Talk:Climate change in the United Kingdom/Archive 1

Archive 1

Well overdue article

This article is well overdue given the number of related articles. It needs expansion. Some of the content I used to set it up are copied from the linked articles. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:24, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

verifiability

I've twice removed an egregiously false statement from this article. Please do not restore it until you've got a reliable source and your source and your description are in agreement. --TS 20:55, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

IPCC investigation

From the main article on the hacking incident:

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the BBC that he considered the affair to be "a serious issue and we will look into it in detail." He later clarified that the IPCC would review the incident to identify lessons to be learned, and he rejected suggestions that the IPCC itself should carry out an investigation. The only investigations being carried out were those of the University of East Anglia and the British police.

Earlier reports of an IPCC investigation were incorrect. I've removed a statement from this article implying that there was to be one. --TS 17:32, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Coatrack

At this very early stage of the article there is very little about climate change in the UK--nothing for instances about Thatcher's speech to the UN warning of the dangers of global warming, and nothing even about the Kyoto Protocol.

That being so, we have to be especially careful about including discussions of relatively recent, ongoing affairs whose importance is not settled. Inevitably this makes the article, ostensibly about the general subject, largely about the other, and creates severe problems of reliable sourcing (as can be seen) and neutrality (an earlier version of the article included egregiously false statements, presenting allegations as fact).

In short, the article becomes a "coatrack", an article supposedly about one subject but actually devoting undue weight to another.

It would probably be better to work on expanding the coverage of Kyoto, Copenhagen and the like, than dabble in this "recentist" editing. --TS 17:38, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, and article is misnamed, because it is about climate change policy, climate change action or climate change legislation, not about climate change. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

We could probably expand the article to cover the effects of climate change (both measured and projected) in the UK. --TS 13:12, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. My hunch is such an article would be confusing. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:32, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be better to create a separate Effects of global warming on Britain, parallel to Effects of global warming on India and Effects of global warming on Australia. Obviously there could be cross-mentions, i.e. an article on UK policy would probably find RS talking about a context of increased flooding risk etc. while an article on the effects could have a short section on responses to the threats. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:36, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The article is not a coatrack. I created it as a stubby skeleton to fill a gap in the hope that other editors would expand it. I made sure that it had an {{expand}} tag (as well as a {{prose}} tag). If there are any concerns about it tag it or fix it. Many other countries have such articles (see Category:Climate change by country) so, as I mentioned in my edit summary this article is well overdue. I only created a stub article since the topic is not my area of expertise. The name of the article may be problematic but I used that specific name since it was established convention by such articles. An alternative may be Climate change (United Kingdom). The idea of these "Climate change in [Country]" articles is as an overview of everything to do with climate change in that country - politics, lobbying, research, effects, treads in climate etc. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your purpose. I see that you did not intend a coatrack article in any sense at all. Having said that I'm not sure that such an "everything" overview for each country will work at all. The Effects of global warming on India article, which is in the Category:Climate change by country is an example of an article just about the effects of GW, with a short Awareness section but nothing about attempts to alleviate GW or on climate change policy more generally. I'd rather see two completely separate series Category:Effects of recent climate change by country and Category:Climate change policy by country. What do you and others think? Itsmejudith (talk) 10:20, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I recently came across Politics of global warming, which I and a recent peer reviewer both think is mostly about the US politics of same. That could be tidied up and fit very nicely into your latter category. Biological, botanical, farming, and geographic effects are so different in nature from political debates, public policy and politics that dual-purpose articles are bound to become unwieldy. The two areas also attract editors (and readers) with such different backgrounds and expertise that it makes sense to split the two topic areas cleanly. The only thread that joins them may be economics, but money relates to everything anyway. --Nigelj (talk) 12:45, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I've just used your suggested categories, with links back to here, Judith, in two places on Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change.[1] and [2]. I'm hoping we can get some traction for these new categories and get going on articles that go into them, with a chance of diffusing some of the overcrowding and editwarring on other, more overview pages. --Nigelj (talk) 15:20, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I split stuff out of Politics of global warming to a new article at Politics of global warming (United States). Both still need heaps of work. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:41, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

reverted addition

The following:

In November 2009 there was an e-mail hacking incident where thousands of emails and other documents were leaked on the internet, with a number of the leaked e-mails containing evidence that scientists had conspired to manipulate data and keep those scientists with contrary views out of peer-review literature.

was reverted to the following:

In November 2009 there was an e-mail hacking incident where thousands of emails and other documents were leaked on the internet.

Can we reach a compromise or undo this revert? Keeping the definition of evidence in mind.--Heyitspeter (talk) 01:52, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The removal of information was entirely proper and in accordance with policy (namely WP:NPOV). Dynablaster (talk) 01:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

As well as WP:BLP as, until official enquiries report, we have no right to say what 'evidence' these e-mails actually contained regarding their authors - that's all supposition. --Nigelj (talk) 16:41, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Redirect

I suggest a redirect to Climate change until a useful, informative and balanced article on Climate change in the UK can be written. Polargeo (talk) 16:53, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Support as above. --Nigelj (talk) 17:01, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

That is completely unnecessary, let this article develop on its own. Off2riorob (talk) 17:05, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Why? You offer no reason and reason is what we need. Polargeo (talk) 17:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Your reason for removal is not acceptable, imo..remove until a better article can be written is not a good reason for a redirect. Off2riorob (talk) 17

14, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

If it can be better covered in existing articles an additional article with poor POV coverage is a content fork, please detail why this article needs to exist as a separate article at present Polargeo (talk) 17:22, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

There will never be a better article with this title - the first half (CC) is too general, and the second half (UK) is too specific. There is nothing specific to the UK that is relevant to the whole of climate change. 'Public opinion on CC in the UK', 'Economics of CC in UK', 'Politics of CC in UK', these could be UK-specific subtopics —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigelj (talk • contribs)

Who is to say it can be better covered elsewhere? that is only you two's opinion, there is no pov here, listen the climate change pov pushers are everywhere, this is a nice quiet harmless little stub compared to all those other locations. Off2riorob (talk) 17:28, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

At the moment the useful material is being added to 'Public opinion on CC', 'Economics of CC' etc. Cutting it out this way as well just duplicates effort and splits the readership of the main articles. --Nigelj (talk) 17:30, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

• Do not edit war over this article in an attempt to push through your favored position. Off2riorob (talk) 17:33, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

• Several editors coming to the article in this way do not in no uncertain terms make a consensus for these changes, again please do not edit war over these changes. Off2riorob (talk) 17:42, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

As I said , very politely, if you want to delete it , take it to AFD. Off2riorob (talk) 17:43, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no point in taking this to AfD as this could potentially be a very well written article. However it is not anywhere near being viable as a separate article at present and so a redirect until a balanced, informative article can be written is the best outcome. Polargeo (talk) 17:54, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

A redirect would effectively delete the article, I feel it is harmless and people are coming looking here as the viewing figures reflect . I am only here as the supportive underdog and if you can find independent editors to support your position then clearly I am fine with that. Off2riorob (talk) 18:03, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Rather than arguing about this why not produce a balanced article in user space. I am reasonable and would support any balanced properly referenced additions to wikipeida. However, I will warn you that given the UK government position this article could easily tend towards a confirmation of global warming which I feel you may be trying to avoid Polargeo (talk) 18:10, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

You mistake me there, I don't care about whether this planet get warmer or colder, I am not interested about that. Off2riorob (talk) 18:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

good neither am I :). I just don't think this article is useful at present Polargeo (talk) 18:20, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Your edit history clearly suggests that you are strongly involved in the climate change articles, I have only glanced but I am sure you support the global warming position? But hey, this is not about us. Off2riorob (talk) 18:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I also notice that this article was brought up and derided earlier yesterday here although I am not suggesting a connection between these events. Off2riorob (talk) 18:30, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

You obviously are not aware of the times I have tried to say my science is not linked to global warming. I hate that tag. Want to hear an interview with me try this but anyway I try to present science in a balanced way. Polargeo (talk) 18:33, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I will listen later, I also dislike tags and cats, lets come back to this after the new year and see who else is with a position, regards. Off2riorob (talk) 18:45, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

The email hacking incident

The hacking incident is what makes this article a potential WP:POVFORK and a WP:COATRACK if you would like the article to remain then that information is unnecessary Polargeo (talk) 07:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Also we certainly don't need another article to cover Climatic Research Unit, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research and the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change and that is mainly what this article is doing so I still think a redirect is best at present as I have outlined above. Unless someone wants to write a genuine detailed article on Climate change in the UK. Polargeo (talk) 07:24, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Merge

Propose merge. Formally proposing that this article should be merged back into Climate change and/or other articles as appropriate. The impossibility of covering a) the effects of climate change and b) the policy response to it in the same article is shown by the current first sentence "Climate change is occuring in the United Kingdom [1] and as is the case in many other countries, is a part of research, lobbying and politics." That is a complete nonsense. How can climate change be "part" of research? Unfortunately, this article is beyond tinkering. There might be a place for articles on Britain/Ireland/the UK within the various series of climate change related articles but this needs to be thought through properly. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:35, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• Support Yes this does need to be thought out better and is not viable at present. Polargeo (talk) 10:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

What needs to be thought out? Why is it not viable? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

• Support merge. It seems odd to have an article about climate change in a particular state when clearly this is a global issue. I can't see any rationale for having "Climate change in..." articles for each and every state unless there is something particular about the impact on that specific state (such as in the case of particularly threatened islands), so this and any others should be merged into a bigger article. Someone should also take a look at other, similar, articles such as Climate change in Sweden and Climate Change In Alberta. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:59, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is a global issue but that does not meant that there is not any info that is specific to a particular country. Take a look at all of the other country specific articles. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

• Support merge. As above. --Nigelj (talk) 14:06, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support given its sketchy state after some weeks of existence. I suggest that someone might want to develop a more complete article in userspace, but for now it's better to have a redirect to a more compendious article than to this poor little stub which has been prone to POV and BLP problems in its short existence. --TS 14:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

  As to a possible target, possibly climate change, possibly climate change in the European Union. --TS 14:11, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

  I'm more convinced by the former than the latter. I can see the rationale for a page about EU policies towards climate change, but not climate change in the EU. The "greenhouse gases" section has very little to do with the specific situation in the EU as far as I can tell. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:17, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

  So if you add the stuff about the UK to climate change will you add info about all the other countries as well? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

  POV and BLP are not reasons for merging an article. The article needs expanding, not merging. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. I created the article to fill a gap in the series of articles at Category:Climate change by country. Unfortunately it coincided with the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident‎‎ and seems to have attracted a lot of flak because of it. Some of the comments are justified such as the claim of recentism but that is not a reason for deletion, merging or redirecting. If as much effort as the chit-chat here went into building the article then we may have a fully fledged article by now!! It is inevitable that such an overview article will be written so lets leave it here (with the approp tags for expansion etc) and hope someone will get down to the actual writing of the article. I see no reason why info about a specific country should be merged into climate change. If we add the UK we would have to add all other countries to avoid bias towards the UK. Obviously adding all countries is not viable since the amount of info will swamp the article. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

  But, climate change itself is the same in every country. What are different are specific effects in different climate-types (tropical, monsoon, temperate, polar). There are also differences in the effects on different wildlife species, on different crops, and on different habitats. But, I think what many are interested in, are the opinion, political and policy differences within various human populations and governments, as well as the different responses from industrial decision makers. This is a vast range of subjects that cannot be covered 200 times, once for every country in the world. We need specific sub-articles, but splitting the whole subject by nation is not feasible. Splitting by topic area is already underway (Scientific opinion on climate change, Public opinion on climate change, Economics of climate change, etc). This material is better divided and merged into these for now. One day, these may become too big and need to be sub-divided again, but splitting any aspect by 200 countries will always be impractical. Sub-dividing by region (...in the tropics; ...in the Americas) may be useful, but I think even then there will always be better divisors than 'country'. --Nigelj (talk) 15:09, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

No, anthropogenic climate change is not the same in every country. Tuvalu is affected by sea level rise and Tibet is not. Here in New Zealand the models predict wetter west coasts and dryer east coasts. Europe will freeze if the thermohaline circulation stops. Yes, there is a wide interest in the socio-political ramifications as well as the environmental effects. And that is the reason why we need articles about climate change for individual countries - even Tuvalu. The topic of climate change is huge. WP needs the articles you mention as well as ones for individual countries. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Also there is not even any info about climate change in the UK in the article (unless you take the one link I added). The way to do this is not create the split and then get other people to write the article. Polargeo (talk) 15:13, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

What we're all trying to explain is that climate change is a global phenomenon that impacts upon ecological regions. It has an impact on coastlines, for example, an impact on deserts, an impact on agricultural areas. What it cannot do is to respect national borders that people have drawn on maps for historical reasons. Just take The Netherlands, for example. There is likely to be an impact on the coast quite different from the impact on the hinterland. Of course the Netherlands government is preparing for the impact of climate change on its own country. But since any extreme weather events that hit the Netherlands coast are bound to hit the coast of Belgium in the same way, a lot of efforts are directed via the EU or other international organisations. Political borders matter when it comes to society, economic policy, public opinion policy-making. Not so much when it comes to research. Political borders have no relevance at all when it comes to climate change itself. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Political borders DO have relevance for climate change since each political entity makes their own decisions about climate change. Also, public perceptions and lobbying within political borders does vary. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The article was not a split from anywhere. Leaving article in an skeletal shape is by no means ideal but it fills a gap and is a seed for other editors to run with it. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes Judith, but the article is useful and will be useful for specific works or specific situations that arise in Britain, this is not a scientific editors magazine Judith and we are not supposed to be experts or to write for experts. Actually it is the editors who are obsessed with telling us that they know best about all this global warm issues that are that problem. Off2riorob (talk) 21:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

We should be experts or experts on distilling what the experts say!! So I take it you oppose the merge Off2riorob? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I oppose the merging Alan, actually decisions like this that are resisted would be better left alone until the Global warming Arbcom case is over. Off2riorob (talk) 22:15, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh. I wasn't aware of the arbcom case on the climate change articles. I added my two cents worth about this article over there. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:37, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support merge as per Itsmejudith. Wikispan (talk) 23:14, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support merge per Itsmejudith. It's telling that the article hasn't gone anywhere in its several weeks of existence. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec) So if it is merged, and I presume you mean to the climate change article, it will stick out like a sore thumb. So shall we merge Climate change in the United States, Climate change in Tuvalu, Climate change in Alberta, Climate change in California, Climate change in Australia, Climate change in New Zealand, Climate change in Japan, Climate change in China etc into the same article? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:48, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support Have not seen any sensible reason suggested as to why this article should exist independently. Brilliantine (talk) 01:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Here are some reasons, some which have been already mentioned:

• it is a notable topic
• there is an interest in the topic
• it fills a gap in the hierarchy of articles that are needed to build WP
• merging the info into another article will create systemic or geographic bias
• it helps to fulfil Jimmy Wales aim of creating the "sum of all human knowledge"
• if articles on silly old Pokemon characters can exist why not have this article. Climate change is of far more importance!! (heh-heh - in-joke...)
• it acts as an overview article to tie all of the climate change articles relating to the UK together. Most would be in the related category of course but the articles need to have at least a few explanatory words wrapped around them. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:37, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose merge. I agree with Alan Liefting. I don't see why this article can't start as a stub. Mrfebruary (talk) 06:37, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
• ignore this article is doomed to exist now its been created - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Global warming in Japan if you doubt me - and doomed to be largely pointless just like that article, or indeed the whole series of climate change in... articles William M. Connolley (talk) 17:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Global warming in Japan passed as a fairly good consensus as a keep. Why is this series of articles largely pointless? These articles have a wide range of info that cannot be shoved anywhere else. Climate change and global warming topics are increasingly, aarhh, heating up in the media and here in WP as you are well aware. If you don't agree with the Climate change in XXXX articles where should all that info be placed? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

In a single, coherent article called something like Regional climate change (currently a redirect to the main CC article, though it shouldn't be). This would allow us to compare and contrast the different regions instead of everything being scattered across eleventy-zillion fragmented articles. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:50, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the eventual 200 odd pages on climate change (it wont be eleventy-zillion!) since WP is not paper. There is also a need for comparisons between countries in say a Climate change by county article as well as retaining the Regional effects of global warming. If all the country specific climate was incorporated into a single article either it will be a huge article or some stuff would have to be ditched. Neither alternative is any good. (I have sent Regional climate change to Regional effects of global warming.) -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:16, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Climate change task force

I have set up Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Climate change task force. Please consider joining up. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:07, 1 January 2010 (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 Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:47, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Tagging the article

Moved here from my talk page:

It is bad form to remove article tags without fixing the problems that they indicate. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:44, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Considering the clear consensus developing above to split the content of this article and merge it into others, when Alan Liefting added 'expand' and 'prose' tags to the existing 'merge' tag, I removed them, saying "No consensus for contradictory tags". The tags are contradictory, as, if this article is about to be merged elsewhere, the last thing we need is last-minute attempts to make it longer before the merge.

--Nigelj (talk) 12:33, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

You removed what you described as "useless tags" in the edit summary before the emerging consensus on a merge. The tags would be removed at the time of a merge obviously. Tags should not be removed until the described problem is fixed or if they have been applied without justification. The tags are justifiable on this page. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:16, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

It is not true that I have described anything as "useless tags". Please withdraw that. I try to assume good faith, but misrepresenting my words like that is either a gross error or a lie on your part. --Nigelj (talk) 22:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about that. It was User:Polargeo who used that phrase when he removed them. Calling them as such is indicative of a dissatisfaction with their use. Tags are intrusive but necessary evil.-- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:58, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

So you have been edit-warring these tags onto the article against multiple other editors? How many people disagree with you over these tags? What do you understand by WP:CONSENSUS? --Nigelj (talk) 13:43, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Two reverts in three days to restore something that has has widespread community support is hardly edit warring. Adding the maintenance tags is something that has consensus by convention. The tags are required on this article because they describe shortcomings of it. I don't know why you consider the {{expand}} and {{prose}} tags as "contradictory". Also, the two editors on this article who removed the tags is not a consensus. The consensus policy states "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." So how about you apologise for accusing me of edit warring and suggesting that I do not understand the meaning of a consensus? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 19:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge Effected

Per 8 supports (including proposer) and one "resigned to it's fate" against two opposes (including article creator) for merge I am putting this into effect with a redirect to Climate change. The information on the Climatic Research Unit and the Stern Review is already covered in detail on wikipedia and really does not need a UK based linking article. Despite User:Alan Liefting repeatedly posting expansion tags and arguing strongly to save this article which he created there is no evidence of him actually adding any information on Climate Change in the UK to this article. This article has no use at present except as a content fork. This situation may change but at the moment consensus seems to be that the article is not viable in its present form. Polargeo (talk) 06:18, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Belated support. Thanks!--Heyitspeter (talk) 00:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

There was no merge as such. It was a straight redir. There is content that was of use to readers in the article that is lost with a redir to the climate change article. I have redirected it to Category:Climate change in the United Kingdom ^(correction) as a better solution. There is at least a series of links of interest to the reader doing a search on "Climate change in the United Kingdom". Apparently there may be policy or guidelines that do not recommend redirecting across namespaces. I have yet to see it. A better recommendation is not to redir from content to the admin/maint/project/user namespaces. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Nothing to merge that wasn't already covered in more detail elsewhere. Polargeo (talk) 09:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Can we possibly have an article on climate change organisations and/or policies within the UK. This saves us the rather ill-defined article "Climate change in the UK" that actually had no information relating to what was stated in the title. Polargeo (talk) 09:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe even a list article would do the job Polargeo (talk) 09:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

There was a bunch of links that were not merged into climate change - and rightly so since climate change is a generic or, dare I say it, global article! It should not have links to the hundreds of articles on climate change that are specific to one area. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

We need an article that is about all climate change related info in the UK - lobbying, public opinion, policy, organisations, etc. That was my intention for setting up the initial article. Unfortunately no one expanded it past a stub. Look at articles such as Climate change in New Zealand and Climate change in the United States as examples of what can be done. Why are you not happy with the title? It is the same as all the other "Climate change in Foo" article. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

That is why I redirected it to the category. It is a list of sorts. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Deletion?

It's not clear to me why this article should exist. "Climate change in the UK" isn't descriptive, it could mean, at least, "Global warming occurring in the UK," "Efforts to change the climate in the UK," or "Climate science being done in the UK." If it's the first, the third, or all three of these, it seems to meet the criteria for deletion listed here. If it's just the second, then it seems to meet the criteria for deletion listed here. I'm not saying this article should be deleted, I'm just saying that if this article shouldn't be deleted, why hasn't it denied these accusations? Thanks!--Heyitspeter (talk) 09:32, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

It just needs moving to Climate change policy in the United Kingdom. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:24, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

If it is changed to that name where would climate trends, lobbying by NGOs, public perception of climate change etc be documented? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 18:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

It is an overview article. Climate change is a notable issue that has a huge amount of info written about it and an overview is needed. The article is not a directory and it is notable and it needs expanding. Compare it to the similar articles being built at Climate change in New Zealand and Climate change in the United States and all others at Category:Climate change by country. The article would be in a hierarchy of articles along these lines:

Climate change	→ Climate change in the United Kingdom	→ Climate change policy in the United Kingdom	→ Climate change law in the United Kingdom
		→ Effects of global warming on the United Kingdom
		→ Greenhouse gas emissions in the United Kingdom

There needs to be an overview article that collect all the stuff in Category:Climate change in the United Kingdom and shoves it in an article as prose. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 18:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

So can we leave the category article you're linking to and delete this one? It should fulfill this one's purpose.--Heyitspeter (talk) 11:33, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

No. The category does not replace the article in this case. THere is a need for prose to link it all together. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Lobbying by NGOs and public perception come under policy: they're part of the policy-making process. Greenhouse emissions probably needs its own article. I'm not convinced that any of these country overview articles make sense. Science articles are science articles. Economics/sociology/policy studies articles need to be kept separate. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of what academic discipline the info is about there will always be a need for an overview article that ties them all together. By policy I mean public policy. Lobbying and public perception drive public policy but is not a part of it. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:32, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks like an interesting set of articles. Look forward to seeing those red links turn blue. One thought - it strikes me that it might be easier to write those articles and summarise them into this, rather than trying to write here and then spin them out. Guettarda (talk) 20:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

WP has generally been built by starting with articles on very specific topics. Myself, and others, are trying to get overview articles created to tie everything together. This article, along with its sibling articles can be built concurrently - as long as they all tie in correctly and without redundant info across multiple articles. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:32, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the most important thing to avoid is a rehash, at country or continent level, of the science of climate change. There is a clear worldwide consensus on the science. What we have a country and continental scale begins with public and official perception of the science, followed by reaction in terms of policy, demonstrations, migrancy etc. (There may be a space for scientifically measured effects of CC, such as the time of the arrival of spring, the migration of animals, rainfall etc, but I don't know if we have much interest in these here at the moment.) --Nigelj (talk) 09:57, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I did not set the page up to rehash the general climate change science. However, there is science and, by definition, data on individual countries. See Climate change in New Zealand and Climate change in the United States for some examples of what should be at this article. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

This article is terrible. It is a clear deletion becuause it does not do what it says in the title but instead is a coatrack for attacking UK policy. Whilst this policy may be terrible this is not a helpful article. Polargeo (talk) 14:11, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed - it consists of a few incoherent sentences about random subjects related to CC and/or the UK, followed by a link farm. With its current title, it should be about changes in the coming of spring and autumn; rainfall, sunshine and other weather patterns etc. There are useful articles like Public opinion on climate change and Economics of climate change. Maybe whoever's working here would be better occupied on a 'UK' section in each of these? I recommend deletion of this as the title is too vague for it to become a useful article in its own right. --Nigelj (talk) 15:01, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

(<-)Alan Liefting:WP has generally been built by starting with articles on very specific topics - I see this as absolutely untrue. From my perspective, WP has been built by starting with general articles that have been progressively forked and re-forked. I strongly feel the amount of forking is reaching a level where it renders important topics in encyclopedia totally unreadable to the average internet wanderer, and that this must be addressed as a priority. Brilliantine (talk) 03:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Here's a challenge...

<humour> If little old New Zealand with only 4.2 million people can create a comprehensive Climate change in New Zealand article why is it that the UK cannot create a Climate change in the United Kingdom article even though it has a population 15 times greater. Come on Poms! I dare you to create an article. Look, even the Yanks can do it! No wonder you lost your empire. Get off you ale sodden arses and out of the pubs! Do some editing! Forget the football - do something constructive. </humour> -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes funny. However, the articles although kept are just named plain wrong. WMCs point was climate change is global and should not be split on a country by country basis. Just because those articles now exist does not solve the fundamental problem. Now an article specifically on the climate change policy or a list of climate change organisations in a country is a different matter. Polargeo (talk) 07:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Would anyone accept having an article Climate change policy in the United Kingdom and a List of climate change organisations in the United Kingdom. This would avoid a regional dumping ground for climate change information in general. Polargeo (talk) 07:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is a draft of a policy stub based on the article that was here User:Polargeo/Positive feedback effectsUser:Polargeo/Climate change policy in the United Kingdom. Please feel free to add or discuss. Creation of a list which includes UK research institutes as well as lobbying bodies may also be useful but I don't see a UK article on the research being sensible because UK research is international in nature. Polargeo (talk) 07:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Polargeo/Positive feedback effects is not about positive feedback, nor is is about Climate change in the United Kingdom. If anything it is about Politics of climate change in the United Kingdom. Do you guys realise that there are about 200 countries in the world? Are you proposing 200 articles like this one, or like that draft? What about splitting the subject(s) by continent? Please don't continue to muddle the actual changes in the climate with the politics, the public opinion, and the effects of CC on the natural world. Globalisation of Wikipedia is a challenge, and 200 articles on every aspect is not the answer. --Nigelj (talk) 10:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I just used Positive feedbacks it is an old subpage of mine I will move it. I am sorry to Nigelj about the confusion as I agree with his statements. Polargeo (talk) 10:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay I have moved it to User:Polargeo/Climate change policy in the United Kingdom which is the title I was suggesting. I think this drive of Alan Liefting is impossible to fight which is why I am trying to make sure it is done right and we don't have a silly article entitled Climate change in the United Kingdom. Polargeo (talk) 10:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, sorry about getting confused by the name. But my other point about expecting to build and maintain 200 country-based articles still remains. Obviously what's going to happen is that most of them will never be created, so we will end up with a huge article on 'X the US', something on Australia, NZ and the UK, and 95% of the world will be ignored as usual. Taking the view that 'X in Senegal', 'X in Uruguay', 'X in China' is irrelevant to English-speakers is very narrow-minded and frankly insulting. Why not start off by continent, Europe, North America, Asia etc, and at least have a plan that is remotely achievable. --Nigelj (talk) 10:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree when it comes to climate change in general however, there will always be more coverage of UK government policy on English wikipedia than on most non-English speaking countries,it is therefore better that this is in a UK article than overweighting an international article. I think my argument was rather about avoiding a general article on climate change for every country. Some of these articles have been taken to AfD and they come back with a vast sweeping keep. Therefore we have to deal with this and my plan is to deal with this by creating the appropriate article on UK policy rather than having a general UK article on climate change in the UK which is a bit of a silly division. Polargeo (talk) 15:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that articles called 'Climate change in [country A]' are completely hopeless and cannot be maintained sensibly. 'Climate change policy in [country A]' are better, but my preference would be 'Politics of climate change in [region M]' for two reasons. First, I prefer politics to policy because it allows discussion of demonstrations, marches, on-line campaign groups, proposed policy and so on, whereas the other only seems to allow discussion of done-deals and enacted laws, which will always lag behind the active politics. Second, I am sticking to my argument for expanding the regions covered per article beyond countries, as there are too many of those and so there are bound to be items in the news, e.g. some radical new policy enacted in Java, that we cannot cover: It won't be worth creating a whole new article for, and we cannot put it into an article on 'Politics of climate change in New Zealand'. On the other hand, renaming that article now to 'Politics of climate change in Oceania', and merging any other existing Australian and other content, would mean that everything significant can be covered. I think such renames and mergers will go down better than AfDs. --Nigelj (talk) 16:37, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Replies in order:

• Polargeo, the name of the article is not perfect but it is better than Issues relating to recent climate change and anthropogenic global warming in the United Kingdom including policy, public policy, public perception, media bias, lobbing, organisations and science pertaining to the British Isles. No one is arguing that climate change is not global, its just that there is a lot of info about it that pertains to a particular country. Climate change in the United Kingdom is just shorthand for the convoluted article name I flippantly suggested above.
• Polargeo, the two articles you mention are credible articles and should be created (although I am not so keen on a "List of cc orgs" - that is what categories are for but if it is an annotated list I would welcome it) but there still needs to be an overview article linking ALL climate change related info in the UK. I described an article hierarchy above. Ideally there should be no gaps in it. Have a look at Category:Climate change in the United States for a range of articles that can be created and MUST be linked with an overview. "Climate change by country" articles are not "dumping grounds" - they are overview articles. WP needs overview articles. Have a look at the present cc by country articles. Are they dumping grounds?
• Nigelj, There in nothing wrong with 200 odd articles about climate change for different countries since WP is not paper. Also, there is info that is notable about climate change for every country. Every country has opinion policy, effects of cc and usually some cc orgs. It will probably be some time before we see a full series of such articles. Note the Climate change opinion by country article that has recently been created.
• Nigelj, merging article into 'Politics of climate change in Oceania' makes no sense. Politics has national borders (as well as regional borders etc). It makes sense to created an article about the politics of climate change of a country. In fact some articles have been created about climate change within a country eg Climate change in Alberta (now a redir to Canada cc article) and in Category:Climate change in the United States by state. If there is insufficient info to create a climate change article for a particular country the info can be bunged in the associated environment article. Note that there is a Politics of global warming (United States) article.

So there is a need to have an overview article on climate change related issues in the UK in the same way there are ones for other countries. If such an article was created - and it is inevitable that it will be created - what would you prefer as an article name? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

That is a hopeless and muddled plan in my opinion. We already have global economics of climate change, public opinion on climate change, scientific opinion on climate change and politics of global warming articles. Now you want an "Economics, public opinion, politics and science of climate change in the UK" article (with the name simplified to "Climate change in the UK") and more than 200 just like it, including ones on individual US and Canadian states? Is this not impossible to maintain and navigate? What about all the duplication? What happens if there is a change to the science that affects them all, who will do the update? What about a new international treaty that affects the laws in every country? These hundreds of articles will never be created, and if they did they would not be maintained. Whatever happened to Wikipedia:Summary style, where we create global articles, spin off specialist areas when they get too big, and keep the parent articles as summaries? This seems to be starting the process backwards and hoping someone will sort it all out at some point in the future. I wouldn't give you such a hard time, except that you are the founder of Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Climate change task force and I would have hoped for a more realistic overall plan than this. --Nigelj (talk) 22:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know I had a plan but I spose I have. But what is my plan? If a topic is notable, referenced and is able to be more than a stub it should be created. Climate change for OECD/EU/"Western" countries falls within those criteria. Other countries will do as well. As for my "plan" - which is completely theoretical since controlling WP editors is like herding cats (ie impossible) - I want the fabric of WP climate change articles to develop in an orderly way. For example Climate change in Alberta was created before Climate change in Canada and now that we have the latter I merged the two articles. The Canada article should have been written first but it wasn't. Navigating between hundreds of articles is not a problem if suitably linked and categorised. Your argument about maintaining them does not wash. That is a problem for WP in its entirety. Duplication will always happen out of necessity due to the similar nature of some articles. Wikipedia:Summary style is used for the articles as they go up the hierarchy of course. I have nothing against global articles on climate change topics if that have no systemic bias and represent the global situation but in practice I have seen these sort of articles become a magnet for random entries about random countries. As for spinning off info out of an article and leaving a summary I have found that that is more difficult than starting an article from scratch. We already have a small collection of climate change by country article. I am quite sure we will seem more of such articles created. I have an essay that may be of interest at User:Alan Liefting/On filling the gaps. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:40, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem I have is the article title you suggest, although it could be used as a coverall it primarily appears to refer to physical climate change and this is the article most of us are objecting about. So the title doesn't work because the primary thing it refers to is the article we don't want. Now we could just plough ahead and make this horrible mess but I would prefer some thought and even collaboration on this. Polargeo (talk) 07:48, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I assume that you mean "physical climate change" as opposed to the politics etc. Since the article name issue affects many other articles it is probably best to start a thread at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Environment/Climate change task force or Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Climate change/Climate change articles by country. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 10:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe when I have the time I will start a conversation at your new page but just because you have been able to plough ahead and do all this work without a proper discussion does not make it the correct way to do it. In fact quite the reverse. Polargeo (talk) 10:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Hard to know what to do. AL's drive to make coverage of climate change as fragmented as possible seems unstoppable at this point, so all we can do is try to contain the damage. How best to accomplish that? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 12:12, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I have made a few suggestions above about making an article on the UK politics and avoiding a generally named article such as this one but it does feel like holding up a pillar whilst the temple collapses about us :). Polargeo (talk) 12:45, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If you see any problems with my editing then please discuss it with me or bring it up at the appropriate forum. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Redirect to related category

I have once again redirected the article to Category:Climate change in the United Kingdom. My attempt to delete the inapprop redir did not reach consensus and I had second thoughts about it anyway. Redirecting the page to climate change is far less helpful to a reader than a redir to the related category. Any concerns about cross-namespace redirects are ill-founded. Those concerns seem to be from content to project redirects. I see nothing wrong with a redir from a content article to a content category. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Another attempt to creat an article under a poor title

Just because Alan has succeeded in creating so many articles under titles that do not properly convey what the article is about is not a good reason to create another one [3]. In fact it would be better to reexamine all of the poorly considered articles that currently exist and organise them better. Unfortunately as long as Alan is pushing for this type of heading it is difficult to consider doing this. Polargeo (talk) 14:42, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

So, what's the plan for a structure and a way of finding all the (currently) obscure articles about CC and GW policy, politics, public opinion, economics etc, worldwide? We really need a plan. I would like to see them listed at the current ArbCom case as some people seem to be implying there that there are none (just the science ones). There are dozens, if not hundreds, but we don't know where they all are, and there is no overall structure that I know of. I have argued previously that splitting by country is a bad idea as there are ~200 countries in the world, so a GW policy in X, Politics of GW in X, Public opinion on GW in X, Economics of GW in X article for each country (X) would amount to nearly a thousand articles. Even this CC in X article ought to be one of 200. I suggested splitting by continent as there are far fewer of those, but I think it was an Australian didn't want his stuff muddied by all the rest of Oceania, it seemed. We need a plan. --Nigelj (talk) 18:29, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Rv: why

I took out a recent change [4]. Because:

It is a clear link between the shrinking ice and more extreme weather in lower latitudes. Year 2012 weather broke records in England, for a dry spring followed by the wettest ever April to June, and June had the second lowest sunshine on record. Farmers suffered the worst weather combination, with drought followed by a disastrously damp then waterlogged crops. Retailers and the leisure industries were also hurt.

is too inaccurate. Firstly the Graun isn't good; you need to be reading the (paywalled) GRL paper its based on. Secondly and more importantly "It is a clear link..." is far too strong: even reading the Graun makes that clear. And thirdly, a wet summer is only very tenuously "extreme weather" William M. Connolley (talk) 17:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

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Structure could probably be improved

EMsmile or anyone else who is interested. If you have time perhaps the structure of this article could be improved - maybe to make the headings and structure of this article to be in line with the template that has been proposed here for all articles of the nature "Climate change in Country X": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Climate_change/Style_guide (see also discussion on that page's talk page) Chidgk1 (talk) 06:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Yep, let's do it, thanks for pointing it out, User:Chidgk1. I had a quick read of the talk page. Really interesting how ten years ago there was this debate if this article should be allowed to exist (it was probably very short then but still). Today, I did a restructuring of Climate change in Brazil, so I could easily do it for this article too. If someone beats me to it, all the better. EMsmile (talk) 10:26, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi User:Chidgk1, I have now adapted this article to the new standard structure. It worked out quite well. However, we have nothing on mitigation yet. I checked in the sub-article Greenhouse gas emissions by the United Kingdom but even there I couldn't really see specific content about mitigation. So this still needs to be added when someone has time. EMsmile (talk) 06:47, 8 February 2021 (UTC)