39, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Let's say AGW was incorrect. Would a lot of scientists backing it make it correct? No. But it would make supporting AGW the scientific consensus anyway. Plus, there needs to be a way to evaluate truth. Little would be accomplished if we have to be uncertain of everything because scientists were once wrong in the past. BooleanQuackery (talk) 07:39, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, not on the bad logic of random people on the internet. If you want to remove the word "consensus", you have to convince the reliable sources first. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:11, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

"Scientific consensus" is hotlinked to its own article explaining what scientific consensus is and why it is an extensive part of the scientific method (eg: to measure the replication and reproducible nature of a scientific hypothesis or theory), using significant and sufficient RS. The Talk Page contains a long thread discussing the very topic you bring up, with wp:NONCONSENSUS being the result. I highly recommend reviewing that section for understanding on why this argument, as you've presented it, will fail at causing any meaningful change to this article or any that relate to this topic. Leafsdude (talk) 16:13, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Measuring Consensus

|Surveys of the scientific literature are another way to measure scientific consensus. A 2019 review of scientific papers found the consensus on the cause of climate change to be at 100%,

I know from my own field that if I or anyone else submitted a paper to a respected academic journal claiming that the works of Shakespeare were written by someone other than a man from Stratford on Avon it would not be published. So I do not see how unanimity amongst authors of published papers can be an indication of genuine consensus, as dissenting views may not get published. I've never come across an article displaying quite so clearly and simply why readers should be very sceptical about Wikipedia. 2A02:587:1D15:750:C05C:C578:A76B:F628 (talk) 09:20, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

If you had a collection of several reputable sources that indicated the works of Shakespeare were instead written in Leeds, then there would not be a scientific consensus on that matter. The phrase "dissenting views" may be a bit inaccurate here, as the conclusions drawn from these studies are not based upon a preconceived notion. You may find difficulty locating a study that indicates Global Warming is not caused by humans not because its authors would be shunned, but because that is simply not what the data reflects. 192.77.12.11 (talk) 06:53, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Also, by the same reasoning, there is no evidence of a consensus that the Earth is round, that it goes around the sun, that evolution happened, that atoms exist, that the Holocaust happened, and so on. An ecncyclopedia based on that sort of thinking cannot work. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:27, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

AR6 Synthesis Report

The IPCC Synthesis reports are called out in this article as representative of the scientific consensus. Maybe we can update this article from the describing AR5 synthesis (2014) to the AR6 synthesis published earlier this year? I think many of the conclusions are the same or similar, it shouldn't be hard. But somebody has to go through it.-- M.boli (talk) 01:56, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Housekeeping: see also discussion about this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climate_change#Update_Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change_with_IPCC_AR6. EMsmile (talk) 07:28, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Fixing dup cites

I hope to do this later today but if anyone would like to go ahead and do it that will save me a tedious task Chidgk1 (talk) 15:13, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Have fixed most of them but CITEREFOreskes2007 has me stumped at the moment as it seems to point to 2 different pages - is there a Wikignome out there who could sort it? Chidgk1 (talk) 16:53, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

@Wham2001 thanks for fixing Chidgk1 (talk) 13:02, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

No worries! Wham2001 (talk) 13:18, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Removed outdated text about policy

I've removed this section about "policy" which had been added in 2013. It seems outdated and out of place here and is just linking to a few other Wikipedia articles...

" Policy

See also: Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change (2005 conference)

There is an extensive discussion in the scientific literature on what policies might be effective in responding to climate change. The literature has been assessed by the IPCC. Some scientific bodies have recommended specific policies to governments (refer to the later sections of the article). The natural and social sciences can play a role in informing an effective response to climate change. However, policy decisions may require value judgements. For example, the US National Research Council has commented:

The question of whether there exists a "safe" level of concentration of greenhouse gases cannot be answered directly because it would require a value judgment of what constitutes an acceptable risk to human welfare and ecosystems in various parts of the world, as well as a more quantitative assessment of the risks and costs associated with the various impacts of global warming. In general, however, risk increases with increases in both the rate and the magnitude of climate change.

This article mostly focuses on the views of natural scientists. However, social scientists, medical experts, engineers and philosophers have also commented on climate change science and policies. Climate change policy is discussed in several articles: climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, climate engineering, politics of global warming, climate ethics, and economics of global warming." EMsmile (talk) 18:40, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 18:40, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

References broken by excerpt

EMsmile you've edit this article to take an {{exceprt}} from IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, but that leaves this article with an undefined reference. Turns out the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report article is dependent on a reference defined in the {{AR6 SSP table}} template it invokes, but that reference definition is not visible to the excerpted text. What do you think is the best way to resolve this transient dependency your edit created, and fix the undefined reference error in this article? -- Mikeblas (talk) 17:21, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

As that cite is for the sentence “ The first of the three working groups published its report on 9 August 2021, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.” and it is the second cite perhaps the cite could just be removed as an excess cite? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:32, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi Mikeblas, I was stumped for a while because I didn't understand how that AR 6 SSP template worked. But now I have figured it out. I have fixed this now by going into the template {{AR6 SSP table}} and also into IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and changing the ref to long ref style. I hope we'll eventually all move to long ref style as it simply works so much better in excerpts than the short ref style. EMsmile (talk) 09:53, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it! I'm surprised that fixed it, as it would seem like this arrangement is used in many articles without trouble. -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:49, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

The use of the term "scientific consensus" should be removed

There is no such thing as a "scientific consensus." It is an oxymoron. It goes against the idea and the spirit of the scientific method. (If you doubt this then go look at the wiki page around the theory of the atom; the theory is continually evolving.) The word "consensus" should never be used in regards to anything scientific. It's use hints that the only argument one has is one of authority and not in the value of the postulate and value of the evidence. In fact, whenever the term "scientific consensus" or "consensus among scientists" is used, you know that the 'science' has stopped and dogma has taken hold. A lot of scientists backing an incorrect theory doesn't make the theory correct. And how many times has that happened in the history of science? Too many. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.161.21.59 (talk • contribs) 12:10, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

English is written from left to right and from top to bottom. I moved your contribution down where it belongs.

There is no such thing as a "scientific consensus." Reliable sources disagree with you. Reliable sources win. Better luck next time. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:13, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

A consequence of climate change is how many ordinary people have acquired expertise in the sociology of scientific knowledge. It is encouraging to see the spreading awareness of this formerly obscure topic. (Yes, I am being sarcastic.) -- M.boli (talk) 12:13, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Summary of my recent edits

As you can see, I had heavily edited this article today. In fact, I actually started to edit it weeks ago, even before the article on surveys was merged into this one, but the really, really poor state of the references for older surveys had been a large roadblock! In particular, the Gallup survey from the early 1990s was only referred to via secondary sources, and both were effectively opinion pieces that are themselves hard to find without archives. It appears to be surprisingly difficult to find archived Gallup surveys: if anyone knows how to do that, I would gladly welcome the help. For now, I have had to remove that: since this article now cites more surveys than before, it's not exactly a big deal.

Further, the Bray-von Storch surveys had been quite challenging to handle properly even once their referencing had been fixed. Even now, there is a wealth of data from them which doesn't quite fit this article, but would be of great use elsewhere: i.e. nearly every survey from them had asked multiple questions about the severity of climate change and its effects on society, and the quantified responses seem well-suited for climate crisis and climate change and civilizational collapse, and perhaps other articles, such as climate change adaptation. Their later surveys also have a lot to say about Media coverage of climate change. Further, every single survey they did (from 1996 to 2016; it does not seem like there has been anything after that) asked lots and lots of questions about the scientists' confidence in the highly technical specifics of model function: those would seem well-suited for General circulation model#Model accuracy, and perhaps other related articles.

One issue is that a lot of those do not seem to be open-access, so illustrating these sections is challenging. I have done the best I could so far, but some sections still look like blocks of text. Perhaps we might end up having to ask someone here to construct graphs from the data?

Lastly, I rearranged the article so that "Evidence of a consensus" is first, "Consensus points" next, the reports are after that, then surveys, and then statements from organizations. I consider those two - the reports and the statements - to be the least well-organized parts of the article right now, but I'll have to create new topics here to discuss those better. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:01, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I happened to look at Talk:Surveys of scientists' views on climate change (it's certainly helpful that you can still easily see the talk pages of merged articles, and found that editors here did construct such a graphic, years ago. I re-added it now, but ideally, even more images are needed. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I like how you have re-arranged this. Thanks! EMsmile (talk) 12:33, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Split off "Statements by scientific organizations of national or international standing"?

It might be a little ironic that after I argued for merging one subarticle (about surveys) here, I now suggest splitting off another. However, I think that the section on surveys, as currently structured, adds a lot of helpful context, as it really allows the reader to see how the scientific consensus had strengthened from year to year, in addition to other relevant details (i.e. scientists' rankings of severity) which would be lost if the survey section was split off again.

On the other hand, the statements are all very similar, which is a good thing, because we are' talking about a consensus, but it is not necessarily the most interesting reading in a highly-viewed article. In fact, even the users who did the bulk of the work on that section seemed to agree - if you look closely, there are three distinct tiers of how these scientific organizations are treated, and it can be fairly arbitrary.

• First tier: a statement is quoted in full and the organization gets a separate subheading (i.e. American Geophysical Union, European Federation of Geologists, European Geosciences Union, Geological Society of America, Geological Society of London, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, American Meteorological Society, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Royal Meteorological Society (UK), World Meteorological Organization, American Quaternary Association, International Union for Quaternary Research and, unexpectedly, Polish Academy of Sciences)

• Second tier: the organization is quoted in full but does not get a subheading (i.e. American Association for the Advancement of Science, United States National Research Council, Royal Societies of the United Kingdom or New Zealand).

• Third tier: the organization is simply listed, with no further comment. Their statement is instead confined to a quote in references. (i.e. first American Chemical Society, American Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, Australian Institute of Physics, European Physical Society and then American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Preventive Medicine, American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, Australian Medical Association and World Federation of Public Health Association later on.)

To me, it all looks really arbitrary. I would argue that it would be far more effective to have a List of statements by major scientific organizations about climate change, which would allow us to list every organization and a key excerpt from its statement, while this article would simply have a subsection with a "Main:" link to that list, while the subsection itself has several bullet-point lists of organizations' names (one for physical organizations, another for earth science, health, etc.)

Given that those bullet-point lists would all be several dozen entries long, I think it would leave a much stronger impression to see them, than the status quo, when a reader effectively sees those organizations rephrase the same points that are already listed in the IPCC report section, and would probably give up halfway through. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:59, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

• Support. Your proposal makes sense to me. It would also make the remaining article more interesting. EMsmile (talk) 08:48, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
• To move this forward, I have now created the spin-off article: List of statements by major scientific organizations about climate change. EMsmile (talk) 12:32, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

  Great! I'll still have to take a closer look at it ASAP to get into a better shape, but a start is a start. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 15:03, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

IPCC/Other reports structure

This is all highly relevant information for this article, but I really do not like how we present it right now.

• We do not actually explain anywhere what the IPCC even is, and what makes it so important. Sure, we all know it, but it's the people who don't who need this article. The sentence we currently have before the AR6 excerpt - "Synthesis reports are assessments of scientific literature that compile the results of a range of stand-alone studies in order to achieve a broad level of understanding, or to describe the state of knowledge of a given subject"' is...really not great for that.

• The AR6 excerpts just do not seem to be fit for purpose. My impression is that for a typical reader of this particular article (again, remember that anyone who needs to read about scientific consensus that the warming is even proceeding in the first place is really unlikely to have an intuitive grasp of the higher-level details after that fact), it's just going to be wall of text full of unfamiliar terms. I.e. Mitigation has increased, but even if NDCs announced by October 2021 will be met, warming will likely exceed 1.5 °C in the 21st century and it is hard to limit warming to 2 °C. There are gaps between really implemented policies and NDCs. Financing is insufficient to meet mitigation goals. - This article does not explain anywhere what an NDC is. It does not explain anywhere why those temperature targets are even important. The phrases which I think are likely to make an impression (i.e. Choices made in next years will have impacts for thousands of years or With more warming, long-term negative impacts are many times higher than current, there is more likelihood of abrupt and/or irreversible changes, risks, low-likelihood events with very large negative impacts, losses and damages, climatic and non-climatic impacts, increasingly interacting, compound and cascading, more complex and difficult to manage. are buried in a thicket of phrases which aren't, like There are gaps between really implemented policies and NDCs. Financing is insufficient to meet mitigation goals.

• We probably devote too much space to excerpting the details of how AR6 was published (i.e. The panel published a longer report, a summary for policymakers a presentation and a short "Headline Statements" document, summarizing its findings in 3-4 pages.) and we definitely do that for AR5.

• The points which are summarized for AR5 and AR4 (unprecendented rate of warming, greenhouse gas levels approaching million-year peaks, unequivocal human influence, sea level rise, future warming stressing societies and ecosystems, etc.) are really the core of what we need to summarize from the reports, not the weeds which the AR6 excerpt gets into. We need to briefly cover those points for AR6, and then entries for all of the previous reports - from AR5 to FAR - should really only list the points of divergence. That is, people should be able to see how the scientific consensus had evolved and strengthened from report to report.

• The same applies for "other reports". We need a brief summary of the current National Climate Assessment (#5, which is apparently brand-new) and then 1-2 line mentions of the previous four assessments. On the other hand, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment is from 2004, and it seems like the Arctic Council has not done any follow-up after that. We could combine it with NOAA's Arctic Report Cards, or just leave it be, and instead include things like the European Climate Risk Assessment and hopefully something outside of the Global North as well.

InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:34, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you on this and have made some bold changes: removing the excerpts and content from the previous three assessment reports. I think perhaps the way forward is to rather introduce the existence of those important reports (with the IPCC reports as standing out as the most important one) but without listing any of their key findings (because then you have the problem of where do you start, where do you end). The key points should anyway already be part of the section "Consensus points". Please see also related discussion on the talk page of IPCC Sixth Assessment Report where I have questioned if and how we list the key points from the synthesis report. EMsmile (talk) 12:36, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, "Consensus points" should probably be specifically about a list of dotpoints, each ideally cited to multiple highest-grade sources (i.e. AR6 and one other major report, statement from a major organization, review in a high-tier journal, etc.) The list of dotpoints would then become a lot longer than now, and the three paragraphs after those dotpoints would be moved to some other section.

There's other clean-up we can do here, but I think that would be particularly important. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 14:57, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I went ahead with a version of this now. "Consensus points" have been expanded substantially with the points where I could specifically find similar or identical language in both the AR6 and NCAR5 summaries, to underscore the strength of the consensus. As I have been short on time, the list of points is largely limited to general science for now: impacts and mitigation/adaptation can follow later, if we have agreement on this format.

The rest has been condensed - quoted statements made in 2000s (or blockquotes from decade-old reports, for that matter) are unlikely to be as persuasive to readers in 2020s as they were back then, and now that the excerpts from the IPCC/NCAR are gone, it seems to me like the need to include subheadings for them is also gone, and it's more impactful to briefly talk about what they do early on "Existence of a scientific consensus", before the prospective reader had time to lose interest. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:41, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Formatting of references after split

Hi User:Isaidnoway thank you for cleaning up the reference errors after a split off a large chunk of text into a sub-article. I was hoping some bot would fix it because I didn't understand how these ref errors came about. Is this a very old style of setting up the refs? Normally when I move a text block to another Wikipedia article, the refs get move with it except for those under "sources" if it's done in the short ref style. Long ref style is so much better. How could I have done it differently (for next time)? EMsmile (talk) 10:11, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

EMsmile - No, this is not a very old style of setting up the refs, it is a very popular style, still in use. List-defined references are where the references are defined in the References section, as opposed to being defined in the body of the article. Once the ref is defined in the references section, then you just use — <ref name="whatever your ref name is"/> — in the body of the article. This style avoids cluttering the text in the body of the article. Once you remove a list-defined reference from the body of the article, then you must go to the References section and comment it out using <!-- -->, as seen here, or in the alternative, just delete the list-defined reference from the References section. Failing to do either one of these remedies, will result in this, with multiple cite errors. Additionally, when you split off content that is using this style, like you did here for this article, you must also copy the list-defined references to the new article, or else you will end up with cite errors as seen here in the new article. I added those missing list-defined references to the new article to fix those cite errors. For further info, see WP:LDRHOW.

Additionally, when you split off content and copy/paste into a new article, you really should follow Step 4 per WP:CORRECTSPLIT - "Contents [[WP:SPLIT]] from [[Source article name]]; please see its history for attribution." - in order to give proper attribution to the editors who originally added it in the source/parent article. Hope this helps. Thanks for reaching out. Isaidnoway (talk) 13:27, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for taking the time to explain this to me, much appreciated! I wasn't fully aware of this ref style. But I don't understand in which sense this is an advantage: "This style avoids cluttering the text in the body of the article." There is no visible text for readers or for any editors who edit in visual editor, only for those editors who edit in source editor, right? To me it seems to be adding a big disadvantage for the case where text is moved from one Wikipedia article to another. But I'll pay more attention to this in future.

How did you solve it after I had done the damage: there is a script that can be used to fix this? EMsmile (talk) 17:39, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

@Isaidnoway tried, but hasn't actually solved this, unfortunately. Only three of the missing references were carried over. I moved several more just now as part of a wider rewrite, but I am sure there are a lot more, since many statements in the new article remain unreferenced. It seems like one would have to dive into the past revisions and copy those references from there. Just one more reason to be careful and not rely on the visual editor so much. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:31, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

InformationToKnowledge - Sadly this is what happens when a split is not done properly. This is the version of the article as it existed immediately before the split-off, and here is a version from Dec 10, before the heavy editing started on Dec 21. So it is possible to see what refs were present at those times, and then one could open up the edit window on either of those versions, find the refs and copy them over. Hope this helps. Maybe after Christmas, I'll take another look. Isaidnoway (talk) 18:25, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

So this is the script that can be used to fix this? Looks a bit complicated to me: User:Kaniivel/Reference Organizer. It only fixed some of it? Again, sorry for causing this problem with the refs. I've done many mergers and splits before but apparently none of them used that style of referencing, so I hadn't run into that problem before. I still don't understand why anyone would use that style (see my question above). If we want more new editors to come and join us we should keep it simple for them. This means using long ref style and letting them use visual editor as the default (my opinion). EMsmile (talk) 18:50, 26 December 2023 (UTC)