Talk:Bill McKibben/Archive 1

Copypaste
I notice that all or almost all of the material in the lead section of this article is identical to a page in McKibben's own website. --Belgrano 18:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Not only is the substance of the article taken directly from McKibben's own website, but the rest of the article consists of excerpts from his books:ie, the entry is completely generated by McKibben himself, so there's a question not only of originality but of objectivity. In fact, his books have received both good and bad reviews. The length of the entry seems disproportionate to entries for more recognizable authors.Rightword 13:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

THIS ENTIRE ARTICLE has been directly copied and pasted from other sources, INCLUDING Bill's website. This is not appropriate and must be completely rewritten immediately, using original prose. Sinisterminister 14:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * from a quick skim of the edit history, this article seemed to have developed organically, rather than as a result of a copy paste. I think it's just as likely that McKibben's bio is copied from wikipedia. --Osbojos 15:00, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * In fact, I'm now sure McKibben's bio is lifted largely from this page, not the reverse. For instance I made a minor textual change in Feb 2006, where I replaced "writing includes a spiritual perspective" with "writing often has a spiritual bent". McKibben's page includes nearly the same distinctive language: "his writing sometimes has a spiritual bent." It should go without saying that I didn't make such a minor textual change just to make the wikipedia page conform more exactly with McKibben's official bio. In fact, according to archive.org McKibben's page didn't even contain a bio page with that language in Feb 2006. Personally, I don't care that he's using wikipedia text on his page, but technically he should be including the GPL/Wikipedia licensing information. Someone may want to follow up on that.--Osbojos 18:47, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Photo of Bill
The photo of Bill McKibben looks scary, and I don't think is typical of him. Can we replace or remove? Unnyn 20:21, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I replaced it. I retained the old image information in an HTML comment tag so it can easily be reincorporated if so desired. --Osbojos 18:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * SO mch better. Nice job! Jessamyn (talk) 05:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see any photograph here. In any case, thanks for removing the former one.  I put a request   here -Unnyn 17:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * McKibben is speaking at RIT in October, a university famous for it's photojournalism. So I, if no one else, will be sure to get a PD or CC photo of him at that point. Hotshot977 (talk) 22:16, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

McKibben in National Geographic
After reviewing his recent article in NG I found McKibben to be less than a credible source on the topic of global warming. While he cites a modest amount of traceable reference data, he seems to avoid and omit critical facts that would be necessary to draw intelligent conclusions. For example, he sites the increase in carbon in the atmosphere, since we began to measure it, as being an increase from 280 ppm to 315 ppm and that it is increasing by 2 ppm per year. He allows the reader to conclude that this is entirely due to human activity. Quite frankly, I find that to be impossible. Additionally he proposes solutions to reverse this "human contribution" by listing lots of technologies and behavioral changes but never suggests that we ought to stop using fossil fuel to create energy. Curiously, he leaves out nuclear power entirely as an option that we ought to explore. Lastly he explores ethanol as a very acceptable technology but barely touches the tremendous effect that ethanol will have on our lifestyle, our cost of living and the environment. Having farmers switch to planting feed corn instead of beans, as an example (McKibben does acknowledge that this is happening), is going to going to have dramatic effects down the road. Additionally, as McKibben admits but does not elaborate, the competition for feed corn between ethanol producers and livestock ranchers is going to raise the price of feed corn through the roof. Eventually, ranchers will have to convert pastures into corn fields in order stay in business and beef will become a luxury.

I found this article to be lacking in facts but abundant in emotional alarms. It is not an objective critique. It is almost void of facts and plausible solutions to a problem that he poorly defines.

New data supports the notion that ethanol, and the "Mazola" economy it will create, are very slippery slopes for the US and other industrialized countries. The latest data, supported by private ethanol producers and oil/energy companies, says that it takes 27% more energy to produce ethanol than ethanol will yield. Additionally almost every ethanol manufacturer uses coal as the energy source to produce ethanol from corn. Lastly, ethanol reduces milage in all vehicles. Fuel milage drops by over 10%, and sometimes approaches 20% where ethanol is mixed with gasoline. Between the coal comsuption and the increased gas/ethanol comsuption, how is this a benefit to air quality and the reduction of carbon in the atmosphere? --Wfluri 19:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * What does this have to do with the article? Hotshot977 (talk) 22:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Step It Up
I don't think there's enough about Step It Up 2007 (including 2006 activities) for an article; I believe it should be merged either here to Bill McKibben or to 350 (organisation), the successor organisation. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:28, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a separate discussion from my suggestion that 350 (organisation) be merged into Bill McKibben; I redirected this discussion here, as that suggestion was closed as "no consensus". — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:29, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Closed, as far as I'm concerned; moved into Bill McKibben. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 09:57, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Professional Extremist
"Profession: environmental extremist" seems like biased writing. I'm changing it to "activist". If anyone has a problem with that you can change it to something else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.167.47.235 (talk) 23:48, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Academic background?
This article is seriously defective in its failure to even mention Bill McKibben's Academic background. Until that is fixed, this article deserves an F. ---Dagme (talk) 00:36, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

This article needs to be taken down and completely redone.
It is more than defective. It is unacceptable.

Parts of Bill McKibben's own website were plagiarized for it. Example:

McKibben's website: "Bill grew up in suburban Lexington, Massachusetts. He was president of the Harvard Crimson newspaper in college. Immediately after college he joined the New Yorker magazine as a staff writer, and wrote much of the "Talk of the Town" column from 1982 to early 1987. He quit the magazine when its longtime editor William Shawn was forced out of his job, and soon moved to the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York."

Wikipedia: "McKibben grew up in suburban Lexington, Massachusetts, where he attended Lexington High School. As an undergraduate at Harvard University, he was president of The Harvard Crimson newspaper. Immediately after graduating with a degree in journalism he joined The New Yorker as a staff writer and wrote much of the Talk of the Town column from 1982 to early 1987. He quit the magazine when its longtime editor William Shawn was forced out of his job, and soon moved to the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York."

---Dagme (talk) 00:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, copied, but not controversial. I found another source, but have not cited his webpage at this point and won't, as, see above, there are grounds to believe it was copied from our article. User:Fred Bauder Talk 21:17, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

"Luddite" reference and extra information
Any Luddite reference takes a very non-neutral pov and seems quite inappropriate here, even if someone could argue for it. Meanwhile, it is difficult to find factual information about him. Bios tend to be very vague. But there is some material here: http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/litlinks/essays/mckibben.htm Some of this, such as his date of birth, might be appropriate to include. I'm trying to see whether I can paraphrase his actual arguments, but I may not be the person to try to do them justice in a short space since I'm actually rather unsympathetic. Metamagician3000 06:22, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Whether Luddite would ever be appropriate or not McKibben rejects technological fixes such as geoengineering and genetic engineering. "Even if technological achievements could allow humans to survive without changing “our way of life, our economic growth, in the teeth of the greenhouse effect,” this path would result in an “artificial world, a space station.” McKibben singled out as particularly troubling genetic engineering: “Just as the old methods of dominating the world have become unworkable, a new set of tools is emerging that may allow us to continue that domination by different, expanded, and even more destructive means…” Page 29 http://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/D-78-Nisbet1.pdf User:Fred Bauder Talk 22:36, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Factually Incorrect
the article states "It is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change" which is simply not true - What about Stephen Schneider's 1976 'The Genesis Strategy: Climate and Global Survival', or John Gribbin's 1982 'Future Weather and the Greenhouse Effect' among many others? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.51.120.25 (talk) 18:42, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Climate change entered public conscious in 1988, although, you are, doubtless technically correct. I'll add "popular". User:Fred Bauder Talk 22:41, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll do more than that, see John_Gribbin. User:Fred Bauder Talk 22:47, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

about the Luddite comment
I just removed these sentences: "...skeptical of technological innovation. Some would call him a luddite." While Bill McKibben is skeptical about completely unfettered technological innovation in areas such as human genetic engineering, he is by no means a luddite. He's an advocate of solar and wind power and he writes for an online magazine. Solar power and online magazines both involve technology. Here's an excerpt of an article (full version can be found here:
 * "The title of the book, "Enough," intentionally provokes the accusation of "Luddite." McKibben addresses this directly, and convincingly demonstrates the fatuousness of such attacks. He would not, for example, withdraw antibiotics or smash the computers. Instead, like Lander's outlook on germline therapy, he believes that we have reached a threshold, a turning point in which the decisions about some of the new technologies represent a radical break from the human project launched with the Enlightenment."

So McKibben used Luddism as a rhetorical device, nothing more. His opinion is a more nuanced than "technology is bad", which is the impression one gets from reading the previous version of the article. If someone wants to reincorporate the Luddite comment I'd appreciate it if they justified themselves on this talk page first. Thanks. --Osbojos 11:37, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * "McKibben argued that if “industrial civilization is ending nature, it is not utter silliness to talk about ending – or, at least, transforming – industrial civilization.” User:Fred Bauder Talk 22:53, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Propose removal of criticism chapter as it seems trivial.
89.160.178.234 (talk) 23:28, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Gandhi
"He became an advocate of nonviolent resistance, considering Gandhi the greatest movie ever made." ?!?!? I'm glad to hear that nonviolent resistance was a stepping stone to McKibben's appreciation for fine film. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.127.56.137 (talk) 19:10, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Spy Magazine Criticism
Repeated attempts have been made to take down a reference I have inserted to a 1989 Spy magazine article that calls McKibben to account for the destruction of thousands of trees in the course of the publication of the publication, reviewing, and advertising of his book The End of Nature. Given McKibben's environmentalism, the reference is appropriate and based on reasonable estimation. The "Criticism" section, in addition, consists of only one other critical appraisal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.224.35.239 (talk) 00:02, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Can you explain what you mean by "based on reasonable estimation"? Generally on Wikipedia we do not cherry pick quotes from articles that we like, we include criticism that is notable based on the fact that it is mentioned in secondary sources, not just that it's something we think is a good idea to highlight from a primary source.  Gamaliel  ( talk ) 16:45, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

"Based on reasonable estimation" is based on personal acquaintance with Spy's research system, whereby articles were throughly vetted and fact-checked before publication. "Cherry picking" is a loaded, accusatory and inappropriate term. The criticism is valid and relevant. Please do not discourage appropriate citation of sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.204.233.194 (talk • contribs)


 * Complaining about the phrase doesn't address the issue. If you'd prefer a different phrase, I will use it, within reason. But whatever you call it, that's what you are doing and your response hasn't addressed that.   The issue isn't the reliability of Spy, it is the notability of this particular criticism. This issue is secondary sources versus primary sources.  Gamaliel  ( talk ) 03:12, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

The issue of "secondary sources versus primary sources" makes little sense. The New York Times is a secondary source and is quoted in the criticism section. Why, then, is Spy, another secondary source, excluded? The Spy criticism is notable because it goes to the heart of McKibben's apparent environmental hypocrisy. Res ipsa loquitur. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.204.233.194 (talk) 13:31, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I am in no way a fan of McKibben, but the Spy Magazine quote is not notable. Pretty much all of these enviromentalists have someone or the other accusing them of hypocrisy in this or a similar manner.  I think some of them are ironically funny, but that is about it.  Unless there is some better sourcing it is undue weight.  Arzel (talk) 13:38, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * In this case, since the criticism originates with Spy, Spy is a primary source. Gamaliel  ( talk ) 16:34, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Spy Magazine is a legitimate source and I don't see any problem with including their criticism. Readers are capable of assessing whether it has merit for themselves. No need for censorship. Candleabracadabra (talk) 13:59, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:BLP: "Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources". This does not include things we think are interesting that we pick out of primary sources. Gamaliel ( talk ) 16:34, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Baffling logic. Secondary sources are somehow considered more reliable than primary sources? Inexplicable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.204.233.194 (talk) 02:10, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Again, the issue is not the reliability of Spy. It is the notability of this particular criticism.  If it is not mentioned in secondary sources, it's not particularly significant.  Gamaliel  ( talk ) 03:22, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Why is it okay to have him referred to as "probably the nation's leading environmentalist" from a primary source but another sources evaluation of his environmental impact can't be included? This seems ridiculous. Candleabracadabra (talk) 03:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Such evaluations can be included if sourced to a reliable secondary source. Gamaliel  ( talk ) 03:22, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * According to this logic the assertion that he is "probably the nation's leading environmentalist" and "the world's best green journalist" need to be reported somewhere else than the primary source in which they are stated. Why aren't you removing this content? Candleabracadabra (talk) 11:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Gamaliel  ( talk ) 17:27, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * What does that essay have to do with wildly different (and strange) sourcing requirements being required for content in the same article? Spy Magazine did an analysis. Spy Magazine is a legitimate source. So unless there is a legitimate objection I see no reason for us to censor their findings. I understand you don't like or agree with their conclusions, but that's not relevant. Candleabracadabra (talk) 17:49, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * This is not a case of different sourcing requirements. It is a case, perhaps, of the existing source requirements not being applied elsewhere.  Regardless, it has nothing to do with the matter of Spy.  Again, no one is saying that it is not a legitimate source.  Please reread the points made above in regards to exactly what policies are being applied here.   Gamaliel  ( talk ) 17:58, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Since you're determined to drag other, unrelated issues into this discussion, I had a look at the material. It seems pretty clear that the innocuous material you removed are reasonable expressions of wide-spread opinion documented by reliable secondary sources.  The Spy material is a very specific criticism generated by Spy and not documented elsewhere.  If it is actually documented elsewhere, then the objections will disappear.   Gamaliel  ( talk ) 19:09, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You can't just cherry pick hypey quotes and exclude everything that isn't glowing about a subject. You are violating fundamental editing principles such as NPOV. What other sources say his is the leading environmentalist etc.? Why are these quotes in the opening paragraph? And if these quotes are important why haven't they been reported elsewhere? Hypocrite much? Candleabracadabra (talk) 19:12, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't read those quotes as "praise", I read them as "evaluations from a third party secondary source". Praise would be "McKibben is saving the world" or somesuch.  I realize we disagree on this matter, but it would be nice if you could make the effort to do so in a ~civil manner.   Gamaliel  ( talk ) 19:17, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

" as he had told a large gathering at Warren Wilson College shortly before the event. "
What is the significance of this part of the sentence in the 2nd paragraph? Can it be removed? It seem.. weird. Candleabracadabra (talk) 23:21, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Ref for last paragraph re: Methodist, spiritual
http://harpers.org/archive/2005/08/0080695 (will edit into article when I'm on my home computer, if no one else does first.) Postpostmod (talk) 16:22, 8 January 2012 (UTC) PS: edited "edit summary". Postpostmod (talk) 16:25, 8 January 2012 (UTC)


 * "McKibben is a long-time Methodist and while his writing can sometimes be spiritual in nature, he asserts that he bases his environmental views on science." This seems like a non sequitur. Why should the fact that he is a Methodist pose any contradiction to his basing his environmental views on science? And "his writing can sometimes be spiritual in nature" seems impossibly vague. Is there anything about his religion or his writing style that conflicts with science? 850 C (talk) 19:09, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

McKibben and Science
Here is an excerpt from the first paragraph of an article "Bill McKibben's Battle Against the Keystone XL Pipeline", by Karl Taro Greenfield, February 28, 2013, Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

"Every month, Bill McKibben gets dozens of e-mails from pseudo-scientists - or perhaps actual scientists, for all he knows - describing plans to build perpetual motion machines. .... Now he gets so many he doesn't even read the descriptions or business plans, though he can't shake a certain nagging guilt. "My heart breaks a little each time", he says."What if someone has actually figured it out?"

Any minimally scientific literate person can draw only one conclusion. This is not the only statement of McKibben's from which the same conclusion can be drawn. The Wikipedia article seems to be a puff piece. Would the inclusion of one or more of McKibben's statements throwing doubt on his ability to understand the science on which he notionally bases his statements not improve the accuracy of the article?

FormerIAS (talk) 21:23, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Education?
In what field of study did McKibben earn his bachelor's degree? English? Or is that not relevant to his qualifications to speak about the environment? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.147.135.123 (talk) 20:41, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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RMV of non-RSS "quote"
Although this sentence and quote was inserted by an IP editor into the article four years ago, as of today, it seemed implausible. I checked the non-RSS source and found it was essentially imbedded in an opinion piece on a right wing website. Activist (talk) 16:42, 9 August 2020 (UTC)