Talk:Climate change denial/Archive 11

This is an EXTREMELY biased article

This article, nearly in its entirety, is written in the POV of someone who believes in global climate change to be true. Currently, Global Climate Change is a highly disputed topic, and has been proved neither true nor false, as there is counter evidence to every evidence. Personally, I do not believe even rewriting this article could save it from being biased. Please tell me if you believe otherwise. WIKIPEEDIO 18:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I overall agree with you, but this article is some sort of playground for a political cause and WP must live with it it seems. There are several serious articles about climate change but the scientific editors involved in these, for some reason, have allowed this to live despite that it somewhat damages their cause. --Childhood's End (talk) 20:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

CE, the article is based upon a very real viewpoint in several reliable sources - thus it survived the AfD - which is why this article is still around. While i personally do not like some of the argumentations used, its a widely used concept. If you believe that its not - then you are welcome to resubmit it for AfD. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:21, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

This article is a very messy leftist blog entry, no more. It has 4 sections, among which 2 are titled with "alleged"-something and another with "possible"-something. Perhaps it fits in the NYT, but not in an encyclopedia. True enough, the concept is notable and widely used, but that does not excuse you or other editors to allow such a POV-pushing brochure to exist in this form. I see in the first para. that the mention that "Newsweek and others in the media describe it as a form of denialism" is still there, whereas this is a plain lie; this description is not made by any source. Then you have a series of implications that global warming is a fact rather than a theory, something that even the IPCC does not agree with, and that challenging scientific findings must amount to politically-motivated denial. I need not say more. I'd be comfortable with an article restrained to reporting the existence of the concept of "climate change denial" but as it stands now, this article is mostly about reporting various conspiracy theories. --Childhood's End (talk) 15:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The scientific opinion on climate change is rather clear - but that is in reality quite irrelevant for your statement of bias. The article is strongly referenced with reliable sources - so if you have more specific critique, or equally reliable sources to make the article more neutral then please add them. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Who has the energy to rehearse all of this? The article's citations haven't been disputed; the entry has been extensively vetted. What's POV is the denial of documented denial, or the claim that "there is counter evidence to every evidence" of climate change (if I even understand the phrase)--a claim that is itself totally without evidence. But, yes, Kim is write; disturbing as such an assertion is, it's irrelevant to this entry.Benzocane (talk) 00:45, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, lets not confuse the state of the science with the state of public opinion in the US. We have to take a world-view on issues and on much of the rest of the world there is no debate, they are already taking action. Even in the US, this is still pushing it, since McCain said something about taking action on global warming in a GOP debate. If he was not afraid to talk about it there, I think public opinion in the US is moving forward and things are more settled then you think . Brusegadi (talk) 06:02, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree fully with this statement. Despite what Newsweek and Al Gore state, there is absolutely no consensus among scientists and other "experts". There are many highly-qualified scientists that understand global warming is a hoax brought on by extreme environmentalists to attack oil companies and other industries that are crucial to the economy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.245.125.116 (talk) 19:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

There absolutely IS a consensus. With the July 2007 release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate. 205.175.225.22 (talk) 21:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

IP Address guy, I fully agree. Except, we cannot go about writing this article in an extreme right-wing POV either. I only want one thing to happen to this article: for it to stop making global warming non-believers sound like idiots. It currently is written as if the belief in recent climate change is fact, which it is not. It is theory. Oh, and Benzocane... My sentence was not that hard to understand. I know it may be hard for you sometimes when people dispute theories you believe in, but lets maybe keep it professional and not insult anyone who does not agree with you. If you want, I will clarify my sentence. "For any evidence found that supports Global Warming, there is evidence to counter it." WIKIPEEDIO 00:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Please read this. Brusegadi (talk) 00:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah.. i know what a Theory is. But the definition of a theory, basically, just is that there is a lot of evidence supporting it and that it may be very highly accepted. However, the belief that climate change does not exist also presents a lot of valid evidence as well. Therefore, there are two theories: One that Climate change is real, and one that climate change is not real... But I mean, regardless of ANYTHING like that, this article is written in POV. So whether or not climate change is real or not is absolutely irrelevant. Wikipedia's policy says we can't have articles like this. So it has got to be fixed.

If you want me to explain more, let me demonstrate with Christianity, of which I am a strong believer. There is a lot of scientific "evidence" which disproves that there was any intelligence which created the world. However, that "evidence" does not stop millions and millions of people like me from going to church and believing that there was indeed a creator. So, if I were to use your attitude toward this article, and apply it to that of the Christianity article, then I could basically rename the article "Belief of a creator" and replace the intro line with "Christianity is a false belief that many people follow, which centers on the universe having an 'intelligent designer'." WIKIPEEDIO 20:49, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I think you have a misconception on how the size of those who disagree with some aspect of "Global warming". First of all, as you admitted before, there is a theory behind anthropogenic global warming. You also claim that "However, the belief that climate change does not exist also presents a lot of valid evidence as well." This is not true. First, there is no one single "belief that gw does not exist." Its just a bunch of individual guys who criticize different aspects of the theory but their criticisms are not consistent. So, do not view it as 'those who believe in gw and those who do not.' Instead view it as an almost unanimous body that believe is GW and one guy who says X, another guy who says Y and two other guys who say Z. So, by WP:WEIGHT we cant give them the same space as we give the main researchers. Finally, you attempted to construct an analogy between this and Christianity but I dont think the two are analogous in the way you pose it. Notice that this article is about "Climate change denial" as it has been used in the media. Since you cant "disprove" or "prove" the existence of God, and since religion is a sensitive issue, I dont think that the press will or can label Christians as the "scientific evidence denialists" and since that is not a popular term it does not deserve to have an article. Brusegadi (talk) 08:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

"Its just a bunch of individual guys who criticize different aspects of the theory but their criticisms are not consistent." Hey, we get to hear this one from time to time but that's a rather irrelevant argument. The AGW theory is built upon several assumptions so it is only natural that arguments to disprove it can be made on a large variety of grounds. --Childhood's End (talk) 14:30, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. However, the more fragmented the views are, the smaller the number of proposers for each view so it is misleading to talk about "the opposite belief" when, in fact, there is not one opposing belief but several each with limited support. Brusegadi (talk) 21:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I see what you mean. Although I would suspect that what he meant by "the opposite belief" would simply be disagreement, no matter on what grounds, with the mainstream theory. --Childhood's End (talk) 21:47, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I now understand what this article is trying to say. After familiarizing myself with recent developments in this topic, I would have to say that you are indeed correct. It seems that the "evidence" I was referring to was either of rumor, or evidence that has already been disproven (or proven to be never true). And you are right, Wikipedia does say that you must go with the overwhelming majority.. so I apologize for my underresearch of this topic and will definitely try my best to do a little bit more research in the future, and not rely on what I have seen and read in the past :) WIKIPEEDIO 23:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Cool. See you around, :) Brusegadi (talk) 00:40, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Your comparison is spot on. Every counter-argument in this article gets immediately shot down by assertions that there's no proof to them. This article makes no mention of the heating and cooling periods of the earth, save one small paragraph of "alleged" data, while the pro-GW data is said to be absolutely set in stone scientifically speaking. Also missing is the data on the actual size of human's "carbon footprint." Nothing is said about the fact that cows, when they flatulate, emit enough CO2 to compete with a human's car emissions, or about the ice caps getting bigger once more. It's sad to see such biased articles in a supposedly professional format. The Global Warming Denier labels and article are just to direct attention away from the fact that the Global Warming enthusiasts are denying the possibility that there is alternative data against Global Warming. I realize that an article being edited by the folks will tend to lean left because it seems to be the majority, but this article is just a sickening example of bias and propaganda. I would say the same if this were a right-leaning article. The only next logical step for this article, however, would be to have it redirect to a Washington Post review of "An Inconvenient Truth." --68.54.151.121 (talk) 19:05, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Please do not use wikipedia as a discussion forum, or a soapbox, see WP:TALK. Either point out specific problems in the article or go to another appropriate forum (theres plenty around). Normally i'd have removed your comment since it breaks those rules, but since this seems to be your first contribution, you get that advice instead. Happy editing. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:00, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Just as a curiosity, is there a source for anybody describing it as "climate change denial", or is the title intended to be a flagrantly biased NPOV comparison to "Holocaust denial"? Kinitawowi (talk) 10:57, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Just check the references and the external links. Yes, the term is used repeatedly and by reliable sources. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Why is "Manufactured Controversy" linked under see also on this page? Isnt it enough that the entire page is already distrubingly pro-AGW without officially labelling dissent with a theory as automatically being party to some conspiracy driven by big energy? Propose link removal. Jaimaster (talk) 03:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Well as someone who is a climate skeptic, I can assure you that this article doesn't cover the skeptical (sorry, "denialist") position at all. If you want to be biased, at least cover it then shoot it down in flames. But this article doesn't even do that. The comments threads here and elsewhere have made it clear that there's no room for skeptics at wikipedia. Space doesn't permit to explain everything that's wrong with this article, but I'll point one detail out: it doesn't even link to prominent skeptical sources or articles. I'm not going to do a roll-call of those sources, you should know them and have access to them if you claim to be an expert in climate denial (which is not quite the same as being an expert on climate change).122.148.134.81 (talk) 23:52, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

This article isn't supposed to cover the skeptical position. Please re-read its intro. The skeptical stuff gets limited coverage in global warming and more extensively at global warming controversy. *This* article is about describing denial. Linking extensively to skeptical positions from within here would label them as denial rather than honest skepticism. I find it hard to believe thats what you want William M. Connolley (talk) 07:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)