Talk:Energy & Environment/Archive 1

Indur Goklany
This is the first I'd heard of Goklany. A quick check in Google Scholar shows a lot of publishing activity, such as a book critical of the Precautionary Principle. Maybe it's time to create a person page for this author. Birdbrainscan 22:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Problems with Article
The entry has many problems and is an obvious attempt to portray the journal as negatively as possible, in punishment for daring to publish anything portraryed as skeptical of global warming. However, taking the editor, the entire editorial board, and every scientist who publishes there as "global warming skeptics" is unsupported by fact and clearly not NPOV. Of the thousands of articles and authors carried by this journal, the only ones chosen to be cited are those who have negative Wikipedia entries as skeptics themselves-- entries written primarily by the people doing the reverting here? Come people, do you have no intellecual honesty at all?
 * Speaking of intellectual honesty, your contention that there are attempts to portray "entire editorial board and every scientist who publishes there" as global warming skeptics is easily proven false. Some of the editorial staff and some of the articles are from a skeptical viewpoint, and this has been noted. Attempts to purge the article of these true and verifiable facts raises concerns. Raymond Arritt 15:58, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In the last 12 years, over 1000 papers have been published by this journal. But the only authors you choose to display are those few who you've written scurrilous entries against?  That clearly demonstrates bias, and adds nothing to the entry.  And I'm curious about the "true and verifiable fact" of labelling the editor as a global warming skeptic.  She has stated she is skeptical of the goals of some environmentalists, that does not automatically make her a skeptic of global warming.  Greenchasch 16:19, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * People write what they know about. If you know additional, verifiable things about that should be mentioned, by all means please add them. It will make the article better. But don't remove well-sourced information simply because it's critical. Oh, and by the way, using multiple accounts to circumvent Wikipedia's three-revert rule is frowned upon and can cause one to be blocked. You're a new editor, so I want to make sure you don't accidentally run afoul of policy. Raymond Arritt 16:45, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Twice now, the verifiable information I've added about the journal and its editor has been removed, replaced by unsourced negative information. There is a serious question of both WP:POV and WP:UNDUE here. It seems clear a person (possibly aided by multiple meatpuppets) is on a vendetta against the journal. Let's keep things clean, shall we? Ttowntom 17:02, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

The only reason I myself started editing this article is that it seemed to be structured to be negative to the publication and focused on that too much. That's just what it looked like to me, in my opinion. But we all have our ideas, and plenty of articles haven't been worked on as much as we would like, to give them as much balance and structure as we can. Intellectual honesty to me often means that we are not afraid to speak up and let our feelings (opinions) be known as to how we perceive things. Accusing others of being or not being something is not the way to have a healthy discourse and do what we're here for -- to make the articles better. Sln3412 07:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I just deleted the last sentence of any substance: "With scientific results become basis for policy, major government funding becomes involved and journals on both sides of the issue become viewed as politicized." This seems like a general observation, or theory, not about the journal in question per se, and rather argumentative. No support is offered, no specifics are given. And it's ungrammatical. I couldn't figure out how rewrite it to cohere with the paragraph it concludes. So -- boldly! -- away with it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakushima (talk • contribs) 10:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Red White and Blue
I removed the red. If a person is not notable enough to have an entry, create it first and then list their name. If there's no article on them, why list them?

Also, 5 refs to the same unverifiable information (what ISI or JCR has in them in an ES&T website story by Thacker) is a bit much, so I replaced the negative bit about the library with an actual ref to where the info is from. If the JCR stuff is in there and can't be checked directly, certainly the fact that the MJL lists it is fair also. I think anyone reading this needs to know a 2005 article is claiming it's "not being in JCR" rather than just saying it's not without qualification. I mean, you know, that verifiable thing.

Also, I filled in some more information one what Pielke was actually talking about and what the quote is from. I also made everything more balanced (and more like an essay in its progression and organization). Sln3412 18:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I hope it's obvious the fact that the editor is a skeptic is clear. (Although her bio doesn't say 'about what' exactly) I just don't think it belongs in the intro about the journal itself, it's not neutral.


 * As in "This journal is edited by a skeptic and it's all skeptical and not well peer reviewed, here's 5 links to the same story about 'skeptics getting their own journal'" is not exactly balanced...


 * So I moved it to where the often skeptical nature of E&E is discussed, in the last two paragraphs (the second to last is about discussions involving the debate on the stature of the publication and the last is on the skeptical issues that may be responsible for it). I think this is fair to all ( and makes the article far more balanced).  (I was unsure if I should mention that Lomborg is also on the editorial advisory board.)  And I counted twice, there are 20 listed on their web site. Sln3412 19:10, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see why the fact that it has an ISSN should be listed after the JCR; if you don't know what the ISSN is you may mistake it for some mark of quality. I also removed "according to Thacker" - the source is there if you want to know; is anyone doubting this? William M. Connolley 20:05, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * ISSN, fair enough. Thacker claiming it's not listed (and over two years ago) is just a story on the web.  But no, I don't have any reason to doubt he looked it up in 2005 and it wasn't (Assuming he checked both the science and social science editions, and that the derived tables filed the journal under the proper heading (research vs review) and they catch all the UK published journals).  If you're satisfied with that, not a problem.  Thanks. I just wish I could check that it's still not on there, since it is on Thomson's Master Journal list (which could just be a list of ISSNs, I don't know) but I'm not concerned enough to pay for an ISI Web of Knowledge subscription to find out. Sln3412 20:20, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It certainly wasn't on the ISI 6 months ago when I last checked. I don't really know about ISSN but it just seems to be a journal numbering system, though I'm not familiar with it (BTW are JCR and ISI actually different? I'm not sure :-) William M. Connolley 20:25, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
 * (1) As of two minutes ago, E&E wasn't listed when I did a search of journals on ISI. (2) ISSN is simply a coding system. (3) JCR is a product of ISI. Raymond Arritt 20:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * No, ISSN is like ISBN, just to ID it......  Edit conflict!!!  Yeah I think they're the same...
 * Oh, and I don't doubt that in May, RP jr was under the impression the ISI didn't list it. (I think they're the same thing, BTW all under the WoK at Thomson, JCR is part of the ISI.) But that doesn't mean he actually checked.  (Although of course he did say it, so it's fair to use, even if he happened to be wrong and it was only on a blog post in reply to somebody).  But people get things wrong, like saying "climate change" when they used "global climate change" or use "global climate change" to write about "Anthropogenic Climate Change"    ;--} :D Sln3412 20:32, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for checking, Raymond. Sln3412 20:33, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Staff members
The mention of "staff members of such institutions as the Fraunhofer Institute, University of Oxford, University of North Carolina and University of British Columbia" is an odd way of enumerating a journal's editorial board. It implies that E&E editorship is a position per se at each institution, which certainly isn't the case. Editors are individuals: if Dr. Joe Bloggs moves from Oxford to Cambridge, his editorship is unaffected. Raymond Arritt 22:22, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The main reason I changed that, is what I thought too many red links to individuals were in the section. As I mentioned earlier on the talk page, in a way, if the indiviuals listed are red linked, they shouldn't be mentioned by name unless an article already exists (or at least doesn't have a multi-month lag).  The point was that there are staff members from many universities and organizations of some repute that are on the EAB. Sln3412 06:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

People publishing and links
Looking at the discussion about staff members, I wanted to bring this up. I was thinking of adjusting "People who have published in this journal" to something mentioning skeptics, but thought it inappropriate. I don't feel comfortable categorizing most of them listed as being such.

Another thing is that half of the links point to the same web-based news story by the same person.

Another thing is that another link (4) is to something online, by an editor (and not just any editor, one on this exact same subject here on Wikipedia. Not that it's an issue, just that Dr. Schneider is an editor on this subject.)

Another thing about this all is that most people (including myself) don't have easy access to the ISI's JCR  That point is notwithstanding that the same company, Thompson, has E&E on their Master Journal List. (Although probably it's just a list of ISSN, it does list it.)

Can we get some links to something other than ES&T online at the same story (by an authoer who doesn't seem to be associated with them any more) for notes 1 3 and 6? I think primary sources would be better. Especially given this contentious issue. Sln3412 07:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * ES&T people info: http://pubs.acs.org/journals/esthag/bios.html
 * ES&T info: http://pubs.acs.org/journals/esthag/about.html

Dead link
The link to Boehmer Christiansen's homepage delivers a 404 not found message. I've looked around on the Hull University site and can't find it under a different address. (The geography department has her as "Emeritus Reader", incidentally.) Should I just delete the dead link? N p holmes (talk) 14:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Sure enough, she's now listed as "emeritus." Any ideas where she has gone? Raymond Arritt (talk) 14:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Google Scholar listing
To balance off the comment about E&E's not being listing in some specialized scholarly search engines, I s I added the following:

Energy and Environment is indexed by Google Scholar's, compilation of peer reviewed scholarly publications, making it more accessible to scientists and the public. Google Scholar does list scholarly peer reviewed journals. That is significant from a general search engine. Google Scholar provides important access to those who do not have access to the specialized science citation type services.

See:
 * An Examination of Citation Counts in a New Scholarly Communication Environment


 * Three options for citation tracking: Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science

Before just deleting edits because of your bias against free public search services, show a good Wiki policy reason why this should not be usedDLH (talk) 13:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * There is nothing surprising or of encyclopedic value, in stating that a search engine that searches almost all journals, contain a journal. Had Google only searched a specific subset of journals - then there might have been some value. (nb. scholar searches quite a bit more than journals btw). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * So what makes you think it's surprising or of encyclopedic value that E&E isn't listed in ISI? Most journals aren't listed in ISI. There are tens of thousands that aren't compared to relatively few that are. Whether a journal is listed and what rank it gets is due to technicalities that are unrelated to the scientific quality of the articles therein. (See _Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research_, Per O Seglen, BMJ 1997;314:498–502 http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=2126010&blobtype=pdf ) --Blogjack (talk) 16:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * That paper is completely irrelevant. And most scientific journals of any standing are in ISI. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:49, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


 * That's a no true Scotsman argument based on your flexible definition of both "scientific" and "of any standing". But if you really mean it: are you claiming math journals aren't scientific? (a quote from this highly relevant article: "In mathematics, leading publications that were not included in the Science Citation Index database were cited more frequently than the leading publications that were included.") --Blogjack (talk) 21:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


 * To be more specific, its a peacock argument. It would be like specifying that Google (regular) indexes a specific webpage. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * And indeed, Google Scholar does index much more than peer-reviewed journals. It has conferences, workshops, books, and even internal reports (see e.g. the SETHEO/NN report) and slides from an internal talk (see Indexing Techniques for First-Order Theorem Proving). This is like claiming fame for being in the phone book... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Google Scholar is NOT "Comprehensive". Web of Science + Scopus, do not fully overlap with Google Scholar and vice versa. There is information available in each scholarly search service that is not available in the other service. See: Impact of Data Sources on Citation Counts and Rankings of LIS Faculty: Web of Science versus Scopus and Google Scholar, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Nov. 2007, p 2116. Accordingly, an objective summary is give readers the information on which services index E&E and which do not. The authors note that ISI only cites 8,700 journals. Ulrich's Periodicals Directory lists 22,500 active academic/scholarly, refereed journals. . . Of these, 7,500 are published in the.DLH (talk) 23:52, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * All you are telling us here, is that Google isn't comprehensive - but you ignore the interesting factoid: its attempting to be comprehensive. Scopus & WoS doesn't attempt to be, they are aiming for quality listings - not comprehensive ones. It is not the job of an encyclopedia to tell the readers that specific search engines contain an item - unless its notable that it does, and a listing in scholar isn't notable. Sorry. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Note that the article states "virtually all citations from WoS and Scopus come from refereed and/or reputable sources." Perhaps it would be best to state that "E&E is not indexed by ISI, which limits itself to refereed and/or reputable sources, but it is indexed by Google Scholar which has no such limitation." Raymond Arritt (talk) 00:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That directly insinuates E&E is not refereed and is not reputable. There are some 14,000 scholarly journals that are not in WOS or Scopus which you thereby insinuate as unreliable without evidence. Best to simply state the objective fact: "E&E is not indexed by Web of Science but is indexed by Google Scholar."DLH (talk) 03:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * My comment was only partially in jest. The point is, being indexed by a site that imposes no quality or notability criteria whatsoever is not of encyclopedic importance. As Stephan put it, it's like claiming you're noteworthy because your name is in the phone book. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I would point out that Google Scholar also lists the "Creation Research Society Quarterly". So it would seem that being listed there does not make a journal scientifically legitimate.

The journal
Yes, I did mistake it for the other article. Thanks for catching that William M. Connolley. skip sievert (talk) 18:09, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Most of this article is not untrue, it just doesn't attempt at all to portray the whole truth
Most of this article is not untrue, it just doesn't attempt at all to portray the whole truth: its like describing the Queen as an old lady living in London in a big house. First error: first published in 1989, not 1996. "The journal is not listed in ISI" Yes but it is listed in the equally highly regarded Scopus system, and its citations in that and on Google Scholar are broadly similar to many other energy policy journals (A possible reason its not included in ISI is ISI insist on classifying it as a social science journal). The remark about Worldcat is presumably designed to make the journal look insignificant, or part of a racket: what journal could survive only on 39 subscriptions? Of course it has many more subscribers than that. All that Worldcat figure will show - what the average reader can't be excpected to know - that not all librarians, nor all serials librarians by a long shot, have anything to do with it. 'The journals peer-review process etc etc' Well the editor's response to that is her peer review response is the same as everybody elses, and the only reason for slurs about that is because the proponents of the manmade global warming thesis can't dispute the science. E&E published the M&M paper which destroyed the 'Hockey Stick' of Mann et al - you won't see it prominently on IPCCs website like you used to - and the detractors scoffed at M&M for not being climate scientists, and sneered at E&E claimimg it wasn't 'properly' peer-reviewed (how could they know; anyway, what does that mean?)yet they could not refute the science. This is basically whats wrong with this article: using a sort of damning mockery to diminish E&E, because (the author) can't deal with the intellectual challenge the journal presents. And of course the author gives the impression that this crack-pot little journal is obsessed with publishing anti-manmade global warming propaganda - a quick look at the contents and abstracts for the last 10 years will show that it publishes on the whole range of energy policy issues, of which climate change is just a part. Entries of this sort, however politically correct they may be, are really just worthless and need to be modified. Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 14:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * E&E published the M&M paper which destroyed the 'Hockey Stick' makes your biases clear William M. Connolley (talk) 15:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Please try to be rational. To say 'A destroyed B' is not a proposition that entails approval of A. Its a simple unarguable statement of fact. The claim, essentially represented by the hockey stick, could not be sustained in the light of M&Ms destruction of Mann's methodology. And as a result (of that, and other examples) a lot of people really do not like Energy & Environment, hence biased, possibly deliberately half-informed articles pop up around the place, dragging the same old half truths after them. Would be a good thing if Wikipedia stood for correcting that. And even though I've correctly rebutted your point that I made my biases clear, I might point out that charge could be made with a good deal more force to whoever authored this article - he has played the disgraceful trick of seeming to be neutral commentator while all the time he is plainly party pris, but does not have the moral or intellectual courage to admit it. All he's got to say is, "I wholly believe in man made global warming and so I loathe anf think completely ridiculous, publications which allow contrary points of view to be heard." Then we would all know where this pereson was coming from. But that of course would take, as I say, courage. Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 15:44, 14 April 2009 (UTC) Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 15:44, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually it looks like the person who took down my amendments to this article, into which I was attempting to put a bit of balance, was none other than William M Connelley, who, above, accuses me of bias. As I correctly point out, I am not biased, I am merely reporting facts. And here's another fact: the editor, who takes down comments, appears to be this William Connelly who in a former life was a climate modeller for BAS. Might that not imply a bit of bias in his opinions? Might that not suggest that he is predisposed to think that publications which publish papers doubting global warming are either or both ludicrous and dangerous, so he is perfectly free to disparage them, most unwilling to make alterations, and doesn't make it obvious what his background is...and how does all that add up to a NEUTRAL point of view? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mary4444 (talk • contribs) 16:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * As I correctly point out, I am not biased, I am merely reporting facts. Do you realise how funny that is? and doesn't make it obvious what his background is...: that will be In a former life I was a climate modeller at BAS on the first line of my user page. Cunningly hidden, I think you'll agree.
 * In short, your biases are obvious, and mine are more subtle than you think. But discussing them won't get us far. Perhaps you would care to return to the issue of updates to the article? For instance, your assertion that SCOPUS is as important as ISI? William M. Connolley (talk) 16:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Well you seem awfully pleased with your own cleverness, hard to see why however: enjoy your private joke. What seems funny to me is that Wikipedia purports to offer a NEUTRAL point of view, yet lets this page be controlled by someone who cannot possibly be neutral; we'll have to have that looked at. And here we go with the red herrings, wanting to turn discussion away from your completely, deliberately biased account of E&E, and my right to push it back to a neutral position, to a small point over whether Scopus and ISI can be exactly equated - a question neither of us can have a complete answer to. The implication is that 'if you're not in ISI you're no good; my point is that being in scopus is pretty good (as far as academic librarians are concerned, the people who buy journals); and given that cites in Scopus and Google Scholar point to the same story, that E&E is not much different in reach to plenty of other journals in energy policy, the implied slur (if you're not in ISI you're no good) rather falls apart, doesn't it? And anyway no-one who knows anything about academic communication would for a minute subscribe to the idea that if you're not in ISI you're no good. Its like citing the stat that only 39 libraries take it according to Worldcat. Either you don't understand anything about Worldcat, or you do, and you're deliberately reporting that stat in a totally misleading way. Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 16:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, none - as in "not one" - of your additions was sourced. Neither that E&E is in Scopus, nor that Scopus is as important as ISI, not that the editor of E&E has made some claim at all, not that that claim was a "robust defense"...
 * You also compare E&E to "other journals in energy policy" - maybe that's where it is competent. But then it should not publish papers masquerading as science. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

None of that looks hard: go and look at scopus, you'll find E&E there; go and look at scopus's website, see what it says about itself: do you think it would hve bothered to have set itself up if ISI was the answer to everything; the editors claim was a personal communication; it does not publish papers masquerading as science - that appears to be just your opinion, with which I disagree. Anyway, must everything be sourced, footnoted, as though this were some kind of academic journal itself? Your argument is irrelevant, has no bearing on the fact that the published page on Wikipedia is extremely biased, when the whole point of the thing, as I understand it, is to be neutral; and the editor of this page, who is plainly parti pris, is apparently refusing to let me correct, or at least temper, that bias. All you are saying is that because you dislike the kind of stuff occasionally published in E&E you would prefer a decidedly disobliging and only partly true account about it to remain on wikipedia, you little champion of intellectual honesty and enquiry! Mary4444


 * Please read WP:V, one of our core policies. Yes, "everything must be sourced, footnoted", and to reliable sources to boot. I wonder why you think a former climate modeler is biased, but accept the editor's claim about her journal and Scopus's claims about itself at face value... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:50, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I will do. But if you can't realise why a former climate modeler is biased (in being quite happy to disparage E&E, truth, neutrality, intellectual honesty all notwithstanding), I really don't understand why you're making yourself part of this discussion. As for the editors claim, you could say, 'well she would say that wouldn't she?' and in a sense, putting it alongside Connellys biased, innuendo-laden suggestions that the journal is not properly peer-reviewed (as if anyone outside it could know), provides a bit of balance. It gives anyone interested the chance to choose between claim and counterclaim. Moreover, reagrdless of what she has to say, the fact that no-one has been able to overturn the M&M destruction of Mann et al, speaks volumes about the quality of the journals peer-review. If M&M were wrong, and Mann was right, the hockey stick would still be the IPCC poster boy wouldn't it, and M&M would have slunk off the stage, ashamed? Has that happened? And finally a nice piece of double standards from yourself: you say we should not take Scopus's claims about itself at face value. Why not? If its a positive benefit, standard of being a 'good' journal, to be in ISI, how did we all agree that, without agreeing that ISI is a very good thing? And exactly how did wre do that? Perhaps by taking it at its own valuation? So why should a different standard be applied to Scopus? Are you suggesting somehow it is not a 'proper' listing organisation like ISI? On what grounds? You guys seem to have a list of things that are not, in your eyes, 'proper'. Quite who you are to make these judgements puzzles me. Finally, since you seem to know about Wikipedia, a couple of general questions. First if everything has to be sourced, how does it deal with a correspondent who has original and singular knowledge of a topic: lets say he invented something, so knows more about it in detail than anybody else, and not every detail of his invention is documented; how does his claim about his invention which is (let us say) true, and of public benefit, included in Wikipedia when there is no source except his own brain? Second, in regard to this particular dispute, what is the process here? lets suppose I jump through all the hoops you people set up - I wonder, what is your standing in this matter - and Connely still refuses to let the corrections go up. Where do we go from there. And how long can he spin it out in the hope that I will go away? Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 07:37, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Stephan cancel that first question, I've just seen the original thought policy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mary4444 (talk • contribs) 07:45, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You (and perhaps we) aren't doing a very good job of focussing on the article. People know who I am, so can decide on my biases for themselves. People don't know who you are. It is clear that you are strongly anti-HS and pro-M&M, but oddly enough you arent fighting the battle over at the obvious article, you're fighting it at E&E. Naturally enough, people will wonder why, and who you are. The obvious guess is that you have a connection to E&E, which would be a WP:COI William M. Connolley (talk) 08:01, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Well its rather strange that my last messages got deleted. Lets try again: http://info.scopus.com/detail/what/documents/title_list.xls is trhe link to scopus, where E&E is indexed

I read the COI. It applies perfectly to you. What are you doing advancing the cause of global warming at the expense of neutrality and truth, by disparaging the one peer-reviewed vehicle for anti-MMGW papers, creating a completely biased, innuendo-laden post and refusing to let anyone amend it? How are you serving wikipedia in this way? Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 08:57, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I realise why previous messagese got deleted, my error. Essentially, my points were, not surprised you've changed the basis of the argument from why you won't let the pages be amended to reflect neutrality at least, to ad hominem issues, because on the matter of substance, you don't have a prayer. All you can hope to do is throw up smokescreens, above it was about the exact equivalence of Scopus and ISI, now its me, soon it'll be something else. As for M&M and HS, its the most obvious example available, and anyway I'm no expert so no point getting in a debate about that. As for why I'm so exercised about E&E, why shouldn't I be? What are you saying now, that E&E is so trivial no-one in his right mind would worry about this dishonest wikipedia page if they weren't in the pay of the journal? Nice line! mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 09:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

And of course your false comparison "people know who I am etc etc" is disingenuopus to say the least. People reading that page about E&E are actually likely to take it at face value and not, as I did, hunt around for a bit and find out you wrote it and so became aware of your biases. It would seem perfectly reasonable to me if that page itself was prefaced by bio notes about yourself, so people could see out of what kind of mouth this stuff was coming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mary4444 (talk • contribs) 09:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

stephan wanted some more links - here are some: to back up my claim that Scopus is on a par with ISI, see http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA491154.html and note the author says "if you serve a primarily scientific, technical and/or engineering community, you must get scopus" - doesn't sound like that author thinks scopus is not a 'proper' indexing system consisting of not 'proper' journals, does it? And for general info about scopus yuou might as well go to its own page http://www.info.scopus.com For resaons I can't understand you seem to imply its own pages will be a pack of lies, I recommend looking at them first; and, as I have pointed out before, the link that gives the lie to the present pages innuendo-slur that E&E is a crackpot little journal obsessing about global wwarming, is http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mscp/ene where you can see ten years worth of contents and abstracts and you will see not all of it by a long shot is global warming stuff. Enough for you? Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 11:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Hellooo.... still here....any answers yet? Any more little hoops for me to jump through..... Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 16:07, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Have you read WP:V and WP:RS yet? That Library Journal article is a small start, but it says nothing about the prestige either service enjoys - and it does show that Scopus is more inclusive. And, no, I don't want "links", I want reliable sources. Self-published marketing usually is not considered an RS. I have no concern about a neutrally worded statement that E&E is indexed in Scopus. For everything else, bring a source. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:22, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I too would have no problem with a neutrally worded statement. Actually, in this context, myself I'm not sure there's any need to explain/justify anything about either ISI or Scopus: there are those who know what these things are for, about; and any explanation, as well as opening the door to bias, would probably pass by those who are not really interested in scholarly communication and allied matters. A statement like "E&E is not indexed in ISI, but it is in Scopus" would be fine by me, it serves to put some balance back into the picture, which is all I'm trying to do. In the same way, I'd be happy with a simple statement saying - for example - "However it should not be concluded that E&E publishees entirely on anti-MMGW papers. In fact it covers te range of energy policy issues, see (then the link to the last ten years contents & abstracts)" I'll take a look at those references you mention and continue tomorrow. Mary4444 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.242.4 (talk) 19:09, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I also think we should look very closely at the loaded language in this article, and ask ourselves why it is there, why is the author expressing himself in this way (unless to, without blatantly breaking any rules, to get across HIS view that E&E is worthless rubbish). For example: Why "Energy and Environment describes itself as" (implication - its not really); why not, "Energy and Environment is". 2. Why not point out that WorldCat is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of subscriptions? The intention here is plainly to belittle the journal, make it look ridiculous, insignificant (or part of a racket: no journal can survive on 39 subscriptions). For example, Energy Sources, a Taylor and Francis journal - 4th lagest STM publisher, I believe - is shown in Worldcat as being available only in 40 libraries. To draw any wider conclusions from that stat is a mistake, and to put that stat there just so people can draw misleading conclusions, is clear bias, and should be dealt with, should it not? 3. It would be nice if the quote from Pielke was continued, where he says 'however I stand by that paper' - so the peer-review process couldn't have been that disastrous, inefficient, inadequate, could it? 4. The bias, that it publishes only climate sceptic work is made plain by the listing, in para 2, of only climate sceptics, and again by the contgents of para 4. This needs correcting, and I have plainly said at least twice, and certainly once with a verifiable reference, that this can easily be done - unless you think publicly published contents pages of a journal over 10 years are in fact a made up fantasy and don't actually refer to any real content - wow! 5. The comment by the editor is only put there to make her look an idiot - how is that not bias? Anyone trying to give a serious account of the journal would not have put those few words in there alone. Anyone trying to make the journal look ridiculous would have done just that. My contention is that the author of this page has no interest in, is making no attemot, to give anything resembling a neutral, honest account of E&E; indeed, his plain aim is to belittle it and make it appear ridiculous. I don't seem how that can be tolerated. Its evident that the author is pro-MMGW, and so thinks it perfectly reaonable to mock, and offer a biased account, of any entity which can be considered (by him) as not wholly sharing his views on climate science! This seems so wonderfully un-Wikipedian one can only gasp! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mary4444 (talk • contribs) 07:44, 16 April 2009 (UTC) mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 07:46, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe you don't understand the purpose of peer review. It's primarily to eliminate bad papers. The quality indicator is not how many good papers get published, but how few bad papers are published. I could not find any claim that the journal only publishes on AGW - please be more specific. As for AGW skepticism being a focus of the journal: The publisher itself suggests 6 "related" publications on the page you suggested. Three of these 6 are "critical" (to stretch the term) of AGW. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Please don't think I'm being rude here but, are you serious. "As for AGW skepticism being a focus of the JOURNAL: the PUBLISHER ...." well perhaps the publisher is madly AGW who knows but that doesn't mean the journal is (please understand that publishers don't dictate to editors what gets published), and why are you again avoiding the substance - the journals contents pages itself, clearly indicative of a wide range of topics covered by the journal, and focussing on a detail, a peripheral advertisement? I'm afraid your first three sentences just make no sense to a native English speaker. Could you try to recast your thoughts?


 * What is there to recast? You have, at least twice, tried to make the point that E&E has published good papers (M&M and Pielke), and that that vindicates it's peer review process. I don't necessarily agree about the quality of the papers, but that's a separate issue. Your logic is simply wrong. Any journal can publish good papers if it receives any. A well-reviewed journal will not (or very rarely) publish bad papers. E&E regularly publishes atrocious papers. It does not matter how many sterling papers it also publishes. It's so-called "peer review" process is unable to weed out obvious (well, obvious to a scientist) crap, and hence is not doing its job. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Interesting that you put this interpolation here rather than at the end of my response. "E&E regularly publishes atrocious papers" and your evidence is....you will provide a list of papers, we will then debate whether they are atrocious or not, and how many per year counts as regularly...thats ridiculous. So what, I just have to accept your assertion do I? But you don't have to accept any of my assertions? Or are we going to get the gang in, "All scientists know E&E is crap" (which justifies presumably this astonishingly biased page) --just like "All scientists agree that global warming is manmade", and "All scientists agree the science is settled" Well, my dear .....
 * Well, I've read a couple of E&E papers (admittedly all on topics related to global warming), and they are atrocious. But again, we might differ on that judgement. The relevant fact is that we have reliable sources that criticize E&E and in particular it's so-called peer review. And BTW, I put my comment here because that was a part I wanted to comment on. I don't know if you're doing this full-time, but I have some other things to do in my life.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Of Your other point, that the current page makes no claim that E&E only publoishes anti-AGW apapers, is really the central point of this dispute: that what the page says, is not untrue, but is deliberately misleading. Para 2 and para 4 do not say that the journal publishes only anti-AGW papers but any casual reader would think that, from the listing of authors, all to some degree climate sceptics, and the comments about editor and Peisner. I repeat, yet again, any sense of balance, of neutrality, would allow some qualification of those two paras. Is the Queen really just a little old lady living in a big house in London?

Actually I looked again at your lines about peer review and see that you are responding to my suggested correction and, in that context, I take your point. You will, I hope, take my point that the way the author has constructed that paragraph is innuendo and bias-laden, there is no attempt at neutrality there.

That said, my reasonable compromise suggestion at this stage would be as follows: line 1 - Energy & E is an (no quote marks necessary)

para 2 line 3, after Gary Yohe. However this should not be construed as suggesting the journal only publishes papers by climate-sceptics, see (link to ingenta page)

para 2 line 4 after journals. It is however included in scopus (then the link I gave earlier showing its listing - I don't think there is any need to qualify scopus, even though ISI's JCR is qualified.

para 2 line 4 - I think the line about worldcat should come out, it is just meant to be belittling, because most people won't know or understand that worldcat is not comprehensive.

Leave para 3 alone if its going to be difficult within wiki-dom of finding a way of balancing it. (Although it should be, but, as I say, for now, let it be).

Para 4 lines 1 and 2 should come out, the point about the journals (alleged)skeptic has been made. And then lines, Some of the journals .....through to ....Congressman Joe Barton should be moved in para 2, following Gary Yohe. Thus all that part of the argument is together, and it is then logical to have the balancing statement and link following it.

If the lines "When asked atc are not going to be removed, as they should be, the author having just put them in their to make Boehmer Christiansen look a fool, (because HE thinks she is, as is the journal, because together they don't share HIS views) then they should also go into para 2, in the order they presently are, following Barton.

So, is there anything problematic there? Look forward to hearing Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 09:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

And of course, referring back to Stephans comments above about the journals peer review, that it can't be any good because E&E publishes 'crap' quite possibly he is overlooking the fact that like a number of other journals in this field - Energy Policy, for example, which I would dare anyone to call 'crap' - divides contributions into 'Refereed' and 'Viewpoints'; no doubt much of the 'crap' comes from the viewpoints, which are not refereed, which is evident, where various people air their interesting but currently derided theories about this and that. However the point is not that significant any longer —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mary4444 (talk • contribs) 11:00, 16 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You lost me there. E&E published (allegedly) peer-reviewed science papers that were crap and that would not have been accepted at journals with decent editorial standards. What they publish as marked opinion pieces (if anything), and what other journals publish as unrefereed viewpoint articles, is completely irrelevant. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I Would welcome a response to the compromise suggestion Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 11:04, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Referring back to your para, "What is there to recast" (10.27, 16/4/09) actually you are missing the point. It is Pielke himself who was moaning about E&Es peer review. So he can have it both ways, that E&Es procedures are rubbish but his paper is OK? How do we know that? If E&E peer review is rubbish then his paper is suspect, by dint of being published in E&E. What I am clumsily getting at is, by including his comment "I stand by it" the logic of his own position, and thus the force of his remarks about E&E, is weakened. By excluding his full quote he is apparently saying something more forceful than he actually does. To doctor a quote for effect is bias, isn't it? That is the point I principally had in mind there. Of course I don't dispute your mere truism that peer review is a mechanism for keeping out the bad rather than admitting the good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mary4444 (talk • contribs) 14:06, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you know anything about scientific publishing? It's the job of the authors to write a good papers, not the job of reviewers. Pielke claims his paper is ok. That may well be. He is miffed because he has recognized that E&E publishes paper with a certain viewpoint apparently indiscriminately, and that hence the fact that they published his paper does not imply that the paper has a decent level of quality. Please read this carefully - the quality of the paper is not what is under debate, but the question if readers can trust the paper because it has undergone rigorous peer review. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that Scopus is listing it as a Trade journal - which generally indicates lack of review. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:31, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

OK my point about Pielke is wrong. OK Scopus lists it as a trade journal, which is an error, listings compilations often are riddled withg minor errors which no-one bothers to correct, because they are MINOR. I think Scopus also refers to the journal having been published in 1981, which is wrong: so what. But once again, I sesnse the introduction of red herrings here. How about my compromise offer above. Whats wrong with that? As I have pointrd out, in my compromise proposal, I am happy to let para 3 stand, which is where E&Es review standards are vilified, by selective quoting, distortion, partial evidence, so there's no point going on about that. So, what about my compromise proposal. Or do you have a proposal of your own to offer, one that does not result in a chronically biased and misleading page remaining in place; a page written by somone to advance his scientific-political belief system? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mary4444 (talk • contribs) 07:25, 17 April 2009 (UTC) Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 07:29, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh and as for your silly little sneer "do you know anything about scientific publishing", I don't know much but what I do know is that presenting half the evidence and calling it 'truth', or merely letting it be taken as such, is generally known as intellectual dishonesty and is massively frowned upon by people normally engaged in scientific communication. Putting up half the evidence, letting it stand for truth, is, I think you might find, generally known as propaganda. Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 07:35, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Which of course is doubly rich in this context - in effect E&E is being accused of being a propagandist vehicle for anti-MMGW by people themselves using propaganda methods! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mary4444 (talk • contribs) 07:37, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course I mustn't try to score cheap points, and I must keep asking you all to address my compromise proposal above but Stephan, I can't resist: so the journal that published Manns papers also has a crap peer-review system does it; its revciew system wasn't able to keep out crap, was it - and isn't it crap science to embark on statistical analysis when you don't understand the methodology properly, and to make up stats where there are inconvenient gaps - or whatever Mann did? And that journal, with its equally crap peer review system because it couln't keep out a crap paper like Mann's, I suppose it has a Wikipedia page like E&E's where it is rubbished by a breathtaking farrago of half-truth? I'm sure you'll enlighten me. Or perhaps you'll tell me I don't know what I'm talking about: Manns paper has had a lot of citations in ISI so it must be a very good paper! Sorry, couldn't resist. Please don't take it personally. Just address the compromise proposal above or come up with one of your own. Cordially, Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 09:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly you say above somewhere that you put a comment in (wherevcer you put it) because that was the bit of what I was saying you wanted to comment on - you, mean, you don't want to comment on my compromise proposal which followed that part? You have no interest in getting a compromise here? You say you have other things to do - well the quickest way to get shot of all this is come to an agreement. It seems to me my proposals are modest enough, in the circumstances. If you don't like them, suggest something of your own.Mary4444Mary4444 (talk) 09:54, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Some of you might find this interesting: Ownership of articles 5) No individual or selected group of people is entitled the right to control the content of an article. (See Wikipedia:Ownership of articles.) So I guess we could say a believer in manmade global warming plus his friends are not entitled to put up an article rubbishing a publication which they perceive as not being on their 'side'. So is anyone up for looking at my compromise yet? Cordially, Mary 4444Mary4444 (talk) 13:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC) I

I was a bit surprised to see the banner about the neutrality of the page had been removed. I wonder who does that, and on what basis? Anyway I've put it back. Certainly none of my compromise points have been included. So I've made a few changes to get the ball rolling again. Look forward to hearing from the usual suspects, to see if they can justify putting up a farrago of half truth about E&E, in the way no other journal I know of is treated. Couldn't be because they are simply politically opposed to a journal that publishes stuff they don't like? There's the scientific method for you! And if the argument is going to be crap peer review, we'll have to put a page up mocking the joke journal that published Mann's fairy story about the hockey stick, won't we? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.206.148 (talk) 09:01, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Well it didn't take the usual suspects too long: by 10.20 my neutrality dispute banner was taken down! No discussion. No explanantion of how the original neutrality dispute was resolved, by whom, on what basis! Lettng this sort of thing go on makes Wikipedia look stupid. ~Mary 4444~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.206.148 (talk) 09:23, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

10.47 and another set of revisions posted. Lets see how long the self styled arbiters of neutrality let that one stay in place.78.144.206.148 (talk) 09:49, 20 June 2009 (UTC)Mary 4444 78.144.206.148 (talk)

Well not long - the banner about neutrality disputed was gone by 11.24 So I've put it back. See how long it lasts this time. What makes this person who keeps doing this htnk the dispute is resolved? What gives him the right to make this arbitrary decision? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.206.148 (talk) 10:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I have temporally reverted the POV banner myself due to the simple issue this is turning into a tagging match. Mary4444 \ 78.144.206.148 - based upon the diffs i saw due to my responce on the help desk, i would say that the most of your edits are (libelous) claims that are in no way backed by any reliable sources. Can you, in 5 lines tops, describe to me WHAT the POV in this article is, WHY it is a PoV, and what should be changed? Also keep in mind that these claims must be no original research or opinions, so you should be able to back them with reliable sources. Excirial ( Contact me, Contribs ) 10:34, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

"which lists this as a trade journal" (diff). Where does it say that? Disembrangler (talk) 10:30, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * See the list at SCOPUS Title list (slow large xls file) - the data is in row 7061 (changed to CSV - i've added bold to show):
 * "0958305X";;"Energy and Environment";"1995-ongoing, 1981";;"Not OA";;"Trade Journal";"Active";;;;;;"Multi-Science Publishing Co Ltd.";"United Kingdom";"Physical Sciences";"Energy";"Energy (miscellaneous)";"Engineering (all)";"Environmental Science (all)";"Earth and Planetary Sciences (all)";"Environmental Engineering";"Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment";;;;;;;
 * We may want to reference it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:30, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. I expected to find it on the main journal page on Scopus, but it isn't there. So probably we should reference the XLS title list. Disembrangler (talk) 19:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

"Skeptics get a Journal" link is dead, should be removed
The reference given for *three* points in this article is: ''*"ES&T Online News: Skeptics get a journal". http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2005/aug/policy/pt_skeptics.html. Retrieved 2007-10-01.'' That link does not exist. Based on the URL, I also searched the online site for August 2005 issue but was unable to find an article by this title. Since this reference is now nonexistent, uncheckable, doesn't give a *print* reference (date and page number, say) that one might look up in a library, and doesn't seem to have even been cached anywhere, I'm inclined to delete it. So I did delete it, but WMC put it back. So what's the policy on this? Is the fact that somebody *claims* to have found support for a statement in a two-years-ago and since-deleted blog posting considered a valid "reference" for wikipedia purposes? --Blogjack (talk) 16:16, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Just deleting it isn't helpful. Raising it here is. If no-one can find it in, lets say, a week, then it can go William M. Connolley (talk) 17:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I looked around, too, and it seems to be gone for good. We might want to ask Thacker if its archived somewhere. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems to have been a reorganization - everything in the ES&T Online News archive (except the current year) is gone. Good idea to ask Thacker. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I mailed him William M. Connolley (talk) 20:47, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It's official. The link is dead. Yearston (talk) 04:45, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course its not "official" - sites do make changes once in a while, and thus online references can be "lost" for shorter periods of time. As can be seen above an archived version has been requested. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 04:57, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Nobody found it in a week, or a month, or three months, so I'm removing it. Find another source if you want to put it or something like it back in. --Blogjack (talk) 19:04, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but WP:V doesn't require that an article is available online. And everyone here has read the article - we will find a copy don't worry. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Article title
The journal is actually entitled Energy & Environment. So I propose that the title of the article be changed to match that. AlfBit (talk) 19:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * If "&" is more official than "and", then sure. But how do you know?  The publisher's website actually uses "and" mostly: .  Dragons flight (talk) 17:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Reining in the bias

I've changed the opening from 'describes itself as' to 'is', clearly 'describes itself as' is used to imply 'but isn't really'. No call for that. I've removed the reference to Worldcat. That can only be there to mislead the uninformed, imply that the journal is wholly insignificant and could not exist without subventions no doubt from 'dark forces'. Of course anyone who knows anything knows that by no means do all librarians involve themselves with Worldcat so repeating those stats is at best meaningless but, here more likely, at worst misleading. My corrections went up at 9.35, lets see how long Connelly and his little gang of half-truthers let them stay there! Mary4444 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.130.10.179 (talk) 09:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Removing the Worldcat data seems strange - while worldcat may not "involve" all "librarians", they still show relevant distribution data (unless you are somehow saying that worldcat libraries are "special" and are scewed). Try arguing without personal attacks. So i've restored it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 10:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC) [btw. i did a spot-check for my local library (and regional ones) - all of which were registered (Vejle, Denmark (as well as the university libraries in Århus,Ålborg and Odense)) - so it is a rather broad internationally)) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 10:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

So my revisions lasted i hour 20 minutes - not bad I guess! How it can be construed as a personal attack to comment that the people in the business of sustaining the bias on this page are half-truthers seems curious. To say that Danish libraries are in Wordlcat is indicative of Worldcats global reach is a meaningless statement. If you could restrict your argument to university libraries it would be meaningful were you to include an analysis of say USA/Australia/China/Germany for example - if all those universities do send data of all their holdings, including content they obtain through third party licences, to Worldcat, then we could reasonably agree that Worldcat records are a pretty good indicator of a journals reach. As it stands, teh comment is meaningless, and is only their to disparage the journal in the eyes of those who are uninformed as to the meaning of WOrldcat statistics. And of course, does any other journal with a Wikipedia page have this information added? And, does the page about any other journal have the line 'describes itself as' - of course, not false, just a half truth, like the Queen being an old lady in London .... So permit me to coorect your errors. Mary 4444 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.130.10.179 (talk) 11:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * With 71,000 libraries in 114 countries it is a pretty good indicator of how widespread a distribution is. Sorry but you seem to act more from WP:POV than from a rational viewpoint. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

No I don't think I am operating from a POV at all, I am just trying to remove unreasonable bias. Yes 71000 libraries in 114 countries is APPARENTLY a good indicator: but what is the nature of those libraries, would be more interesting, and make teh comment about E&E less an exercise in bias. If it could be shown that in that figure were the vast majority of the worlds 30,000 or so university libraries I would have to concede that my point has no merit. But then I would still question why the figure is mentioned, if not to disparage, and whether a Worldcat holding figure is used on the page of any other journal. Mary 4444 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.130.10.179 (talk) 11:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, Woldcat figures are used in several other articles. As for Woldcat itself - why don't you do some research and find some reliable source that supports your point of view. As it is right now you are doing original research. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Kim, useful suggestion, I'll look into it in the New Year. Happy Christmas & New Year81.130.10.179 (talk) 11:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)Mary 444481.130.10.179 (talk) 11:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Merry Christmas to you as well. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Article probation
Please note that, by a decision of the Wikipedia community, this article and others relating to climate change (broadly construed) has been placed under article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Wikipedia. Please see General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:37, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Lindzen
Strange Changes! Hello. I added Richard Lindzens name to the list of sceptics who have published in Energy & Environemnt. It has been removed. Why? 81.130.34.130 (talk) 12:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)Mary 4444 12:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it has not been removed. You are the last person to edit the article, and Lindzen is in the article. I suspect you are confused because there are contributors listed both in the lede (where Lindzen is not named), and in the section on Climate change skepticism where you added him and where he still is. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Since we're on about this: as I read it, that list is there, for one "side", to read "don't trust this thing; look at the skeptics who have published there" and for the other side as "trust this journal; look at these people". Is this a good use for the list? Most journals don't have such a one-sided list of contributors William M. Connolley (talk) 12:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Stephan, thanks for clarifying that. William, you will see that most earlier versions of this page included the list of skeptics, presumably in order to make the point that the journal is a 'skeptics journal' (and therefore rubbish, because all skeptics are wrong/bonkers/stooges of big oil). In earlier discussions I have made the point that it publishes on plenty of other energy & environment topics as well as climate policy/science. No-one seemed too interested in that. My view is you can't have it both ways: either you have your list of skeptics, in order to ridicule the journal without expressly doing so, or re-write the page in a more balanced way. No doubt, prior to the CRU emails scandal, the thought 'trust this journal;look at these people', would never have entered your head. I am sure EE is in for a bit of a re-rating soon, in many peoples eyes. Perhaps that will be the time to re-write this page; for now, why not leave it alone? 81.130.34.130 (talk) 18:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)mary444481.130.34.130 (talk) 18:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, the E&E articles I have looked at (which are all climate related) are nearly universal crap. And that's not based on the results, but on the methods and misrepresentation of the state of the science. Nothing will change that, not even validation of the results (not that that's likely) - a wrong argument is a wrong argument, even if, by accident, the conclusion is right ("heavier objects fall faster through air than lighter objects because the djinn don't like to hold them up"). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:36, 6 January 2010


 * I don't think this example holds up (see Galileo). Maybe you're thinking of djinn resistance to objects with a large surface area/weight ratio. I believe Lord Monckton, the Galileo of our times, has written the definitive analysis.JQ (talk) 06:00, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I certainly defer to Lord Monckton in nearly all things (like e.g. the sums of small integers and the shape of a circle). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Well of course you are entitled to your opinion' though I suppose plenty of the authors of the maybe 1000 Or so papers it has published over the last 20 or so years might disagree; and the subscibers - 97% renewal rate suggests as much - who pays over 400 pounds a year for 'universal crap'? anyway, why have youtaken off that list of heroes in the struggle against the crap science racket/carbon trading scam of AGW? Remember, it was you lot who put it there to make the journal look stupid. Maybe you took it down because all of a sudden its making the crap science/capitalist scammers look stupid? Anyway, its been there for ages with no problem. Please explain on what grounds youare removing it84.13.43.143 (talk) 20:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)Mary444484.13.43.143 (talk) 20:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * What? (Translation: my last edit was over 10 days ago, and added deleted text. I have no idea what you are talking about. And I don't think I ever put that list in, either). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

You are right and I am obviously going mad, I looked again and it was there - apologies 84.13.43.143 (talk) 20:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)Mary444484.13.43.143 (talk) 20:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * WHAAOE ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Pielke revert war
We cite an opinion by Roger Pielke, Jr. from the Nature Blog, which is persistently being removed with spurious or no edit summaries. Pielke is an expert on his own opinion, there is no doubt that he actually wrote that opinion, and he is a fairly prominent scientist - one of the very few actually published by E&E. His opinion is relevant and notable. The Nature Blog is not your average open blog, either, but a venue in which known experts exchange opinions. Restored. Someone please semi this article for a week or so. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:15, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, this is still an unreliable blog posting. We need independent fact checking. 70.0.26.195 (talk) 16:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You cannot fact-check an opinion, and that has never been a requirement. That's why it is reported as an attributed opinion ("Pielke said"), and not as a fact. See WP:SPS and WP:RS. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This is undue weight on a single opinion. 173.127.228.247 (talk) 16:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's an obscure topic and Pielke is a prominent scientist. I don't see undue weight. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That's your opinion. Let's let a reliable source report Pielke's opinion with respect to E&E. 173.127.228.247 (talk) 16:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Pielke is a reliable source on his opinion of E&E, in fact he is the only expert there is on that particular subject. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no way to verify Blog comments, anyone can impersonate Dr. Pielke and post it as a Blog comment. The rules for sourcing cannot be changed because a name looks familiar. Find a reliable source where he made those comments. Your double standard is noted by removing Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen own opinion. I am not alone sharing this opinion as stated above by Stephan. --JournalScholar June 1, 2010
 * It would be rather hard to impersonate Pielke Jr. on his own blog . There is a large and not very subtle difference between regular comments and the comments of the blog owner. Do please notice that Sonja Boehmer isn't the one writing on the other blog - its not hers - and we have no way to verify whether the blog is relating the words of Boehmer correctly (or even if they are invented). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Correction: This was not posted on Prometheus as i thought - but the Nature blog is certainly reliable, especially considering that Pielke is the author of the top posting (and that Nature takes a rather strong stand against impostors of known authors). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:37, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Thistlethorn, 31 May 2010
--editsemiprotected--

Please remove text as follows:

"Boehmer-Christiansen's explanation of her political agenda,[12]

"My political agenda is simple and open; it concerns the role of research ambitions in the making of policy. I concluded from a research project about the IPCC - funded by the UK government during the mid 1990s - that this body was set up to support, initially, climate change research projects supported by the WMO and hence the rapidly evolving art and science of climate modeling. A little later the IPCC came to serve an intergovernmental treaty, the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This enshrines in law that future climate change would be warming caused by greenhouse gases (this remains debated), is man-made (to what an extend remains debated) as well as dangerous (remains debated). It became a task of the IPCC government selected and government funded, to support the theory that this man-made warming would be dangerous rather than beneficial, as some argue. The solutions to this assumed problem were worked out by IPCC working group three, which worked largely independently of the science working group one and consisted primarily of parties interested in a 'green' energy agenda, including people from environment agencies, NGOs and environmental economics. This group supplied the science group with emission scenarios that have been widely criticized and which certainly enhanced the 'danger'. From interviews and my own reading I concluded that the climate science debate WAS BY NO MEANS OVER AND SHOULD CONTINUE. However, when I noticed that scientific critics of the IPCC science working group were increasingly side-lined and had difficulties being published - when offered the editorship of E&E, I decided to continue publishing 'climate skeptics' and document the politics associated with the science debate. The implications for energy policy and technology are obvious. I myself have argued the cause of climate 'realism' - I am a geomorphologist by academic training before switching to environmental international relations - but do so on more the basis of political rather than science-based arguments. As far as the science of climate change is concerned, I would describe myself as agnostic. In my opinion the global climate research enterprise must be considered as an independent political actor in environmental politics. I have widely published on this subject myself, and my own research conclusions have influenced my editorial policy. I also rely on an excellent and most helpful editorial board which includes a number of experienced scientists. Several of the most respected 'climate skeptics' regularly peer-review IPCC critical papers I publish." "

Quoted text is a long, self serving rant with very dubious sources (personal email to operator of "skeptical" blog. It provides no context to quote listed above it in article.

Thistlethorn (talk) 15:47, 31 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Reverted back to the old version. You are entirely correct in that it is unreliably sourced. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:02, 31 M2010 (UTC)

in what way is it unreliable? if Pielkes own comments on EE count as reliable (see above) why do the editors not? That apart, there is clearly no need for the wholw quote, indeed it is rambling, but there is need for more than the single phrase selected, out of context, no doubt in order to make the editor look ridiculous. Please, lets try to create a balnced page. ~Mary4444~
 * Pielke is expressing his personal opinion - on which he is the eminent reliable source. The other data was sourced to a blog, which is never a reliable source for factual information. (see: WP:RS). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:21, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

But Pielke's comment was sourced to a blog - Nature's. So where is the lack of equivalence? Pielke expresses his own opinion to a blog, and thats OK, SB-C expresses her own opinion to a blog and thats not OK? Thats hard to understand. Why don't we just allow a bit of context, cut out some of the rambling, to make her otherwise odd comment more understandable? After all, we are trying to produce a balanced page about EE, we are not trying to ridicule it, are we?~Mary4444~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.134.102.227 (talk) 16:39, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Who publishes populartechnology.net? Is the sponsor of similar stature to Nature (journal)? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

What? So does the no-blog rule now read, "Comments from blogs can't be included except for when they come from blogs 'we' approve of, have, in our opinion, 'stature'? Surely, either no blogs, in which case Pielke comment must go, or, all blogs, in which case some amplification ofthe SB-C statement must be allowed?~Mary444481.134.102.227 (talk) 16:55, 2 June 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.134.190 (talk) 18:04, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The policy is not so black-and-white. See WP:V. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:15, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Policy looks pretty b+w to me. In what way is it not b+w? Specifically, in what way does it allow you, whoever you may be, to approve of certain blogs but not others? Can I remind you that the whole point of Wikipedia is to create information from a neutral point of view, not champion organisations and their blogs which you happen to approve of?

Unless you can do better than your mere assertion above, that the policy is not b+w (therefore entitling you/your mates to exclude anything that doesn't suit you)then it has to be accepted that, in the interests of neutrality, Pielkes comment must be removed. The logic of that position is unassailable. I look forward to hearing the views of others on this.~Mary4444~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.134.102.227 (talk) 07:56, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Look again!. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:12, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

OK I looked again. I don't see where it says you guys can use those blogs where it serves your purposes (rubbishing EE instead of trying to create a neutral page) and not allow the use of blogs which might not serve your purposes. Please explain what, in that section you linked to, I am failing to understand. Why is the Pielke blog-offering OK, but the SB-C blog-offering not OK, when both are speaking whereof they know most, themselves and theior own activities? Or, failing that, would it not be OK to edit down Pielkes quote to make him look foolish too?~Mary4444~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.134.102.227 (talk) 12:37, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * How do we know Dr. Boehmer-Christiansen actually wrote the blog posting in question? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

PLease don't be trivial, try to address the point, namely the inequity in admitting 'blogs-we-like, whilst excluding 'blogs-we-don't-like'.~Mary4444~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.134.102.227 (talk) 16:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the, in many peoples view, contentious value judgement that ISI is a leading database etc etc. If Scopus were to be qualified in some similar way then the value judgement about ISI wold be acceptable. As it was, it was creating bias on the page. Similarly fighting bias, I have removed the Pielke quote: no SB-C blogging, no Pielke blogging - lets have a level playing field chaps.Mary444481.134.102.227 (talk) 08:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a clear difference of the two sources here. One is a post by Pielke himself which is verifiable. The other is personal email correspondence between the operator of a personal blog and the quoted party with no way to verify.Thistlethorn (talk) 14:47, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

What nonsense. All you are saying is that the name 'Nature' impresses you, good for you, and that your experience of the debates and discussions around climate science/energy policy is so limited that you yourself are not familiar with the hugely influential 'Popular Technology' website, among its glories being 500 or so peer reviewed papers challenging AGW (ie the science is not settled, propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding). The narrowness of your mind and your naivete hardly justify your altering pages which the rest of us are trying to get balanced. However, rather than undo your intemperate revisions immediately, given that we are talking about sources, I wonder if that quote from SB-C should be elimiated entirely, instead of being amplified, contextualised. Purportedly, the quote comes from some higher education journal. In Talk earlier, there was discussion about the link having been broken. Clicking onto the present link, it does not look like a typeset page from a recognisable, reputable publication, ie is it a real link back to the actual publication, or has someone just typed up the page, and asserted that it comes from the publication? And if someone has simply typed it up, how do we know its true. It pains me to confess that AGW-esr have been known to be a tiny bit intellectually dishonest in the past, so if this is not actually a link back to the publication itself, but to someone's re-written version of an article, possibly edited, surely it should come out: not reliable? Interested in all your views. Perhaps because I'm a computer know-nothing, I don't know that its impossible for a link to link to anything other than what it claims to be linking too? Mary444481.134.102.227 (talk) 16:32, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

In fact I've just googled the Chronicle of Higher Education and none of its pages look remotely like ref 9 in the Energy & Environemnt article. Maybe in 2003 Chronuicle of Higher Education was a bit less flashy than it is now, but I really really doubt it was as simple as that page, ref 9. So there is a very strong case for disputing that that text is the text from Chronicle of Higher Education, is there not? So out it comes, yes? Yes. mary444481.134.102.227 (talk) 16:41, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * We seem to have a disagreement here. Thus we should take it to the reliable sources noticeboard for other opinions. Agreed? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Or we can try to explain that the PDF link is to a courtesy copy and that the correct way to verify the source is to go to an archive library, get the journal issue, and check page 16. Or go here and pay to see the full text online at the web site of the magazine. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Just as a point of order, PopularTechnology.net is hardly hugely influential, nor is the list of papers "challenging AGW" actually doing so. It's a personal blog by a computer technician that contains a huge amount of errors when it comes to AGW. I am well familiar with both the website and the author, and intellectual honesty is hardly the first thing that comes to mind when looking at it. Thistlethorn (talk) 18:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

thistelethorn, thank you for expressing your opinion couteously. But it is still only your opinion. Why shouldyour opinion prevail over mine? Stefan, the link you give is not to the whole article but to a paywall. I don'tknow what archive library has this journal. Anyway surely your proposals are a curious inversion. You are saying, in effect, anyone can put up any old thing as a link and challenge others to go find out if its true, if they've got the money or time to be bothered. How is that right? Clearly, as it stands, that citation is not linked to a verifiable source and cannot be admitted. The link is to a typescript (allegedly) of the article which cannot be easily verified. Unacceptable, surely? And so getting rid of that quote is not only unarguably the right thing to do, it takes off the table the tedious argument about whether blog A is as valid/more valid than blog B —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.31.108 (talk) 20:24, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It is my opinion that the author of PopularTechnology.net isn't intellectually honest, but it is not only my opinion that his list doesn't support skepticism of AGW, nor that he is a computer technician and not a climate scientist and that PT.net is him personal blog, those are facts that is evident if you read the blog in question as well as the articles cited there. The Nature blog, in comparison, is a well known source, and falls under the Wiki rules of WP:NEWSBLOG as already stated. PT.net does not. Pertaining to the article from Chronicle of Higher Education, I really don't see what the problem is. The article is cited in full. We can't simply disregard the article because the link to the actual journal is behind a pay wall. I quote from Wikipedia: Verifiability - Access to Sources: "The principle of verifiability implies nothing about ease of access to sources: some online sources may require payment, while some print sources may be available only in university libraries."Thistlethorn (talk) 20:37, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed. See WP:PAYWALL. Sources do not have to be available for free, and sources do not have be available online. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:45, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Curry on E+E
http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/15/craig-loehle-reconstruction/#comment-118361 William M. Connolley (talk) 18:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Given the events of the last 9 months, I wouldn't mind betting she's changed her tune somewhat. And if you read down that thread, interesting comment from Indur Golkany, if it weren't for EE, no M&M paper, no Wegman, no ClimateAudit (and probably no CRU 'hacked' emails and no sseries of enquiries - even if they all have amounted to no more than the great and good covering their own backsides). So, despise it all you like, EE has its small place in history, a place which will grow as climate 'science' continues to be discredited.Mary4444 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.130.60.109 (talk) 10:15, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

more misrepresentation
Clearly there is no interest in creating a neutral page about Energy & Environment, the whole purpose of this page is to belittle, ridicule it etc, just because its ability to publish peer reviewed papers criticising warmists arguments strikes at the heart of the infantile "science is settled", "all scientists agree" catchphrases, with which the agitators advocating AGW hope to kid the great unwashed. The latest example is that someone has managed to change the page, (don't know how they've done that, I can't see a way to do it, perhaps I'm not high enough up the Wiki hierarchy) to add a bit more half truthery, a tendentious quote from some obscure Australian academic. Take a look at what he actually said : "Plimer repeatedly veers off to the climate sceptic's journal of choice, the bottom-tier Energy and Environment, to advance all manner of absurd theories: for example, that CO2 concentrations actually have fallen since 1942", then take a look at how the half-truthers have put this on the EE page:


 * Writing in The Australian, Michael Ashley of the University of New South Wales described the publication as "the climate sceptic's journal of choice, the bottom-tier Energy and Environment", adding that it was used "to advance all manner of absurd theories: for example, that CO2 concentrations actually have fallen since 1942"[10]

Spot the difference? In the actual quote it is Plimer who is advancing 'absurd theories'. In the version that some half-truther high up Wikipedia, in a position to alter a page locked to everyone else, has put on the EE Wikipedia, it is EE that 'advances all manner of absurd theories'.

And of course, there's no attempt to make plain the purpose of Ashleys article, a review of PLimers book - just let it appear to be an article crapping on EE, let it be inferred that newspaper articles of such a sort are not rareities or oddities, or even passing mentions, that the world's press is lining up to rubbish this rubbish journal....oh, the intellectual rigour of the half-truthers....

There's nothing much neutral about this Wikipedia page, its a testament to a quasi-Leninst point of view, that the warmist view is right and its fair game to half truth, libel, misrepresent, deride, as much as they want. Intellectual honesty - just another bourgeois conceit, I suppose?~mary4444~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.130.72.168 (talk) 13:51, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I don't know why the quote from the Wikipedia entry has not displayed, go to the Wikipedia page for Energy & Environemnt to see it~Mary4444~