Talk:Climate change denial/Archive 30

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NPOV concerns

This article is so in need of NPOV editing I'm not sure where to begin. This is why we can't have nice things. Let's clean this up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.21.145.13 (talk) 21:02, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

What specific problems do you see that might violate WP:NPOV? --Ronz (talk) 22:34, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

No mention of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy or the reasons that "deniers" "realists"? give. 24.127.27.254 (talk) 08:39, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't see your point, could you elaborate thanks? What is the connection? Perhaps you could also say what you think the topic of this article is? Dmcq (talk) 10:02, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

While you're at it, please use proper grammar and complete sentences. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:01, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Comparison needed

The lead ends: "Between 2002 and 2010, conservative billionaires secretly donated nearly $120 million (£77 million) to more than 100 organizations seeking to cast doubt on the science behind climate change."

We should state, for purpose of comparison, how much was spent by, for example, non-conservative billionaires, governments, and other organizations, in order to promote the consensus view on climate change. I don't think it would be a secret. Does anyone know where such data may be found? —Blanchette (talk) 23:25, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Are there any reliable sources making that specific connection in the context of climate change denial? Otherwise including such data would be classic synthesis. Sailsbystars (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Ha ha! If anyone tried to work this out, they'd have to go back to about the early 1800s and add up most of the money ever spent on science! And mathematics - climate scientists use all kinds of maths in their work. Then there's the development of computers and computer science, they were used to establish the consensus view. No, I don't think anyone would have published a sensible comparison of the costs of the conservative war on science, compared to the cost of science itself. --Nigelj (talk) 22:07, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I quite agree, but I thought I'd try the less snarky approach. Sailsbystars (talk) 23:48, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

"The real climate 'deniers' are the greens"

While renewables subsidies have punished Europe, shale gas has cut U.S. emissions by Robert Bryce, WSJ op-ed, Feb 3, 2014. Sample quote:

For years, greens and many on the political left have insisted that widespread adoption of renewable energy will create jobs and stimulate the economy. ... It was all bunk.

...

Europe's decision to slow down on renewables suggests that the term "climate denier" needs an overhaul. ... the lesson from Europe is that the environmentalists who have been relentlessly hawking renewables are the real deniers.

They have denied the costs that renewable energy mandates impose on the European economy. They've denied the environmental benefits of increased natural gas use in the U.S. And they continue to deny the difficulty of addressing carbon-dioxide emissions on a global scale.

An interesting turnabout, that I think should go into our article. --Pete Tillman (talk) 04:31, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

He has some reasonable ideas even if he is basically a denier himself saying climate change isn't settled and innovation is going to fix everything we don't have to worry about the problems and always finding problems with anything but oil. It would have to be attributed properly to the author and WSJ rather than as general opinion. Dmcq (talk) 08:33, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

It's not a 'turnabout'. It's just more of the same. I'm not sure we need to cover every opinion piece in the WSJ written by someone from a US conservative think tank. Is there any other coverage of this piece that makes it notable? --Nigelj (talk) 12:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Unimpressed with this freelancing pundit. I couldn't find any place where he acknowledged the climate mitigation wedge concept, or even listed the proposals he assessed when he decided they were not "credible" much less numbers he used to compare the cost of business-as-usual. In contrast, the World Bank just released a study concluding that "Government policies that improve energy efficiency and public transport could increase global economic output by more than $1.8 trillion per year, and also save lives, reduce crop losses and tackle climate change..." NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:07, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

---

Thanks for the comments. This has been a pretty common theme among CC skeptics of late. I'll work up something for this article as time (and inclination) permit. --Pete Tillman (talk) 16:15, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

One unclear statement in the article: 'alleged'

"Aside from private industry groups, climate change denial has also been alleged regarding the statements of elected officials."

That statement is not clear, and reading it over several times I cannot make out what the writer means. The citation gives one example of a person's opinion that some elected politicians' disavowing the evidence for human-caused climate change is denialism, but that person cannot know the motivation for the politicians' falsehoods. Denialism is a mental health care issue; disavowal is a greed and "free market" ideological issue. There are tens of thousands of examples of politicians disavowing the fact that humans have caused and are causing climate change, and the evidence overwhelmingly shows that disavowal is due to greed (that is, the politicians are lying); the evidence that some of these politicians are deniers, however, is subjective: only a mental health care provider can give an opinion on that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Desertphile (talk • contribs) 14:43, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

The denial article is certainly as you say, but this article is about what people and organisations do rather than any internal mental state. One can't assign a mental state to an organisation. Also this article does not cover people in denial if they don't actively do anything, as the lead says "Climate change denial is a set of organized attempts to downplay, deny or dismiss the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons." Dmcq (talk) 15:33, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Lewandowsky "Recursive Fury" paper retracted

I notice his absurd "Recursive Fury" conspiracy-theory paper has just been added. Please note that the journal that published it has retracted it: Controversial paper linking conspiracy ideation to climate change skepticism formally retracted at Retraction Watch. He's quite the "scholar"! As is his co-author, John Cook (Australian scientist). Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 21:52, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can see it is still supported by a university and has passed peer review and the reason for retraction is solely fear of legal repecussions, nothing has been found wrong with the study. The policy on Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED. There is no reason with policy to remove the citation and if it fits within the topic and seems a good fit for the article then there is no reason to remove it. You could write to the legal department of Wikipedia about your concerns but should not raise them here again or you will probably fall foul of WP:LEGALTHREAT. Dmcq (talk) 23:24, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Are we doing careful research on sources or slinging bloggish pom-poms? Meaningful rumor control leads instantly to the this bit at the publisher's website

"This article, first published by Frontiers on 18 March 2013, has been the subject of complaints. Given the nature of some of these complaints, Frontiers has provisionally removed the link to the article while these issues are investigated, which is being done as swiftly as possible and which Frontiers management considers the most responsible course of action. The article has not been retracted or withdrawn." (bold supplied)

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:22, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

In his rush to sling pom-poms, Pete Tillman has made a false assertion that a cite to the "Recursive Fury" paper has been added to this article. Wrong. While the paper may well be worth mentioning, it's not currently cited. . . dave souza, talk 19:12, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Retracted now FYI The publisher did indeed retract the paper. Capitalismojo (talk) 00:14, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

True enough, at that link one reads "This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study. It did, however, determine that the legal context is insufficiently clear and therefore Frontiers wishes to retract the published article. The authors understand this decision, while they stand by their article and regret the limitations on academic freedom which can be caused by legal factors." It is my guess the authors are now free to seek republication elsewhere, where the editorial board may take a different view based on advice of a different corporate counsel. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:20, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

---

Further commentary by the publisher of Lewandowsky's retracted paper: Rights of Human Subjects in Scientific Papers at Frontiers Journals, by Henry Markram, Editor-in-Chief, Frontiers

Pullquote: "The authors of the retracted paper and their followers are doing the climate change crisis a tragic disservice by attacking people personally and saying that it is ethically ok to identify them in a scientific study. They made a monumental mistake, refused to fix it and that rightfully disqualified the study."

It's surprising (to me) that they published such an obvious hatchet-job -- and even more surprising that people are still defending it. "Recursive Fury" has been formally retracted, and hence isn't a RS for here. --Pete Tillman (talk) 05:54, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

The publisher retracted the paper because they could not find a way to protect the identity of the individuals discussed in the paper. Not because the paper because was a hatchet job. Those are your words. — TPX 08:05, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

The paper that is mentioned in this article is "Lewandowsky, Stephan; Oberauer, Klaus (2013). "NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax". Psychological Science (Sage Publications) 24 (5): 622–633. doi:10.1177/0956797612457686", not the Recursive Fury one. The paper that Pete Tillman brought to attention here can be accessed at [1] at the University of Western Australia. It does seem to me to be relevant to this article and the peer review has not been invalidated in any way and so it passes WP:RS. However this article is more about industrial and political actions rather than the psychology, I think the articleGlobal warming conspiracy theory is probably a better match. Dmcq (talk) 09:08, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Looking at it again I think the only policy which might apply given the publishers reasons for retraction are those under WP:BLP. They seem to just be saying that it is not the usual practice to identify people in psychological studies and gave a rather stretched slippery road argument as to why any of the ones identified there came under that. I can see their point to an extent but their policies aren't Wikipedia's - perhaps somebody can see something relevant to Wikipedia policies there? Dmcq (talk) 09:20, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I was one of the many anonymous reviewers of "Recursive Fury" while the article was still embargoed. I have surrendered that anonymity because of the many falsehoods being spewed by denialists and disavowers regarding the article and why the journal "retracted" it. As noted above, #1 the journal did not "retract" the article: the article was removed from the web site for economic reasons; and #2, neither I or anyone else that I am aware of have been able to find any major flaws in "Recursive Fury." The baseless opinion that the paper is "absurd" is absurd. The article stands unimpeached, and is a fine reference for this Wikipedia article. If anyone thinks otherwise, I encourage that person to write a paper on the subject and submit it to a science journal for peer review and publication. --Desertphile (talk) 14:52, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I am puzzled by your response. Can you explain what it means to remove a paper from a website for economic reasons? I also note that the notice starts with "Retraction:", follows with "A retraction of the Original Research Article" and explains further that "Frontiers wishes to retract...". How does this not constitute a retraction?--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:02, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

We can't use a statement on a talk page for anything, it needs to be in a reliable source. So we'll have to discount what Desertphile says about themselves. But apart from that I think you're being a bit disingenuous saying you don't understand what they mean. If someone said to you to withdraw something or they'll burn your house down I think you'd quickly show understanding of what retracting for economic reasons means. Dmcq (talk) 15:44, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Climate change denial and "false balance" news coverage

I'm not sure where to use this in this article, but it certainly applies to this subject and False balance:

• BBC staff told to stop inviting cranks on to science programmes. BBC Trust says 200 senior managers trained not to insert 'false balance' into stories when issues were non-contentious. The Daily Telegraph

“Science coverage does not simply lie in reflecting a wide range of views but depends on the varying degree of prominence such views should be given.”

The Trust said that man-made climate change was one area where too much weight had been given to unqualified critics.

In April the BBC was accused of misleading viewers about climate change and creating ‘false balance’ by allowing unqualified sceptics to have too much air-time.

In a damning parliamentary report, the corporation was criticised for distorting the debate, with Radio 4’s Today and World at One programmes coming in for particular criticism.

The BBC’s determination to give a balanced view has seen it pit scientists arguing for climate change against far less qualified opponents such as Lord Lawson who heads a campaign group lobbying against the government’s climate change policies.

Here is the actual report from the BBC Trust:

• Trust Conclusions on the Executive Report on Science Impartiality Review Actions, July 2014. PDF (275KB)

Use of The Daily Telegraph, a secondary source, backed by the BBC Trust primary source, should be good enough as references. -- Brangifer (talk) 18:01, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Related, media coverage of climate change. prokaryotes (talk) 18:26, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

That's an excellent spot for this. Thanks! -- Brangifer (talk) 20:09, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Carbon tax repeal in Australia; Rupert Murdoch's role

Some potentially useful (and nauseating) sources discussing an example of mega-scale propaganda led by media mogel Rupert Murdoch: Australia Becomes First Developed Nation to Repeal Carbon Tax (Wall Street Journal); How Rupert Murdoch Pushed Australia Into A Climate Change Retreat (Media Matters). --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 03:36, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Well please try to keep your personal feelings out and try and report it neutrally if you do put something in. That multi billionaire mining tycoon there, I forget her name now, had a not inconsequential part in it too. Dmcq (talk) 08:12, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Lede

The lede could be improved, to better reflect organized attempts from general denial of climate change. If this article scope is to only reflect the organized attempts, i suggest a renaming to something like "Organized climate denial": prokaryotes (talk) 01:18, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Have you some reliable sources about this non-organised denial? Dmcq (talk) 08:17, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

There are many types (or different psychological barriers) of denial, see for instance http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=climate+change+denial Here are some mentioned for instance http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21553954 Also you cannot just attribute climate denial to organized attempts, since it should be obvious by now that there are attempts, thus people are aware of conflicts. Hence, they react differently to perceived public talks in accordance with their beliefs, or act on their own, or just wait. Even without any attempts of denial, you would have people denying, thus we shouldn't attribute denial in general to organized attempts, instead split it for instance into organized and public denial (Hence, why naming the public denial a controversy is also not perfect - controversies are actions to the follow up from the Climategate controversy, but not denial).prokaryotes (talk) 11:34, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not trying to do anything except get an article that describes what is out there in terms of reliable sources. That 'Dragons of inaction' paper seems a good one to me and should be put into the article somewhere and probably should be put into the denial article as well. Before putting stuff into the lead it should be integrated into the body of the article somewhere, perhaps as a separate section near the beginning about denial in general as it applies to climate change. So I would suggest you try putting it in somewhere like that as a starter thanks. Dmcq (talk) 13:19, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I've added the study. prokaryotes (talk) 16:20, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

It is best not to immediately delete dead links, see WP:Link rot, just tag then with {{Dead link}} to start with. Someone may have a better idea what to do with them. For instance the first link you removed has a backup at http://www.archive.today/ORlvt or at http://web.archive.org/web/20070818032949/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek/ Dmcq (talk) 16:45, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Do you want me to re-add those links? However, i think these links (except for the "Denial Machine") were not really that important, and should be incorporated into the article where applicable. prokaryotes (talk) 17:10, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I didn't see why you were removing them and the first I tried seemed to be a case of link rot. Any you think have some importance should go back in, one should normally give a reason for removing links as citations and links are the basis on which Wikipedia is built. In fact a short comment is always a good idea as it explains to others the basis of edits when they check up on them. Dmcq (talk) 19:06, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Anyway thanks for putting that bit in. I see there's a book just coming out on the same subject you might be interested in http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Even-Think-About-Climate/dp/1620401339/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395402806&sr=1-6 but it doesn't seem to have registered enough in secondary sources yet. Dmcq (talk) 19:23, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thanks i will remember this for possible later usage. Re-added the DM video (fixed link), the other links i judge as unimportant, most of those were broken. Though, for future edits i will use these tags, or fix links with the Wayback Machine myself. Cheers. prokaryotes (talk) 19:45, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Edit request

In "Private sector section", please wikilink Donors Capital Fund - Cwobeel (talk) 04:02, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

(By some reason {{edit protected}} is rendering the semi protected edit request template) - Cwobeel (talk) 04:06, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Done @Cwobeel: This page is only semi-protected, so you can edit it anyway. That's why the template is only rendering semi-protected. Stickee (talk) 04:32, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Large batch of changes which asserted references failled verification

I've just reverted a large number of changes that removed stuff saying they failed verification for inclusion. I picked two at randon and they clearly did fit within the topic so I'v reverted the lot as probably better than the alternative. Need now to go through the changes carefully in case there is a point to some of them. The changes made were

diff https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Climate_change_denial&diff=630190540&oldid=629815505

first at 01:39, 19 October 2014‎ last at 03:14, 19 October 2014‎

The citations removed are as far as I can see for

1. Hoofnagle, Mark (April 30, 2007). "Hello Science blogs (Welcome to Denialism blog)".
2. Oreskes, Naomi (2007). "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong?". In DiMento, Joseph F. C.; Doughman, Pamela M. Climate Change: What It Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren. The MIT Press. pp. 65–66. ISBN 978-0-262-54193-0.
3. Gifford R. (2011). "The dragons of inaction: psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation". Am Psychol. doi:10.1037/a0023566.
4. "Frontline: Hot Politics: Interviews: Frank Luntz". PBS. 13 November 2006. Retrieved 2010-03-19.
5. Revkin, Andrew C. (2005-06-08). "Bush Aide Edited Climate Reports". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
6. Andrew Revkin (10 June 2005). "Editor of Climate Report Resigns". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
7. Andrew Revkin (15 June 2005). "Ex-Bush Aide Who Edited Climate Reports to Join ExxonMobil". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
8. Justin Gillis; Leslie Kaufman (February 15, 2012). "Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science". The New York Times. Retrieved February 16, 2012. "plans to promote a curriculum that would cast doubt on the scientific finding that fossil fuel emissions endanger the long-term welfare of the planet."
9. "Leaked: Conservative Group Plans Anti-Climate Education Program". Scientific American. Retrieved 2012-02-15.
10. "Heartland Insider Exposes Institute's Budget and Strategy". DeSmogBlog.com. Retrieved 2012-02-15.
11. Lewandowsky, Stephan; Oberauer, Klaus (2013). "NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax". Psychological Science (Sage Publications) 24 (5): 622–633. doi:10.1177/0956797612457686. edit

So we have to identify which ones are just blogs rather than for instance written by an expert and which ones are off topic, typically the editor seemed to think they were off topic if they did not mention the actual word denial in the text, for instance having 'climate change sceptics' in quote marks was not enough. Dmcq (talk) 09:14, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Well for #1 Hoofnagle he definitely uses the actual words so the argument would be it is just a blog. However there is an article about him at Mark Hoofnagle and he has been cited a number of times by newspapers on the subject of climate change denial, I believe that makes him a recognized authority and so allowable according to WP:EXT.

On #2 "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong?" the citation was a cite in support of the statement that there is a scientific consensus. We are required by WP:WEIGHT and WP:FRINGE to state the mainstream position in fringe subjects. Dmcq (talk) 09:36, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

On #3 "The dragons of inaction: psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation" that was a cite showing a basis for the general problem of denialism in public opinion. The deletion comment just says 'Failed Verification ref does not mention denial' The study is peppered with the word denial but not the three word phrase, I'm not certain of the basis for removing it. Dmcq (talk) 09:46, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree that 25 consecutive edits that remove nearly 7 KB of long-standing article text is too much, and that WP:BRD seems like the best procedure. Perhaps if we can take each problem one at a time, and be told here what each specific issue with the article is, we can make some progress with them. --Nigelj (talk) 20:45, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry the keyboard on my computer has started to play up very badly and I probably won't be able to do something for a day or so. They said something about BLP on my talk page, I don't know which one has a BLP issue but I'd suggest that one first. They also repeated the thing about the use of the word denial in the headline is not being part of a RS, I think they are thinking the exact phrase 'climate change denial' must occur which is simply wrong, the topic is climate change denial and the article is abouty the topic. Any references must be closely related to the topic not the actual words. Dmcq (talk) 21:15, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, ref's must mention "denial" or "denialism" to be in an article on "climate change denial". It is the minimum required. This is, among other things, a BLP article. So, as an example, throwing multiple Bush admin staffers into the article when there is no mention of "denial" is improper. Luntz, for example, is not described as a denialist yet his work is included as if he were, that is OR or SYN.Capitalismojo (talk) 17:53, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

1. Hoofnagle is a blog. It is not a news blog. It is an opinion blog. Using a blog is not RS, it is especially wrong in an article which has BLP implications. Policy suggests it must be removed. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:32, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

2. Oreskes is ref'ing a paragraph that says nothing about climate denialism. The section belongs in an essay, or a blog somewhere not in an article about "denialism".

"Although there is a scientific consensus that humans are warming the climate system, the politics of global warming combined with some of the debate in popular media has slowed global efforts at preventing future global warming as well as preparing for warming "in the pipeline" due to past emissions. Much of this debate focuses on the economics of global warming."

3. This section is not about "climate change denial". The ref may be RS but it isn't ref'ing denial. In order to fix the section it would have to include "climate change denial" in the article's paragraph. It is not necessary and can be linked at see also. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:47, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

4.,5.,6.,7., and 8. Aren't about denialism either. That fails verification. OR at best. The NYT is fine as a RS. Just because Revkin talks about Bush staff and climate change doesn't make it a good fit for this (denialism) article. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:38, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

9., 10. Everything on the (and ref'ing) the Heartland education section fails verification because (while it may be RS for Heartland's education efforts) it says nothing about denial or denialism. That doesn't even rise to the level of Synthesis. It just isn't in there. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:35, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

10. DeSmog Blog is a blog run by a PR executive. It is not RS (except for its opinion). Capitalismojo (talk) 17:40, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

11. Lewendowsky's article says that this research paper was retracted. It seems undue and flat wrong to insert retracted studies into an article. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:42, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

It seems you absolutely disagree with me on every point and there is no possibility of compromise. The first thing is this idea that the word 'denial' must occur in the text so I'll raise a RfC on that and perhaps thy'll comment on the rest too. Dmcq (talk) 22:53, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Anyway which bit did you think was against BLP?, we should investigate that first. Or which bit contains extraordinary and controversial claims? Dmcq (talk) 08:31, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

It seems no reply is forthcoming about the BLP implications so just have to go as before. I shall discount anything waffling about BLP unless some straightforward indication of what specific BLP implication is being talked about is produced.

1. I already said about the blog by Hoofnagel being by a recognized authority on denialism in that his blog is quoted and pointed to by neewspapers. This is allowed by [[WP:EXT] and an appropriate reply does not include just saying it is a blog and and all blogs must be removed.

It seems 2 to 9 are covered by the RfC below though there may be other grounds for removal best to see if the RfC is accepted or rejected.

10. I agree DeSmogBlog does not automatically qualify as a reliable source despite getting an award for "The highest ethical and professional standards while performing outstanding work" and being very widely cited in newspapers as it is a group blog. The author might separately qualify as a subject expert but this was used for a controversial subject so I'll replace by a Guardian newspaper article instead. Using some template like {{cn}} for a short while can be better than wholescale removal.

11. It is true that one of Lewendowsky's papers was withdrawn but it wasn't this one. And the one that was withdrawn had no peer review problem, it was withdrawn because the publisher said the "legal context is insufficiently clear" after some complaints. Dmcq (talk) 09:02, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Regarding BLP claims. To begin with Luntz is included in this article as an example of organized climate change denial. He isn't and the refs don't support it. Capitalismojo (talk) 16:52, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Schools section

Nothing in the schools section says anything, whatsoever, about "climate change denial". It seems WP:COATRACK to put a criticsm of Heartland's education policy efforts into this article, barring explicit RS ref's saying it is denialism. It is also WP:SYNTHESIS. Capitalismojo (talk) 16:42, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I think this comes under the RfC. The first citation for it is Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science where the New York Times says about the Heartland Institute's 'education policy effort"

"Leaked documents suggest that an organization known for attacking climate science is planning a new push to undermine the teaching of global warming in public schools, the latest indication that climate change is becoming a part of the nation’s culture wars."

So we're really disputing if a push to undermine the teaching of global warming counts as climate change denial. Dmcq (talk) 16:52, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I also think it's covered by the RFC. A rose is a rose by any other name. Or, for that matter, by a description of a rose whether or not the description contains that particular 4 letter word. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:54, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

It is clearly original research or opinion to say that "undermine the teaching of global warming" is or means denial. An editor's opinion or supposition that merely opposing global warming teaching is "denial" is unsupportable. That would mean every scientist, policy maker, or think tank that opposes the preferred policies of the editor would be (in Wikipedia's voice) labelled deniers. That doesn't work. That is why Wikipedia relies on WP:Verify. Find a RS that says this curriculum is "denial", otherwise it is improper to include. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:55, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

• I somewhat disagree w/ Capitalismojo here. I think classifying someone who is a denier as also being someone who is undermining is definitely opinion and inappropriate without 3rd party verification. However, I also think that someone who opposes a given view is, inherent within that opposition, also a denier. In essence, I consider denial as being contained within opposition. This may seem to be semantic but I think upon further inspection, it really isn't. Being opposed to a given view - and therefore, denying that the other view is valid - serves to offer a counter view that you feel is more true or accurate. But undermining seems to go at least a step further than just proposing an opposing view. To be sure, undermining definitely includes denial\opposition but to me, undermining seems to take a more proactive role beyond just suggesting an opposing view. Summarized, I think we should not say deniers are undermining unless we have independent references proving that but also, being in opposition to something is equal to denying the same thing you oppose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aleding (talk • contribs) 18:17, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, the article talks about denial in terms of conspiracy theory, big-oil lobbying, pseudo-academic fraud and the like so I think that we must be properly careful before slapping the descriptor around. Given that characterization, we can't use "denial" for everyone who disagrees. Capitalismojo (talk) 18:30, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree; but it's a perfectly acceptable label for everyone who spouts there disagreement without reasonable arguments directed at the scientific literature. This venue is NOT Wikipedia you know, and nothing you say will ever convince me to even acknowledge that some people do say this is Wikipedia. But I'm not in denial. I'm not. Really. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:49, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Lots of WP:FORUM-like rambling here, but the source cited at the top of this section says, "The curriculum would claim, for instance, that “whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy.” It is in fact not a scientific controversy." Is someone here actually saying that that is an insufficient citation that the proposed curriculum is relevant to an article on climate change denial? Our article clearly says, "Mark Hoofnagle defines denialism as the employment of rhetorical arguments to give the appearance of legitimate debate where there is none," and this is a simple case of exactly that. --Nigelj (talk) 20:15, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

It is inappropriate for editors to assign their own opinions and labels to what constitutes "deniers" and denialism. That's why we ask for RS refs. It is not too much to ask for. Heartland is a prominent, much discussed organization. If there are not refs supporting the characterization of the education curriculum as "denialism" we don't get to say: "Well, I think it is too denialism anyway, screw RS requirements." If there has been a big change in policy allowing the assertion of things as facts without RS refs, I haven't seen it. Capitalismojo (talk) 21:04, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

If the source says that the curriculum claims a major scientific controversy where there is in fact none, then the source says that the curriculum is dismissing scientific consensus. That's not an opinion, that's the definition of dismissal. But this example is really exactly the point of the RfC, so bringing it up while the RfC is open is not in line with our dispute resolution procedures. — HHHIPPO 21:29, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Removed illustration

File:Funding of climate change denial.png

Climate change denial is a largely funded industry, in order to protect the public relations of companies such as Exxon

I removed this illustration as it says a lot more than the text and is not well sourced. Besides being a blog it doesn't even describe the figures or say where they came from. A much better source is going to be needed, even more so as it names people. Dmcq (talk) 09:12, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

It all seems to lead back to Greenpeace. We can use Greenpeace as a primary site but we'd really need a good secondary site which discussed this and pointed to Greenpeace. Dmcq (talk) 09:32, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

• @Dmcq: Good catch - just beat me to it!!!! Also, I followed the info path on this and as you mentioned, it does all lead to Greenpeace but even then, all of the statements are seemingly conjecture. I was unable to find any source - reliable or otherwise - to substantiate the spending by the groups mentioned in the graph. Personally, it's probably at least close to the right track but regardless, we need facts...again, good job.Aleding (talk) 16:31, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Trim further reading section

The further reading section seems like it is a whole bunch of removed citations rather than proper further reading, and most don't have web links. Google search would currently be more useful. I believe we should trim it down drastically and fix it up. WP:Further reading says "The further reading section of an article contains a bulleted list, usually alphabetized, of a reasonable number of works which a reader may consult for additional and more detailed coverage of the subject of the article."

On that note therefore I propose removing all the entries which are just about individual incidents and only retaining ones which look like they discuss the overall subject or are more detailed in some other way. Thus just on the basis of what the titles seem to be saying about they contain in the first ten I would consider retaining:

• Adams, David (2005-01-27). "Oil firms fund climate change 'denial'". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
• "Frontline: Climate of Doubt". PBS. 23 October 2012. Retrieved 2012-10-25.
• "Global Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine." Newsweek Aug. 13, 2007. Retrieved 7 Aug 2007 Archived August 20, 2007 at the Wayback Machine
• "Timeline, Climate Change and its Naysayers". Newsweek. 13 August 2007.

and some of them might go as just not containing anything extra. And I'd almost certainly remove

• "Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp. Notice of Appeal" (PDF). 2009-11-05. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
• "Original "Doubt is our product..." memo". University of California, San Francisco. 21 August 1969. Retrieved 19 March 2010.
• Adams, David (2006-09-20). "Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-08-02.
• Associated Press. (2008–2–27). Alaska town sues over global warming. USA Today. Retrieved 2009–12–25.
• "Frontline: Hot Politics: Interviews: Frank Luntz". PBS. 13 November 2006. Retrieved 2010-03-19.
• "Gore takes aim at corporately funded climate research". CBC News from Associated Press. 2007-08-07. Retrieved 2007-08-16.

Overall probably only about a quarter would survive. Does this sound about right? Dmcq (talk) 10:26, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that looks right. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:05, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

• @Dmcq: It seems that maybe 2 items in the go away list might be worth keeping - just my .02.Aleding (talk) 17:11, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

• Adams, David (2006-09-20). "Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial"
• "Gore takes aim at corporately funded climate research". CBC News from Associated Press.

Length of the lede

WP:LEDE recommends that for an article of this size (67kB) the lede should be 3 - 4 paragraphs. It was five. I have moved two of the previous paragraphs down into the body of the text. The main function of the lede is to provide a readable summary of the main points in the article. It is not the place for long, cited and attributed discussions of particular viewpoints and their counterarguments. These should be in the body and, only if they are fairly central to the topic, should be summarised in the lede. Neither previously, not now, do I think that the lede makes an accurate readable summary of the main points in the whole article. There is more to be done, but it is late here for me now. I would try to make a sentence at most out of each main section, and group these into paras in the lede. --Nigelj (talk) 23:32, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Must the word 'denial; occur in every citation for climate change denial?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Closing per request at WP:ANRFC. The general consensus is to take the context into account; If the citation deals with the subject, and implicitly states they fall into the general group, there is no point of not mentioning them just because the word "denial" is missing. With a bit of common sense, it should be easy to work out what to and to not include. --Mdann52talk to me! 20:27, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

---

There is a disagreement over whether the actual word 'denial' must occur in citations for climate change denial or whether for instance 'climate change scepticism' be accepted as a substitute where it is obviously referring to denial, i.e. where the science is being rejected for non-scientific reasons unrelated to climate change? Dmcq (talk) 00:07, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Does the word denial always always have to occur in a citation for this article? Dmcq (talk) 08:23, 21 October 2014 (UTC) (addition as question was unclear)

• No I believe that a citation is okay if it deals with the topic of the denial of the science of climate change rather than the exact words. For instance I believe

  Gifford R. (2011). "The dragons of inaction: psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation". Am Psychol. doi:10.1037/a0023566.

  deals with topic of climate change denial. There's a whole lotmore inthe porevious section like where it says a Bush aide edited reports to cast doubt on climate change but the report didn't say this was denial and another where the headline said denial but the article only said skeptics in quotes. Dmcq (talk) 23:13, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• Unclear RFC I know what I think, but since I don't understand the question I'm not sure if I should say yes or no... The RFC'd statement is a bit of a run-on that starts as a statement ("There is....") and ends with a question mark. What's the question? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:26, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

One person says the actual word 'denial' must appear in every citation because the title is 'climate change denial'. Another says it doesn't, the topic of climate change denial is what matters. A couple of examples were given. Could you be more clear about the problem you have with the problem as stated? Do you agree the word denial must appear or do you reject that? Dmcq (talk) 23:57, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

The RFC should pose a question that can be answered by yes/no or support/oppose. The current version is just a statement that ends with a semantically out of place question mark. The description of the disagreement is clear, but it's unclear which way around the question is meant. In order to not change the meaning of your 'reject', the question to be added should be phrased like "Should we require the word 'denial' in citations for Climate change denial?".

P.S.: Actually, it's there, right in the section title. But it seems people don't see it, including me. Maybe just repeat the title at the end of the opening statement. — HHHIPPO 07:30, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• Comment I'm not 100% sure I understand the RfC as it appears to be based on a false premise, so I'll address the larger issue. Contentious labels such as denialist should be avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution. See WP:WTA. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:30, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Could you say what false premise you think the RfC is based on thanks. Dmcq (talk) 00:04, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• Comment (Only here for the RFC, so don't bother to slang me for it.) I don't know about false premises, but the RFC certainly begs a few questions. Read it yourself; if you don't know what a begged question is, I don't have time to explain. A Quest For Knowledge has some points. The problem is that nearly the entire climate change field has been hijacked by two incoherent doctrinal camps so mutually vicious and vituperative that I for one am largely avoiding the topic, partly out of distaste and partly out of boredom and frustration. So what? did someone ask? So most descriptive terms have been hijacked into the the screaming match as "Contentious labels such as denialist", to borrow the expression that A Quest For Knowledge used, rightly to my mind. THEREFORE, although normally I would have said something like "do me a favour mate! What matters is the point that the source was making, not the actual word used!", in cases like this one, "denialist" has been degraded to a term of abuse and accusation, a term that people hurl at anyone who asks a question or points out a relevant fact, without the slightest hint of denialism or affirmationism, instead of howling in the chorus in the prescribed manner. It is like the N-word, that once referred to someone's skin colour and antecedents, but now is an epithet so abusive that one coyly abbreviates or bowdlerises it whenever it is needed. So you might find it helpful to label source text with "D-word" and whenever you truly and coolly find it appropriate in the source being quoted, consider citing the material, but not when "discussion" or "query" might fit equally well in any dispassionate view. JonRichfield (talk) 07:38, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The article is pretty clear that denial does not include questioning the science because you think there may be actual problems with it, unfortunately 'climate change skeptic' has become an alternative quite often for saying a denier whereas being a skeptic is a very reasonable thing to be, and in fact with the amount of obfustication around I'm not at all surprised so many people are skeptical. As you say the two can only be distinguished in text by how they are used, for instance the denial type s often put in quote marks. Skeptic is the only other word commonly used in sources and I personally can't think of any word that could be used as a good substitute for 'denial' even if we were allowed to ignore the sources. Dmcq (talk) 08:30, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• Depends on what kind of statement the citation is meant to support. For a statement about the definition of the phrase (like "Climate change denial is any behavior that...") the citation must include the phrase. For a statement that is only using the previously defined phrase e.g. for describing a certain behavior ("Climate change denial is widespread in...") it is enough if the reference clearly supports the statement, no matter what exact wording it uses (or even what language).(edit conflict) — HHHIPPO 07:45, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• Comment This is an unclearly worded RfC and I think premature in the discussion on this talk page. It is clear however that some of the content in the article is improper. As an example, there is no ref saying that the Heartland foundation's curriculum is "denial". It is either SYN or Original Research to assert that. Individuals (subject to BLP policy) are included as if they were "denialists" when no such ref exists supporting their inclusion as such. Having refs that explicitly use the word "denial" or "denialism" is the minimum expected, otherwise individual people or groups of people will be included in an article about "denial" improperly. (A controversial and pejorative term when applied to people.) Capitalismojo (talk) 08:51, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

.... or the Heartland statement merely gets a {{cn}}. In fact, there are a number of sources that discuss the multiple commonalities between the intentional efforts to sabotage the science of tobacco vs health and the science of climate change. Many of these commonalities involve Heartland. These efforts are not in the nature of thoughtful scientific critiques that move knowledge forward (true skepticism), but are more in the nature of kick-the-chair-out-from-under-knowledge-by-any-means-that-works tactics. In my view, its silly to reject perfectly good sources that happened to describe denial with synonym words and phrases instead of d-e-n-i-a-l. Do we have to purge from the article "cow" any sources that instead said "bovine"? But not being interested in tracking that stuff, I don't have the cites at hand and my attentions is elsewhere right now. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:24, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

So you would consider for instance the following

Leak exposes how Heartland Institute works to undermine climate science

"The inner workings of a libertarian thinktank working to discredit the established science on climate change have been exposed by a leak of confidential documents detailing its strategy and fundraising networks."

would not be okay for substantiating the Heartland institute does climate change denial because it doesn't mention the word denial and just says discredit the established science? I'm sure I could get better stuff about the Heartland Institute but this is just to check the ubderstanding about whether we require the word 'denial' or whether the source clearly showing a non-scientific opposition to the science is enough. Dmcq (talk) 09:39, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, regarding that particular article, the Guardian used as its source a blog run by a PR exec. The some of the "documents leaked" turned out to be forgeries, the rest fraudulently obtained. It "would not be ok for substantiating the Heartland Institute does climate change denial". Capitalismojo (talk) 16:32, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

You're changing the subject from the word denial. I won't bother answering the altered subject as I don't want this RfC to be sidetracked but you could raise it elsewhere like the previous section or on the RS noticeboard. Dmcq (talk) 16:42, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Key Point: It doesn't say denial. One can't say something is "denial" if we can't Verify it. We can't put in activities of people into an article unless RS says it. Just because an editor doesn't like or approve of a person or an organization doesn't mean we can express that disapproval by including them in articles that disparage their integrity and honesty. (Which this article does explicitly) Capitalismojo (talk) 16:48, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I think you meant WP:Original Research as it would pass WP:Verifiability easily. WP:OR says "To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented." Note the word topic, not that it has the words of the title. The topic is given in the lead of the article. We are perfectly entitled to include Erin, Hibernia, the thirty two counties. the Emerald Isle and any number of other names as a reference to Ireland in a citation provided it actually does refer to the topic of Ireland, we're not able to include it when Ireland occurs in the source but it refers to a person's name like John Ireland. Dmcq (talk) 22:17, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

• No. The topic of the article is well defined in the opening sentences of the article: "a denial or dismissal of the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons. Typically, these attempts take the rhetorical form of legitimate scientific debate, while not adhering to the actual principles of that debate." After that, it is a matter of editorial judgement as to whether the bones of any given piece in any WP:RS are relevant and important enough to be given WP:DUE weight or indeed any coverage in the article. If you could write encyclopedia articles by simple word-matching, you wouldn't need living editors here - Wikipedia could be a mashup, built by screen-scraping and content aggregation. --Nigelj (talk) 21:40, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• Unclear: If not "denial" or "skepticism" then at least some other modifier with similar meaning. Also, I think several things come into play:

1. I understand the usual subtleties between "denial" and "skepticism" - the former being complete rejection of the claim made vs. the latter being in opposition but having a component of being somewhat unsure about that opposition. Regardless, given this topic and how it has evolved, I think it is safe to consider the terms "climate change denial" and "climate change skepticism" as being interchangeable.
2. Next, I think the term(s) broadly encompass two overall themes which are: a) the science postulating that human activity is the root cause for climate change is flawed or faulty; 2) that climate change is not even occurring in the first place.

Therefore, at the very least, "denial" or "skepticism" need to be used when discussing this topic - otherwise one is left with just "climate change" which is far too ambiguous.Aleding (talk) 20:48, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree that "at the very least, 'denial' ... needs to be used when discussing this". I disagree that the word skepticism should be added or that there is no difference between "climate skepticism" and "climate denialism". This article conflates denialism with fraud, paid lobbying, conspiracy theory, and "denialism" generally. Denialism, as used in this article and elsewhere, is a pejorative. Responsible and ordinary disagreement about policy and science is not fraud, lobbying, or conspiracy theory. Capitalismojo (talk) 18:23, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I know some people think all climate change skepticism is denial but I am most definitely not one of them and am quite happy to consider people as being skeptical about the science. We really need to check that a citation is about the topic as given in the lead, not that we have done some computer search and found some word in the text. Dmcq (talk) 23:07, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. Using a simple word-matching criterion can actually go wrong both ways, and each can lead to neutrality issues to the disadvantage of the particular subject in question:

• If we include something as 'denial' based on the fact that a source uses that word, it might be that that source uses a broader definition of 'denial' than our article, and the inclusion would actually be unjustified within our definition.
• If we reject all sources that don't use the word 'denial', but still talk about that topic, we apply a systematic bias towards sources that use stronger wording, and likely describe the subject as being denial to a higher degree than what's said in the rejected sources.

Finally, again, the simple word-matching criterion can't be applied to non-English sources. — HHHIPPO 09:14, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

• Depends on the situation. Sometimes interpretation varies, and the author does have a different interpretation, and you (or another reader)has a different interpretation of the text. gacelperfinian^{(talk in - error? Start a new topic)} 01:27, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
• Comment If any disagreement with the consensus is "denial", doesn't this article merge with Global Warming Controversy? After all aren't we talking about the same controversy in that case? --Obsidi (talk) 03:07, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

That is not at all what the lead of the article says. It says "Climate change denial is a denial or dismissal of the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons." You might want to read denialism. HIV/AIDS denialism is not just medical disagreement. Dmcq (talk) 22:09, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm here just for the RfC, and the question is still as clear as mud to me. What does it mean for "denial" to occur in a citation? Are we asking whether the article should only use sources that have the word "denial" in their titles? That would be an absurd question. But for the life of me I can't figure out what else that could mean. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 00:19, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

That's just about it but in the text not in the titles. In fact one citation is being rejected that has the word 'denial' in its title but not in its text but most are being rejected for not using the word at all. Dmcq (talk) 09:51, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Then I think you meant occur in the source, not the citation. The citation is the thing, often a Cite template enclosed in <ref> and </ref> tags, that we put in the article to point to the source. Citations generally don't contain any "text" in the sense of the word you're using.

My take on this is that "climate change denial" is such a loaded phrase that to make it the title of the article is not WP:NPOV. I only had to read the first paragraph to see that the article is very POV in its choice of words, and no amount of scientific consensus justifies that. If it were up to me, I'd delete the article and start over with a "Climate change controversy" article, perhaps with different editors who are capable of setting aside their opinions when working on the article. I'm not saying the scientific consensus should be downplayed or watered down, but we shouldn't be presenting it as absolute truth beginning with the article's title. There was once scientific consensus that the earth was flat. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 17:37, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

My bad, I didn't notice the hatnote: This article is about campaigns to undermine public confidence in scientific opinion on climate change. For the public debate over scientific conclusions, see global warming controversy. In that case, this article is nothing but political activism and should be deleted forthwith. Wikipedia is not for use as a political platform. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 19:17, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Of course there is a difference between an article being about political activism, and Wikipedia being used for political activism! --Nigelj (talk) 23:08, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I replied before noticing they had seen the hatnote so have deleted my reply for brevity. The main political responses are covered in politics of global warming. Dmcq (talk) 10:48, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I suggest the title of the article be changed to climate change skepticism. That would allow for the inclusion of sources that include both the words denial and skepticism. I think you would find that most people who are labeled deniers, would call themselves skeptical. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 23:51, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

In the section Climate change denial#Meanings of the term people are very much against that because skepticism has a very definite meaning which conflicts with that particularly in scientific matters. All scientists should be skeptical. Climate change skeptic redirects to global warming controversy rather than here because of that. Many people are skeptical and are completely correct in describing themselves as skeptics because they have been misled by the denial described in this article. Dmcq (talk) 00:04, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

• Situational - Taking the posed question completely literally, no. Any reliable source using a synonym or phrase with similar meaning as 'denial' as defined in the article's lead and definition sections should be a suitable one given that it's judged with some common sense. For borderline cases of this nature, discussion and consensus on the talk page should be sufficient. As others have pointed out, for the description/definition in the lead and meaning section I would likely want to see the word 'denial' or a close synonym used in the references. Sam Walton (talk) 00:17, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

• Context is key. I was randomly asked to comment, so here I am. I agree with other editors who say that the proper word depends on the situation. Andrew³²⁷ 04:42, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
• Comment, is "Climate change denial" a neutral article title? It appears to judge those who don't fall within the belief of man-made global warming.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:30, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
  • I believe it is seeing, as is well sourced in the article, the topic is well documented as the denial of scientific knowledge. Anyway, this isn't really something that needs debating within this RfC. Sam Walton (talk) 22:04, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
• No, but. To the question as stated, the answer is clearly "no". If someone, while sober and in the presence of journalists, states "I deny that the climate is changing", he has not used the word "denial". It's clearly the wrong question. Maproom (talk) 07:52, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: "I think it is safe to consider the terms "climate change denial" and "climate change skepticism" as being interchangeable. (above)

NOT : the "climate change denial/denier" term is clearly pejorative, as is documented in our article and elsewhere. Per BLP, extraordinary care must be taken with negatively characterizing living persons. --Pete Tillman (talk) 16:09, 15 November 2014 (UnegTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Deniers are not Skeptics

There's a nice article at csicop: http://www.csicop.org/news/show/deniers_are_not_skeptics William M. Connolley (talk) 18:40, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

"Typically..." sentence from lede

We have a sentence in the lede that is sourced to a blog and to an opinion piece. Neither are RS for anything other than the author's opinions. Typically, these attempts take the rhetorical form of legitimate scientific debate, while not adhering to the actual principles of that debate.[3][4] The first ref is from Hoofnagle's blog. The second from a "Viewpoint" column. Absent RS we should remove this sentence or attribute it to the author. Capitalismojo (talk) 21:09, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I should note that the "Viewpoint" column is specifically recapitulating and discussing the Hoofnagle blog's denialism definition. The column describes the Hoofnagles as "The Hoofnagle brothers, a lawyer and a physiologist from the United States" who have done much to create the idea of denialism. Capitalismojo (talk) 21:14, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Viewpoint is under editorial control and is in a respected and relevant journal. It satisfies Wikipedia's RS criteria as a secondary source. It says the Hoofnagle blog is expert in the subject. The Hoofnagle blog is cited as a primary source as it is a principal source in the secondary source and is acknowledged as expert in the subject and quoted by a number of other sources as one can check quite easily using Google. A blog by an expert is allowed as a primary source. Dmcq (talk) 22:59, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I didn't see anything at the site that suggests that the opinion columns in Viewpoint are under any sort of editorial control. Where did you find that information? Can you provide a link? Capitalismojo (talk) 17:07, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Ironically, I was looking for evidence that it was not under such control. I also struck out. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:10, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

The NYT is RS but we acknowledge that its columns are reliable only for the opinions of the writers. Are you suggesting that the opinion columns of this journal are different? How so? Capitalismojo (talk) 17:12, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Isn't it true that while any article may be flavored with the opinion of the author, as long as it is reliably sourced the piece is still considered solid journalistic content? I would think that opinion sans RS is the issue...correct me if I'm off-base - thanks.Aleding (talk) 17:25, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Policy has been that op-eds, opinion, and columns are reliable for the opinions of the authors. They are not suitable reliable source references for matters of fact as are news stories from reliable sources. Capitalismojo (talk) 18:14, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

The journal subscribes INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS to Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. As far as I can see by that only correspondence about publications can be left unedited - and they have to say if this is happening. All other work must disclose any potential conflicts of interest and is subject to editorial control. Dmcq (talk) 18:40, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

That applies to their Commentary, Editorial, and Viewpoint submissions as well. Point not made. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:02, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Viewpoint articles are common at journals. This is how they are described in one of the most prominent ones: "Journals contribute to the discourse about the enterprise of medicine, including clinical care, education, research, and policy. With this issue of JAMA, we are pleased to introduce a new feature—Viewpoints—the opinions of leading scholars." I think opinion pieces are fine when properly used and in compliance with wikipedia policy. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:15, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Well if you don't like that one here [2] is another one from the British Meedical Journal by Martin McKee and Pascal Diethelm which also quotes the Hoofnagle blog on that point. Do you consider this a viewpoint column as well? Dmcq (talk) 19:23, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

INSERT Yes, that is most definitely an opinion piece. It is most certainly not a peer reviewed BMJ article. Capitalismojo (talk) 04:36, 15 December 2014 (UTC) e/c

Legalese fine print somewhere usually says whether the publication does or does not take responsibility for the content of such features. If I had a hard copy of the journal, it might be in the little print in the front, but I couldn't find it on the website. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:24, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

What is the objection? Is it that maybe Hoofnagle never said this, and that the NYT source is falsely attributing something to him (due to lack of editorial control)? Or is it that Hoofnagle is not qualified to have an opinion on what denial looks or sounds like? --Nigelj (talk) 20:00, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Or that the quote happens to appear in an otherwise non-RS blog or opinion column which is how I understood it but I could be wrong, or .... something else? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:05, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

The issue remains: We have a sentence in the lede that is sourced to a blog and to an opinion piece. Neither are RS for anything other than the author's opinions. Typically, these attempts take the rhetorical form of legitimate scientific debate, while not adhering to the actual principles of that debate. The first ref is from Hoofnagle's blog. The second from a "Viewpoint" column. Absent RS we should remove this sentence or attribute it to the author. Capitalismojo (talk) 04:38, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Well the definition is pretty much inline with anybody's else's definition so I suppose the article doesn't depend on the Hoofnasgle brothers for it. Looking at the denialism article we could just substitute part of the second paragraph in the lead which talks about denialism in science and is pretty much equivalent. That would remove any worry about that this version was from a blog. Personally I think treating something that has been quoted in different medical journals by different people has less editorial control and is of less worth than what some hack reporter says in some rag newspaper is rather silly, but if it removes the excuses then I suppose it is something to do. Dmcq (talk) 13:08, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:RS says, "Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications." This is clearly such a case. The problem we have here is that 'climate change denial', in the greater scheme of things is not a very important topic. People who write about it academically can be counted on the fingers of one hand; authoritative books on the subject would barely fill a rucksack. In the overall arc of human endeavour, this is something that a few people have addressed and moved on from. We are never going to get many more gilt-edged citations on this backwater of a topic as it fades into history. What we do have, is about the best that there is. I think people have to stop pretending that the great days of Climategate are still to come - they are well passed. --Nigelj (talk) 15:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia be participating in political smear campaigns?

This article is highly problematic. Rather than being a recumbent, critical observation of political adversity, of an obvious political smear campaign - badly veiled //ad hominem// attack en bloc on opponents of the falsified hypothesis of catastrophic man-made global warming - i.e. the logical fallacy "poisoning the well" - it uncritically participates in it. Evidence: "Climate change denial is a denial or dismissal of the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons.[1][2] Typically, these attempts take the rhetorical form of legitimate scientific debate, while not adhering to the actual principles of that debate.[3][4] Climate change denial has been associated with the fossil fuels lobby, the Koch brothers, industry advocates and free market think tanks, often in the United States".--80.212.87.80 (talk) 04:07, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

"...falsified hypothesis of catastrophic man-made global warming..." Yes, that's poisoning the well, all right. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Scientific consensus involves more than one person, all with large amounts of training. You are an untrained individual. It is clear whose opinion qualifies as the majority viewpoint. 180.200.144.126 (talk) 07:56, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

See Scientific opinion on climate change, it is accepted by the vast majority of scientists. The article global warming controversy covers skeptical questions about the subject. This article covers the denial of the evidence. It is covered in reliable sources and Wikipedia has a policy of WP:NOTCENSORED. See WP:5P for what Wikipedia is in aid of. WP:NPOV is the Wikipedia policy on neutral point of view which I think you're meaning, a read of that might show you the basis of how things are done. Dmcq (talk) 12:34, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Anon, read your own words. The position of "[a whole lot] more than one person, all with large amounts of training" is that climate change is real. Guettarda (talk) 13:12, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Even so many people are rightly skeptical - the evidence they see has been obfusticated so in the circumstances they are acting correctly. This article discusses the campaign to misinform and mislead by various organisations involved in the denial campaign. Dmcq (talk) 15:58, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Inappropriate content

The whole page is a violation of NPOV and not appropriate content for an "encyclopedia". --WPcorrector (talk) 11:54, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

How so? 'Denialism' is defined here as A person who refuses to admit the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence [3][4] Some people do acknowledge that their position can fairly be described as denialism. Others are labelled such because they would sooner embrace alternative hypothesises in direct contradiction to one another. — TPX 13:31, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

A person who refuses to admit the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence — What truth are people refusing to admit? What proof exists that this so-called 'truth' is actually true? And how is a concept or proposition true before it is "supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence"? If the whole page is not a violation of NPOV and is entirely appropriate content for an "encyclopedia", then why are these basic qualifiers not addressed anywhere on the page itself? Balance should be sought in relation to the topic to avoid confirmation bias and turning its content into something akin to conspiracy theory.120.149.16.22 (talk) 16:16, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Follow scientific opinion on climate change for answers about majority. For the scientific debate and skeptcism see global warming controversy. This article isn't about whether the science is true, it is in the main concerned about concerted efforts to rubbish the science for ideological or financial reasons. Dmcq (talk) 16:29, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

In popular media there is often not a clear distinction between skeptics and "deniers", and this article doesn't seem to be helping. Skeptics generally believe climate sensitivity is significantly below the IPCC's estimates. There's no "denying" involved in this belief, since climate sensitivity is not something which can be measured by repeatable scientific experiments. Believing CO2 is a greenhouse gas would be denial, since CO2's properties can be measured by repeatable experiments. However, very, very few people disagree over CO2. I agree with WPcorrector; this article is not written in a NPOV. Disagreeing with the IPCC about the significance and costs of global warming is not denial. --Grant Beaty (talk) 06:51, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you're thinking of fake skeptics: scientific skeptics don't believe anything, they make themselves aware of the scientific literature and, if they think anything's wrong, publish their findings and comments in peer reviewed scientific papers. The IPCC reports are no more than a well reviewed summary of the scientific literature up to the cut-off date. Climate sensitivity is a complex topic, as is shown in IPCC reports. Denial of climate science is well attested in reliable sources, which show what's involved in various facets of this topic. . dave souza, talk 12:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Equating those who challenge the validity of the dogma and science pertaining to climate change with those who deny the holocaust is beyond inappropriate. Wikipedia should not be promoting this highly inappropriate usage! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.208.39.19 (talk) 03:43, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, completely inappropriate of you to recycle this fake concern, trying to wrap climate science denial in a protective blanket of spurious history. Please desist. . . dave souza, talk 18:13, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

What's at issue?

Thanks for this edit] clarifying that opponents weren't opposing the issues themselves but rather "increased regulations".

I'm for anything that makes the debate more clear. Who's for what, and why? That's all I care about here. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:10, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm for RS's and page numbers for verification. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:25, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Willie Soon in The Guardian

"Over the last 14 years Willie Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, received a total of $1.25m from Exxon Mobil, Southern Company, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and a foundation run by the ultra-conservative Koch brothers, the documents obtained by Greenpeace through freedom of information filings show. [...] “The company was paying him to write peer-reviewed science and that relationship was not acknowledged in the peer-reviewed literature,” Davies said."[5] I'm just not sure if he is notable or important enough for a specific mention in this article. --Nigelj (talk) 20:05, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

It's also in the NYT. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:59, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I thought Soon was a major fixture of the denial crowd? Good background from blog ThinkProgress, "Climate Deniers’ Favorite Scientist Quietly Took Money From The Fossil Fuel Industry"].

• Talking to his funders in the fossil fuel companies, Soon calls papers and congressional testimony "deliverables"
• Fossil fuel companies got to vet at least some of Soon's papers before he submitted them to journals
• Fossil fuel companies have given Soon at least $1.2 million, which has paid at least some of Soon's salary
• Soon regularly ignored financial disclosure rules when publishing his papers

ThinkProgress writes

Valued for his legitimizing affiliation with Harvard-Smithsonian, Soon is a fixture at climate denier conferences, before state legislatures, and on conservative news programs. In congressional hearings and in news articles his presence embodies the other side of the “false balance” paradigm where expertise is evenly cited from a climate science denier and a mainstream scientist.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:48, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd like clarification on two points:

1. Did Willie Soon submit any scientifically skeptical facts or analysis in his peer-reviewed scientific papers that were accepted by reputable journals? That is, does at least some part of his work amount to scientific skepticism rather than mere denialism?
2. Did the "fossil fuel" funds go directly to Soon, or to the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics which in turn passed on a portion of those funds to him? If the latter, what percent of the funds went to Soon?

Another interesting issue would be the extent to which observers of the scientific debate - and especially the political battles about the science - think that the source of funding can affect a scientist's findings. I'd love to see something in the article where a notable and quotable source says either:

1. Everyone who receives funding tends to support the ideology or politics (or financial goals) of the person(s) funding him; or,
2. Researchers who receive fossil fuel funding tend to support climate denial; or,
3. Researchers who receive funding from sources that support the AGW theory tend to support that theory

Again, I'm not trying to inject any particular POV into the article. I'm just wondering how we can neutrally describe the range of views. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:24, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

NEWSFLASH: Researchers who receive funding from sources supporting the round earth theory tend to agree the earth is round. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:28, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Shocking. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:33, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

That's clever, Ed. It's almost as if someone's trying to create doubt where none existed. Do you have any sources for any of these doubts, or is doubt just some kind of product that can be manufactured at will by anyone? --Nigelj (talk) 22:10, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Sources? Who needs sources when an apparently predetermined goal will suffice? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:38, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry if my user talk page was unclear. What I want is for Wikipedia to document any reliable information it has on a "lack of a consensus" among the world's climate sciences on the theory of human caused global warming.

If there isn't any such info at all, then we're done, and thanks! :-) But if an RS has doubts, then do we (a) say no doubt exists are (b) report that X says doubt exists? (Your call!) --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:04, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I have added a short paragraph on the matter, using the best sources that I have been able to find. --Nigelj (talk) 19:17, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

denialism vs skepticism

Earlier today there was a change that was reverted. The proposed change is

This sort of denialism should not be confused with is different than the scientific skepticism displayed by dissenting scientists (see List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming). that is widely employed in the application of the scientific method.

Comments anyone?
Pinging the involved eds so far.... @Capitalismojo:, @William M. Connolley:,@Ronz:,@I9Q79oL78KiL0QTFHgyc:
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:46, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support new text The original text was WP:Original research because it claimed, without any RSs, that every single "opposing" scientist on our list is engaged in genuine scientific skepticism. Lacking any sources for that claim, the original text was original research, and the proposed text is a neutral statement of the point being attempted. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:46, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
• Different from not different than. Guettarda (talk) 01:07, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree that's even better new text NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:32, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

• The new version is a clear improvement, for the reason expressed above. — TPX 02:14, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 March 2015

The article currently reads: "Although there is a scientific consensus that humans are warming the climate system,[17][18]"

Reference 18 is a link to the article: Borenstein, Seth (December 2, 2014). "Hotter, weirder: How climate has changed Earth". AP News. Retrieved December 2, 2014.

This article does not support the claim that there is a consensus. In fact it contains the following: "Sapir and others say it would be wrong to pin all, or even most, of these increases on climate change alone" This disputes the claim that the reference makes.

Amended text should read: "Although there is a scientific consensus that humans are warming the climate system,[17]" and reference 18 should be removed.

Bugington

188.141.74.24 (talk) 23:34, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Done replaced with another reference. Stickee (talk) 00:09, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Smithsonian Institution and Koch Brothers

I don't have time to work on this, but blogger Joe Romm has been writing about what he says is the Koch Brothers' ties to the Smithsonian Institution, and a Koch-funded ancient climate change exhibit that, allegedly, is designed to impact museum-goers' unconscious assessment of current climate risk. Thought someone might want to follow up on this by (of course) first looking for supporting RSs. For background, Romm's posts are

• Smithsonian Stands By Wildly Misleading Climate Change Exhibit Paid For By Kochs
• scientists-urge-museums-drop-koch-money

I don't see anything at Smithsonian Institution or its talk page.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:16, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Donations

Regarding this - it's called investigative journalism.

• "Whitney Ball, chief executive of the Donors Trust told the Guardian that her organisation assured wealthy donors that their funds would never by diverted to liberal causes."
• "Ball won't divulge names, but she said the stable of donors represents a wide range of opinion on the American right. Increasingly over the years, those conservative donors have been pushing funds towards organisations working to discredit climate science or block climate action. Donors exhibit sharp differences of opinion on many issues, Ball said. They run the spectrum of conservative opinion, from social conservatives to libertarians. But in opposing mandatory cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, they found common ground."

--NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:48, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

President Obama's Catastrophic Climate-Change Denial

Will there be any description of the degree to which the term "climate change denial" is used? One possibility might be something like the following. --109.147.228.14 (talk) 21:27, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, accused President Barack Obama of catastrophic climate change denial in the New York Times after Shell was allowed to drill for oil in the Arctic, saying "This is climate denial of the status quo sort, where people accept the science, and indeed make long speeches about the immorality of passing on a ruined world to our children. They just deny the meaning of the science, which is that we must keep carbon in the ground."- ref: Obama's Catastrophic Climate-Change Denial, NYT op-ed, May 12, 2015

The quote above is an unusual use of the term; a usage that is relevant to that op-ed but one that may never be repeated in that form. I don't think that makes it very interesting in an encyclopedia article (unless that op-ed itself becomes famous, and oft-quoted and discussed in other media - we'll have to wait and see about that). On the other hand, the sentence that precedes those quoted above - "This is not climate denial of the Republican sort, where people simply pretend the science isn’t real" - is another example of the usage that most of this article is about, and may be useful somewhere. Thanks for the link. --Nigelj (talk) 22:20, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Even when McKibben's opinion has weight, before this can be considered for inclusion for the term, there need to be more opinions discussed in the context (books, more op-ed via reliable sources, maybe even studies who mention it). Because this is not a typical denial, since the decision might be influenced for political reasons. Thus, it might reflect political motivated denial (not commercial or ideological based reasoning). prokaryotes (talk) 22:46, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

At least one paper in the sci lit (the cite escapes me just now) tackles climate change denial head-on, concluding that the general term is not very useful, since there are many different nuances. The paper went on to describe science-rejection (it's not warming, it's not us, it won't be bad), as well as policy rejection (we don't really need to change horses). Continuing to explore for new fields when we already know we have to leave proven reserves in the ground certainly seems to fit within the various flavors of denial described in the few sources that really look at them head-on. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:55, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Argument after the fact?

A fundamental issue with this article is that it presupposes the existence of a property known as 'Climate change denial' and then proceeds to offer arguments made 'after the fact' of its presupposed existence. Nowhere does it clearly define what constitutes climate change denial, nor does it offer proof of its existence beyond the quoting of a series of personal opinions. (WP:OPINION would seem to apply here)

The real situation is that every single person on this planet recognises the existence of climate change. No-one is unaware of, or disputes that, the climate changes. Therefore the article subject is an oxymoron -or should it be carboxymoron?

That aside, the majority of scientists and informed people also agree that carbon dioxide has some degree of greenhouse effect. Arrhenius' equation describes this effect quantitatively, and few people would deny the accuracy of Arrhenius' principle.

The measured temperature change over the 20thC (just over 1C) fits-in moderately well with the predictions of Arrhenius. There is, indeed, almost no debate over this by anyone.

So, the ONLY real property to separate a 'Believer' from a 'Denier' would seem to be their willingness or otherwise to accept the predictions of global catastrophe should temperatures rise any further at all, as put-out by the IPCC, Al Gore, Michael Mann, etc.

When viewed in those terms, the 'Denier' label seems very much less appropriate. Sceptics of disaster scenarios for the most part do not 'deny' any part whatsoever of established classical science. They may question the predictions of IPCC computer models, but then these computer models are not, by any stretch of the imagination, part of verified classical science. The models rely on extrapolation of historical data for their predictions, and that is at best a dubious approach. Most scientific disciplines discourage the use of extrapolation where any other, better approach exists.

So, surely this comes under the heading of legitimate questioning of predictions, as opposed to denying established facts, does it not? To label a person a 'Denier' for questioning the IPCC's computer models would seem to lend an air of godlike infallibility to the IPCC. I see no justification for taking this position. --Anteaus (talk) 20:42, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Have you tried reading the lead of this article to see what it is about? Dmcq (talk) 21:45, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

The mention of Al Gore is, as always, a dead giveaway. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:46, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Schools

"According to documents leaked in February, 2012, The Heartland Institute is developing a curriculum for use in schools which frames climate change as a scientific controversy."

True or not, all the sources to support for this claim rely on an inauthentic document (almost certainly) faked by Peter Gleick. This was "leaked" along with some genuine documents.

Is there a better source that does not rely on journalists being tricked by Gleick's fabrication?

194.81.49.250 (talk) 17:04, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree, the section should be removed. The Heartland Institute do have a plan along those lines as detailed on page 18 its fundraising plan [6] but no reliable source has thought to comment on it there and the source used for the citations here do seem like they could be forged. Personally I do not believe Gleick did the fabrication. Dmcq (talk) 17:41, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Everyone on the embarrassing end of leaked documents wants others to think they might be untrue in some fashion. That's hardly a compelling reason to remove the otherwise referenced section. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:59, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Disguise

The article is not mentioning disguise. Here is some science mentioning the term, in relation to the article: https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/wc2014/webprogram/Paper44688.html and http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ijah/article/view/106432, http://abs.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/05/01/0002764213477096.full.pdf Thus, i suggest to add a mention of it. I previously added the mention, but it was removed. Here is an older similar usage

• For our purposes, the most important of these are the Philippi Logic and Blomberg Logic, both of which are based on lectures from the early 1770s. Drawing on these transcripts, I want to defend the following general claims:
• 1. Kant distinguishes Pyrrhonian skepticism from Academic skepticism, which he tends to think of not as a form of skepticism at all but rather a disguised form of dogmatism.
• 2. He identifies Pyrrhonian skepticism with a particular form of doubt and a method used to elicit this doubt.
• 3. His attitude toward Pyrrhonian skepticism, particularly its method, is overwhelmingly positive.
• 4. He believes that the scope of Pyrrhonian skepticism is restricted to claims within theoretical philosophy and explicitly excludes mathematics, morals, and common sense claims about experience from the scope of Pyrrhonian doubt. http://philosophy.utk.edu/staff/CV/skepticism.pdf prokaryotes (talk) 18:13, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

The "disguise" issue is covered in the opening para of the lead by "Those actively challenging climate science commonly describe themselves as "skeptics", but mostly do not comply with scientific skepticism and, regardless of evidence, continue to deny the validity of human caused global warming". Looks like something to develop in the body text, I was thinking of changing the "Meanings of the term" section title to "Terminology" and covering briefly the introduction of both terms, plus commentary such as Weart's article. Not sure if the meanings of skepticism would be best in a new section. . dave souza, talk 18:39, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

For disguise, maybe add "Climate denial can be expressed in disguised forms of academic climate skepticism, when overlapping methods and arguments are used but with flawed conclusions, i.e. arguments based on temperature chart which uses incomplete data sets." This could be referenced to, i.e. see the cherry picking temperature charts. prokaryotes (talk) 19:07, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

P, if I understood your proposal, I think it would be OR designed to utter the rather loaded word d-i-s-g-u-i-s-e-d without an RS, which we are not supposed to do. I don't suppose you could channel your energy away from BATTLE POV opinions, to help Dave pull together publications for a 30000 foot review? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:08, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Social science papers that indulge in lots of specialized verbiage tend to be of less worth than the pristine paper they were printed on. The ones that actually do have a point tend not to do that. I do wish they would get their peer review process in order rather than it being more akin to a literary review. Only the third reference by RE Dunlap and PJ Jacques seemed to have anyone citing it - which is amazing given the millions of cites they pack their papers with. Dmcq (talk) 22:24, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Fraud Attribution

The section "Positions on global warming" should include a fourth category of dissent: "Climate scientists are perpetrating a fraud." The key justification for this position is always the Climatic Research Unit email controversy or "climategate", although other evidence can be adduced, and the claim is usually made that this fraud is perpetrated for personal reasons -- research funding, career advancement, "liberal agenda". The point is that while other positions represent themselves as alternative interpretations of accepted or at least credible scientific methods and measurable facts, the fraud attributions attack the credibility and impartiality of climate science as a discipline, drawing a moral rather than intellectual or procedural difference. Drollere (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:49, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

That section has been added recently so is more of a work in progress. Personally I'm not at all sure why it was stuck in or what it is supposed to show. The actual science is not very relevant so the particular things they disagree with aren't all that relevant either - that's more the sort of thing that should be in the global warming controversy article. Dmcq (talk) 22:37, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Claim in lead: $120 million over eight years

According to this article in Scientific American,

In all, 140 foundations funneled $558 million to almost 100 climate denial organizations from 2003 to 2010.

The results of the study should be added to the article body and the lead should be corrected. — goethean 15:31, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

When this news broke we debated it here and there. If memory serves, these outfits are not exclusively climate denial ones. They do other stuff too. A criticism was raised that there wasn't a way to tell whether the donated funds were to the groups' general fund, or their climate budget, so NPOV requires treading carefully.... that is, we can't just assume 100% of this money was to fund climate denial. Honestly, if we had access to every scrap of financial data, I bet it would show the total earmarked for climate denial specifically is even more than the 558M total that was uncovered via FOIA. But that's my own speculation, and no more RS for our articles than the assumption all 558M was so ear marked. Sadly, the records that were obtained just didn't go that far. I'm going on memory here. If something I said is not correct, please tell me! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:21, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but the study in Climatic Change journal referenced by Scientific American seems like it would be a good source for this article. — goethean 18:44, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

If that's the case, it sounds like it was excluded because of personal opinions and original research then. It absolutely belongs in this article. To not have it is a serious POV violation. In the lede though? Might be too much. --Ronz (talk) 21:06, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

This is not a product of Scientific American, as the page says: "This article originally appeared on The Daily Climate, the climate change news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit media company." NewsandEvents is correct, there was public pushback on this story. Every conservative think tank, whether they were supportive of global warming policy or not, were lumped in as "climate denial" organizations. As I recall, they added up the entire budgets of all the organizations and didn't try to determine how much (if any) was spent on environmental policy vs tax/foreign policy/economy/health/education/transportation/defence etc... Capitalismojo (talk) 18:54, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not seeing where the info is verified in the SciAm article linked above. --Ronz (talk) 23:37, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Here's a link to the original paper.[7] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:29, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

So "climate change counter movement" got trumped up into outright "denial" by SciAm? --Ronz (talk) 14:39, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

No, the original paper clearly says it is about "the nature of efforts to deny and/or distort climate science" by the "well-organized climate change counter-movement (CCCM)". It goes on in the abstract to talk about "the organizational dynamics of the denial campaign" and "the organized effort to deny climate change and thus the need to deal with it". We're definitely using the right word, and so are they. Undeniably.--Nigelj (talk) 22:59, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I need to find the time to read the references and past discussions. Are there past discussions specific to this research?

Both the SciAm ref and the research belong in the article. If any of the history identified in the research is missing, it belongs in the article as well. --Ronz (talk) 01:06, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

@Ronz: Good question. It certainly seems so. By my count, the actual peer-reviewed academic journal uses the term "climate change counter-movement (CCCM)" 11 times and "denier" only 3 times. The complete omission of "climate change counter-movement" and frequent used of "denier" by this article in Scientific American appears to be spin introduced by the popular press but not found in academic literature. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:52, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

A much more plausible hypothesis might be that the original article uses more formal language than SciAm (which usually passes for RS on its own). The original article clearly speaks of denial and denying - no added spin is needed. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:18, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

As the quotes I gave above should show, in the terminology of the paper, the climate change counter-movement makes efforts to deny the science. The movement does denying; that's the relationship between the two terms. The abstract goes on to say they do other things too - "a wide range of activities, including political lobbying, contributions to political candidates, and a large number of communication and media efforts that aim at undermining climate science" - but it clearly says that the movement does denial of the science, distortion of the science, a denial campaign, denial of climate change "and thus the need to deal with it". So I don't think this is a fruitful line of argument. We'd be better off talking about the money involved. This is a side-issue that's appeared out of nowhere, that is temporarily keeping us from discussing the original topic of this section. We wouldn't want to let a fruitless and pointless side issue derail a sensible discussion that might actually lead somewhere, would we? What kind of people would ever allow such a thing to happen? --Nigelj (talk) 23:41, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

@Stephan Schulz: I've never heard of that, but if what you say is true, that may be good news. One of the problems we've encountered at Wikipedia is that we're not supposed to use the term "denier" unless widely used by reliable sources. If the more formal term is "climate change counter-movement", do you think we should we should use that term instead? This may address lots of WP:BLP and WP:NPOV issues. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:00, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Brulle's "climate change counter-movement" is not a widely used term, much less the academic standard for what is commonly termed "denier", "skeptic", or "contrarian." Most of the usages I've found have been by Brulle himself or when discussing his work. See WP:NOTNEO. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:32, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I mentioned CCCM Talk:Watts_Up_With_That?#Sources_supporting_CCCM_to_characterize_WUWT\here, but in Analysis_of_sources, reached pretty much the same conclusion as Short Brigade Harvester Boris. --S Philbrick(Talk) 19:27, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Two aspects in the lead

The lead paragraph as it is at the moment has sentences about two different things in it - the public climate change skepticism grading into denial, and the climate change denial machinery

Climate change denial involves denial or dismissal of the scientific consensus on the rate and extent of global warming, its significance, or its connection to human behavior,

Applies to both

especially for commercial or ideological reasons.

Applies to the denial machinery

It forms an overlapping range of views with climate change skepticism, and commonly has the same characteristics, though some members of the public who simply doubt the significance of global warming can legitimately be described as skeptical in a broad sense.[1][2][3]

Applies to public climate change skepticism

In the global warming controversy, campaigning to undermine public trust in climate science has been described as the "denial machine".

Applies to the denial machinery

Those actively challenging climate science commonly describe themselves as "skeptics", but many do not comply with scientific skepticism and, regardless of evidence, continue to deny the validity of human caused global warming.[1]

Applies to both.

So I propose the aspects be separated a bit better in something like:

Climate change denial involves denial or dismissal of the scientific consensus on the rate and extent of global warming, its significance, or its connection to human behavior. Views of members of the public and some special interest groups can range from those who simply doubt the significance of global warming and can legitimately be described as skeptical in a broad sense, to those in full denial. Those actively challenging climate science commonly describe themselves as "skeptics", but many do not comply with scientific skepticism and, regardless of evidence, continue to deny the validity of human caused global warming. Organizations and individuals campaigning, especially for commercial or ideological reasons, to undermine public trust in climate science have been described as part of the "denial machine".

I think this would give space for development of both threads and the relationship between them without confusing them too much. Dmcq (talk) 18:32, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

You seem confused. Climate scepticism and climate change denial share the same defining characteristics, denial or dismissal of the scientific consensus on the rate and extent of global warming, its significance, or its connection to human behavior. Both commonly campaign for commercial or ideological reasons in what has been called the "denial machine", neither requires ill intent: denial in psychology is classically unconscious. The terms are contested, and there are arguments against both. The extent of difference is that a few prefer to describe themselves as deniers rather than skeptics, and some uninvolved in campaigning may be genuinely unsure, skeptical in the scientific science, and looking for clarification rather than confirmation of their beliefs. Am struggling a bit to find the best words, hope to add to this soon. . dave souza, talk 19:39, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

e/c

In addition, lots of individual people are in climate denial due to ideological reasons, but aren't an active part of what you call the "denial machine". So I think your post opens with a false dichotomy or something. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:43, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Could you both actually read the first citation by Dunlap which is used to support the conytinuum statement and actually take notice of the way it talks about the denial machinery and the way it talks about the public ans some interest groups as having views on a continuum.You are arguing against and misusing the main source for what you are saying. Dmcq (talk) 20:34, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm in the process of adding sources. . dave souza, talk 20:59, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Have a look at for instance this statement from the first page of the article which is written in a way that doesn't ascribe views where that is unwarranted: "a significant portion of the American public remains ambivalent or unconcerned (Leiserowitz, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Hmielowski, 2012) and many policy makers (especially in the United States) deny the necessity of taking steps to reduce carbon emissions (Brownstein, 2010)." Notice that when talking about people in general it talks about their feelings about the subject but in the case of the policy makers it talks about what they do. The article is a well written one, it covers the subject reasonably without making the mistakes that the current lead exhibit, and I'm asking that our article follows a similar approach. Dmcq (talk) 20:51, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Got a link to these sources, or at least doi numbers and preferably a link to non-paywalled options if appropriate? Also, are the "ambivalent or unconcerned" public ever referred to in good sources as "climate skeptics"? . . . dave souza, talk

Multiple thinkers behind the journal paywalls are critical, or at least trying to be analytical, of the notion "climate denial" on the basis that, according to them, it could refer to a range of views. Maybe a place to focus is to bubble up out of the lead, which is supposed to summarize the article text. Is this "range of views" bit in the article text? How is it presented there? If it isn't in the article text, it shouldn't be in the lead (which goes for every article). NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:07, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

See Climate change denial#Arguments and positions on global warming, worth reading Rahmstorf's article. . dave souza, talk 22:00, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Um... Anyway if you use Google Scholar you can often find things at a different place if there isn't straightforward access. Looking at the first one by Dunlap I see there is a version you can access at [8] but I wouldn't put it in the article as doing so might break copyright. Dmcq (talk) 21:38, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd already linked to a "researchgate" pdf which looks legit. Got doi's or links to free versions of the sources you were proposing? . . dave souza, talk 22:00, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

This discussion was about what the current sources say. I don't know why you are are repeatedly talking about your search for new sources here. Dmcq (talk) 07:19, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Rhetorical ed behavior comments aren't that helpful NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 07:28, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

How about 'Why are you talking about your search for new sources when the discussion is about the current wording and the current sources?" Please try and interpret what I say as being straightforward rather than an attack of some kind. You could have explained to me why they are talking about that if you know why. Dmcq (talk) 08:00, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I think I see now what you mean now about "Also, are the "ambivalent or unconcerned" public ever referred to in good sources as "climate skeptics"?". I try to be very clear and yet I often seem to have great difficulty in getting people to understand what I say. Yes the sentence starting "Views of members of the public and some special interest groups can .." is wrong as it implies all the public would be included. No I don't think that people who haven't considered the matter are climate skeptics, never mind most scientists or people who agree with the science. I shall try an rephrase that bit to avoid that problem. I still think the phrasing in the article is bad too and applies where it shouldn't. Dmcq (talk) 08:00, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Source based clarification will be welcome. Note that Rahmstorf's study p. 77 is probably the most referenced, and he identifies "a small but mixed bag of climate skeptics (or 'contrarians') who vehemently deny the need for climate protection measures."p. 77. We'd need evidence that the term climate skeptic or equivalent is applied to others. . . dave souza, talk 09:59, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Are you saying that Dunlap is not referring to 'climate change skeptics' in "Those involved in challenging climate science label themselves “skeptics,” and in some cases this term is warranted, especially for members of the public who..."? That the public in that sentence just refers to skeptics rather than 'climate skeptics'? Sorry yes I see below that is exactly what you are doing. Dmcq (talk) 11:23, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Some members of the public who simply doubt the significance of global warming can legitimately be described as skeptical in a broad sense

Sorry about tl;dr, but is this the discussion that led to the phrase above appearing in the lead? It has three complex references after it, and I would like to see here which quotation in which reference supports such a statement. My reading of the three references cited is that there is no longer a legitimate position that a well informed person can take that could be described as skeptical, i.e. having no view because there is insufficient information or evidence available to support any stance. There are those who actively deny the science (often for money), there are those who choose to believe them rather than mainstream scientists, and there may be some somewhere who didn't know there was any science. To my reading of Dunlap and Oreskes, that is the continuum. Where is the reference that establishes the existence of legitimate skepticism at the present time? --Nigelj (talk) 08:54, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

My understanding, and I'm working on it, is that uninformed members of the public who don't know the scientific consensus and are asking for information can reasonably be described as sceptical, but I've not seem them described as "climate change skeptics". Note that it's a standard denial tactic to say they're just "questioning the science" when they're actually dog-whistling. For example, "But how do we know if global warming is a problem if we can’t trust the temperature record?" then, after taking photos of surface sstations, jumping to the conclusion that "The conclusion is inescapable: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable. And since the U.S. record is thought to be 'the best in the world,' it follows that the global database is likely similarly compromised and unreliable.[9] Good sources describe this as denial. . dave souza, talk 09:30, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Having looked again, the wording was essentially based on Dunlap's "Those involved in challenging climate science label themselves “skeptics,” and in some cases this term is warranted, especially for members of the public who—for various reasons—are doubtful that AGW is a serious problem." That gives some leeway for those "challenging" climate science, not just asking about it, but doesn't justify using the term climate skeptic for these people. Another citation is needed for that: haven't checked ref [2], in ref [3] Klein refers to "denialists" with just a passing mention of Richard Muller as "a scientist sympathetic to the 'skeptic' position", so not the same term. . dave souza, talk 10:07, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Plenty of people have been badly informed - that's what the whole business of the denial machine is about. Their skepticism is legitimate in that they have made an informed decision based on the evidence presented to them. The various kinds of 'climate skeptic' in Rahmstorf have not been classed as deniers by them though I guess that's the idea. Anyway how about Climate Skeptics v. Climate Deniers By David Brin 'What discrete characteristics distinguish a rational, pro-science "climate skeptic" who has honest questions about the AGW consensus from members of a Denialist Movement that portrays all members of a scientific community as either fools or conspirators?' Dmcq (talk) 11:49, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Why should people in denial not have honest questions? The issue here is whether reliable sources clarify this point, and much as I like Brin's science fiction, that looks unusable as a selfpub source. . . dave souza, talk 21:20, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I took it out. It was nearly meaningless. However, what about Although there is a scientific consensus that humans are warming the climate,[18][19] the politics of global warming combined with some of the debate in popular media has slowed global efforts at preventing future global warming as well as preparing for warming "in the pipeline" due to past emissions. Much of this debate focuses on the economics of global warming - why is that in here? Politics preventing action is just politics, not denialism William M. Connolley (talk) 20:10, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Ok by me, will see if we get better clarification about these legit skeptics who may or may not get called climate skeptics. The other para isn't mine, you're welcome to chop it. Don't know if the Oreskes source is worth saving, haven't tried finding online access to it. . . dave souza, talk 21:20, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Why are you requiring a higher grade source for "Some members of the public who simply doubt the significance of global warming can legitimately be described as skeptical in a broad sense" than Dunlap? It seems a fairly unremarkable statement to me. I gave the David Brin reference because it was cited in Dunlap's work. Dmcq (talk) 00:26, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

My objection was not the sourcing, but the words themselves. As I said, they are nearly meaningless. "some members" - 0.1%, 50%, 99.9%? "significance" - what sense of "significance" is being used - its existence? Its impact? Its role in debate? And so on William M. Connolley (talk) 06:16, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what a good measure of that would be but [10] shows about 36% of people in the US as mixed belief and about half of those are concerned about global warming, and other figuresd there also show about half veering either way but not strong believers. So I would have thought somewhere about half of those or about 20% of the population could rightly be called skeptics. Whatever some 'real' figure for it is I'm pretty sure it is a very significant number. You can see the problem when you try and figure out how many of the 'concerned believers' in that survey whom I'm excluding from that should actually be called skeptics in that they believe because of the evidence rather than because of belonging to a peer group and having a certain outlook on life. Dmcq (talk) 08:51, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

In the more strident literature the words 'climate skeptic' are a synonym for 'climate change denier' because that's what deniers call themselves. There is no room left for people who are actually skeptical in a reasoned way. There are some reliable sources that argue essentially that all climate skeptics are deniers and there are others that say it is quite wrong to make that identification. Wikipedia is supposed to give more weight to scholarly sources and they tend as far as I can see to make a distinction between them but we do need to acknowledge both sides in that. Dmcq (talk) 09:13, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Done, but note that this is work in progress and, for example, I've still to incorporate Deniers are not Skeptics - CSI. . dave souza, talk 09:54, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Good work. Well done and thank you, guys. Thanks for the clarity. --Nigelj (talk) 22:55, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Deniers are not Skeptics - CSI

• Deniers are not Skeptics - CSI (HT to Dave)

An interesting viewpoint re this topic was recently posted at Curry's, Why Skeptics hate climate skeptics. It's a guest post, so perhaps not a RS, but makes for interesting reading. Pete Tillman (talk) 21:12, 5 June 2015 (UTC) `

Definition

Slightly surprisingly, denier - definition of denier in English from the Oxford dictionary: 1) noun
A person who denies something, especially someone who refuses to admit the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence:
a prominent denier of global warming
a climate change denier
. . . dave souza, talk 18:05, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

That's rather interesting. Its not the OED, though. What's the status of "oxforddictionaries"? William M. Connolley (talk) 18:58, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

It's published by Oxford Universtiy Press, and they say, "we’ve been making dictionaries for more than 150 years" and "For us, it’s not only about defining words or charting the history of English in the OED"[11] --Nigelj (talk) 19:15, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

OxfordDictionaries.com helps a bit William M. Connolley (talk) 19:57, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

I've added it, as it seems useful William M. Connolley (talk) 20:00, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

It has just made the lead even messier and not fixed any problems. Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, at best that should be in the first section about the meaning of the term. The lead should be a summary. Dmcq (talk) 09:12, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd prefer it in the lede, but can live with where it is. Given all the fuss elsewhere with people calling for definitions, this seemed rather a useful find, don't you think? William M. Connolley (talk) 09:59, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Somewhat unfortunately no one has objected to this. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:43, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

We also have WP:NOTADICTIONARY. The article is more about the topic rather than the phrase though we do have a section on terminology, and the terminology section says a lot more than that. Personally I think copying out dictionary definitions into the lead of articles is bad style and doesn't really help in explaining the topics and they are I would say tertiary rather than secondary sources. Dmcq (talk) 16:10, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Are Skepticism and Denial interchangeable

This is being discussed at Talk:Anthony Watts (blogger). Input welcome. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:32, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

No - they are by definition different entities, they are not even used interchangeably. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.191.12.134 (talk) 06:34, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

They're clearly not interchangeable. Skepticism is respectable. "Skepticism" and pseudo-skepticism are the same thing, and aren't respectable. Denial is obviously not respectable, and probably somewhat different from "D" or P-S; certainly, people object to D rather more forcefully, in my experience William M. Connolley (talk) 18:23, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

In carefully attentive academic writing, sure. But that thread is asking about mass media and casual writing/speech, which is something different. My heading here should have read whether there are sources saying the terms are often used interchangeably? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:50, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. I was only giving my perspective really :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 21:32, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not really keen on Wikipedia being used for a discussion forum. This sort of thing leads to cliques who discuss articles away from the article - this used to be a particular problem with the Fringe Theories Noticeboard though they have improved considerably since they brought in a directive at the top to notify editors if they talk about them. I see they are now discussing this same editor at Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Anthony_Watts_.28blogger.29. Perhaps they are made for each other. And by the way as far as what is discussed there 'environmental skepticism' is not the same as just sticking the two words with their normal meaning together, together they form a specific phase with its own meaning and it refers in the main to deniers rather than skeptics. Dmcq (talk) 23:06, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Skepticism = denial? Appears to be NPOV violation

A new edit diff attempts to equate the two. I view this as pernicious, as it appears to be an attempt to brand skeptics as deniers. It's well established that the historic origin of "climate change denial" is by explicit analogy to Holocaust denial. Commentator Richard D. North says, in our article, that "It is deeply pejorative to call someone a 'climate change denier'. This is because it is a phrase designedly reminiscent of the idea of Holocaust Denial ..." (cite #28 in article)

It pejorative to call someone a 'climate change denier' - particularly when it is directed at persons rather than behavior, and it is repeatedly insinuated that they are lying - rather than skeptical.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.191.12.134 (talk • contribs)

There is a bit of a problem in that the word has a common English usage meaning that. However denial is the correct word for the psychological mechanism and the usual way it is described. Skepticism also has a straightforward meaning, and it includes being open to something perhaps being correct. When Saddam Hussein said he didn't have chemical weapons factories it would have been silly not to be skeptical. When the various searches failed to show any the probability of there being any went down - but many people said he must be much more devious and the factories must be mobile in vans or hidden underground in the desert. The lack of evidence convinced them he was more evil than they originally thought and therefore the probability they assigned to there being such factories went up. Then the country was conquered and the skeptics were convinced that there was no evidence of current production and any such program must have been very minor. However if you have a look on the web you can still see people claiming there was some big program and it was moved to Syria and that the Democratic party covered this up to discredit Republicans and lots of other silliness like that. Those people are deniers. Dmcq (talk) 09:20, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

The distinction between skeptics and deniers has been discussed here many times, most recently at the long RfC closed on 29 November 2014. The RfC closer recommended using common sense to differentiate between "true skeptics" and deniers. Other previous discussions are in the archives, for example in 2011, here in 2010 , etc. etc. No consensus appeared to be reached in any of these that I've seen.

So the admins are allowing a non-NPOV and attacks on the integrity of individuals to exist because the two sides could not reach consensus?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.191.12.134 (talk • contribs)

The article itself is conflicted about this: Peter Christoff also emphasizes the distinction between scepticism and denial, saying "Climate change deniers should be distinguished from climate sceptics. Scepticism is essential to good science."[cite 15, as of 05/27/15].

Incidentally, the proposing editor reverted back to his text in 1 minute! WP:BRD? --Pete Tillman (talk) 21:45, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Astoundingly, Commentator Richard D. North is writing with the full authority of a free market think tank, not an academic source. Peter Christoff was quote mined, I've corrected that. . .dave souza, talk 22:48, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Yup, you're talking rubbish and directly contradicting published academic sources of good quality. The edit does distinguish between true skeptics and deniers of various shades. Note that the continuum doesn't mean that all skeptics are deniers, or even that all climate skeptics are deniers: the latter term has a history in academic publications, which I'm working to cover. Please accept that this is work in progress. You are of course welcome to propose other good quality sources. . dave souza, talk 21:56, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

It might be better for you to propose major changes to long-standing consensus here first. Civility wouldn't hurt, either. Pete Tillman (talk) 22:01, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Tillman that the identification between deniers and skeptics is too close and too up front with the edit. There is a section on meanings of the term and it is obvious there that identifying the two is controversial. I see no need for pushing it like that and I see it as an NPOV violation too despite thinking the terms are practically identical in current usage. We should just summarize that there is a controversy over the identification. Dmcq (talk) 22:05, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

I think that squealing in mortal pain as soon as someone says 'denial' in one's earshot is a rhetorical tactic that need not be listened to too closely. The real distinction - wanting to read the original publication in a peer reviewed journal, rather than the press report, is true scepticism; saying that 15,000 scientists are all wrong and my mate's theory is right, is denial - needs to be made. Allowing people simply to prevent the discussion from proceeding because it pains them too much to hear the words, is not helpful, and is not necessary. --Nigelj (talk) 22:19, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Ah! the truth is not dependent upon the number of people that believe it! By all means, allow the discussion to continue but without personal name-calling attacks. We should improve our vocabulary and understanding of correct definitions until we can converse with civility!— Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.191.12.134 (talk • contribs)

What word would you use for denial? skeptic? and in that case what word would you use for a skeptic? Dmcq (talk) 10:42, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure that trying to pretend that climate change denial was in someway similar to holocaust denial was found to be a Republican Party rhetorical tactic. Wasn't that documented somewhere? I'm sure it was. Arguing something else -other than the present case - that has a name. Is it strawman or reductio ad something? Anyway, as you know, nowhere in the article does it say "Skepticism = denial". Being on a continuum together is quite different to equality. The fact is that a lot of documentation has come to light in the last few years, a lot of money has been traced back to its sources, a lot of research has been done, and some theoretical structures have now been set in place to allow thinking to proceed more logically in this area. It is about time this article was updated to reflect some of this, and I'm very happy with the changes. It's no good harking back to the 'good ole days' when a bunch of paid hackers could get into an email server, take some phrases out of context, and take everyone by surprise. People have been working hard on all this, and we need to reflect what they have found, and how they now talk about it in mainstream academic circles. --Nigelj (talk) 22:07, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

How about following the sources instead of trying to push a point? There is a controversy, so they shouldn't be pushed together in the first like like that. Dmcq (talk) 23:18, 27 May 2015 (UTC) Dmcq (talk) 23:18, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:KETTLE--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 04:15, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

As it stands that is simply invective. Why do you say that? It is much better if people explain things rather than expecting others to understand without explanation. I have pointed out that whether climate change skeptics are the same as deniers or should be referred to as deniers is the subject of controversy and that controversy is described in the section on meanings of the term. It is therefore inappropriate to put the two together as being practically the same at the beginning. I agree the lead should mention climate change scepticism as that it is now more commonly thought as a form of denial but we are supposed to say things with the weight they are in the sources not push our own point of view. Dmcq (talk) 08:38, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

And while you're at it perhaps you could explain your edit comment where you saw a copyright violation in [12] thanks. Dmcq (talk) 08:44, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Have you bothered to check the sources? Apparently not, if you didn't notice that the removed text was taken verbatim from this, p.47.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 17:00, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

That 'book' is a copy of this Wikipedia article so there is no copyright violation in being similar to it! It would have helped if you had said that in the first place and we could have put you straight ages ago. Dmcq (talk) 22:46, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Are you sure about that? The author seems to be an academic.

If that is the case, I was unable to verify the statement attributed to the Guardian piece. That statement was apparently intended to make Monbiot look like he was contradicting himself.--Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 11:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Relationship of climate skepticism to global warming denial

I think the main problem with the lead sentence is that 'climate change skepticism' can refer to essentially two different things. It can either refer to 'climate change denial' especially when a person or organization promoting it says they are just being skeptical, or it can refer to people who are genuinely skeptical and not motivated to any great degree by denial. I do not mean as scientists with scientific scepticism but in the normal sense of the word. They see what they think of as good solid reasons to distrust the science - in fact they get a wall of it from the denial organisations whose job is to convince them. It is not denial to agree with something that is wrong because you are misinformed. The great mass of the people who agree with what the climate change deniers say like that are climate change sceptics.

This article used to be just about the denial machinery and in that context identifying the two had some justification but we avoided doing that. Now more is being added about the social dimension of people in general rather than the organization doing that. In the lead the way it is done now is simply wrong. I also believe the references stuck in for that in the lead don't support anything like that. Yes skepticism can grade into denial but the whole tone of the lead is now simply a climate change skeptic bashing exercise. A person who is a climate change skeptic in the sense of just being convinced by the misinformation coming along here would just get the idea that it is alarmist propaganda and bashing people who genuinely are curious about the question. Dmcq (talk) 10:23, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Sources? Your essay looks like original research, and is contrary both to points made in sources I've already added, and sources I'm currently working on, which point to the same machinery in both climate skepticism and global warming denial. Perhaps you'd like to prepare citations and make specific suggestions for wording to meet your concerns? . . . dave souza, talk 10:57, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Well how about taking the very first citation for the very first sentence which you yourself stuck in. It says there

The articles in this symposium contribute to the growing body of social science analyses of climate change denial and skepticism. There is debate over which term is most appropriate for understanding opposition to acknowledging the reality and seriousness of AGW and to climate science itself. Those involved in challenging climate science label themselves “skeptics,” and in some cases this term is warranted, especially for members of the public who—for various reasons—are doubtful that AGW is a serious problem (Leiserowitz et al., 2012). Yet skepticism is an inherent feature of science and a common characteristic of scientists (e.g., Mann, 2012; Schneider, 2009), making it inappropriate to allow those who deny AGW to don the mantle of skeptics.....

It seems best to think of skepticism–denial as a continuum, with some individuals (and interest groups) holding a skeptical view of AGW but remaining open to evidence, and others in complete denial mode, their minds made up. Social scientists are analyzing both phenomena, ....

I think that shows they acknowledge that climate change skepticism can be applied to people who are not deniers and there is controversy over doing what is done in the first line here and that they distinguish between the terms. You have ignored the 'both phenomena' bit after they say skepticism can be considered as a continuum. Dmcq (talk) 12:34, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it's a continuum and the lead wording "mostly do not comply with scientific skepticism" reflects the source's "Those involved in challenging climate science label themselves “skeptics,” and in some cases this term is warranted" [emphasis added] while pointing to the preponderance [indicated in the part you skipped] that "there is little doubt that many individuals actively involved in the denial campaign are not skeptical of climate science but are in full denial, and no amount of evidence will convince them of the reality of AGW". Since the skeptical and denial terms appear in different studies to cover the same positions (as identified by Ramstorf) they're to an extent synonymous, and while the preponderance tips into denial, clearly some cases are better described as skeptical. Can you suggest a concise way to make this more explicit? . . dave souza, talk 14:05, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

And you are ignoring the 'actively' in 'most of those actively involved' when you stick it right at the start. The problem is that overall most of thos decribed as such are not because they are members of the general public. The only preponderance we have is that we normally talk about those who ar actively involved rather than the general public. Dmcq (talk) 14:12, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

But there is also the climate change denial of the average guy, who owns water front property, and then just ignores the problem. Thus, this is some kind of psychological bias, see also Just world believe. prokaryotes (talk) 14:14, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

I fully agree and that is denial and it would be part of a continuum but that doesn't mean denial is an appropriate term to apply to most of those of the public who are skeptical - and this article is supposed to be about denial. Dmcq (talk) 14:18, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Ok but would you consider Inhofe as skeptical? He alleges fraud. And wouldn't you consider him a denialist, because he denies the science entirely. prokaryotes (talk) 14:27, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

I think we've reliable sources saying he denies the science so I don't think there's much doubt there. I think we do need to talk about climate change skepticism in the lead and just distinguish between the uses a bit as having the term point to this article is probably appropriate now given the weight. Dmcq (talk) 14:37, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Dmcq, i have made an edit to better reflect that. prokaryotes (talk) 14:38, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for having a go, it lost the main point from the source that there's a continuum, and that there's an overlap rather than just one pretending to be the other. I've patched the wording to emphasise this, keeping climate skepticism in bold to avoid surprise for readers redirected to this page as the most appropriate article on that (overlapping) term, as Dmcq says. Also picked up the point about "Those actively challenging climate science", though how you inactively challenge it is unclear: perhaps just unstated distrust? Anyway, hope that points a way forward. . . dave souza, talk 17:27, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Looks to me like a low ratio of RS:personalopinion. If anyone with access takes time to go beyond the abstracts in the professional literature, there are a fair number of sources that boil down to (A) observation that these terms are being used in multiple overlapping/conflicting ways by different people, and (B) authors' analysis/opinion of the correct way to use these terms. The only hope of resolving the debate here is to get a higher RS:personalopinion ratio, and in my opinion the best bet for that is from these journals. I have the access and interest, but sadly very little time. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:38, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

A number of the journal RSs are open access, and pdf's of others can be obtained from the researchers' university or institute pages. I've been trying to put some together at User:dave souza#SD, the doi tool provides formatted refs but it can be easier to put the doi into Yadkard. So, more access than time, at present! . . . dave souza, talk 17:36, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

First of all within the context that these terms are being used and the established definitions of the words. There can be no continuum between skepticism and denial or lying. There may be a continuum of opposition to the theory, and that continuum of opposition may include skeptics, people that are in denial, and liars. But those are three distinct things.

The people that continue to use derogatory labels for people that disagree with their POV must be convinced that the "Global warming due to human activitiy" THEORY is true and factual.

Someone that has honest skepticism of an obvious and well known fact, might be in denial, but that does not make him a liar.
Someone in denial of an obvious and well known fact is neither a liar or a skeptic, they aren't cognitively aware of the truth.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.191.12.134 (talk) 08:56, 9 June 2015 (UTC) 

Continuum?

Is the term continuum used in the references? I think this term is a very uncommon word and excludes abrupt changes. However, in the past opinion or denial has changed abruptly, in line with sociological inertia. Please write something like Denial is often similar to skepticism (or disguised as such). prokaryotes (talk) 17:32, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Source 1: Dunlap, R. E. (2013). "Climate Change Skepticism and Denial: An Introduction". American Behavioral Scientist (SAGE) 57 (6): 691–698. "It seems best to think of skepticism–denial as a continuum, with some individuals (and interest groups) holding a skeptical view of AGW but remaining open to evidence, and others in complete denial mode, their minds made up." Also, earlier, "the growing body of social science analyses of climate change denial and skepticism." Some of which I've linked above, and which indicate the commonality between both aspects. . dave souza, talk 17:45, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

The problem with this continuum is, it is based on 1 author opinion, and besides this, i don't see what it adds. I rather keep it simple, words like continuum are just abstract.prokaryotes (talk) 17:56, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps continuum might be better put as "an overlapping range of views", but I think it's important that sometimes they're synonyms, in a minority of cases "climate skeptics" are genuinely open to changing their views in line with scientific skepticism. As for 1 author opinion, it's a published expert in the field reviewing the state of play, and looks consistent with the other sources I've listed on my user page, see above. . dave souza, talk 18:33, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

I do not question his credibility, but he gave an example when he used this term, and this might be better expressed with a less academic description. Thus, I endorse a change to "an overlapping range of views", instead of continuum. prokaryotes (talk) 18:38, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

As I pointed out above in that citation immediately after talking about a continuum they talk about social scientists investigating the two phenomena. Another difference is that many of those doing denying aren't on any continuum or discrete set of views. They have no view on the subject, they don't dislike the scientists they have no overt feelings towards them - it is just they are paid to do denial. The article used not to delve into people';s views - just into what they or organisations actually did. With the social aspect there is a slight clash about this and the ascribing of feelings to the actions is in some cases just an anthropomorphism. Dmcq (talk) 22:05, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

You can question the research and the academic papers, but unfortunately, to make a difference to the article, you'd have to find other similar-level academics who have questioned the findings, in print. --Nigelj (talk) 22:26, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

The 'two phenomena' compared to 'continuum' in the previous sentence in the same paper is enough to cause trouble with continuum in the lead. I was simply pointing out that we should cover the range of points of view and social scientists tend to ascribe feelings whereas much of what has been in this article is based on observable facts. In the first sentence we have 'especially for commercial or ideological reasons' and that applies mostly to the deniers pushing the business whereas the social science deals more with the sociology of the public. Those are two different areas and two different subjects that we have to cover well in the article and not have one take too much from the other. Dmcq (talk) 11:14, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

D, that's 122 words and 0 RSs. What's your calculation of the RS/personalopinion ratio? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:43, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

What is your point? The section is about continuum. I pointed out we don't have an RS for that as being the only or even a major view since it contradicts itself. Are you disputing that we should try and cover all the major points of view rather than have it dictated by sociology papers? I believe the Dunlap paper cited at the beginning is a good one and clearly written. I just have strong reservations about some others like the two first ones mentioned below in the Disguises section which have zero cites and I would consider as having low weight compared to good newspaper articles on the subject. Dmcq (talk) 12:07, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Ummmm, errrr.... are you criticizing sources we have (your prior comments) or claiming we have no sources (your last comment)? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:51, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

I was criticizing the use of the Dunlap source for saying that denial and skepticism were on a spectrum. I said that overall I thought the paper used for the citation was good but it doesn't support this. I said that we have two things which were different which is what the immediately succeeding sentence in Dunlap said, of course that sentence can't be used to cite that either as there is a confusion or contradiction with the continuum sentence so I pointed to the article before the social science and the public aspect was added as evidence. If you could formulate your question in a way which was more specific perhaps I could address whatever it is that you are concerned about as I just get negative vibes with no information at the moment. I am not saying that denial and skepticism amongst the public aren't mostly along a spectrum, however saying it is a spectrum is something quite different. Dmcq (talk) 13:00, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, that was clear. What do eds familiar with the RS in question think? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:41, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

I think this question was agreeably resolved when the word "continuum" was omitted, instead referring to an "overlapping range of views". . . dave souza, talk 21:18, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

I saw that edit and liked it, but something that looked like debate continued here anyway. Maybe we should ask..... Dmcq, do you agree with Dave? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:24, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Not particularly. It was just continuum written in different words.It is appropriate for society in general but there is a second topic which it doesn't cover and yet it is phrased as if it does cover, the thing the article was set up about originally. The Heartland Institute for instance is a conservative libertarian think tank. It has as the first sentence says economic or ideological motives. The science is irrelevant except insofar as they have to study it to formulate a way of opposing it. There is no indication they have any view on the science, they simply do what they think is in line with their function. That is denial okay but it is not on a continuum of views with skepticism. It is not a view that they act from, it is simply what they do. Dmcq (talk) 23:00, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

What "second topic" do you think is being discussed, and how is the "second topic" distinct from what you think was "the thing the article was set up about originally"? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:15, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

There's the subject discussed in the social studies papers, the skepticism grading into outright denial, this is being added to this article because climate change skepticism is very often used for that and it talks about the interactions between people and their background and how they get their views. And then there is the other topic which is more directly commercial and political which is all this article used to be about. That talked about the organisations and the people involved in the denial campaign and what they did. There was little to no talk about how they formed a view on the science.. A 'view' or anything to do with the science is practically irrelevant there. It is like some developer paying someone who knows how to steer their planning application past some ordinances. They don't really care about the reasons why their planning application is being opposed. Dmcq (talk) 12:29, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Alright, so you seem to think that there are 'two topics' being discussed and they are

(1) "skepticism grading into outright denial", or

(2) "the organisations and the people involved in the denial campaign and what they did."

I also heard you say that #2 is "all this article used to be about".

Any objections to my distillation so far?

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:05, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes thank you that is right. For the first lot the deniers have views. For the second lot saying they have a view on the science isn't all that meaningful, concentrating on what they actually do is better. We can include what they say about the science of course, but in general they are just navigating a maze rather than expressing a view. Dmcq (talk) 13:48, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

This is a continuation of the heavily indented thread above the break
Next, Dmcq, I think you've been saying we should not delve into topic (1) "skepticism grading into outright denial" at all. Is that right? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:24, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

No I did not say that, I don't know how you got that impression. I'm saying the continuum statement is inappropriate to the organisations involved in the denial rather than the social aspect but is written as if it applies to the whole article. And by the way the first statement in the article suffers from a similar problem but in the opposite direction, in the social arena denial need not be mainly for economic or ideological reasons. The article covers two closely related topics. Dmcq (talk) 16:23, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

You used Heartland as an example. Sounds like you think Heartland does not espouse or typify "a range of overlapping views" because, according to you, instead of actually holding any views they say what they get paid to say. In other words, you think the text does not apply to Heartland because we have no evidence they actually believe the things they say. Is that the crux of your Heartland example? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:47, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Individually they very possibly hold views but what they say is no indication of what they actually think about the science and very often contradicts other things they say. They say things for effect. Dmcq (talk) 12:07, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for working on getting this all clarified. If Heartland itself said "Climate blah blah blah...(but we don't actually think that way, we're just paid to say it" then I would agree with you. But instead they assert the things they say in definitive voice. It doesn't really matter whether the speech or writing is attributed to an individual speaker/writer or Heartland in general, their verbal and written statements nonetheless forcefully assert "view(s)". Anyone who cares can analyze those views for where they fall on the overlapping range of skepticism/denial. So I see no problem with the existing text. At most, if you have RSs you've made a case for how we should describe Heartland, which isn't something we should be doing in the lead of "climate change denial". NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:15, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

That's just a bad way of dealing with things and wrong. The main part of the article deals with this okay - it discusses what the organisations and the main deniers do. It does not try and assign them to a point on a continuum of views. We can say they wrote something or said something but going beyond that is not based on anything real. We have two topics being covered by the article now, the old topic of denial as in what the main organisations and people say and do and what sources give as their driving reasons which are in the main economic or ideological, and the social sciences study of society in general, the interactions of the various parties and why they come to form their views. The views though are statistical and may not apply in particular cases. The article should deal with both topics and their interaction, the social sciences do talk about the various actors, but they are not the same topic and we shouldn't try shoving square pegs into round holes. The sentence about continuum does not describe the main part of the article as it is at the moment - it applies the topic of the social science studies and climate change skepticism and denial in general and in particular in relation to the pubic. There is the topic of skepticism which grades into denial, and the denial machinery which implements the denial. The sentence supporting the continuum says 'It seems best to think of skepticism–denial as a continuum, with some individuals (and interest groups) holding a skeptical view of AGW but remaining open to evidence, and others in complete denial mode, their minds made up', and elsewhere talks about the denial machinery. This does not apply to the denial organisations. Dmcq (talk) 17:20, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Disagree. There is no problem with the "overlapping range of views" text in lead para 1 currently. As this thread's topic has jumped to Talk:Climate_change_denial#Two_aspects_in_the_lead I'll save further comments for that venue. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:34, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:34, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Dunlap 2013

I replaced a dead URL for this paper, and CEd "mostly" to "many" based on this quote:

In fact, there is little doubt that many individuals actively involved in the denial campaign

are not skeptical of climate science but are in full denial, and no amount of evidence

will convince them of the reality of AGW.

Dunlap does not appear to have a NPOV on this topic, and hence (as in many sociology articles), his CC work must be viewed skeptically for (eg) confirmation bias. --Pete Tillman (talk) 01:05, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

We don't require sources to be neutral. See WP:BIASED.   — Jess· Δ♥ 04:07, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

What Dunlap[13] does is speak of and from the mainstream academic standpoint. It is from this standpoint that WP:FRINGE is judged and applied. There is only one reality, and he summarises it thus:

"Climate science has now firmly established that global warming is occurring, that human activities contribute to this warming, and that current and future warming portend negative impacts on both ecological and social systems."

To dispute any of these three points is to take a markedly WP:FRINGE position. Little is changed by someone saying, "Oh, I'm not denying these, I'm skeptical about them." In terms of the continuum, he says that a skeptic may remain "open to evidence," while a denier's mind is "made up", but both present equally "“outlier voices”—skeptics, contrarians, and denialists—receiving unwarranted media visibility, and thus influence on policy debates." He says, "the mass media have enabled the outlier voices to have an excessive impact on these debates, and thus hamper our ability to have intelligent discussions" - exactly as here, per WP:FRINGE: "Proponents of fringe theories have in the past used Wikipedia as a forum for promoting their ideas." There is no way, Dunlap says, that these outlier voices represent some kind of suppressed minority that need to be given any further hearing. It is high time that, in articles like this, we stopped tip-toeing around the delicate feelings of those who have pretended to have these sensitive personal skeptical issues, and apply WP:FRINGE in the normal way. --Nigelj (talk) 16:46, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

i agree. isn't the core issue here how the person's attitude or opinion translates into action? rather than debate whether "skepticism" equals skepticism, or a continuum forms a conundrum, or kant knew what pyrrho was talking about, it seems more productive to ask whether "skepticism" equates to "policy changes are not required," "education in the schools is not necessary," "there is nothing humans can do," "data have been falsified," and any other pseudofactual claim about climate change that can be factually answered. "skepticism" is an empty label unless it is attached to factual claims, and the factual claims stand on their own, and can be factually answered, without any recourse to philosophical categorization. indeed, to the extent that "denial" or "skepticism" equate to the same resistance to social change, it's most accurate to term these folks "climate policy obstructionists". at worst, this would push them to make policy recommendations that can be debated on the merits. Drollere (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:36, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

The core issue is to follow reliable sources, and you're not discussing any. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:50, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Oreskes inteview

This is an interesting interview with Naomi Oreskes, author the Merchants of Doubt. IMHO, as she is a recognised expert in the field, items from this interview should be perfectly citable if they fit into the text of this article. In any event, it is worth a watch to get a feel for how mainstream thought runs in this area at the moment. --Nigelj (talk) 22:37, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing that.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:43, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Change of topic: forum thoughts

A bit off-topic

I recently received a query from a new editor who had some thoughts. They were concerned that they might be viewed as original research and/or not a forum. I simple response was that the proffered thoughts were a violation of our prohibition on a forum. I support that prohibition on article talk pages, but I wonder if we ought to create a new namespace similar to the way we created the recent draft space, and call it forum:. That space would allow discussions which are normally a violation of original research or our forum prohibition. Why on earth what I want to encourage this you might wonder? Because we have editors who are interested in discussing issues and they often do so. With the present rules someone has to come along and slap the hands then remove or hat the discussion. If we had in space for such discussion it would be kinder and gentler to simply move those discussions into the proper space where those interested can continue the discussion and those not interested in those discussions and more narrowly interested in improving the article can stay in the talk space. So one value is in shunting off discussions which normally are difficult to stop. Second value is that discussion of issues which might normally be a violation of the form restriction might lead to some insights between parties that have disagreements. I have no illusion that it would be a panacea but it might be worth the experiment. I’m posting this in response to this entry because I thought there were a number of issues in the Oreskes interview which were worthy of further discussion, but if posted here, would be a violation of our guidelines. It might be nice if there were another place to discuss them. I do not see that such a discussion here would result in them immediate proposed edit to this article, but the discussion might have some value in mutual understanding of some of the issues.--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:05, 17 June 2015 (UTC) What has that to do with the heading? Very naughty, should probably hat it but for simplicity here's a new heading. There's some leeway, and by providing their sources and at least suggesting a direction for article improvement then some discussion should be possible. Alternatively, Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science might answer their questions. Was going to suggest the Village Pump, but Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Allow discussion about the topic of the article indicates we've been there before, so to speak. . . dave souza, talk 19:23, 17 June 2015 (UTC) On re-reading, slight connection so make this subhead. Surely "a number of issues in the Oreskes interview which were worthy of further discussion" could posted here, and meet policies / guidelines by getting related to article content. At least some effort would be needed to show sources of alternative views. No? . . dave souza, talk 19:38, 17 June 2015 (UTC) Sphilbrick... (A) if the goal is to let willing eds forum, anyone can opt-in to a forum hosted on a willing ed's talk page, so that's not a reason. (B) if the goal is to rope in people who are browsing for such venues, there's a gazillion off wiki forum boards, so that's not a reason, especially since this would run risk of becoming a canvass/cabal incubator. (C) if the goal is to just have a place to shunt forum threads, well gee, that's what Template:Hat and TEMPLATE:Collapse top are for. In sum, you have not persuaded me that the status quo is defective in any way. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:01, 17 June 2015 (UTC) Good point about user talk pages. WP:OWNTALK still requires "all discussion should ultimately be directed solely toward the improvement of the encyclopedia", but think there's some leeway there for improving mutual understanding, or even sharing friendly thoughts. As my pal User talk:Bishapod does so well, though beware of her socks. Maybe an acquired taste :-( 20:52, 17 June 2015 (UTC) NAEG (A) Existing guidelines explicitly discourage such discussion on editors talk pages. There are other issues even if that is relaxed. (B) Off wiki forum boards would make linking to existing Wikipedia articles and guidelines enough of a burden that it would fail. My hope is to allow discussions to be far-reaching but eventually to result in mutual education, and eventually improvement in articles, so walling them off completely doesn't work well. (C) I want to shunt off discussions but not shut off discussions. Hatting and collapsing are intended to shut down discussions I mulled over whether there was any value to this idea. A proper location for discussion is the village pump, but I thought I'd get some quick reactions here which has succeeded. I have no aversion to someone hatting this discussion now--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:33, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Naomi Klein ref in lede

We have a sentence ref'd to an opinion piece by Naomi Klein. It is about organized climate change denial. As it is an opinion piece it must be attributed. That attribution was removed. It was removed with the statement that many have stated the information. Great! We should then use one of those non-opinion pieces to support the statement. Right now it is not properly ref'd. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:23, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Alternatively we should properly attribute the opinion. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:24, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

What criterion are you using for saying it is an opinion piece and must be removed? I'm not sure what you would accept as not failing. I would guess you are perfectly aware it is quite easy to just search on Google Scholar and get a load of other people saying that so You must be meaning something more, or do you just want a big long list of citations like so many other statements - in fact there is such a list at the end of that paragraph. We shouldn't really need or use more than a few. Or do you think the statement is biased and wrong - in which case we should fix the weight in the body as the body of the article is clearly weighted that way. Dmcq (talk) 22:11, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Are we talking about this edit? If so, first I would say that although we don't need any citations in the lead where it summarises well-cited material in the body of the article, in this case we have just had a lengthy discussion about this exact phrase, and having it cited in-place was very useful to clarify that discussion. Second, I don't see the point in removing a citation but leaving the article content that it referenced. Thirdly removing a citation with the comment "recapitulates polemic in her recent book, RS only for her opinion" is barely acceptable under WP:BLP. Klein has ruffled feathers with her exposures of the wickedness that follows from modern day far-right thinking, and she is a well-respected author and documentary maker worldwide, not an isolated polemicist. --Nigelj (talk) 10:07, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

The NCSE cites Denialism: What Is It and How Should Scientists Respond?, a 2009 paper by Pascal Diethelm and Martin McKee, which includes "The use of fake experts is often complemented by denigration of established experts and researchers, with accusations and innuendo that seek to discredit their work and cast doubt on their motivations." . . dave souza, talk 11:13, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Level with us here, Dave. How much is Al Gore paying you to post this stuff? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:16, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

He pays for links to NCSE? Why didn't you guys tell me, I could of made a fortune by now! . . . dave souza, talk 12:21, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for recognizing my saying "thanks for your careful attention, Dave" by way of ironic humor. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:18, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Eh what's eating you? As to that link I think it has been rejected before as being in a viewpoint column but being cited from NCSE would give it some weight. Dmcq (talk) 12:56, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

If you were talking to me, Dmcq, please see my reply to Dave. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:19, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I believe I indented properly to show that. But that shows the problem about misunderstandings on the web, the indentations mightn't be right. It is best to make things plain and obvious. Your remark before looked to me like a personal attack. I see your reply, I do not see what it is you think you have explained. It is far better to avoid irony or humor in anything which might be misunderstood that way. Dmcq (talk) 14:18, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I apologize to everyone for getting us off track. If there's some way to possibly reduce your enmity for me, Dmcq, I'd spend time giving that a try at user talk or DR. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:31, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I see that complaint you referenced was about another place you employed irony. I do not understand your concept of humor or irony and it would be best to avoid it on me and mark it clearly for others so I can ignore it. Dmcq (talk) 15:59, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't attempting humor there. But whatever. So about that Naomi Klein? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:03, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Oversize "Further reading" section?

I just noticed how *enormous* this thing is. And how useless to most readers -- a good portion is such items as:

• "Original "Doubt is our product..." memo". University of California, San Francisco. 21 August 1969. Retrieved 19 March 2010.
• Complaint for Damages, Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp., Et al. Climate Justice, Friends of the Earth International. Retrieved 2009–12–25.
• etc, etc.

These appear to be articles formerly(?) available online, that aren't anymore? What purpose could this serve?

Anyway, I'll plan to do pruning and housekeeping, eliminating all items that look like links, but are dead ends now. Comments? Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 22:50, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Articles aren't for preaching to readers, this is supposed to be an encyclopaedia. What use isn't a relevant question, we just summarize what is out there and it hasn't become invalid because of link rot. Just mark the links as now failing as specified in WP:DEADLINK and then we can try fixing the citations. Dmcq (talk) 00:11, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, but most of them have no links, just a "Retrieved 00 March 20xx" bit. Maybe someone was using this as a storage yard? We could put those into a Talk page section, for future work, as the thing is truly a Wall of Text now. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 01:21, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry I just noticed you're talking about the further reading section. I was wondering what was up as there's a good web link to the doubt is our product memo in the text. Yes I agree with you the further reading section is too long and chopping out the ones that aren't books or easily found web links would be a good start at chopping it down to size. Dmcq (talk) 01:40, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks. On my list, then.... Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 14:30, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree, so I'll jumpin. Here is the first part of the list to examine.:

• "Global Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine." Newsweek Aug. 13, 2007. Retrieved 7 Aug 2007 Archived August 20, 2007 at the Wayback Machine
• "Gore takes aim at corporately funded climate research". CBC News from Associated Press. 2007-08-07. Retrieved 2007-08-16.
• "Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp. Notice of Appeal" (PDF). 2009-11-05. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
• "Original "Doubt is our product..." memo". University of California, San Francisco. 21 August 1969. Retrieved 19 March 2010.
• "Timeline, Climate Change and its Naysayers". Newsweek. 13 August 2007.
• Adams, David (2005-01-27). "Oil firms fund climate change 'denial'". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
• Adams, David (2006-09-20). "Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-08-02.
• Associated Press. (2008–2–27). Alaska town sues over global warming. USA Today. Retrieved 2009–12–25.
• Barringer, Felicity (27 Feb 2008). "Flooded Village Files Suit, Citing Corporate Link to Climate Change." New York Times.
• Begley, Sharon (2007-08-07). "The Truth About Denial". Newsweek.
• Christoff, Peter (July 9, 2007). "Climate change is another grim tale to be treated with respect - Opinion". Melbourne: Theage.com.au. Retrieved 2010-03-19.
• Complaint for Damages, Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp., Et al. Climate Justice, Friends of the Earth International. Retrieved 2009–12–25.
• Connelly, Joel (2007-07-10). "Deniers of global warming harm us". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved 2009-12-25.

Is there anything worth including, and how does this comport with MOS? Capitalismojo (talk) 23:19, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

It seems like something you'd keep at a user sandbox. Capitalismojo (talk) 23:20, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree. I've removed the newspapers and others that seemed they would have only passing coverage of the topic. There were a lot of links to the guardian, NYT, etc. The list should still be pruned, but it's not quite as overwhelming. Here is the version of the page prior to these edits, which we can likely use for future sourcing.   — Jess· Δ♥ 00:16, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Removing sources already used in the article did the trick. We're now down to 6 bullets.   — Jess· Δ♥ 01:17, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

---

• Thanks Jess. Big improvement! Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 18:56, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

NPOV problem in lede, again

I recently added this qualifier to the continuum bit in the lede,

Per R.E. Dunlap and others, it forms an overlapping range of views with climate change skepticism...,

I argued that we need to make clear this is opinion, per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV: Avoid stating opinions as facts. WMC reverted 3 minutes later, stating "disagree."

Note that Dunlap et al are the only source cited for this formulation -- other than climate activist Naomi Klein, who is really just a source for her own opinions, and who vapors on & on in the cited piece (but I digress). Riley Dunlap is a senior Sociology professor at Oklahoma State University (where I grew up) -- but he's offering his opinion, and WP:NPOV requires us to "Avoid stating opinions as facts."

This seems unequivocal to me: "This policy is non-negotiable." --Pete Tillman (talk) 22:32, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

NPOV policy includes WP:WEIGHT and WP:GEVAL, and states that we should not "give apparent parity between the supermajority view and a tiny minority view by assigning each to a single activist in the field." Why are you trying to negotiate away these policy provisions? You do seem to be promoting fringe views. . . dave souza, talk 13:24, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

People who are used to writing and assessing academic work will be able to say with more certainty than I can, but it seems to me that when a statement makes it into the introductory text to a symposium, written by a senior academic and published in a journal like the American Behavioral Scientist, then it has much more weight than a personal opinion, for example in a blog. For the benefit of others who may wish to assess the weight of the statement made by Dunlap in his Introduction, here is a slightly extended quote to give context, and to show the extent of the literature he reviews in making it:

Yet skepticism is an inherent feature of science and a common characteristic of scientists (e.g., Mann, 2012; Schneider, 2009), making it inappropriate to allow those who deny AGW to don the mantle of skeptics. In fact, there is little doubt that many individuals actively involved in the denial campaign are not skeptical of climate science but are in full denial, and no amount of evidence will convince them of the reality of AGW (see, e.g., Brin, 2010; Powell, 2011; Washington & Cook, 2011). This appears especially true of core actors in the denial machine, ranging from many representatives of conservative think tanks to some contrarian scientists to several bloggers and many of their followers.

It seems best to think of skepticism–denial as a continuum, with some individuals (and interest groups) holding a skeptical view of AGW but remaining open to evidence, and others in complete denial mode, their minds made up. Social scientists are analyzing both phenomena, conducting studies of skepticism among the public (Hobson & Niemeyer, in press; Leiserowitz et al., 2012; McCright & Dunlap, 2011; Poortinga, Spence, Whitmarsh, Capstick, & Pidgeon, 2011; Smith & Leiserowitz, 2012; Whitmarsh, 2011) as well as a rapidly growing number that focus on key elements of the denial machine: conservative think tanks (e.g., McCright & Dunlap, 2000), front groups established by the fossil fuels industry (e.g., Oreskes, 2010), contrarian scientists (e.g., Lahsen, 2008), conservative politicians (e.g., McCright & Dunlap, 2010), and conservative media—especially Fox News (e.g., Feldman, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Leiserowitz, 2012), newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch (e.g., McKnight, 2010), and talk radio (e.g., Akerlof, Rowan, Fitzgerald, & Cedeno, 2012). The contributions to this symposium examine both climate change skepticism and denial.

— http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Riley_Dunlap/publication/274306932_Climate_Change_Skepticism_and_Denial_An_Introduction/links/552204580cf29dcabb0d3027.pdf

--Nigelj (talk) 09:29, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

What Dunlap says is fine but what our article says isn't. When applied to individuals and some interest groups skepticism-denial can be thought of as a continuum. There is also organised denial which is termed the denial machinery. The lead makes a hash of both without saying what bits refer to what by just sticking a load of statements together with citations without making coherent sense of the way they are put together. Each is okay in its context but the context is not given for each. Dmcq (talk) 12:54, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Have just tried to clarify this in a way that accurately reflects the sources. I've still not found any sources stating that the climate change skeptic label is applied to anyone who is simply skeptical and not denying consensus climate science to some extent. Timmer says "there's also genuine skepticism of individual scientific claims, as we saw by the response to a recent report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on California's recent drought"; his linked article cites as a typical critic of that report Michael E. Mann, who would not commonly be listed as a climate change skeptic. . . dave souza, talk 13:17, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

We're supposed to say what is in the sources, not keep things in because you haven't found something satisfying your criteria for a reliable source with enough weight saying it is wrong. That is simply pushing your point of view. We don't have sources saying all climate change skeptics are deniers. Anyway are you really going to say this climate change skeptic was really a denier? [14]? Dmcq (talk) 19:53, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Muller made a number of extremely stupid statements, some of which he retracted after his own analysis showed he was wrong. The ability to (partially) change his mind based on science clearly distinguishes him from the pure denialists William M. Connolley (talk) 20:05, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

So he was a climate change skeptic but not a climate change denier? Dmcq (talk) 20:07, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Lead attribution

• Returning to the start of this discussion:

SFAICT, the "continuum" argument has been made only by Riley Dunlap (a respected sociologist) and a coauthor.. I don't really understand the reluctance to attribute this work, so I've restored it. Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 22:12, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Dave Souza promptly reverted, commenting

false balance - see #Arguments and positions on global warming.

???? Care to unpack that, Dave? Makes no sense to me. Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 04:43, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Try reading the #Arguments and positions on global warming section, and note that "continuum" is another way of saying "range of views". Your change gives a false impression that only Dunlap holds this view: why ignore his co-author? Have undone that change. Work in progress, hav more to add to this when time permits. .dave souza, talk 04:51, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

p.s. Pete's "promptly" = around 8 hours, my undo was at 04:36..... dave souza, talk 04:51, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

---

Restored proper attribution, per WP:Attribute. Pete Tillman (talk) 19:40, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Haven't we been though this before? Implying, as you're desperately trying to, that these views are just one person's, is just POV pushing William M. Connolley (talk) 20:45, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Er, that's because we are citing it to one person (+ca-authors). Have you other sources? Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 21:15, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

No we're not. Check again. This idea is also discussed by Weart, Timman, Gelbspan, NCSE, and others, all of which are cited in the article. The Dunlap ref should be sufficient to cite that particular sentence, however. What he's saying is not just "his opinion"; he's summarizing the academic literature, and is, himself, a respected authority on the topic.   — Jess· Δ♥ 01:16, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Try citing them then, please . Certainly not there now, and I can assure you this is a *very* controversial topic. I plan to move this into conflict resolution soon, since it's been a run-around (imo) since the start. I think you'll find that Duncan is it for the specific language in the lede, and hence must be attributed to him per WP: V. Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:33, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

...the cites are in the article now. Dunlap and Timmlan are right after that sentence. The other sources are discussed in subsequent sections covering the topic. Search the article for the names I provided and you'll see the cites.   — Jess· Δ♥ 07:00, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

• [outdent] "Dunlap and Timmlan are right after that sentence." Well, duh. That's what needs attributing, and that's the lynchpin of the articles "skeptics are deniers" (+/-) argument. You didn't find that language elsewhere, did you?

Restored attribution. Conflict Resolution is next.... Pete Tillman (talk) 20:50, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

There's no "conflict resolution" under such name. There's a Dispute resolution noticeboard but that seems to be mostly people talking in circles. You'll probably want Arbitration enforcement, since this article is under sanctions following WP:ARBCC. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:35, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Boris. Guess that's the next step. Do you agree that this (sfaict) sole source, for the nasty (even for here) "all skeptics are deniers" crap (aside, that is, from the prominent "progressive" poitical campaign to ostracize opponents, notably unacknowledged here, in this oh-so-PC POS article) -- needs specific attribution? Since that apears to be the self-justification of a Certain Editor's edit-warring campaign to direct all the climate-skeptic items that she can find to here? Where they are greeted with "This article is about campaigns to undermine public confidence in scientific opinion on climate change." For that warm, fuzzy NPOV feeling so common in the CC wiki-wars? </rant>

Sorry. So this complaint (suitably rephrased ;-) should be at the NPOV forum too, whatever that is, to (maybe) end this absurd kabuki-dance, aka Tyranny of the Majority. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:13, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

@ Pete, you really shouldn't rant here, and you certainly shouldn't complain about wording that isn't in the article. As for the hatnote, both you and Peter Gulutzan have complained about it at Talk:Climate change skeptic#Is all skepticism an organized campaign? Is it unequivocally denial? as though it justified your edit warring over a redirect, you've both been invited to show sources and discuss possible changes to the hatnote on this talk page. So far you don't seem to have done that, but you're still complaining. Please provide constructive proposals if you want the hatnote changed. . . dave souza, talk 21:07, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Dave: the hatnote's fine. It's the article, and the twisty use of the belief that theres a "scientific" rationale for the nasty political ostracism of climate skeptics, that's the real problem, or so it seems to me. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 21:45, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Minor point: for "nasty political ostracism", with dates and places: also, do mainstream views get welcomed at The Heartland Institute's conferences? . . . dave souza, talk 23:18, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

There's no 'twisty use of beliefs' in the article. Another quote from Dunlap - check the original for all his citations (this is an introductory review of the literature, not an opinion piece) - explains it nicely: "From the outset, there has been an organized “disinformation” campaign that has used the complexities of AGW and the inevitable uncertainties involved in scientific research to generate skepticism and denial concerning AGW." There is only one science, which is unequivocal in the words of the IPCC, but there has been an organised campaign that has generated so-called skepticism. This article, as it says at the top, is about that campaign. Like it or lump it, that is what the academic mainstream are saying. It's not 2005 any more - the lid has been blown off and now we can all see what's been going on. --Nigelj (talk) 22:32, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I was thinking we'd have to broaden the hatnote to cover Kari Norgaard's Bygdaby research, which the NCSE emphasises is part of this topic area. Though of course the main attention is on the organised denial which pretends to be skepticism. . . . dave souza, talk 23:11, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Change the Headline of the Article

Please, change the headline this article to "Climate Change Skepticism" or "Climate Change Criticism". There is no reason at all to use such a prejudiced term as "climate change denial", especially not in an academic context such as this. Criticism of the idea that it is necessary humans who caused the climate change in question, is simply not the same as "denial". If so, you make a great part of professional meteorologists in US to "deniers", which is a disgrace -- for Wikipedia. For example, American Meteorological Society made a well-known survey among its members 2013, and recommended and explained this:

"Climate experts are not completely homogenous in their views on global warming, just as climate skeptics have been shown to have a variety of nuanced opinions (Hobson and Niemeyer 2013). Any suggestion that all those with nonmajority views simply need to be 'educated' is inaccurate and is likely to be insulting to a substantial number of AMS members. Discussion based on an understanding that views are more nuanced would be more productive." (Discussion)

"We suggest that AMS should attempt to convey the widespread scientific agreement about climate change; acknowledge and explore the uncomfortable fact that political ideology influences the climate change views of meteorology professionals; refute the idea that those who do hold nonmajority views just need to be 'educated' about climate change; and continue to deal with the conflict among members of the meteorology community." (Abstact)

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1

1.47.135.166 (talk) 01:38, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

While that is an interesting source (thanks for providing it!), it rarely mentions "skepticism", and usually in contexts that would not be suitable for our content here. "Denial" is never mentioned. I don't know that we can include any of its contents without either straying off-topic or synthesizing sources. For the claim that skeptics have a variety of opinions, we already cover this in some detail. For the claim that climate experts do as well, I'd really like to see a stronger source backing up that claim, since it seems to conflict with the 97% (and similar) figures our current sources use. The discussion of meteorologists largely not subscribing to the scientific consensus is very interesting, and it might have a place here (when discussing media representation of climate change and its impact on public perception), but again, I'd like to see a more clear connection between that topic and "climate change denial" to avoid synthesis or OR, and I'd like a strong source to verify the claim. If I run into anything, I'll definitely make an effort to include it! Thanks!   — Jess· Δ♥ 05:12, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

There are people for whom doubt is their product; people who teach that there is controversy where there is none. This article is about the well-documented attempts to apply such principles to climate science. --Nigelj (talk) 10:26, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I think that the IP has (in part) a good idea. But really, what we need is an article on deniers (which I could then avoid), and an article on actual skeptics, which might help alleviate the project's well-earned "black eye" on climate-war topics.Best, Pete Tillman (talk)

Hello? Still calling for a POV fork, and still no sources? . . . dave souza, talk 20:30, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Nope, status quo ante. Then, the "activists" can play in their own dreamworld, all they like, without bothering the realists/skeptics.... <G> Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 20:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm skeptical. So show me your sources. . dave souza, talk 20:56, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Greg Laden calls Andy Revkin a denailist

soapboxing with absurd commentary

In Weighing Responses to Climate Change, Severity and Uncertainty Matter More than ‘Reality’, NY Times Dot Earth, June 25, 2015. Revkin apparently earned the label by his recent crypto-Lukewarmer writings. I do like the nicety of "denialist". Pretty much like "Nigra" for, well, the N-bomb.... Now that Pesident Obama has also been labelled a denier by [some prominent whacko activist] , who's next? Al Gore? --Pete Tillman (talk) 04:22, 29 June 2015 (UTC) Pete, are you just trying to get a rise out of people? If what you want is a personal blog, go to Wordpress or the like. Otherwise follow the guideline WP:TALK, where under the heading Behavior that is unacceptable you will see Do not use the talk page as a forum or soapbox for discussing the topic. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:34, 29 June 2015 (UTC) Oh, you're probably right, but I get so tired of the prissy "progressive" CAGW religious feeling so luxuriously on display here. Thanx to VSmith for hatting. Still, the Greg Laden silliness might find a home here. As well as Pres. Obama as CC Denier. Maybe we need an Absurd Denuer subsection? Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 17:23, 29 June 2015 (UTC) Your comment shows that you keep using the talk page for your personal opinions. prokaryotes (talk) 17:26, 29 June 2015 (UTC) --which, of course, you have never, ever done.... Pete Tillman (talk) 18:01, 29 June 2015 (UTC) If you want to continue your misuse of the talk page, then i suggest we can do this at ANI. prokaryotes (talk) 18:37, 29 June 2015 (UTC) Have at it pal. Pretty sure I have a file of your best stuff. See you there! But watch out for that boomerang.... Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 18:49, 29 June 2015 (UTC) So-- who did call the President a denier? "Weepy Bill" McKibben? Inquiring minds want to know --- I'm more than half-serious about adding an "Absurd denier accusation" sub-sub section, to go with the political attribution stuff I'm working on (when I can control my disgust at the abundant "Climate Ugliness"....) Pete Tillman (talk) 02:38, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

• "Obama’s Catastrophic Climate-Change Denial" by Bill McKibben, NY Times op-ed, May 12, 2015. Happy now? Pete Tillman (talk) 03:17, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

See #President Obama's Catastrophic Climate-Change Denial. Looks like an informal reference to implicit denial, which we've covered with better sources. . . dave souza, talk 03:46, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Terminology: skeptics aren't deniers

Tagged a citation to Painter & Ashe, Cross-national comparison of the presence of climate scepticism.... Once again, our article is conjuring up an equivalence that isn't in the source given. The paper refers throughout to "climate scepticism", many times, only mentioning "climate denial" (in the body) once. The construction given isn't supported by the paper cited. --Pete Tillman (talk) 20:41, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

In the opening sentence of the paper, to define its basic terms, the authors say, "'Climate scepticism' and 'climate denial' are readily used concepts, referring to a discourse that has become important in public debate since climate change was first put firmly on the policy agenda in 1988." That is, these two concepts refer to a discourse, one discourse, one thing. The rest of the paper is about that one thing. One thing with two names. They go on to say, "This discourse challenges the views of mainstream climate scientists and environmental policy advocates, contending that parts, or all, of the scientific treatment and political interpretation of climate change are unreliable." This one thing is the challenging of mainstream scientists. That is the one thing that this Wikipedia article is about: the challenging of mainstream science, the saying it is not reliable, which has two names, both of which are readily used. I don't see how that could be any clearer. I don't know on what basis you have misunderstood it.

You seem to have misunderstood WP:BRD too. When you boldly make two edits,[15][16] and someone reverts them,[17][18] that is the time to start discussion. You don't get to make two more reversions.[19][20] That is the start of edit-warring, which is not allowed under WP:ARBCC on these articles. --Nigelj (talk) 22:28, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The quote provided in the cite uses the words "climate denial". Here's the quote: [21] To be clear, are you disputing that quote backs up our wording?   — Jess· Δ♥ 22:31, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

---

• Reply, mostly to Nigel:

That's a, well, remarkable piece of reasonng. Here, we have a poitical science article, actually quite a decent one, that uses the "denial" slur exactly once -- in the bit quoted. And this is evidence that skepticism = denial? Really?

What we actually have, in the paper in question, is evidence:

A) that the authors are politely avoiding, as best they can, a politically-charged slur term, which is enthusiastically embraced here, and

B) that we should have an article on actual climate change skepticism. Oh wait, we idd, until the activists decided to delete it. Wonderful, the power of political/religious belief, to twist the mental processes, no? </sarc> --Pete Tillman (talk) 19:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Pete, you need high quality sources, not your political/religious beliefs, to support what looks like an attempt to produce a POV fork. . . dave souza, talk 20:28, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

---

• Pete Tillman, you are completely right. There is no reason whatsoever to use such a prejudiced term as "Climate change denial" as headline to this article. See my next section down here. 1.47.135.166 (talk) 01:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

• Pete, additional sources clarify the point that climate scepticism commonly means climate denialism or contrarianism. Note the assessment that "Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics." Some referenced detail about the former group would be welcome. . dave souza, talk 16:56, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Dave, I'll reply to your other sources another time. Basically, I'm unimpressed, and fear your political beliefs have affected your reasoning.... And your "evidence" that calling someone a denier is non-pejorative is.... remarkable. Well, I'll unpack that later, too. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Pete, what you have to unpack is good quality sources supporting your position: I'm underwhelmed about you being unimpressed. . . dave souza, talk

Dave, RS's aren't the problem. The probem is, recalcitrant, "activist" editors (not you, usu) who make any movement towards NPOV in the controversial CC articles (such as this pig-sty) so hard, that normal people with actual lives to live throw up their hands and go back to writing about seaweed, or clean the toilet, or have another beer.

What that says about me, I don't know. Too dumb to die, I guess... Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 21:00, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Contempt from the regulars tends to do that too.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:39, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Yup. It's discouraging. And (often) intentional. Just like in real life! Pete Tillman (talk) 02:12, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

---

• Retagged Painter & Ashe, see above. Also note the dubious use of Terlich2010 in this (apparent) ongoing climate-war campaign to equate skeptics to deniers. Nerlich writes, "I shall use 'climate sceptics' here in the sense of 'climate deniers', although there are obvious differences between scepticism and denial (see Shermer, 2010; Kemp, et al., 2010). ... (emph addd). --Pete Tillman (talk) 02:27, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

See what above? Sources were provided, and you said you didn't like them. When asked to provide your own, you refused. In your criticism of Nerlich, you've overlooked that we already make it clear that "...skepticism" is not always "...denial", though the two have significant overlap and the labels are sometimes used interchangeably. This appears to be precisely what Nerlich is saying. If you'd like to expand our coverage of how the two differ, I'd be all for that. Such material would require - of course - new sources.   — Jess· Δ♥ 02:51, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Jess: maybe you could look at the edit summaries? There for a reason, y'know.... Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 03:02, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

• And you seem to be awfully hasty on your reverts. Like you are edit warring, maybe? You shouldn't be doing that. Eventually, you will spur me (or someone) to take you to ArbComm, which you won't like. Trust me. Pete Tillman (talk) 03:07, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

What edit summary are you referring to? You made a change, it was opposed by several people. You were asked for sources, but refused to provide any. Today, you up and made the change again. Please discuss and establish consensus for disputed changes before making them repeatedly.   — Jess· Δ♥ 03:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Do you need reading lessons, or what? The "several people" are you and Nigel (2). DS posted on another topic.. I refuted both of you, and pointed out problems with the Nerlich use, which I'm attempting to fix now.

Why don't you actually address the Painter & Ashe issue, with more than the inane comment that they used "climate denial" in the article. Well, duh. Pete Tillman (talk)

Pete, your comment looks inane: they clearly equate both terms. Some of the content you're disputing is more related to the NCSE source, so my intention is to look that over when I've got more time rather than removing your tag. However, my feeling is that your tag is unjustified. . dave souza, talk 21:59, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

This problem of terminology is one that will be difficult to resolve by editors, partly because our RSs are all over the lot. There is certainly something odd on the surface, when we see an article such as Painter & Ashe, which almost exclusively uses the term "scepticism", cited eleven times in this article about denialism. However, that oddity is not so odd when one looks closer. It is not the case that Painter & Ashe have limited the scope of their paper to exclude discussion of items which many would call denialism, they simply use the term "scepticism" to cover everything that disagrees with the mainstream view.

Contrast that to Dunlap, which starts out in such a promising fashion "It seems best to think of skepticism–denial as a continuum, with some individuals (and interest groups) holding a skeptical view of AGW but remaining open to evidence, and others in complete denial mode, their minds made up." However, this same Dunlap is one of the coauthors of The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, which notes the existence of both skepticism and denialism, but makes the interesting decision to use the term "denial" and "denier" for both groups.

Which mean we have some sources implying that the term scepticism can be used for all, another source suggesting that the same entities ought to be all labeled deniers, and yet other sources contending that there is a difference between skeptics and deniers. I am sure that if we did a through literature search, we would find that even those authors who make a distinction are not marking a sharp demarcation that would allow any statement to be clearly assigned to one camp versus the other.

Given that the RSs have made such a hash of the terminology, we as editors cannot clean it up for them. That said, this isn't the first time that RSs have been less that fully consistent on an issue, and we have a well-developed process for addressing it. In short, something along the lines of "some RSs make a distinction between skepticism and denialism, some note the existence of the distinction while using one term or the other for the entire universe". Obviously needs a lot of work, but may be the way to go.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:31, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Multiple sources show "skeptic" being used as a synonym for "denier", most obviously in the case of Inhofe. Some sources, including the NCSE and Weart, have chosen to use "denier" for the sake of clarity, others leave the meaning the same but don't set that out explicitly: Painter & Ashe indicate that both 'climate scepticism' and 'climate denial' cover the same discourse. They continue by referring to skepticism, which includes "trend sceptics (who deny the global warming trend)". Clearly skeptics of this sort are practicing denial.
There is a distinction between skepticism and denial, but in this topic area skepticism is commonly used to refer to the same thing as denial, or to denial itself. Thus "climate skepticism" commonly equates to "climate denial", and climate deniers nearly always claim to be skeptics. Showing what each source says may help to clarify that, it's an area where language is changing so care is needed. . dave souza, talk 21:59, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Dave: your POV is showing here, I think, and you're just flat wrong re sources, as Phil observes. The article cites sources favoring (what I see as) "your" POV, because that;s all that's made it into the article. How about demonstrating good faith, by adding a few refs that oppose the "activist" POV? You are a good researcher, they're easy to find. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:01, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

"Activist POV"? Any reliable sources for that term? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:14, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps Pete wants sources to meet "anti-activist" standards? . . dave souza, talk 19:49, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Pete, I actually thought Dave's statement was largely a recapitulation of what I said. I'm not onboard with one word "commonly", and I am still debating whether it is worth challenging that word given that the rest largely says, some use skeptic some use denialist, some use the terms to mean about the same thing, some don't. I think our article still is deficient, which I think is your point, but I didn't see dave's post as disagreeing with that point. Maybe I misread it.--S Philbrick(Talk) 02:44, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Sphilbrick, think we're in basic agreement. The article cites a linguist for the common use of "skeptic" to mean "climate denier", and the taxonomy section shows the list of typical (and often contradictory) "sceptic" points per Rahmstorf, S., 2004, "The climate sceptics: Weather Catastrophes and Climate Change—Is There Still Hope For Us?" (Munich: PG Verlag) pp 76–83 which has subsequently been used as for categorising both "skeptic" and "denial" publications. If there are sources giving firmer evidence of "climate change skeptic" being used for something outwith that taxonomy, thus not involving denial, that would strengthen the case for a separate article, though both articles would have to note the overlap. As discussed below. . . dave souza, talk 02:58, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Rebranding initiative

In the news is what appears to be an orchestrated attempt to rebrand climate denialism as intellectually more honest-sounding climate skepticism"

• Heartland's own site "we are not climate deniers"
• ALEC threatens to sue for being called a climate denial group
• Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name

Shouldn't we have a section on the rebranding effort? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:36, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

We need a dedicated article (or subsection) that describes how climate skepticism differs from the standard definition. Climate Skepticism has been a redirect page for too long. Let's address the issue head on. Editors may be less hesitant to describe notable individuals as "skeptics" if visitors have a clear and well sourced understanding of exactly what that means. — TPX 18:20, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Casual observation, impression I get from various academic papers is that former deniers are saying they are skeptics because they now admit things are warming. They just deny, errrr I mean "profess skepticism" that we are responsible and/or that the result demands regulatory action on an international scale. If I'm skeptical about anything, its over setting out to create this section with such resounding RSs and text that we nail this semantic jello to the wall. Seems to me the real story is the appropriation of language depending on viewpoint, and the constant need to do one's own critical thinking to apply the genuine definitions on a case-by-case basis. But that's so much work, there's no wonder the denialists, errrr I mean skeptics get to make so much hay out of their rhetoric. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:26, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventsGuy: I'm think you are conflating two different actions that deserve two different responses.

As background, one of the challenges of this discussion is that denialist and skeptic are not binary, they are two different, and not very well defined ranges on a continuum. For the present discussion, I'll assume there is a continuum running from 0 to 100, where 0 is a full-fledged denialist, leaning on the second law of thermodynamics trope and other nonsense, while 100 means complete buy-in to the latest IPCC report. The values were deliberately chosen to allow negatives, and values above 100 (short term Greenland collapse scenarios). We can debate where to put the ranges, but I'll say negative values and up to 20 is a denialist, 21-80 is a skeptic, we don't have a great term for those who largely accept the IPCC (I assume warmist is not an option), nor for those well above 100.

But if, for the moment, you'll accept the broad concept of a scale, I can discuss the two ideas in your post.

If a person holds views that haven't changed over time, and they would be "scored" as a 15 on my scale, so essentially a denialist, they might have the presence to realize that being called a denialist is not a good thing, and they might engage in rebranding to have the media label themselves as a skeptic rather than a deniers. In math terms, they were a 15, they still are a 15, but they like to move the hurdle between denier and skeptic down to, say 10.

That's worth exposing, if it is happening.

In contrast, you talked about "former deniers are saying they are skeptics because they now admit things are warming". If they were denying that warming has occurred, they probably scored close to 0, maybe even negative, but if they now concede that warming has occurred, their score is higher. Is this the desired goal? That those who believed something in the face of contrary evidence, now concede they were wrong and believe something else? They are saying they were a 15 are still a 15, but want to be called something else, they are saying they were a 0 are now a 25, so ought to be properly labeled. That sort of movement should be encouraged, not castigated. Do you agree?--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:22, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Em, most aren't; the say "we admit things are warming, but it's not anthropogenic" and so on. The terms are contested for tactical reasons, but generally refer to the same concepts. Having another article may be possible, but risks a pov fork and would need well sourced clarification of the similarities and [if any] differences. . . dave souza, talk 19:49, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

The theory of "denialism" is based on the premise that climate change is true. Climate change in the sense of "global warming due to human behavior" is theory, not proven fact. Therefore there cannot be "denialism" except in the case of someone denying the existence of the theory of Global Warming. Referring to skepticism as more "honest-sounding" clearly illustrates that the name "denier" is being used as a pseudo appropriate form of liar.

A "denier" is not a "skeptic"

One is a liar - if he/she knows that what they are denying is true. A skeptic is someone that disagrees with part or all of a theory or opinion. True denial includes a lack of awareness of the truth. They are completely separate things - not two things on a continuum. Definitions cannot be revised to validate personal attacks.

Are liars the same as skeptics? Clearly - No, they different entities.

However the dicussion should be directed towards the behavior or act rather than the individual, but the language of the discussion clarifies the intent and objectiveness of the editors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.191.12.134 (talk) 06:45, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi 207.191.12.13207.191.12.134, your first para is wrong: Only A Theory is a misconception. Read the article, denial is a psychological term for what "climate skeptics" are doing, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily liars. Like creationists, they commonly promote misinformation but may well believe it themselves. Also, non-sceptics about global warming can be in denial about the implications, see the article. . dave souza, talk 08:36, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

• The way things are developing, a section on how deniers rebrand themselves as skeptics might be a possibility, I'd also like to see more information about any "climate skeptics" who aren't what mainstream science would describe as "climate change deniers". Sources needed for the second point, which could open the way to a separate article. . dave souza, talk 08:36, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

sources

FYI

• 2015 "Seepage: Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community"

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:44, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

• 2015 Same lead author, different topic; At a very superficial read and without looking at original papers, I think this author said somewhere in the literature there are numbers that breakdown climate denial motivations between conspiracy ideation (~4%) vs free market thinking (~60%). Thought that may interest eds devoting constructive time to these articles. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:51, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I haven't yet read the second paper but I read the first one and it is an astounding paper. I literally double checked the release date to see if it was in April 1 submission. There isn't enough time to list all of the questionable claims the paper so I'll limit myself to one or two.

In section 2, the author includes this statement, "This inertia, along with the well-documented tendency to discount future losses so they seem less pertinent than immediate costs (e.g., Hardisty and Weber, 2009), further mutes people's appetite for action." I agree that it is well documented. This is fundamental economic theory. While in economics as in climate science, there are areas in which even the experts debate the facts, there is a core of statements which are agreed to by virtually all experts in the field. The time value of money, the fact that a gain or loss at a future point in time is worth less than that gain or loss at the present time is one of these truths. (Careful readers can construct artificial exceptions, but these usually illustrate the underlying truth more strongly as opposed to undermining the truth of the statement.) Are there any Wikipedia editors that seriously disagree with the concept of present value? One can certainly challenge the discount rate used and there is ample literature on open questions about the appropriate interest rate, but these are all arguments about the exact value of the interest rate, not whether the concept is fundamentally flawed.

At this point, you may be wondering why am bringing this up. The author has simply stated a well-known economic fact. I agree. However, read on to two section 3 where the author states "Scientists might think that they are not susceptible to such common errors of reasoning," (emphasis added). The author is literally labeling a fundamental economic truth as an error of reasoning. This is truly astounding.

My second point relates to uncertainty which is the core theme in this paper. As is well known, scientists often avoid making definitive statement and couch things in terms of error bars and uncertainty measures. This is often misunderstood by the public and exploited by pontificators who triumphantly but incorrectly suggest that the scientist are not certain as to their conclusions. This is a legitimate disconnect in public conversations. In my opinion the pedagogical coverage of uncertainty in the high school and even college curricula is insufficient, and many members of the public under-appreciate the role of uncertainty in science. On this general point I suspect I am in large agreement with the author who is making a similar point. Unfortunately, the author goes on to label discussions about uncertainty as “Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods” or SCAM. Science ought to be about discussions of facts and evidence; presentation of hypotheses, designs of experiments to test hypotheses and related issues. It should not be in the business of deliberately choosing value-laden terms. The choice of that acronym is not accidental and it should be excoriated in the strongest terms.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:03, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Sphilbrick, nice to know that psychological and historical analysis aligns with fundamental economic theory, perhaps you could give a link to a published source discussing this economic theory in relation to avoidance behaviour?
Re SCAM, your complaint is not against the paper under discussion, it's against William Freudenburg's "Scientific certainty argumentation methods (SCAMs): Science and the politics of doubt, Sociological Inquiry (2008) pp. 2–38, doi 10.1.1.330.1130. Perhaps you could write to that journal complaining about the pun. . dave souza, talk 17:00, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually, my complaint is directed at the paper under discussion. I wasn’t under the assumption that the authors invented the term. It was quite obvious that it came from elsewhere. However, the authors are responsible for using a term which has obvious connotations. They could easily have discussed the challenges of analyzing uncertainty without reference to the term. The fact that they deliberately used it means they are either abject idiots (unlikely) or trying to make a point.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:37, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for your personal assessment: perhaps the authors agreed with the point[s] made in the paper they cited. I make no claim to expertise on how to write papers on social and psychological issues. . . dave souza, talk 21:48, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

While looking for a source supporting the notion of discounting future costs and benefits, I found an article in the economist talking specifically about the issue in the context of climate change. The editorial “Is it worth it?” Specifically discusses some of the issues surrounding the well-known Stern report. As is often the case the editorial emphasizes areas where experts differ, and least unstated the implied areas where there is no difference of opinion. So, for example, it talks about the discount rate used by Stern and competing experts such as Nordhaus, Klemperer and Weitzman who would make different choices about discount rates. But that’s rather the point – not one of these experts argues that one should not discount they simply have different theories about how to choose the appropriate discount rate. (If someone really wants to get into the weeds they would argue that discounting is not the perfect solution. In fact, a better solution is utility theory but in practice no one has figured out how to satisfactorily choose utility curves, and discount rates serve as a crude but adequate surrogate in most situations. And if utility theory cannot be directly used, it lends credence to the observation made not in this article but in others that the discount rate should not be a single value but a set of values which might vary over time frames, and over scenarios.)

In fact, discounting is so basic I suspect that if the authors were explicitly asked, they’d realize that they aired in suggesting that it was an error of reasoning. They are simply wrong. I welcome anyone who can find a source supporting their position.-S Philbrick(Talk) 00:42, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Sphilbrick, think I've spotted your error. You reason that in section 2 the authors discuss a series of points, including the contributory factor of choosing a discount rate, which you describe as "a well-known economic fact", then in section 3 they say "Scientists might think that they are not susceptible to such common errors of reasoning". From that you assume that they're calling every point in section two an "error of reasoning", but that's not what they're saying: that statement refers to the summary: "In sum, uncertainty is effective as a strategy to delay action because it resonates with human tendencies towards preference for preservation of the status quo. Uncertainty arising out of perceived expert disagreement is particularly effective at generating public doubt about an issue."
Your link to The Economist highlights the point that discounting is both a well known economic technique, and a subjective decision as to the discount rate: see the point made by Ken Caldeira. The authors aren't disputing the basic technique, they refer to the subjective decision making examined in D.J. Hardisty, E.U. Weber. "Discounting future green: money versus the environment" J. Exp. Psychol. Gen., 138 (2009), pp. 329–340 pdf.
In summary, your reasoning is simply wrong: they're not referring to the principle of economic discounting as a fallacy, they refer to public uncertainty exaggerated by [wrongly] perceived expert disagreement as a fallacious basis for delay, and in building their case note psychological research on the subjective choice of discount rate. Hope that's clearer. . dave souza, talk 02:41, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

I hope you are right but I wouldn’t call it an error, I’d say I made a plausible inference and it was their inability to write clearly. As I already stated, I don’t believe the authors think that discounting is an error. However, as you noted, then made some points in one section and then a subsequent section refer to such common errors of reasoning. They could use some pointers and how to effectively write. If for example someone wrote process A coupled with fact B leads to error of reasoning C, and then refers to such an error of reasoning no one would make the mistake of thinking that fact B was being identified as an error. If however you write is they did, and say process A couple with process B leads to process C, and never use the term error in the set up, then the reference to such errors is ambiguous.--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:15, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Another new source: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/22/opinions/cook-techniques-climate-change-denial/ William M. Connolley (talk) 13:16, 23 July 2015 (UTC)