Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Climate change/Archive 4

Antarctica
I have nominated Antarctica for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. — Chidgk1 (talk 9 January 2022

Using "According to IPCC this will happen" - yes or no or when
There was an important discussion on the talk page of the climate change article which has already been archived by now but which I felt was very important. It was started by, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Effects_of_climate_change/Archive_8#Explicitly_mentioning_the_IPCC_report. I think it was archived prematurely. I'd like to distill from the discussion a recommendation which I'd like to place on the WikiProject CC page as guidance. Perhaps something like We recommend that you use wording in Wikipedia CC articles such as "According to IPCC this (XX) has happened... " only sparingly (maybe just once or twice, and not in the lead) as we can present these things as fact; otherwise they might sound like opinion (especially for those people who don't know what IPCC is; more common than we might like to believe. I'll copy the old discussion here below, hope that is OK (if not, someone could delete it): EMsmile (talk) 20:55, 5 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I can't think of reasons to say "according to the IPCC..." when we're talking about something that has already happened. When we're talking about predictions for the future, it depends on the type of prediction. If they state it as a fact, like "sea levels will continue to rise", then in-text attribution is not appropriate. There are things the IPCC says that are more like opinions and should be attributed, e.g. "The IPCC estimates that 2.5% of world gross domestic product (GDP) would need to be invested in the energy system each year between 2016 and 2035 to limit global warming to 1.5 °C". Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 05:15, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Explicitly mentioning the IPCC report
This article, and quite a few other articles, often attribute statements to IPCC reports in-text. I think we should stop doing that for two reasons
 * It's stating Facts as opinion; these statements are frequently uncontroversial among experts
 * The reports have really long names, and the IPCC as well. As such, your sentences become unwieldy. Femke (talk) 20:18, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I am not really sure about this. I attributed statements to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report in several instances in my edits today because I thought it's an authoritative report where people would clearly see this as an unbiased, important source (rather than e.g. a singular study in an obscure journal, or a newspaper article). I am not clear on your "facts as opinion" issue? Are you saying that some people would equate an IPCC report with an opinion piece? Also, some of the articles where I added it hadn't even mentioned the sixth report once so far which I felt was a flaw. The name of the report could be shortened if needed (I don't think it's too unwieldy). In any case, I think it's useful to mention the year (2021) because in many paragraphs, the other information mentions the year as well, e.g. "a study from 2009 found that...". With the 2021 year it's clear that the data is very recent. Or is it better not to mention the year? EMsmile (talk) 21:01, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Sentences like "According to the IPCC, X happened" are problematic. Many readesr will be unfamiliar with how authoritative the IPCC is, and read this like "According to some people, X happened, but other experts may disagree". They should read "X happened".
 * Other mentions may distract from talking about substance. The 'on land' section is particularly poorly introduced. We need to wait till the fourth sentence before we reach something of substance. Sentences like: The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (2021) stated that the sensitivity to warming of the "1981–2010 Northern hemisphere snow cover extent" is about minus 1.9 million km2 per degrees Celsius throughout the snow season" are unnecessary complicated, and feel slightly biased to me. Would any expert disagree with this statement? If not, don't mention the specific expert (group). Femke (talk) 21:22, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, I hadn't thought of it that way. I would have thought that the general public knows that the IPCC reports are THE most reliable source of information (or if they don't know it yet we should help them find out). Is there evidence that this is not so? If so, that's disappointing. I would similarly sometimes write in other contexts "WHO have published information about..." thinking that it makes the statement more powerful as WHO should be trustworthy. If that is not the case, then hmmmm... Would you say that the IPCC report should ideally not be mentioned in an article at all, or only once or twice? E.g. the article Retreat of glaciers since 1850 hadn't mentioned the 6th IPCC report at all until I included it today (it did mention earlier IPCC reports though). EMsmile (talk) 21:46, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I have never seen the need to mention it. There are some cases where it may be useful to mention IPCC + year - report. We're citing the report already, so mentioning it in the text would be a bit duplicate.
 * For instance, in retreat of glaciers, I would definitely not mention it in the first paragraph of the lede, but I wouldn't mind it too much if it is mentioned further in the body in the context of projections. Femke (talk) 21:56, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
 * (after edit conflict) I agree with Femke on this issue. Scientists know the IPCC is authoritative, even re predictions; however, many lay readers might interpret the phrase, "the IPCC stated...", as being just one more opinion. — RCraig09 (talk) 21:56, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Some Presidents and Prime Ministers know and some don't! Chidgk1 (talk) 12:33, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I remember there is a similar issue at African humid period regarding IPCC reports. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:32, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
 * So how do we avoid then that lots of sentence that talk about the future will be in passive voice? Like: "It has been predicted that in 2030 xxx will occur." When I read a sentence like that I ask myself: who has predicted that and when was the prediction made? I think the average reader will not click on the little raised number in square brackets at the end of the sentence (I never did before I became a Wikipedia editor). I think for future predictions it would be better to say in the sentence who has predicted it an when. And surely IPCC reports are fairly obvious for the general public to be reliable sources (but perhaps mine is a minority view here). We can't really state something as a fact that is a prediction. I mean yes the prediction is a fact but not the thing itself. So we can't really say "sea level will rise by xx cm by 2030" but "it has been predicted that... ". Right? EMsmile (talk) 11:28, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe "the best prediction is that ......" or "the best 2021 prediction is that ...."? Chidgk1 (talk) 12:28, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * In the Africa example that User:Jo-Jo Eumerus mentioned, it says in the article: "The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C and the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report indicate that global warming will likely result in increased precipitation across most of East Africa, parts of Central Africa and the principal wet season of West Africa, although there is significant uncertainty related to these projections especially for West Africa." I couldn't see a discussion about it on the talk pages. EMsmile (talk) 11:30, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Suggest don't name it in leads. Not sure if the name of the report should be mentioned in the main text or not but if it is then for the first mention it could be described very briefly e.g. BBC say "a major UN scientific report" - Royal Geographical Society "the most up-to-date physical understanding of our climate system and climate change" - Carbon Brief "landmark assessment report" etc Chidgk1 (talk) 12:19, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me but could someone argue that "how do you prove that this is a landmark report?", "who says that it's a major report?". Could someone argue that we are introducing some sort of bias or subjectivity with such wording? If not, then I think it would be great to do that, and to educate the general public about the importance of the IPCC reports. EMsmile (talk) 12:49, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Possible/advisable to suggest articles to student editors?
Hello and anyone else interested,

I just noticed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Bentley_University/NASE_337-1_Global_Climate_Change_(Spring_2022) which looks great. Especially pleased because students have not blundered into any FA articles (presumably from your advice) and that one student has selected Climate finance, as I think we are weak on economics.

I have a few questions:

1) I noticed the above by chance. Is it possible in future for this project to be notified (perhaps automatically on this talk page) when obviously climate change related courses are created?

2) Is it possible/advisable for us to suggest articles for students to work on? If not could they at least be advised to ask here if unsure? With the IPCC AR 6 report recently come out there is probably quite a lot that editors here could use help on.

3) If I understand right the students have been asked to edit existing articles rather than create new ones - which is maybe sensible as creating a new article is tough for new editors. However they seem to be following a (very good) guide which is about "Writing a Wikipedia article, from start to finish". I am a bit concerned they might write 5000 word drafts, stick the whole thing in an existing article and get discouraged if another editor reverts. Still maybe they have been reminded of the section at the top of page 13 so maybe will be ok.

4) If the students were asked to create completely new articles then selecting a topic would be more difficult, but we might be able to suggest some. For example articles about climate change in countries not yet covered on Wikipedia. However unless the student was from that country it might be hard for them to find sources.

Good luck with the course

Chidgk1 (talk) 07:40, 2 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Excellent points, User:Chidgk1. One type of climate change articles which I think is nearly perfect for student editors to get involved in is the suite of climate change in country X articles. They can either improve existing ones or set up new ones, following the structure that we have developed (here). I think it's easy to do for them, teaches them about Wikipedia editing and is useful for other readers. EMsmile (talk) 14:17, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * (1) I don't think automatic notification would work given the way things are currently set up, but I can talk to Sage about possibly doing something like that in the future. I could probably do it manually, though completeness will depend on my remembering to do so. Worth a shot though.
 * (2) That's an interesting idea. While some instructors have specific ideas about what they want their students to work on, a lot appreciate help finding good candidate articles. I think that if people could suggest a list of articles or areas, we could direct instructors and students towards that page. A "education corner" or something? I will talk to my colleagues about that.
 * (3) Most student editors (somewhere around 90%) work on existing articles, but it varies a lot from class to class. The brochure is more of a supportive reference (which needs updating); the main process relies on these training modules. For this class in particular you can see the series of steps on the class timeline. We do try to discourage students from dumping everything in in one big edit (see this slide in particular) to avoid the big edit-big revert problem.
 * (4) I agree that creating articles on "climate change in [country]" is probably the best area for new article creation. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:30, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Here are current classes that are tagged with "Environmental science" (so not necessarily climate change, but more likely to have students editing there
 * Active
 * Global Climate Change
 * ENVS 135 (General environmental topics)
 * Climate Change
 * Biogeochemical Processes
 * Springs, Swamps, and Sinkholes (unlikely to edit climate change)
 * Oceanography
 * Global Sustainability Efforts (looks like there's only one student editor enrolled)
 * Environmental Biological Processes (probably not primarily climate change articles)
 * Environmental Ethics and the National Parks (doesn't look related)
 * Not yet active
 * Climate change water adaptation approaches (starts the week of March 27)
 * Geology Field Course (hasn't started yet, unlikely to be related) Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:48, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah thanks very much Ian. So it seems the instructor can either give the students a completely free choice or give them a list of articles to select from. And I see the instructor training mentions assessment tables at https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/instructors/finding-articles/wikiproject-assessment-tables So perhaps the lesson for us is to make sure our article assessment is kept up to date.Chidgk1 (talk) 17:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * One more class that's taking an interest in climate change articles: [[wikiedudashboard:courses/York_University/Applied_Plant_Ecology_Winter_2022_(Winter). Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:39, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes pretty bold to go for the politics article! If they struggle let us know if we can help  Chidgk1 (talk) 14:50, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Off topic for climate change but I just created 2022 Kunming Biodiversity Conference if the student on politics wants something easier. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:54, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
 * In addition to country articles, perhaps there is a way to make a list of low-hanging fruit (there is a to-do list, but that's not all easy). In addition to the country articles (which should be quite simple to develop based on existing templates), we're missing an article on Climate change and shipping, which there are many sources for. Happily, if the aim is to edit existing articles, relevant information can be added to the quite poor Environmental effects of shipping (room for non-climate change related content too). I suspect Avoid-Shift-Improve could be improved without too much hassle, and it's a bit cross-cutting if there is a class that isn't mostly climate change. Climate change and fisheries has many cn tags that shouldn't be too difficult, as well as huge room for expansion (probably even from the existing references). Chidgk1 has been working on some more specific country articles, perhaps they can advise if there is an easy topic. CMD (talk) 15:09, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Not worth making a list if they are not interested in our suggestions - lets see if they take up my first one Chidgk1 (talk) 17:38, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
 * At Uppsala University in Sweden we have since 2017 edited articles on English Wikipedia within the course Ecological Effects of Climate Changes https://www.uu.se/en/admissions/freestanding-courses/course/?kKod=1BG417&typ=1. The following articles have been heavily expanded. 2017: Climate change in Norway, Climate change in Sweden, Biofuel in Sweden, Biofuel in Denmark; 2018: Biofuel in the European Union, Solar power in Italy, Biofuel in Australia, Climate of Svalbard; 2019: Mire, Socio-hydrology, Mitigation of global warming in Australia, Adaptation to global warming in Australia, Climate change in Australia; 2020: Climate change and invasive species, Grassland, Meadow, Palsa, Pingo; 2021: Paludiculture, Climate change in the Arctic, Climate change in Russia, Climate change in France, NDCs to Climate change in Country X articles.
 * This year we intend to continue with articles in the Climate change in Country X category. We are focusing on countries in Europe and will this time start from scratch for some countries. However, we also welcome suggestions of other articles to work on, but please first see how much work we expect from our students so you have an idea whether your suggestion is within that ball park (check for example https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Climate_change_in_France&type=revision&diff=1023982667&oldid=1017730403). On Monday, 4th of April, we have our first meeting with the students and after that I will update here on which pages that have been selected for this year. Olle Terenius (UU) (talk) 15:15, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The articles selected were Climate change in Austria, Climate change in Antarctica and Climate Change in Italy (new page). We may have one group of students editing something, but that will be determined later. Olle Terenius (UU) (talk) 17:07, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Great. If your students have any difficulty with the Italy article let me know as I wrote quite a lot of Climate change in Turkey - but I may steal some of their Mediterranean sources! Chidgk1 (talk) 19:12, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Now the article Climate change in Austria has been updated and Climate Change in Italy has been created. Please take a look and comment/edit as you wish. I will meet with the students again tomorrow (in 24 hours from now) and any reaction from the community will be part of their presentation. Olle Terenius (UU) (talk) 14:44, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Now also the article Climate change in Antarctica has been updated. Please take a look and comment/edit as you wish. Olle Terenius (UU) (talk) 09:19, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Now also the article Climate change in Antarctica has been updated. Please take a look and comment/edit as you wish. Olle Terenius (UU) (talk) 09:19, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Article that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject
Recently, the National Security Archive published a post, citing many declassified documents, entitled "Climate Change and the Military: Examining the Pentagon’s Integration of National Security Interests and Environmental Goals under Clinton". I thought it might be of interest to members of this WikiProject, especially those editing pages about climate change policy, or even the U.S. military. --Historyday01 (talk) 17:06, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Hot dry rock geothermal energy
An article that you have been involved in editing&mdash;Hot dry rock geothermal energy&mdash;has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Chidgk1 (talk) 18:12, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Thoughts on climate change and ecosystems - again an overlapping article
Some sections of the article climate change and ecosystems overlap a lot with effects of climate change and its sub-articles. E.g. the whole section on oceans overlaps 100% with effects of climate change on oceans. I suggest to rename this article to effects of climate change on ecosystems and then to rework it to reduce overlap with the other articles in the suite of "effects of climate change on...". Does that sound right? Please provide your thoughts here or on the talk page of the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climate_change_and_ecosystems#Overlap_with_effects_of_climate_change EMsmile (talk) 08:36, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
 * update: this article has now been changed to effects of climate change on ecosystems but still needs further work to reduce overlap. I am wondering if we should also change these (@User:Sadads)?


 * Climate change and birds to "effects of climate change on birds"
 * Climate change and infectious diseases to "effects of climate change on infectious diseases"
 * Climate change and invasive species to "effects of climate change on invasive species"
 * Our category on "effects of climate change" currently looks like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Effects_of_climate_change EMsmile (talk) 22:25, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't have a strong opinions about the titles, I have yet to see evidence that either of the naming conventions helps with Google or reader results in one way or another -- I think @EMsmile naming is mostly a matter of concern for Wikipedians and if it covers the scope identified by academics. Sadads (talk) 20:03, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I prefer the shorter titles. "Effects of" is clearly implied. Femke (talk) 20:15, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sadads: It's not so much the Google searches that I have in mind. It's more to make it clearer to other editors (in particular student editors) what should be the focus of the article. I find that students these days add a lot of stuff to climate change sub-sub-articles but often it doesn't fit all that well. I dread a situation where we get loads and loads of small sub-articles which are all called "climate change and..." (could be "climate change and pets", "climate change and wildfires", "climate change and flowers") which the experienced Wikipedians later have to mop up, merge, update. If we call these articles rather "effects of climate change on..." it's much clearer what they are for. I noticed that also for the article that used to be called "climate change and agriculture". It was quite a mess until we split it into greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and effects of climate change on agriculture. If the article is just "CC and XX " it is not always clear if we are talking about effects of CC on XX or if we're talking about the impacts of XX on climate change (like you can see from the agriculture example). EMsmile (talk) 22:11, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Limits to Growth
There is a debate in progress at talk:Limits to Growth that members of this WP may be able to contribute to or advise on. At time of writing, the relevant sections are the last five. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:16, 1 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @John Maynard Friedman It appears BL has been blocked, Sadads (talk) 14:03, 2 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks but an appeal may succeed. I am not asking for anyone to take sides, but rather to look at how criticism can be represented fairly. Editors in this WikiProject probably have a lot more experience of conflict resolution between diametrically opposed perspectives in this field and I had hoped might be able to help move towards equitable resolution. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:41, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Climate change content into natural hazard and natural disaster?
I can't really get my head around the two articles natural hazard and natural disaster and if/how we can mention climate change effects there. E.g. both articles talk about wildfires, hurricanes, heatwaves and droughts but without saying much about the effects of climate change. One could argue that that kind of content is available in the respective sub-articles, i.e. within wildfire. Still, I find the current setup not satisfactory. There is also a half-baked discussion about merging the two or re-focusing them as the distinction between natural hazard and natural disaster is unclear and they overlap a lot. The hate note at "natural disaster" says "This article is about natural disasters. For the natural hazards that might lead to disasters, see Natural hazard." but I don't think this works consistently. EMsmile (talk) 11:51, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not planning on helping there, but FWIW, when I'm doing outdoor education I teach people to recognize "natural hazards" all the time. Those are potential problems, given the time and place and context.  When we go ski mountaineering, we must watch for likely avalanche paths and conditions, and make a plan to deal with those "natural hazards".   If an avalanche in the backcountry kills me, that "natural hazard" has produced an event that will ruin my day, but its just me and its not a "disaster".  If the same slide instead wipes a crowded resort off the map, that's a disaster.  The TOC of hazards article is virtually a perfect subset of the disasters article, and they should obviously be merged, in my opinion.  As for climate change, I'd get the merge done first and then take a crack at that.  But that's just my two cents, hope it helps NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:14, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * PS Comparison definitions of the two phrases can be found in the last paragraph of this US FEMA webpage. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:36, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's very useful. I think this is a good way forward: The TOC of hazards article is virtually a perfect subset of the disasters article, and they should obviously be merged, in my opinion.. EMsmile (talk) 09:54, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

ProveIt citation tool
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:47, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * FYI I use - and love - the ease of the ProveIt citation tool, available in a user's list of standard gadgets (under perferences)
 * On the projects tab "small to medium tasks", under "how to add a citation", I suggest this tool is so awesome it merits mentioning; if any of the eds who have created that awesome tab agree, please add it
 * Certainly getting cites to "good article" standard is tedious. How is it better than "automatic" in Visual Editor please? For example can it do pdfs automatically? Chidgk1 (talk) 19:08, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * In ProveIt when you have a url, DOI, or ISBN you first select the specific citation template,then copy paste the url or number into one field and hit "Autoload" to populate as many fields as the code can populate. I love it!  That said, I can't compare it to "automatic" in the Visual editor because that tool appeared when I wasn't looking and I didn't even know about it until you told me.  If I said I still use AOL mail, I'd be joking, but its not far from the truth....  I'll try out visual editor in days ahead and get back. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:16, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You can get the VE automatic citations in source editor too, if you prefer source editor. Beta -> new wikitext editor. Femke (talk) 20:28, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Just found and tried the Vis Ed approach and ProveIts only advantage, maybe, is a wider selection of citation templates.  OTOH I almost never use any of the additional ones, so for me that's a wash.  ProveIt seems slightly faster but not enough to care about. I guess cite automation has gone mainstream while I snoozed, so nevermind.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:32, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Image: Learning curves for electricity prices
The image on the right had been added to several articles (pinging also User:PJ Geest who added the image to Wikimedia Commons). The discussion above started from the additional text that had been added to the caption by User:Boundarylayer. I noticed also a discussion about it on the talk page of the nuclear power article here. I am just wondering if it's justified that this image is used in the following articles and if its presence should perhaps be reduced: I am not sure if there is a guideline on not using the same image on too may articles (perhaps there isn't). If it's a great important image then sure. But with this graph from Our World in Data I am just not so sure how prominent it should become. EMsmile (talk) 11:33, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Electricity generation
 * Nuclear power
 * Renewable energy
 * Climate change mitigation
 * Economics of nuclear power plants
 * Cost of electricity by source
 * Renewable energy debate (I've removed it from here now)


 * I find it a bit strange that Our World in Data is using the 155 USD/MWh cost estimate for nuclear power by Lazard. They could have used the International Energy Agency median estimate for nuclear power: 69 USD/MWh . This difference highlights the huge uncertainties in cost estimates and makes all cost comparisons between energy forms dubious. --TuomoS (talk) 17:43, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm curious why, as TuomoS points out above, the IEA and Lazard estimates for nuclear are so different. To answer your question, I think this graph is fine for what it's intended to show, which is the effect of learning on LCOE over time. Problems with neutrality and verifiability arise when it's presented to support statements like "electricity from technology x is cheaper than electricity from technology y". LCOE by itself is a very imperfect indicator of overall cost and feasibility. Cost and feasibility vary enormously by location. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 05:34, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Should the graph really appear in 6 Wikipedia articles though? If so, then perhaps its caption needs to be clarified so indicate those uncertainties. I think we don't need it at climate change mitigation for starters. EMsmile (talk) 09:49, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I think that's a question that would be better addressed for each article on a case-by-case basis. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 15:00, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * There are two values for nuclear reported in the literature. New-built (expensive) and LTO/long-term operation (renovating existing nuclear). The latter is what the linked IEA page reports, hence the lower price. While LCOE is imperfect for various reasons, the major trends don't differ much between the authoritative sources. I've seen Lazard cited in high-quality scientific papers, so I don't think there is that much wrong with it. If OWID uses it, I trust it even more.
 * The figure is the single most important figure about climate change mitigation imo. Six articles seems on the low side (don't know if we have the same information in other graphs). Can be added to variable renewable energy, and probs quite a few more. Femke (talk) 16:41, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The IEA page reports two values for the cost of nuclear: 69 USD/MWh for new reactors, and 32 USD/MWh for long-term operation of existing reactors. --TuomoS (talk) 19:34, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Keeping existing ones going means not having to replace their existing KW output with something else for now, and if there's no oopsies at these places that would be nice, but there is a theoretical max KW output of extant nuke plants so once we extend their service lives, this particular approach will have been exhausted. And even if we do 100% of that, there will be an awful lot of decarbonizing left to do with other approaches. Everyone here gets these nuances, I'm sure.  I was just thinking wherever we talk about extending service life of these things it would help to find RS ways of including these points, if we (meaning you) haven't already done this.  Thanks for your work, whoever is adding these things to articles NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:16, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * TuomoS, my mistake. I can't quite figure out the difference. IEA gives the value for N-of-a-kind, which means there is some learning assumed (many Western countries have not built a nuclear reactor for a while, so this makes it less realistic for those countries). It also assumes quite a high capacity factor (85%), which may be unrealistic in countries with a higher VRE share (f.i. France has a 78% capacity factor). BNEF estimates are more in line with Lazard (not sure if open access exists for this data), so I think Lazard's estimates cannot be discarded, and the figure is not a clear NPOV violation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Femkemeline (talk • contribs)
 * Just an observation... the caption at least on article (Economics of nuclear power plants)describes this as the "Levelized cost of energy..." but the article Levelized cost of energy does not include this image. Either we should use one from that article (if its better) or add this image to that article, or check the captions to delink that article.  I haven't studied the content of the image and have no opinion how to proceed on the questions raised here.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:59, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Pinging apparent developer I like the general idea behind this graphic, but prior posts at Renewable energy and most other destinations made the image superlarge at   in an apparent attempt to make it more readable. However, it's still hard to read—even in its enlarged state, and even after clicking on it to make it full-screen. Based on many group discussions at Talk:Climate change, my opinion is that the image itself should have text removed so the remaining text can be enlarged. If needed details can be provided in footnotes or on the Commons file description page. (Many captions were also superbloated.) — RCraig09 (talk) 14:51, 4 June 2022 (UTC)


 * The decline in price of renewables compared to other sources is a very important feature of the renewable energy transition, so personally I don't think the presence in 6 articles is too much. Our World In Data is a reliable source. In some cases, for starter articles (like for example climate change mitigation the graph can maybe be replaced by the graph "Price-of-electricity-new-renewables-vs-new-fossil-no-geo" on the right (?), which is a bit easier to read. Removing the text from the graph so the remaining text is larger is a good idea. You can even try to enlarge the remaining text like is done on the graph about the German energy transition at the bottom. --PJ Geest (talk) 15:46, 4 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I've de-cluttered File:3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices.png (beginning of section) and uploaded as Version 2 on Commons. I'm hesitant to do more with the other graphics (like File:Price-of-electricity-new-renewables-vs-new-fossil-no-geo.png) because it's more outdated than other graphics at, for example, Renewable energy. — RCraig09 (talk) 22:24, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

The caption used for this graph
If the graph is very important and needs to be in those six articles then I still wonder if the caption of the graph is not equally important and that we should get it quite right. Rather than discussing the caption on the individual talk pages, I think it's more efficient to look at them together here. Given some of those extra explanations that were discussed above, should these explanations/notes go into the caption of the graph or should they go into a relevant sub-article and that article be wikilinked? Like this in the caption maybe: "more information available at LCOE" or something like that? This is how the captions of this graph appear in the different articles that use it (note I am not saying the caption ought to be the same in each of the articles but by comparing them we might discover weaknesses of the caption texts more easily):
 * Text of caption in the climate change mitigation article (no wikilinks at all): "A comparison of prices over time for energy from nuclear fission and from other sources. Over the presented time, thousands of wind turbines and similar were built on assembly lines in mass production resulting in an economy of scale."
 * Text of caption in the nuclear energy article (this is the longest one): "A comparison of prices over time for energy from nuclear fission and from other sources. Over the presented time, thousands of wind turbines and similar were built on assembly lines in mass production resulting in an economy of scale. While nuclear remains bespoke, many first of their kind facilities added in the timeframe indicated and none are in serial production. Our World in Data notes that this cost is the global average, while the 2 projects that drove nuclear pricing upwards were in the US. The organization recognises that the median cost of the most exported and produced nuclear energy facility in the 2010s the South Korean APR1400, remained "constant", including in export. LCOE is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generating plant over its lifetime. As a metric, it remains controversial as the lifespan of units are not independent but manufacturer projections, not a demonstrated longevity. "
 * Text of caption in the renewable energy article: "A comparison of prices over time for energy from wind, solar and other sources. Over the presented time, thousands of wind turbines and similar were built on assembly lines in mass production resulting in learning curves and economies of scale. "
 * Text of caption in the Economics of nuclear power plants article: "Levelized cost of energy based on different studies. Electricity from renewables became cheaper while electricity from new nuclear plants became more expensive."
 * Text of caption in the Cost of electricity by source article (no wikilinks at all): "Levelized cost of energy based on different studies. Source: IRENA 2020 for renewables, Lazard for the price of electricity from nuclear and coal, IAEA for nuclear capacity and Global Energy Monitor for coal capacity." EMsmile (talk) 08:53, 7 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Nice of you to bring it together. Great to bring the captions closer together, but they should not be the same, as the graph has different functions in different articles.
 * For climate change mitigation, this should not be in the nuclear power section and not focus on nuclear power. The figure it great to show cost declines for VRE, but the cost increase for nuclear is a function of nuclears "bespoke" nature and therefore highly variable cost, not a trend per se. Its placement gives an anti-nuclear POV. Similarly, I don't think it's a great fit for Economics of nuclear power plants.
 * The small-font should go in the nuclear power article
 * None of the captions mentions innovation, which was a significant component of cost declines. Should be mentioned in climate change mitigation, renewable energy and cost of electricity by source.
 * Femke (talk) 16:18, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to rename Category:Carbon capture and sequestration
Please consider giving your opinion here: Categories for discussion/Log/2022 June 13 Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 01:34, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Process discussion re bulk edits with primary sources
FYI you may be interested in this discussion Talk:Climate_change_mitigation NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:53, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It's good that you brought this up. I've also been wondering about previous edits by User:Prototyperspective. They are not bad edits but I found it sometimes hard to figure out if they really add a lot of value or just add "more recent" information for some of the articles (I guess it can be a good thing if that makes articles more up to date but still). It's mostly content from 2022 in science that this user adds to other articles. Often it's great but sometimes it might overshoot the good intentions. I think I'm having a similar discussion with User:אלכסנדר סעודה on the talk page of sustainability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sustainability#Addition_to_the_section_on_scientific_community? EMsmile (talk) 15:11, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * In all the popular pages in Wikipedia there is a constant adding of new information as it arrives. People say science can be replaced by better science. The question is if this increase or decrease the value of the page and also about the volume of the page. The page climate change mitigation for example is very long so even if I want to add much more content I do not do it. The page Sustainability is shorter but also long. Of course summary page must contain only very basic information. Because of this I think that the report I mention deserve mentioning in the page Sustainability in 2-3 lines and a specific page dedicated to it.
 * If there is a page with many views very important I agree that editors should not add more than several lines in one edit and than give time to others to familiarize with it. Alexander Sauda/אלכסנדר סעודה (talk) 12:58, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:MULTI in my opinion it makes the most sense to add further comments at the linked thread at article talk. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:00, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Job posting - Wikimedian in Residence position for Climate change at University of Exeter
Hi everyone. This is exciting news: https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Wikimedia_Visiting_Fellow_at_Global_Systems_Institute. The purpose of the position is to "Enable the sharing of knowledge about climate change on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, through working with experts, students and others. Advocate about the power of open knowledge platforms to increase access to up-to-date climate information, and address issues of disinformation and misinformation." And you get to meet u|Femkemilene in real life! Please share with anyone who might be interested. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 23:57, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

WikiProject Women in Green - July GA Editathon Event
Hello everyone -- I wanted to extend an invitation to all members of WikiProject Climate Change. Throughout the month of July, WikiProject Women in Green (which focuses on bringing articles about women and women's works up to Good Article [GA] status and beyond) is hosting a GA editathon event on the theme of "Women and the Environment." Participants are invited to work on nominating and/or reviewing GA submissions related to women and the environment (e.g., climate scientists, environmental activists, or climate-related books and films by women), with editors of all experience levels welcome. GA editing resources and one-on-one support will be provided by Women in Green, and participants will have the opportunity to receive a barnstar for their efforts. We hope to see you there! All the best, Alanna the Brave (talk) 20:18, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Featured Article Save Award for Antarctica
There is a Featured Article Save Award nomination at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/Antarctica/archive1. Please join the discussion to recognize and celebrate editors who helped assure this article would retain its featured status. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  01:29, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

A user added the same content about "China slave labour" for solar panels into several energy articles
I've just realised that a user (User:Boundarylayer) recently added the same textblock to a range of articles on energy topics, please see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Boundarylayer I find it very suspicious (and plain wrong) if the same text blocks are added to several articles. To me it smacks of WP:OR and WP:NPV. I've just removed it from renewable energy and want to also remove it from climate change mitigation and all the others. However, am I right? Perhaps a shortened version of the content could be added to one of the articles but not to all of them? EMsmile (talk) 10:52, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was going to suggest removing it from all of them. There may be some reasonable content here, if rewritten with better grammar and style, but only in one place, not haphazardly as long captions that are not directly relevant in each location. Reywas92Talk 15:15, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * User has been adding problematic WP:OR that lacks WP:NPV across Wiki for a couple of weeks now (see editing summaries here or here). I've removed information where I can without engaging in harassment, as user has already attacked me in diffs and on article talk pages, and engaging has only made things worse.--Hobomok (talk) 15:22, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Repeating my statement here: the content was poorly-sourced (WP:CITEKILL and blogs), not always on-topic, and not that understandable to our audience. I agree with reverting it on all of these articles. If boundarylayer wants to include something about forced labour, I'm keen to see a high-quality overview source, and discuss the inclusion on one talk page. Femke (talk) 18:20, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

I only learned about this issue as a result of this editor's activity, and although I'm working on other things, I'm eager to later learn learn more about this. For starters, it can not be easily dismissed when there are sources like US State Dept reporting on forced labor in these camps.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:40, 1 June 2022 (UTC)


 * It's not a question whether slave labour exists in the energy sector, it's a question of finding out whether it's due, whether it's unique to solar and whether it actually affects prices (torture and genocide also costs money). None of those sources could be used to answer this. Femke (talk) 18:44, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I haven't looked at BL's specific sourcing, but on the general idea that true cost comparisons must cast a systems-ecology net over the whole "kit and kaboodle" I agree! I'm also privately dubious that any one assessment has sufficient scope of vision to really do that, but I've got an open mind about that.  Besides, killing off the biosphere really costs money!  NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:55, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The authorative cost comparisons for LCOE are quite similar, which is the metric now discussed. The metrics which include the power system more broadly (including storage), are still converging. Even broader metrics are .. difficult.
 * Anyway, I've think I've reverted this change on all articles now, given the strong consensus against the current text. Always open for discussion with higher-quality sourcing. Femke (talk) 19:05, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * That really is some take, "slavery and genocide also costs money"....Wow. It is more than well WP:DUE with the linked US and German solar industries repeatedly bankrupted over it. The major one, explicitly stating they can't compete because china don't pay wages "slave labor". If you so much as cared to look at the references. Rather than this derangedly hand-waving it away.
 * If not notable for slaves to you all(can't believe I'm literally writing this but some wikipedian groups never cease to "amaze")but notable for the fact it has decimated all western solar, the actual drivers of innovation. Now are you interested?
 * Another thing, having knitting circle discussions like this without a friendly notifying of the editor, to join, is known as WP:CANVASSING. There are now 2 discussions about this material now being wholly vandalized and disappeared, one on the "renewable energy" page and one here that was intended to remain clearly a secret WP:Cabal.
 * For I was only to find out about your slavery disappearing circle, from looking at Femke's edit history, after their weird "not discretionary sanctions" template being added to my page. None of you notified me about this! With this the second time in recent weeks Hobomok has engaged with this, on User:GreenC page. Sending disturbing backroom emails about, yours truly.
 * Boundarylayer (talk) 19:14, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

That special interest wikipedia groups can't disappear evidence of massed slavery supporting their special interest Boundarylayer (talk) 19:14, 1 June 2022 (UTC)


 * You were pinged into the discussion by User:EMsmile, so you should have been informed. That said, the initial note could have been written more neutrally. Femke (talk) 19:21, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, I've seen plenty of coverage of the current Commerce Dept investigation into: "The tumult is the result of a decision by the Commerce Department to investigate whether Chinese companies are circumventing U.S. tariffs by moving components for solar panels through four Southeast Asian countries." but most of the articles are rather sparse on info about the reasoning behind the tariffs and whether these tariffs/trade investigation is/are connected with the forced labor import ban from Biden in 2021: or not. --- Avatar317 (talk) 05:17, 2 June 2022 (UTC) (oh yeah, I found this discussion by the link on a revert on Economics of nuclear power plants, just in case people were wondering.)--- Avatar317 (talk) 05:19, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Update: the user in question has now been blocked. I've undone some of their recent edits where the user had added the same text to the caption of the image below. I'll start a separate discussion on that image below. I noticed that the user who is now blocked had done quite a bit of work on the nuclear power article in the past. I don't have enough knowledge or bandwidth regarding the nuclear power article but I would recommend that anyone who has an interest in that article takes a closer look at those earlier edits just to check if there were any WP:NPV issues there. EMsmile (talk) 11:26, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Gee, when someone says PV solar is uneconomical compared to nuclear power and then says choosing allegedly "uneconomical" and "intermittent" alternatives (like solar) over nuclear makes one an "accessory to murder",  why would we ever worry about possible POV problems at nuclear power? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:46, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Link to the ANI discussion for those interested: Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. SWinxy (talk) 00:05, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * FYI, Boundarylayer is indefinitely blocke and talk page access revoked, so in my view there is little reason to add anything to the ANI at this point. Your milage may vary NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:31, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Input invited
Off and on I've been looking at articles broadly related to Eco-economic decoupling. At my user talk I was asked to opine about one thought-leader in this area, Michael Shellenberger. I did my best to give an NPOV brain dump of what I think the important issues are and to describe them in broad strokes. Taken at face value it might appear to be pushing up against the "unrelated content" restrictions on WP:USERSPACE so I will archive it soon. Nonetheless I think of this as background thinking for an area I've already been editing in, and considering doing more. I would welcome anyone else's yay/nay critique, input, perspectives, questions. The thread is here NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:09, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi NewsAndEventsGuy, thanks for this. I read your text and take it as "brain food" for me, leaving me a bit enlightened and a bit confused. :-) But speaking of Eco-economic decoupling: this is a topic that we have included in the article on sustainability. I'm involved in lengthy debates about the sustainability article on its talk page. What it should and shouldn't include, and in what level of detail. Would you be able to take a look at that discussion and perhaps move it along as we are currently stuck? E.g. does the description about 3 dimensions of sustainability need to be moved to a sub-article (I think not), etc. EMsmile (talk) 10:33, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the kind words and invite. I'd love to run the marathon with you over there, but it seems the shoes in the closet have their laces tangled up in one giant dysfunctional ball, so instead I'll be editing in US Politics and democracy, probably for quite awhile.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:05, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah pity but thanks for replying. It actually feels like quite a waste of time over there and I think the knot could be solved if a couple of experienced editors stepped in and provided clarity about what is encyclopedic content regarding sustainability (and reliable sources) and what is tangential stuff, activism and alike. EMsmile (talk) 11:39, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Expand article for a DYK?
A stub is now in place for Electric tractor. Would make a great DYK! Oliveleaf4 (talk)
 * I did make Alternative fuel locomotive a while back, though I never really got around to expanding it much. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:32, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Propose to create an article about climate change and heatwaves
This is the most proved effect of climate change but he have not a page while there is a page about climate change and hurricanes for example. Can we create it? User:EMsmile --Alexander Sauda/אלכסנדר סעודה (talk) 14:58, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not a big fan of a myriad of articles called "climate change and..." See also what I wrote here on the talk page earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climate_change#Thoughts_on_climate_change_and_ecosystems_-_again_an_overlapping_article. My experience is that they linger with low pageviews. I suggest to create a redirect from climate change and heatwaves to Heatwave. We can then build up the content at heatwave. Content about climate change and heatwaves is also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_climate_change#Heat_waves_and_temperature_extremes and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record#Warmest_periods. Overall I think it would be better to improve the articles effects of climate change and effects of climate change on the water cycle and effects of climate change on oceans rather than creating a bunch of "climate change and xx" type articles (you could otherwise create one for each effect like "climate change and extreme weather events", "climate change and floods", "climate change and droughts", "climate change and rising sea level", "climate change and wildfires" and so forth).EMsmile (talk) 07:49, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll copy here what I wrote on this topic on the talk page on 31 May: "It's not so much the Google searches that I have in mind. It's more to make it clearer to other editors (in particular student editors) what should be the focus of the article. I find that students these days add a lot of stuff to climate change sub-sub-articles but often it doesn't fit all that well. I dread a situation where we get loads and loads of small sub-articles which are all called "climate change and..." (could be "climate change and pets", "climate change and wildfires", "climate change and flowers") which the experienced Wikipedians later have to mop up, merge, update. If we call these articles rather "effects of climate change on..." it's much clearer what they are for. I noticed that also for the article that used to be called "climate change and agriculture". It was quite a mess until we split it into greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and effects of climate change on agriculture. If the article is just "CC and XX " it is not always clear if we are talking about effects of CC on XX or if we're talking about the impacts of XX on climate change (like you can see from the agriculture example)." EMsmile (talk) 07:49, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * "Climate change and..." articles bring to mind monstrosities like Doug Ring with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 or those 500,000 articles we have on "J.R.R. Tolkien and literally every subject imaginable". Those don't make for good encyclopedia articles. The answer to "I want to add information on a subject" is not always to create a new article. Even if we consider the subject of "climate change's impacts on heatwaves" to be notable, we don't have to have an article dedicated specifically to that subject, per WP:NOPAGE. I am unconvinced this information is better presented in a standalone article than within other articles. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:00, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I admit that I have a diferent opinion about the issue. Firstly we have a lot of information about climate change and heat waves that we can not enter to the pages that you mentioned because otherwize they will be too long. We can link to this page information about wet bublb temperature dangerouse areas current and future impacts. Information about severe heatwaves from the latest years their link to climate change their impact. We can add to the pages about thes heatwave links to this page. As you know in the latest months terrible heatwaves with the war in Ukraine destabilize the entire world food system - we should write about this. In Israel where I live today the price on all food from wheat (controled by the government) officialy increases by 20%. This after significant increase of non controlled prices before...

Also I think that people are interested in issues like climate change and floods (especially living in areas like bangladesh) or climate change and wildfires especialy people living in areas like I live (the dry grass in the wild area before my window are now cutted by buldozers each summer after wildfire increases so I have to call fire fighters several times in the latest years what i never did before).

So I think that even if each page will have a lower amount of views the entire number will rise.

--Alexander Sauda/אלכסנדר סעודה (talk) 14:38, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It's foolish to have
 * * Drought and Climate change and drought
 * * Flash flood and Climate change and flash floods
 * * Cold wave and Climate change and cold waves
 * * et cetera for every other form of extreme weather
 * Regulars in the climate pages should know by now that there is no weather (repeat weather) event that lacks a climate change fingerprint because the entire climate system, all of it everywhere, has already been.... for an understatement, I will say "tweaked". For this reason, pick an article, any article, about extreme weather.  That should be the place where we make article improvement weaving in the important info about how the climate crisis (repeat crisis) is influencing those extreme events.  In addition, in every single one of those articles, if we are smart we will write a summary paragraph or two with the intent to echo that summary paragraph to other articles on climate change via the  built-in Wiki tools of "transclusion".   Ideally the extreme weather article would have very little - if any - text of its own other than in the lead, and the body would be assembled with imported (aka "transcluded") text of those summary paragraphs in the sub articles for each form of extreme weather.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:53, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with NewsAndEventsGuy. And I'd suggest that you User:אלכסנדר סעודה channel your energy into the article effects of climate change and its existing sub-articles, e.g. effects of climate change on human health. Regarding the latter, I recently saw a very interesting publication in the Lancet that talks about effects of heat on human health. Content from that publication should be added to effects of climate change on human health (I wrote about it on the talk page, just don't have time right now to do it myself). Also the article heatwave already has a section on "climate change" which could be expanded. If it ever did get too long it could be spun off into a stand-alone article but I doubt that'll be necessary or even efficient nor desirable. When there's a heatwave, people might go to Wikipedia and type in "heatwave". If they are then presented with the relevant climate change content - that has caused heatwaves to become longer and more severe - then this will be useful information for them. EMsmile (talk) 08:28, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Fine I will try to do it like this, as I see that I do not have support. Maybe later I will convince others but as for now I will do it how you say. Alexander Sauda/אלכסנדר סעודה (talk) 14:58, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * In a seeming contradiction of what I said before, there is one circumstance when it might be appropriate to split out climate change aspect to any given topic. This is when a quality article just becomes too long.  A good way to know is to use the Prose Size gadget in the user preferences.  In case anyone doesn't know.... Once enabled somewhere there will be a link for "Page Size", and that will report on the bytes of "readable prose".   For good or featured articles that just get too long, WP:SIZESPLIT provides guidance for splitting off a sub article. A word of caution though: let's not invoke SIZESPLIT when a low-punch overly-wordy or outdated article gets longer and longer.  Lets just do it for quality writing. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:10, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree with not splitting. The heatwave article was a good example of having bias from outdatedness. Climate change was completely framed as a future problem, rather than a current problem. I've updated the physical science part, but the impacts probably also need an update. Femke (talk) 16:13, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree with no splitting. It would be different if this was a topic that, once written, can sit forever without changes, like if we were documenting WW2 battleships. Between political controversy and a rapidly changing climate, maintenance on these articles is high. Efbrazil (talk) 19:23, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Globalchange.gov data and reports
FYI folks: one of my colleagues showed me this new site - it has the National Climate Assessment (for the US) with the data, tables, and findings broken out and citable linkable URIs for the findings (here's an example). I wonder if this is more granular than our current links to the report? Maybe useful for citations to specific findings? They have lots of other reports on this platform that are referenced in the NCA too:. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 19:06, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

July–August 2022 United States floods has an RFC
July–August 2022 United States floods has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. --LordPeterII (talk) 12:15, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Centralized Eco-Tip/Climate Action site
Whenever I search for good information about eco-tips and climate action in my region, I get pitiful, outdated and confusing results. I believe that an open source site like a ‘Climate Wikipedia’ should exist so that people can go directly to a resource with accurate, timely, regional information. There are so many people who want to help but haven’t a clue what to do. Anything from streaming on smaller devices and deleting unnecessary files to most useful planting practices, to climate projects in the area. Has anyone tried to create something like this? It seems a necessity to me and I’m guessing would generate lots of input and funding. The info team suggested I ask here. 2604:3D09:137C:7F00:89DF:EBF7:EDBF:6EC5 (talk) 15:11, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, I hope that when people come to Wikipedia they find a lot of good information on climate change topics. The main climate change article sends them to a myriad of sub-articles on this topic. Do you think that anything in particular is missing? Note that Wikipedia is not a WP:How-to guide. I think there are plenty of such guides available via Google searches. In which sense do you find them "pitiful, outdated and confusing"? I mean if someone wants to take action about climate change as an individual, it's all about reducing their own and their society's greenhouse gas emissions, right? I feel that the "outdated" information is more in the area of effects of climate change. We have a lot of work on our hands to improve those articles. Even the one on climate change mitigation is pretty bad. What's your specific proposal here? Keeping in mind that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a "how to" guide. P.S. where did you ask the info team, was that on a Wikipedia talk page somewhere? EMsmile (talk) 08:01, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes I am pretty sure that "streaming on smaller devices and deleting unnecessary files" is "pitiful, outdated and confusing" advice. See Climate movement and Individual_action_on_climate_change#External_links (although I have been trying for years to delete the "family size" section from that article) - if you find any better sites please link them there. Articles about particular places such as Climate_change_in_Canada sometimes mention mitigation, adaptation and activism. If you live in Canada it would be great if you could improve that article. Re "planting practices" greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture is a tough topic - if you need a challenge try improving that. Whatever you decide to do good luck with it. Chidgk1 (talk) 10:07, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Conversation about how to cite the IPCC AR 6 report chapters
I've just added some new comments to an existing discussion about how to cite the IPCC AR 6 report chapters here. Please take a look and comment there about two aspects: Thanks. EMsmile (talk) 11:32, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * what to do when the author list is so long that the Wikipedia reference form doesn't accept it anymore (I found I can add the long list of authors but then it doesn't let me add a URL anymore).
 * check if you agree or disagree with my reasoning why the long citation style is better for most climate change sub-articles except for those with an extremely long list of publications (like the climate change article).

Draft talk:Climate Change (scientific)‎
There is a dispute at Draft talk:Climate Change (scientific), if anyone could participate and help that would be great! VickKiang 04:38, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Tim Patterson
Hi folks. I think some people familiar with climatology should have a look at Tim Patterson. Being a layperson, a few of the claims made there seem to be questionable. The last paragraph of the "Research" section lacks a citation. Kind regards, Robby.is.on (talk) 10:44, 1 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for posting here, . I've asked for more evidence of WP:Notabiilty on the Talk page and if nothing comes up I will nominate this article for deletion. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 17:04, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Global warming conspiracy theory
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Global warming conspiracy theory that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:04, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

World Weather Attribution article
In the spirit of Stone Soup and Wikipedia as a collaborative project, thought I'd mention there is a Draft:World Weather Attribution article. In case anybody wants to contribute. -- M.boli (talk) 14:21, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

World Weather Attribution is the project which attempts to rapidly do attribution studies on extreme weather events, while the events are still in the news. When you see a news article that climate change likely caused the floods in West Africa that was a report by WWA.

I've written a bit describing the organization. I think it would be good to have a section describing some of their studies which have been impactful. Maybe also some paragraph more fully describing their methods. Does anybody feel up to contributing? -- M.boli (talk) 03:17, 25 November 2022 (UTC)


 * I have approved the draft but am not likely to do any more. Thanks for starting the article on this very useful collaboration Chidgk1 (talk) 10:15, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Request for Updating on a Climate Fact Checking Org
Hey all, I am observing a fact checking group that made a request for update of their organizational article here. Because I know some of them professionally, it's not really appropriate for me to do the updates, but would appreciate someone taking a look. Sadads (talk) 20:07, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. EMsmile (talk) 21:06, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Climate change policy needs an article
I don't like writing these abstract articles myself but maybe you do. Energy policy has an article and I just provocatively cited that national Climate change policy of the United States does not exist (although the Biden administration does have goals). However glancing at the latest report from the UK Climate Change Committee I realize I don't understand the difference between government policy and government strategy. Probably a lot of people don't understand how a government could have goals but no policy. But maybe you do and can start an article? Chidgk1 (talk) 08:10, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm confused. Climate change policy currently redirects to Politics of climate change. Would you say that is wrong? Or are you talking about "climate change policy by country" articles? (some of those currently redirect to "climate change by country" e.g. climate change policy of Canada). EMsmile (talk) 10:36, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Now I am getting confused too. I thought policy was different enough from politics to deserve a separate article. Because policy is the sausage and politics is the sausage making machine. For example energy policy does not mention fuel price rise protests presumably because that is politics not policy. By the way now the IRA has been passed I accept that Climate change policy of the United States exists and I just noticed there is an article History of climate change policy and politics. Anyway I'll stop thinking about this now and get back to my more specific articles Chidgk1 (talk) 11:04, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Improving the article global surface temperature in relation to instrumental temperature record?
The term global surface temperature is important and might rise in pageviews in future (currently still low at 87 pageviews per day). However, I find the article very weak. It has a long section on the greenhouse effect, even though that is covered at greenhouse effect. I also see overlap (potential and future) with the article on instrumental temperature record. Unless we see the latter as talking mainly about the measurement techniques. It doesn't though, it talks about years with heatwaves, provides tables on hottest years and so forth. I suggest to either shorten global surface temperature so that it's just a short definition of the term but the actual measured values reside at instrumental temperature record. Or redirect it to a section within instrumental temperature record. Or rework instrumental temperature record so that it's only about the measurement techniques and then move the actual results to global surface temperature. Given our limited resources as editors I'd like to avoid that the same content is spread over two articles and that we have to maintain it in two places, not one. EMsmile (talk) 08:29, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Note that up until recently, global average surface temperature redirected to instrumental temperature record, so at some point in the past someone seems to have had the same idea that I have now. As of yesterday global average surface temperature redirects to global surface temperature. EMsmile (talk) 08:29, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The discussion so far about the two articles can be seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Instrumental_temperature_record#Overlap_with_global_average_surface_temperature_Global_surface_temperature EMsmile (talk) 08:29, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Both articles use the same image in the lead which I find telling, meaning they are pretty similar. The lead image is meant to give a quick visual clue that one has arrived at the right article. Thus I think the lead images for global surface temperature and instrumental temperature record ought to be different. EMsmile (talk) 08:29, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Controversy page
I've been doing some work on The Skeptical Environmentalist and also realised the page for global warming controversy is massively out of date. Definitely needs some improvement with more recent citations as much of the article reflects sources from the 2000s and early 2010s. More recent retrospectives would be a good addition. Arcahaeoindris (talk) 11:40, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Adding Information from IPCC report about the water cycle changes
I am currently working on adding information from the IPCC reports to water cycle and effects of climate change on the water cycle about the expected changes to the water cycle. I have the following problems, can anyone help?:
 * I find the statements from the IPCC report chapters often so good and concise that I would really struggle to "use my own words" or to "summarise" them. When I take from the technical summary those statements already are summaries and they're carefully worded. How could I paraphrase them further. I am at a loss. Therefore then I use long quotes instead. This is what I've now done here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_climate_change_on_the_water_cycle#Observations_and_predictions . I know it's not ideal. What do you suggest to make it better?
 * How much detail would you put about this at water cycle? Do you think an excerpt of the lead of effects of climate change on the water cycle would be the way to go? Note that water cycle gets about 2000 pageviews per day, whereas effects of climate change on the water cycle gets only 40 pageviews per day (it was a very poor article, perhaps pageviews will go up once I work on it, not sure). For that reason, it would be a missed opportunity to keep the climate change content at water cycle too short.
 * It's also tricky to delineate how much content about the water cycle should be at effects of climate change (that article gets about 500 pageviews per day) versus moving the content to the sub-sub article effects of climate change on the water cycle, with the danger of "hiding it from view". EMsmile (talk) 11:42, 29 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi EMsmile. Regarding your first question, I agree it's a shame that IPCC documents don't have Wikipedia-compatible liicensing that would allow us to liberally copy-paste.
 * When I'm struggling to paraphrase, I find it usually helps to read multiple sources that are covering the topic, as each will explain it in different ways. It especially helps to read sources that are aimed at a non-technical audience. I usually remove the IPCC's statements in parentheses about confidence levels, agreement levels, etc. as it is usually too much detail for an encyclopedia article.
 * There is also a free tool, https://quillbot.com/, that can help to generate ideas, although I've never used it myself. Turning quotes into paraphrases takes a lot more time but I think it's worth it. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 16:47, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Regarding your second question, there is a lot of technical jargon in the bullets you linked to at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_climate_change_on_the_water_cycle#Observations_and_predictions. For the water cycle article, I suggest keeping the quote that it's in the paragraph before the bullets, but all the quotes in the bullets should be summarized in simpler language with fewer details. Sentences such as "Human influence has been detected in amplified surface salinity and precipitation minus evaporation (P–E) patterns over the ocean (high confidence)" are impenetrable even to me. Given the overall length of the water cycle article, you should probably be aiming for 2-3 paragraphs on how climate change affects the water cycle.
 * I generally avoid using excerpts to share entire sections between articles. Excerpts are more difficult for other editors, especially new editors, to figure out how to update, and they often have issues such as using terms that are previously defined in one article but not the other one. For instance, the first four sentences of Effects of climate change on the water cycle would work well in Water cycle, but the fifth sentence wouldn't belong. So I would suggest copying and pasting between articles. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 23:08, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's helpful advice, Clayoquot. I'll work on that. EMsmile (talk) 08:18, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I've just started to use Quillbot after your suggestion and I think this will be a game changer for me! I am almost shocked at how good their AI-algorithm is. It would be perfect for students who want to copy stuff from the internet but not be caught for plagiarism through bots that just compare word for word... I think it will help me a lot to convert quotes into normal text but also to improve the readability of text, finding simpler words and so on. I am going to advertise this everywhere. (after a few examples it asked me to sign up for a free account; probably it'll ask me at some point to pay but I think I would happily do that if the tool is so good). EMsmile (talk) 12:26, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Worked on top and high importance labels
I've done a bit of maintenance work by adjusting which of the WikiProject CC articles are tagged with top and high importance. You can access them here in that colourful table on the right. There are currently 60 articles in the top importance category and nearly 400 in the high importance category. I've reviewed the top importance category completely but the high importance category I only got to C so far. The adjustments are of course highly subjective but I try to base them on pageviews and focus on terms that are used a lot (or more and more) in e.g. IPCC reports. If someone wants to help with this effort please go ahead. If you want to see some of the changes I've done, just look at my user contributions for today and yesterday. If you have any concerns about this work, please let me know. EMsmile (talk) 08:12, 5 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Definitely worth going through the top and high lists every so often. But as there is an article specifically for Fossil fuel subsidies I think that should be "top" rather than the more general Energy subsidy Chidgk1 (talk) 12:02, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree, so please go ahead and make any changes as you see fit. Would be great to have an extra pair of eyes for this task (it's quite a tedious task for the 400 articles marked as "high" importance). So the more help there is the better. I took out country specific articles, like energy policy of China from the top importance group. EMsmile (talk) 14:00, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

useful article on carbon bombs
Hi - I wanted to draw your attention to this new publication which has a list of 400+ existing & new oil and gas projects identified as carbon bombs - over 1 gigaton of C02 emissions if extracted and burnt. This could be useful info to add and also useful for identifying major oil&gas fields that need articles. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 14:41, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

How important is coal-fired power station to this project?
I see just changed it from "top" to "mid". If coal power was a separate article I might agree but as the article does not seem big enough to split off coal power I think it should remain "top" as the technology which emits the most GHG. Your thoughts? Chidgk1 (talk) 11:50, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh OK, hmmm, I just felt that if we include any technology that emits CO2 then our list of "top importance" articles would get unwieldy long. But your argument that coal power is much worse than others is also a good point. What other top technologies that emit GHGs should we put in the top importance category? There's cement production, steel production, animal husbandry for example. Not sure if they should all become top or be high importance. EMsmile (talk) 14:02, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * As you say earlier it is a bit subjective. Often there are several articles on various aspects of the same subject some more specific than others. I guess we just have to use our skill and judgement for each case rather than having a general rule? Or can you think of one?
 * For example people don't do much with coal apart from burn it so I guess that should be top. But animal husbandry GHG varies a lot depending on the animal - which is why I put cattle top but I would argue that animal husbandry should not be top.
 * I suppose another way to do it would be to try and think what info would be useful to ordinary people. For example I guess many people are thinking of buying a heat pump but don't know much about them - so maybe improving that article should be a priority.
 * Digressing - it is a bit weird that coal got more views than heat pump last month. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:56, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I would hesitate to put broad top articles that are not specific to climate change at the top importance level for this WikiProject. I think top importance articles for us should be climate change, climate systems, climate change mitigation, greenhouse effect and things like that. I wouldn't put articles that are more applicable to other Wikiprojects at the top importance level. Articles like car, coal, petrol, airplane and so forth. So it might be useful to agree on some broad guidance how we want to allocate those importance labels. I would also not put "people articles" at top priority, e.g. Al Gore, Greta Thunberg and alike. EMsmile (talk) 14:37, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * So you are thinking that more specific articles like Environmental effects of transport and Tropical cyclones and climate change should be "top" instead of general ones like car and Tropical cyclone? Chidgk1 (talk) 15:11, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, slightly more specific to climate change would be good. I think car is too unspecific, although perhaps electric vehicle should be top or at least high? Is the top importance meant to denote articles that people who are members in this WikiPorject should tackle ASAP? If so, I am not sure how many of us would be highly motivated to tackle car. We'd rather tackle Environmental effects of transport or electric vehicle right? Similarly, I wouldn't put human population growth or contraception as top even though one could argue these should have top priority to take action on climate change... Am wondering / unsure and interested to discuss further. EMsmile (talk) 17:21, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I know some people don't like excerpts but as an example I excerpted the lead of Environmental impact of bitcoin to Bitcoin - so I would be happy for Bitcoin itself not to be a priority for us now. Would like to hear others views on priorities Chidgk1 (talk) 13:35, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. EMsmile (talk) 15:54, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Disambiguation page for Sea ice decline
I've just set up a disambiguation page for Sea ice decline, please check if you agree. My motivation was that I was frustrated that we had no information about "sea ice decline" together for the Arctic and Antarctica. I could only find arctic sea ice decline but nothing specific for Antarctic sea ice decline (the information is spread over several articles, I think), or a page that groups both polar regions together. EMsmile (talk) 10:45, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * P.S. the situation is a bit complex as in Antarctica the sea ice is not necessarily declining yet. So I've clarified it now in the disambiguation article that it's about sea ice decline and changes. That's probably the reason why we didn't have an overarching "see ice decline" article yet. EMsmile (talk) 11:20, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Code for Africa Climate Change Project
Hi everyone, especially. Can we talk about how the Code for Africa Climate Change Project is going? This was discussed today at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#hashtag_#CfACP,_associated_with_Meta_initiative_--_worth_making_an_edit_filter? the Administrators Noticeboard] (permalink). I can see from the Programme tab that there are still two countries' worth of events to go.

From the [https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Code_for_Africa/CFA-Cumulative-WIR-Dashboard/articles/edited? Outreach Dashboard], it appears that nearly all edits from this project are to the English Wikipedia. Several editors have raised concerns about the quality of edits, many of which have been reverted. I'm sure all of us at WikiProject Climate Change would like to see this outreach initiative succeed, so how can we help the organizers with that?

The stated goal of the project is to fight climate denialism and misinformation on Wikipedia, and the focus seems to be the English Wikipedia. How are participants being trained to find and correct misinformation, and how is progress towards this goal being measured?

Best, Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 20:44, 19 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Also pinging in case you log in with your staff account less often. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 04:56, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with Clayoquot. What I've seen so far from the editors in this project has been disappointing and all/most had to be reverted (see e.g. at climate change adaptation). I've also written about it here. It's a bit of a mystery. EMsmile (talk) 20:22, 20 October 2022 (UTC)