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IPCC AR6 Mitigation of Climate Change-Suggested Edits Based on the Report
Just saw a news article, and noticed this new web page page for the AR6 Mitigation of Climate Change report. Figured I would post here. Will read through the SPM for any significant findings that may warrant edits to the article, like with the WGII report. Just wanted to post this first, in case others wanted to post thoughts/suggestions for article edits. Dtetta (talk) 20:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
In looking through this report, I was left with the impression that the article does a pretty good job of discussing most of the highlights in the SPM. The most significant items for me were the portions of the report that seem to warrant additional or revised subsections. There were also a number of areas where current sections/subsections in the report could be strengthened. I organized my comments by category within the article, rather than going chronologically through the IPCC report.
Two areas in the report I did not get to were Section D - Linkages between mitigation, adaption and sustainable development; and Section E- Strengthening the response. Like portions of the Adaptation section of the WGII report, I found these to contain a lot of techno speak. But maybe someone else can provide a better insight into their messages.
Potential new subsections
“Climate action” or “Climate movement”
- SPM-p.2 Stresses the growing role of state and non-state actors as a feature new element of this report. I think this warrants a section on the climate movement, or climate action . I had suggested this in a discussion back in October as part of the What to do about climate action topic. I think the information in the WGIII Report reinforces the need for a subsection on this as an addition to the article.
Changing “Energy efficiency” to “Demand reduction” and adding a paragraph on lifestyle choices
- C.10 p.44 Covers a variety of measures associated with demand side mitigation, including lifestyle choices. Chapter 5 goes into much of this in more detail. A paragraph on lifestyle choices has been in and out of the mitigation section a couple of times since that section was significantly expanded in mid 2020.I think these parts of the report argue for putting that kind of paragraph back in, and probably expanding it to include some of the additional concepts covered in this part of the IPCC report. It could be part of a subsection retitled “Demand reduction”
“Digital technologies”
- B.4.3 p.13 Mentions digital technology/IOT/AI approaches to help with energy management/energy efficiency, and promoting the adoption of low emission technologies. I think it’s worthwhile considering this as its own (brief) sub section in the mitigation section, since it covers both clean energy and energy efficiency.
Cities
- C.6 p.39 fairly strong picture of mitigation approaches that could work for urban areas. This might also warrant a separate (brief) subsection, since most of the information here doesn’t neatly fit into the categories we have.
Economics/Cost Effectiveness
- C.12 p.47 presents important information on the cost effectiveness of different mitigation options. Figure SPM.7 - p.50, in particular, does a nice job of presenting cost effectiveness for a variety of different low emission and demand reduction technologies. It would be nice to be able to present this graphically somehow, but I’m guessing there’s simply too much information here. I think it is important to try to capture this some way, and that’ll probably be through a text based description of what’s in that figure. Where that paragraph would go I’m not sure. The idea of including extensive information on mitigation economics has been opposed in the past. But I think this information is worth capturing somehow in the article
- C4.2 p.36 discusses another important economic issue, the estimated cost of stranded assets from unused fossil fuels.
- C4.5 p.37 highlights the cost effectiveness of reducing CH4 emissions through fugitive emission control.
Suggested Edits to Existing Sections
Drivers of recent temperature rise > Greenhouse Gasses
- B.2 pp.7-8 has some updated information, and a slightly different way of presenting the relative contribution of various sources of GHG emissions. We might want to adjust the text in the greenhouse gases subsection to reflect these new numbers.
- B.2.3 p.8 notes that the share of GHG attributed to urban areas is increasing
- B.3.4 p.9 has an interesting breakdown of GHG emissions by household income, which we might want to include in the drivers section.
Future warming and the carbon budget
- B.1.3, p.5 has updated information on the carbon budget that we may want to include.
- B.7-7.1 p.19 discusses cumulative emissions from existing and planned infrastructure that might fit into this subsection, or perhaps in the drivers section.
Mitigation - introduction
- B.2.4 p.8 has an interesting comparison of the energy per GDP decreases over the past decade compared to what’s necessary over the next 30 years to hit the 1.5 and 2° targets. The UNEP sources we cite discuss this in a slightly different manner. I still prefer those sources (partly because those Emissions Gap reports are updated annually), but these figures are another way of looking at it.
- C.2 p.31 talks about early reductions of methane emissions as a way of limiting peak warming.
- C.3 p.32 emphasizes a combination of low emission mitigation technologies, demand reduction, and CDR.
- C4 warns of locking In of emissions and infrastructure that will make major transitions harder.
Mitigation-Clean energy
- Throughout the report, mitigation technologies are typically referred to as “low-emission”, rather than “clean” or “low-carbon”. The exception seems to be when renewable energy sources are specifically mentioned. Like “low-carbon”, this terminology seems like jargon to me, but we might want to consider it for some descriptions.
- B.4.1 p.12 has information on deployment levels of various low emission technologies that we might want to add.
- C.7 pp. 40-41 provides some additional information on clean energy strategies for buildings.
- C.8 pp. 41-42 provides some additional information on clean energy strategies for transportation.
Mitigation-Energy efficiency
- C3.6 Highlights at all strategies face implementation risks and challenges. But points out that these are significantly reduced when demand reduction methods are strengthened.
- C.7 pp. 40-41 provides some additional information on energy efficiency strategies for buildings.
- C.8 pp. 41-42 provides some additional information on energy efficiency strategies for transportation.
Mitigation-Carbon sequestration
- C.11 p.47 paints a much stronger picture of the necessity of CDR than what’s currently in the article. It talks about a wide variety of methods, some more effective and less effective, as well as side benefits and risks. But the overall importance of CDR is clearly emphasized and much less qualified than how it is currently described in the article, IMO.
- 4.6 p.37 Paints a picture of CCS as technically achievable, but not yet economically feasible. It seems to be saying that the projections don’t show it as having a significant impact.
Mitigation-Agriculture and industry
- C.5 p.38 provides a more detailed picture of mitigation strategies for industry than is currently in the article.
- C9.1 & 9.2 p.43 discusses cost effective mitigation strategies for the ag/land-use sector, as well as co-benefits and risks.
Mitigation-Policy options
- B.4.2 p.12 covers policies to encourage low emission technologies. We might want to include some of these in the policy options subsection.
- Section B.5 p.14 includes a number of policy related findings, some of which we might want to add to the article. These include some statistics on current coverage of carbon taxes/ETSs, and specific climate regulations. Examples of programs to encourage energy efficiency, reduce deforestation, and accelerate technology deployment are also discussed. Specific reduction numbers are associated with some of these policies. All of these seem to me to be worth considering for inclusion.
National responses
- B.6 and B.7 pp.15-20 talk about NDCs and their implementation, in a similar way that UNEP talks about it in their emission gap reports. As mentioned earlier, I prefer the UNEP Emission Gap reports version of this type of information. But there may be some points in these pages that are worth incorporating into an edit. Dtetta (talk) 00:38, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
Climate movement
Happy to rename "protest and lawsuits" into climate movement. Femke (talk) 15:11, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks, I think that would be a good start. I think there are other considerations, as we discussed last October, that might help it fit better in the Scientific consensus and society section. And there is probably some new information from this report that warrants inclusion as well as the Climate movement article. But that is a good foundation for starting the edit. Dtetta (talk) 16:17, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
Energy efficiency
Demand reduction or energy conservation would be a nice broader term for that section. I think demand reduction may be too technical? Not sure. I think you're right we're not talking enough about behaviour. Not sure I want to have an entire paragraph added, but definitely a sentence. Figure SPM.6 indicates that socio-cultural factors (of which lifestyle changes is a subset) is most important in nutrition (we already have a paragraph there). I like how the IPCC indicates that developed countries are key here.
To make place for this extra content, we can remove "Several COVID-19 related changes in energy use patterns, energy efficiency investments, and funding have made forecasts for this decade more difficult and uncertain.[242]". Femke (talk) 15:11, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
Digital technologies
They are a mixed bag, also increasing energy demand (for instance, cryptocurrencies). I would leave them out for now / discuss them in mitigation of climate change. Femke (talk) 15:11, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
Cities
I dislike having overlapping sections. Cities would have aspects of transport (from more compact cities / the 15-minute city), buildings (major renovations.. ). If we shake up the structure, I'd instead go for a transport and buildings section. Femke (talk) 15:11, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
- I can appreciate your point about the overlapping sections, and agree that issues around urban form, like the 15 minute city, are probably the most important aspect of this, both as a driver and as a mitigation strategy. Maybe just something to note that when we’re updating certain sections, we might want to add a sentence on this topic within those already established sections. It also argues for having a brief comparison of production based versus consumption based accounting methods. We did have that at one point in an earlier version of the article, but the consumption-based accounting got removed somewhere along the line as we got more detailed in our production based descriptions. Section C.6.2 also talks about changes in material use for urban areas, as a key mitigation strategy, which I don’t think we talk about much in the article. Not sure where that would fit in best. Dtetta (talk) 22:10, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
- This kind of cross cutting idea might also fit in the intro portion of the mitigation section. Dtetta (talk) 03:19, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
Use of SPM Fig.7 as Guide for Determining Relative Coverage/Balance in this Section
From a WP Balancing aspects perspective, I’m thinking that we should consider using Fig.7 (p.SPM-50) as a rough guide for determining the relative coverage we give to various mitigation techniques, based on the estimated mitigation potential for each. For instance, when I look at the coverage of industry in the Agriculture and industry subsection, the text currently focuses on feedstock decarbonization and process change (industrial energy efficiency is covered in an earlier section). But, Fig.7 would indicate to me that we should really be talking about material efficiency, enhanced recycling, and fuel switching instead. I think the same is true for how we treat agriculture/forestry. In terms of more easily implemented, lower cost measures, we should be devoting more time to forest preservation and carbon sequestration in agriculture. Of course there are other issues that may warrant additional coverage of a given technique, such as cost (which is shown in this figure) co-benefits and implementation risks. But to a first approximation, I think the idea of using this figure as a general guide is a good one. Thoughts? Dtetta (talk) 14:30, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
- Link to the figure. In general, that seems like a good idea. The figure only goes up to 2030, which means that some of the sectors that decarbonise more slowly (buildings) are underplayed compared to sectors that decarbonise fast (electricity production). Of course, some techniques may be overhyped (CCS?), and a statement may be required that its role is expected to be relatively low. Femke (talk) 14:51, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
- @Dtetta: I like! I'll see about mapping word counts in the article to each item in the bar chart. We could see areas that are way out of whack and discuss, then make cuts or additions. Let me know if you have a different thought on how to use this.
- One thing that pops out right away is that we are underplaying AFOLU and overplaying transportation. We fail to mention diet in the lead but do mention electric vehicles, even though diet is a much larger issue. So I expect cuts will need to come from transportation to make way for more AFOLU.
- Note that the figure text also says "Externalities are not taken into account". That plus the dating issue femke raised leave a lot of uncertainty in the numbers. For instance, to go back to the dietary issue, it plays strongly into the issues of deforestation and afforestation that are listed above it in AFOLU and for which the bars are much larger. Are land use changes as a result of dietary changes considered to be "externalities" and ignored? Efbrazil (talk) 19:08, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
I figured I'd start with the lede. By my read we specifically mention 8 areas. According to the chart, 4 of the 8 are among the most important.
Here are the 4 most important things we don't mention, from most to least important:
- AFOLU: Carbon sequestration in agriculture 3.44
- Industry: Fuel switching 2.1
- AFOLU: Shift to sustainable healthy diets 1.7
- AFOLU: Forest management, fire management 1.4
Here are the 4 things we mention but perhaps shouldn't, from least important to most:
- Industry: Steelmaking: Not mentioned, instead the report focuses on industrial fuel switching, steelmaking is just energy intensive is my understanding
- Industry: Cementious material substitution .28 (cement production)
- Transport: Electric light duty vehicles .59 (switching to electric vehicles)
- Buildings: Efficient lighting, appliances and equipment 0.73 (switching to heat pumps in buildings)
So that suggests two changes:
- In the 1st paragraph, cut "steelmaking, cement production" as sources because the real issue is already mentioned in the previous sentence- burning fossil fuels for energy use.
- In the last paragraph, cut "switching to electric vehicles, switching to heat pumps in buildings" as ways to mitigate since they are marginal. Instead, we can say something like "burying carbon while farming, electrifying industry and transportation".
Dtetta will be happy to see I didn't even add mention of dietary changes because I'm aiming for consensus here. Thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 20:26, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- Efbrazil - glad you like the idea of using this as a guide, and I think you’re idea of mapping to the text is a good one. I might suggest we step back, and just do an assessment of what is there in the article first and compare it to Figure 7. I think you’ve already gotten to some conclusions, but I can’t quite follow your reasoning. Maybe a table like this? And we could probably just focus on the most significant 10 or so categories. And I would suggest we focus on the main body of the article first, and then discuss any changes to the lead after that.
Mitigation Category Ordered by Potential Impact from Fig 7 | Word Count | Notes |
---|---|---|
Solar Energy | ||
Wind Energy | ||
Forest Preservation | ||
Carbon Sequestration in Agriculture | ||
Continue with other categories |
Dtetta (talk) 21:18, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
- I started down that pathway but then backed off to doing the lede as a start point. I wanted to make sure that what we were doing was useful, and if it's useful to balance the body, it's especially useful to balance the lede. That's what most people see, so we should be talking about the most important things there.
- I downloaded the chart data from the IPCC and ranked the list items from biggest impact to smallest. That's what the number next to each item is- the bar chart value. Then I went through the lede and looked at all the issues we specifically call out. I did a mapping and came up with the data above. So, for instance, we talk about cement in the lede but the chart ranks it only at .28 mitigation potential. Meanwhile, we don't mention carbon sequestration in agriculture, which is ranked at 3.44 mitigation potential. That's what led to my suggested text changes.
- So before we move onto the body, I'd like to get the lede sorted.
- Does that make sense? Given that, do you support those lede changes I proposed or have a different thought? Efbrazil (talk) 00:17, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
- I guess I have a few observations and one question:
- I see SPM Fig 7 as a useful guide (with some caveats) for calibrating the extent of coverage of ideas in the mitigation section. I think it’s utility outside of that context is much more limited.
- Right now the mitigation portion of the lead consists of three sentences in the last paragraph - your suggestions about other portions of the lead based on Fig.7 seems to be conflating it, and its coverage of mitigation potential, with other parts of this report (and other WG reports) that talk about drivers of climate change. So I think your second suggestion may be valid (I’d like to see a better assessment of the entire mitigation section first), but I don’t think Fig 7 is a relevant yardstick for your first suggestion. For that I think we need to do a more comprehensive look at what the reports are saying about the relative role of various sources.
- I believe WP guidance generally stresses the importance of basing the lead on the content of the article, so I am a believer in getting the body of the article right, then working on the lead.
- So at this point I would say there is not enough info here to support either of your suggestions.
- What do your numbers mean? That’s not clear to me. Dtetta (talk) 03:01, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
- OK - I see now how you got the numbers you list - that makes sense. It was the lack of the GtCO2 unit that threw me off. Personally, I think the absolute values matter less than the rank order, but the numbers are somewhat helpful. Dtetta (talk) 14:13, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
- Good point regarding paragraph 1 cuts. Looking in the article, mention of cement as a source of CO2-eq references this graphic: See here: https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
- From that graphic, cement is only 3% of GGE, while steel and iron is 7%. That 7% number is entirely from the energy used by production though, and we mention energy sources in the previous sentence, so I think we can skip mentioning steel specifically. So I think cutting mention of those sources from paragraph 1 still makes sense.
- Regarding starting with the lede, I agree the mitigation section also makes sense to tackle, but I think starting with the lede is fine. I'd rather get that done since I've already started down that track. While the lede needs to be backed by data in the article, it doesn't need to be weighted the same way.
- Paragraph 4 changes are on solid ground I think, as they are mitigation focused. So, the proposed lede changes I made above still make sense to me. Thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 18:06, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
- Well, I think we have each laid out our positions and rationale fairly well. Probably good to get some other perspectives on this. To keep this topic focused on the general issue of SPM Fig7’s relevance for edits to the mitigation section in general, I think I’ll take a cue from Femke, and create a new section just devoted to changes to the lede. Dtetta (talk) 19:36, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
- I guess I have a few observations and one question:
Changes to the Lede
In the topic immediately above, Efbrazil has proposed some changes to the lede based on his assessment of SPM Fig.7 data and the Our World In Data source already cited in this article. My view is that we need to assess this more closely, and make sure we’re happy with the mitigation section before we propose changes to the lede. In particular, I think that given the number of potential changes to the mitigation section identified in this topic, our time would be better spent discussing/acting on those first. I also think that we should look systematically at the Our World in Data reference, as well as Figure TS.6 (p24) from WGIII, and discuss use that entire data set to see if any changes (and what) should be made to the first lede paragraph. Based on a cursory assessment of those two references, I think the sentences related to GHG sources still provide a good characterization. In particular, I think that changes to the chemistry of cement production are integrally related to both the direct CO2 emissions as well as the energy use, so I think the listing of cement as a category is still appropriate, particularly since that energy/chemistry combination represents a distinctive type of source. Femke, Clayoquot, RCraig09, EMsmile, and Chidgk1 - do any of you care to weigh in on this? Dtetta (talk) 19:36, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
- I agree that some work needs to be done on the mitigation paragraph (and main text); this could be done in parallel, I guess. Responding to a suggestion made by Efbrazil above: "cut "switching to electric vehicles, switching to heat pumps in buildings" as ways to mitigate since they are marginal. Instead, we can say something like "burying carbon while farming, electrifying industry and transportation"." I agree that this needs to be reworded because currently it's very much a first world, luxury topic (what about all the people who don't have any cars yet and are using bikes and walking? Are we telling them they ought to switch to electric vehicles?). Electrifying transportation might again be too context-specific. How about introducing the term sustainable transport here? Or "low carbon" transport. With regards to "burying carbon" I think this wording is misleading but could we refer to "removing carbon from the atmosphere through carbon sequestration in agriculture, or perhaps even refer to climate-smart agriculture? It might be useful to refer people to the correct and new terms. At the end of the day, we have to "climate-smart" everything which might involve electrifying stuff but might also involved a range of other approaches. EMsmile (talk) 09:41, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- To summarise: the last paragraph of the lead which is on mitigation (and adaptation) needs to be written so that it works for all contexts. When I read "switching to electric vehicles, switching to heat pumps in buildings" I am thinking: OK this is written for Global North people only. EMsmile (talk) 09:41, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- Another option for the first paragraph would be to create a plain sentence version of the statement at the top of TS-23, dealing with non-energy sources, and state that ”Industry, agriculture, forestry, transport and buildings are additional sources.” This is probably more consistent with Efbrazil’s proposal. Dtetta (talk) 13:57, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- In general, I'd like to see the lead have more text on solutions and less text on how bad climate change is. The third paragraph has some repetition and unnecessary detail and could be tightened up. I'll try to make or propose some edits to the third paragraph.
- Industry, agriculture, forestry, transport and buildings are additional sources” is not correct. Nearly all of the emissions from industry, transport, and buildings are from energy use.
- Instead of saying "Agriculture is a source of emissions" I'd rather say something like "Certain agricultural practices are sources of emissions" or "Reforming agricultural practices would reduce emissions". If we say that something that's obviously necessary, like agriculture or transport, is a "source of emissions" it can reinforce either/or thinking along the lines of "If I have to choose between climate change and agriculture, agriculture is more important to me." Let's frame things in terms of specific practices, opportunities, and co-benefits.
- The SPM Figure 7 is a useful sanity check. However, I don't think it's a particularly helpful guide for organizing the mitigation section or choosing how to weight things. Most emissions are energy-related and most of the energy story is the same set of concepts across all sectors, i.e. conserve energy, electrify as much as possible, use clean energy sources for electricity, consider hydrogen, consider natural gas but be wary of carbon lock-in, and transform the system for distributing and using energy. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 14:33, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- In response to Clayoquot’s statement on “Industry, agriculture. . . ” my read of the statement at the top of TS-23 is that the IPCC explicitly removes direct energy, and recalculates percentages for those other sectors. Even without direct energy considerations, those categories remain significant sources. And to modify the option I presented, I would suggest we keep the “forest loss” term, rather than just “forestry”, as it is more descriptive of what’s going on. I would be ok with the “certain agricultural practices term (even though it’s a bit wordy relative to the other categories described), but I would be concerned with putting something like “Reforming agricultural practices. . .” in the first paragraph, as it is (again) conflating mitigation actions with sources. It might be a useful phrase for the last paragraph. Dtetta (talk) 14:49, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
- Good point regarding keeping the first paragraph focused on sources of emissions.
- Re,
my read of the statement at the top of TS-23 is that the IPCC explicitly removes direct energy, and recalculates percentages for those other sectors
, I assume that you mean the part that says, "In 2019, 34% (20 GtCO2-eq) of global GHG emissions came from the energy sector, 24% (14 GtCO2-eq) from industry, 22% (13 GtCO2-eq) from agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU), 15% (8.7 GtCO2-eq) from transport, and 5.6% (3.3 GtCO2-eq) from buildings. Once indirect emissions from energy use are considered, the relative shares of industry and buildings emissions rise to 34% and 17%, respectively." - I disagree that this is saying it explicitly removes direct energy. If we use Industry as an example, the figure of 24% of emissions coming from Industry excludes indirect emissions from energy use. For example, if you are counting up the emissions from a factory, indirect emissions from energy use are things like the emissions from the coal-fired plant that produces the electricity that the factory uses.
- If we use Industry as an example, the OWID chart says 24.2% of global GHG emissions were from energy use in industry, and 5.2% of global GHG emissions were from the chemicals released in industrial processes. OWID's figures add up to saying that 29.4% of all GHG emissions are from Industry, which is very similar to the IPCC's number of 34%. Most of the difference is probably due to the fact that OWID's stats are from 2016 and industrial emissions have increased since then.
- I much prefer the way OWID breaks down sources of emissions, compared to the way the IPCC does it. OWID's way of slicing and dicing things is far easier for nearly everyone to understand. The IPCC is of course also right, and more up-to-date, but it's very arcane. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:19, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
- Clayoquot - I reviewed the Lamb 2021 article, which is what the IPCC is using as the main source for its table on page TS-24. In section 3.3 Lamb notes that the indirect category includes both electricity (which you referred to), and heat production, which are unique to specific sites in that sector. So it’s more than just the coal fired plant you are giving as an example. In steelmaking, for instance, coke is burned both as a source of heat and as an integral part of the production process, and electricity is also used. I agree that the OWID article in general is an easier to follow reference, but I think Lamb’s analysis is the more thorough. Regardless of how you want to do the accounting, after looking at Lamb’s article, and considering your suggestion on agriculture, I’m thinking a better sentence would be “Agricultural practices, industrial materials, and forest loss are additional sources.” In section 3.3 Lamb does a good job of characterizing all the various industrial materials that go into the direct component of of the industry sector. And I think the best way of characterizing this would be to use the term “industrial materials”. We could also list a couple of categories like steel and cement, parenthetically, as examples. Dtetta (talk) 01:25, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
- Lamb, along with the IPCC, uses the term "electricity and heat". This is a term of art in the field of emissions accounting. In the IPCC's definition, "electricity and heat" refers to emissions from power plants, combined heat and power (CHP) plants, and heat plants. (WG3 Annex II, p. 1302).
- The key word here is "plants". If you run a glass factory and burn natural gas in your factory to create the heat to melt glass, the emissions from that heat are attributed to the Industry sector, not to the "Electricity and heat" subsector.
- I understand that having a subsector called "electricity and heat" is counterintuitive. The convention of lumping together emissions from electricity generation and emissions from heat plants probably arose because of the existence of CHP plants. It sucks, I know.[1] Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:38, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
- Clayoquot - I reviewed the Lamb 2021 article, which is what the IPCC is using as the main source for its table on page TS-24. In section 3.3 Lamb notes that the indirect category includes both electricity (which you referred to), and heat production, which are unique to specific sites in that sector. So it’s more than just the coal fired plant you are giving as an example. In steelmaking, for instance, coke is burned both as a source of heat and as an integral part of the production process, and electricity is also used. I agree that the OWID article in general is an easier to follow reference, but I think Lamb’s analysis is the more thorough. Regardless of how you want to do the accounting, after looking at Lamb’s article, and considering your suggestion on agriculture, I’m thinking a better sentence would be “Agricultural practices, industrial materials, and forest loss are additional sources.” In section 3.3 Lamb does a good job of characterizing all the various industrial materials that go into the direct component of of the industry sector. And I think the best way of characterizing this would be to use the term “industrial materials”. We could also list a couple of categories like steel and cement, parenthetically, as examples. Dtetta (talk) 01:25, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
- In response to Clayoquot’s statement on “Industry, agriculture. . . ” my read of the statement at the top of TS-23 is that the IPCC explicitly removes direct energy, and recalculates percentages for those other sectors. Even without direct energy considerations, those categories remain significant sources. And to modify the option I presented, I would suggest we keep the “forest loss” term, rather than just “forestry”, as it is more descriptive of what’s going on. I would be ok with the “certain agricultural practices term (even though it’s a bit wordy relative to the other categories described), but I would be concerned with putting something like “Reforming agricultural practices. . .” in the first paragraph, as it is (again) conflating mitigation actions with sources. It might be a useful phrase for the last paragraph. Dtetta (talk) 14:49, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
First paragraph is good! To come back to the last paragraph, I'm thinking of this as a new proposal based on what's been said above, with changed text highlighted:
Making deep cuts in emissions will require switching away from burning fossil fuels and towards using electricity generated from low-carbon sources. This includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, vastly increasing use of wind, solar, and other types of renewable energy, switching to electric vehicles, switching to heat pumps in buildings, and taking measures to conserve energy. Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover and by capturing and storing carbon while farming. While communities may adapt to climate change through efforts like better coastline protection, they cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread, and permanent impacts.
The added text is because of how heavily the IPCC mitigation report features the potential for carbon sequestration in agriculture, but I don't want to use less technical wording. I'd also add the new IPCC mitigation chart as a source after the new text. Thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 22:13, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
- I like your new text, Efbrazil. But the term "low-carbon sources" makes me stumble; can it at least be wikilinked? It sounds a bit like "low carb diet" and might confuse non-expert readers. I don't think "low carbon sources" has arrived in mainstream language yet? (but perhaps this was already discussed in great deal elsewhere). EMsmile (talk) 08:04, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
- I'm OK with removing "switching to heat pumps in buildings". Most readers don't know what a heat pump is. I think we should keep one example of electrification, a critical concept in climate change mitigation. Electric vehicles are an excellent example that most people are familiar with. The IPCC's Figure 7 doesn't reflect the importance of energy system transformation, which includes electricification, because it only goes to 2030. The current source, i.e. the UN Emissions Gap report, is a much better source for getting an overview of mitigation strategies.
- I like the idea of including carbon sequestration in farming. The wording sounds a bit strange, as if capturing and storing carbon are activities you do separately from farming rather than through farming. I'd suggest "by increasing forest cover and by farming with methods that capture carbon in soils and plants". Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:40, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
- I'm fine with how you worded the farming issue but I'd flip it to say "plants and soil", since it goes to plants and then to soil, and to avoid the plural on soil.
- Regarding vehicle electrification, how about if we change that to "switching to electric and human powered transport"? The electrification of vehicles conjures up images of teslas in the first world and dismisses alternatives like biking or walking. Does that work for you? Efbrazil (talk) 18:27, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
- "Plants and soil" works for me. As a cyclist I'm all for mentioning human-powered transport in the lead, but it should be separated from electric vehicles as it illustrates a different concept (energy demand reduction rather than electrification). So I'd change it to: "This includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, vastly increasing use of wind, solar, and other types of renewable energy, and switching to technologies that use electricity instead of burning fuel, such as electric vehicles. Measures to conserve energy, such as walking and cycling for transport, are also important." Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:02, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
- I think this generally is an improvement over what was there - nice work folks. In particular, moving energy efficiency into its own sentence is a nice grammatical/basic prose improvement, since that is not amongst the set of things alluded to in the first sentence. However, I count five categories in Fig SPM 7, focused on energy efficiency in buildings and industry, that all show more mitigation potential than walking or bicycling. Not that the relative values in that figure are the only factor to consider. But it is worth considering. The main issue I see is that that regenerative agriculture really isn’t covered well in the body of the mitigation section (it’s only described as a “less understood option”, and the lede really should be reflective of what is in the rest of the article. Dtetta (talk) 00:32, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- Having had a little more time to look at it, I think the sentence on energy conservation needs to include other examples for another reason - to better reflect what’s in the article - the subsection on energy conservation doesn’t even mention walking or bicycling. This get’s back to my earlier point about getting the mitigation section right, and then work on the lede, largely to avoid these kinds of issues. Dtetta (talk) 15:03, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, I agree on all that. I removed the controversial parts from the lede, including electric vehicles and human powered transportation and the added part talking about electricfying power since that was redundant with the first sentence of the paragraph. Please get consensus here before making additions to the lede. Efbrazil (talk) 15:52, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- Efbrazil, I wish you’d be a little more judicious with your reverts. My sense is that Clayoquot made the edits she made on 5 May after posting to this page. I would prefer she had made a more specific proposal, but she did post a suggestion. You yourself have just effectively made an edit, changing the sentence: “This includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, vastly increasing use of wind, solar, and other types of renewable energy, switching to electric vehicles, switching to heat pumps in buildings, and taking measures to conserve energy.” to: ”This includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, vastly increasing use of wind, solar, and other types of renewable energy, and taking measures to conserve energy.”, and keeping the end of that sentence, despite the fact that both Clayoquot and I expressed concerns with the: “taking measure to conserve energy” part.
- I expressed general support for Clayoquot’s 4 May alternate proposal on energy conservation language and her 5 May edit, as I stated. I think it was an improvement that needed some tweaking. I did not say it should be reverted. In particular, I specifically said I thought her change to separate out energy conservation was an improvement to the paragraph. From a basic English prose 101 standpoint, the current second sentence is simply badly written. “taking measures to conserve energy” is not an example of “switching away from burning fossil fuels and towards using electricity generated from clean sources”, which is how those two sentences read together. I prefer Clayoquot’s edit that separated those sentences. So your revert specifically disregarded my comment of support for her proposal and edit. Is that consensus? It seems like you are going against the common position that Clayoquot and I have that energy conservation should be a separate sentence (it’s demand reduction rather than electrification, as Clayoquot stated on 4 May).
- Could you also explain what you see as your standard for consensus when it comes to edits? From my perspective it would include clear support from one or two other editors before a change is made. Or it could also include a lack of opposition to a proposal made to the talk page, after a few days wait. The addition of soil carbon sequestration seems to be just a discussion between you and Clayoquot. Is that consensus? (I would say that particular one is, even though I think the edit should have included text in the main article as well) I also see consensus in my support for her edit on energy conservation. But that was reverted by you. This seems inconsistent to me. How do others see this?
- Main point -I agree with you that we should all propose specific edits and look for some consensus before we make changes to the lede (IMO ideally in underline strikeout fashion - which I appreciate you doing in your 3 May posting) . Let’s all follow that advice. And I think we should go with Clayoquot’s suggestion to make energy conservation it’s own sentence - although IMO we should be using different examples. Dtetta (talk) 18:54, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, I agree on all that. I removed the controversial parts from the lede, including electric vehicles and human powered transportation and the added part talking about electricfying power since that was redundant with the first sentence of the paragraph. Please get consensus here before making additions to the lede. Efbrazil (talk) 15:52, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- "Plants and soil" works for me. As a cyclist I'm all for mentioning human-powered transport in the lead, but it should be separated from electric vehicles as it illustrates a different concept (energy demand reduction rather than electrification). So I'd change it to: "This includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, vastly increasing use of wind, solar, and other types of renewable energy, and switching to technologies that use electricity instead of burning fuel, such as electric vehicles. Measures to conserve energy, such as walking and cycling for transport, are also important." Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:02, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Efbrazil, regarding your justification for removing "the added part talking about electricfying power since that was redundant with the first sentence of the paragraph," there is no such thing as "electrifying power." The first sentence says "switching... towards using electricity generated from low-carbon sources" and the sentence you removed said "switching to technologies that use electricity instead of burning fuel". These aren't the same thing at all. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:33, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- I'd also like to address EMsmile's comment that electric vehicles are "very much a first world, luxury topic". This isn't the case - China, a Global South country, is a leader in electric vehicles. Additionally, the issue of how to mitigate emissions is one of the rare times that it's appropriate to focus on the habits of the richer people of the world, because the rich people are the ones who are producing the most emissions. That said, I'm open to other examples of electrification of energy usage technologies.. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:17, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- Dtetta Clayoquot, the main reason I backed out the edit was it included parts there have been significant objections to. Most importantly, that includes mention of electric vehicles (which EMsmile and I object to) and human powered transportation (which dtetta rightly states is not in the body and so cannot be in the lede). Breaking energy conservation into it's own sentence did not seem necessary at that point, since we had cut enough content to recombine the sentences as they were before.
- I understand that there are two parts to electrification (low carbon generation and expanded use). I don't mind mentioning expanded use, but it should probably be part of the first sentence, so all of electrification is tied together into one idea. Efbrazil (talk) 22:47, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- Re
I understand that there are two parts to electrification (low carbon generation and expanded use
, this isn't true. Electrification is the process of converting a system to use electricity as its energy source[2][3][4]. It has nothing to do with how electricity is generated. Decarbonization of electricity generation, electrification, and energy conservation are three separate concepts. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:21, 7 May 2022 (UTC)- OK, putting aside cuts to electric vehicles and heat pumps, does anyone object to adding "and by farming with methods that capture carbon in plants and soil" after "for instance by increasing forest cover"? I think everyone agreed to that. The main reason for the add is the IPCC mitigation report chart, so I'll add reference to that.Efbrazil (talk) 17:27, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
- I did some reading and editing over the weekend on the issue of carbon sequestration in agriculture. I think it would be better to say "and by farming with methods that capture carbon in soil". The IPCC has said in reference to agriculture, "Soil carbon sequestration (enhanced sinks) is the mechanism responsible for most of the mitigation potential (high agreement, much evidence)"[5] In AR6, Chapter 7 p. 44, a table describes "Agriculture - Carbon sequestration" as "(soil carbon management in croplands and grasslands, agroforestry, and biochar)".[6]
- There are many ways for all farmers to sequester carbon in soil. There are relatively few ways for most farmers to increase the sequestration of carbon in plants, as most farming grows annual species such as rice and tomatoes. If you want to sequester carbon in plants you can add trees to your farm (agroforestry), you can switch to growing legumes or perennial woody species, or you can restore barren land to grassland, as grass can sequester carbon in deep roots.
- If we're doing a citation I'd suggest using the NASEM report that I cited in the body, as it explains what carbon sequestration in agriculture means. The IPCC's AR6 Figure 7 - which is one of the many charts that the IPCC has on mitigation and not something all-encompassing - doesn't explain the terms it uses. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:34, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
- That text works for me so I edited the lead with it. The wiki link to carbon farming goes into the details and we have references in the article, so I didn't add another reference to the lede for now. To be clear, that's sort of the standard for lead edits as I understand it- just a proposal on the talk page and somebody agrees with it and nobody objects.
- The idea behind including the figure 7 ipcc reference is to make it clear why we are presenting the examples we're presenting. That seems to be controversial though, so for now I'm happy to leave it out. Perhaps if we remove heat pumps and do a better job on electric vehicles that would be a good time to add the reference, since our examples would then be in line with the chart. Efbrazil (talk) 22:04, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
- Another change that we could make is to swap out "switching to electric vehicles, switching to heat pumps in buildings" in favor of EMSmile's proposal of "electrifying industry and transportation". I think I prefer that wording as it is more succinct and sweeping while being less prescriptive. For instance, "electric vehicles" conjures images of teslas, not electric bikes or trains. Similarly, heat pumps ignores energy used in industrial production and ignores other temperature control technologies like heat exchangers, whole house fans, and swamp coolers. Any objections? Efbrazil (talk) 15:44, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
- Heat pumps use heat exchangers, but that's beside the point. The point is to help the reader understand that electrification is critical to making deep cuts in emissions. There is extremely strong consensus in the climate change mitigation literature that electrification is critical. To get this point across, I proposed that we describe the concept of electrification, with a link to electrification and an example. The phrase I proposed was "and switching to technologies that use electricity instead of burning fuel, such as electric vehicles." I've explained why it's not redundant with decarbonizing electricity generation, a separate (and also critical) concept. I've addressed the myth that electric vehicles = Teslas by explaining that China is a world leader in electric vehicles.[7] Are there any remaining problems with what I'm proposing? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:55, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry, I meant ground heat exchangers specifically, but like you said, that's beside the point. I prefer EMSmile's wording to yours. It's more succinct and inclusive and it features electrification like you ask, just less verbosely than you do. I also disagree with featuring "electric vehicles" because of the reasons I gave above. Anyhow, I won't make the change since you disagree with it. Efbrazil (talk) 16:15, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
- There are two issues with the proposed "electrifying industry and transportation". First, it doesn't make sense to name these two end-use sectors and not also name the buildings sector. Second, the reader won't learn from it because it doesn't explain what "electrifying" means. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:08, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks, yeah, I agree with that critique.
- There are two issues with the proposed "electrifying industry and transportation". First, it doesn't make sense to name these two end-use sectors and not also name the buildings sector. Second, the reader won't learn from it because it doesn't explain what "electrifying" means. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:08, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry, I meant ground heat exchangers specifically, but like you said, that's beside the point. I prefer EMSmile's wording to yours. It's more succinct and inclusive and it features electrification like you ask, just less verbosely than you do. I also disagree with featuring "electric vehicles" because of the reasons I gave above. Anyhow, I won't make the change since you disagree with it. Efbrazil (talk) 16:15, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
- Heat pumps use heat exchangers, but that's beside the point. The point is to help the reader understand that electrification is critical to making deep cuts in emissions. There is extremely strong consensus in the climate change mitigation literature that electrification is critical. To get this point across, I proposed that we describe the concept of electrification, with a link to electrification and an example. The phrase I proposed was "and switching to technologies that use electricity instead of burning fuel, such as electric vehicles." I've explained why it's not redundant with decarbonizing electricity generation, a separate (and also critical) concept. I've addressed the myth that electric vehicles = Teslas by explaining that China is a world leader in electric vehicles.[7] Are there any remaining problems with what I'm proposing? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:55, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
- Another change that we could make is to swap out "switching to electric vehicles, switching to heat pumps in buildings" in favor of EMSmile's proposal of "electrifying industry and transportation". I think I prefer that wording as it is more succinct and sweeping while being less prescriptive. For instance, "electric vehicles" conjures images of teslas, not electric bikes or trains. Similarly, heat pumps ignores energy used in industrial production and ignores other temperature control technologies like heat exchangers, whole house fans, and swamp coolers. Any objections? Efbrazil (talk) 15:44, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
- OK, putting aside cuts to electric vehicles and heat pumps, does anyone object to adding "and by farming with methods that capture carbon in plants and soil" after "for instance by increasing forest cover"? I think everyone agreed to that. The main reason for the add is the IPCC mitigation report chart, so I'll add reference to that.Efbrazil (talk) 17:27, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
- Re
Here's yet another crack at things. We replace this sentence:
This includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, vastly increasing use of wind, solar, and other types of renewable energy, switching to electric vehicles, switching to heat pumps in buildings, and taking measures to conserve energy
With these two sentences. The main idea is to break out electrification on its own instead or trying to capture it in a couple examples in a run on sentence:
This includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, vastly increasing use of wind, solar, and other types of renewable energy, and taking measures to reduce energy use. Electricity will need to replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and operating industrial facilities. Efbrazil (talk) 19:31, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
- That works for me :) The second sentence is nice and concrete. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 08:46, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks! One bit I struggled over was saying "heating buildings", as that can arguably be done with passive solar or geothermal and neglects other aspects of green building, like embodied carbon. It is easy to explain though and a major issue. Efbrazil (talk) 17:35, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
Editing process
Efbrazil and Dtetta, if you prefer to propose edits to the lead on the Talk page and get consensus before implementing them, that's fine. But if you're suggesting this as a process that everyone must follow, I'd have to point out that this isn't Wikipedia's normal editing process and we aren't allowed to establish a special editing process for one article. WP:Consensus says "Editors may propose a consensus change by discussion or editing." We can't decide that for the lead section of this article, the policy is going to be "Editors may propose a consensus change only by discussion." Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:10, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- We’ve had this discussion a few times. I think we all recognize that this is not an official WP policy, but for this article it seems to be better than the alternative (multiple reverts/rewrites with often poorly written summaries). Several editors have expressed support for this approach, I believe. But maybe this is a good time to check in with people again. This is IMO a voluntary agreement amongst those of us that are regular contributors to this page, not official WP policy. And I think it helps us make more efficient use of our time as editors. I for one would like to spend more time working on other edits that seem to be warranted based on the IPCC report. Dtetta (talk) 21:28, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for clarifying. I too would like to be spending more time on substance. Personally I believe normal Wikipedia editing processes are the most efficient way to do that. However, regardless of what I or any other regular contributors to this page believe, it's not in our purview to declare a special editing process for this article. The normal editing process is that anyone may edit boldly and if someone does, you revert only if you believe the edit actually made the article worse and/or if the edit is going against a previous Talk page consensus. (And when possible, you only revert the part of the edit that's a problem, not the entire edit.) It's not OK to revert just because the other person didn't first get consensus on the Talk page. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:44, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- Well, I think the whole idea of consensus is fuzzy, as I stated in my earlier post today. To me the most important part is that that people post proposed edits on the talk page first - a voluntary step that I think we should encourage for the reasons I mentioned. But I’ll stop and let others post their thoughts. And I should point out that I did not revert your edits on process grounds. Dtetta (talk) 21:58, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- I agree with your last sentence - it was Efbrazil, not you, who reverted on process grounds.[8]. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:01, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- I think it was Femke that suggested the talk page process around lead edits. Reasoning is that this is a featured article and the highest profile article on the contentious topic of climate change so it's important to get it right and not have it thrash around. Note that there is a comment saying "Please do not change the content in the lead section without prior discussion" Consensus just means we should try for consensus before making edits.
- Also, I reverted the edits on substance grounds, but the substance I'll take up in the talk page section above. Efbrazil (talk) 22:28, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- The policy-ground to request consensus before is WP:FAOWN, which states
Editors are asked to take particular care when editing a Featured article; it is considerate to discuss significant changes of text or images on the talk page first.
. It's just a request, but it's a process that has worked well here, so I hope we'll agree to keep it. Silence after posting on a talk page is a form of consensus, albeit a weak one. (reading along, but not much energy to engage, apologies). Femke (talk) 18:49, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
- The policy-ground to request consensus before is WP:FAOWN, which states
- I agree with your last sentence - it was Efbrazil, not you, who reverted on process grounds.[8]. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:01, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- Well, I think the whole idea of consensus is fuzzy, as I stated in my earlier post today. To me the most important part is that that people post proposed edits on the talk page first - a voluntary step that I think we should encourage for the reasons I mentioned. But I’ll stop and let others post their thoughts. And I should point out that I did not revert your edits on process grounds. Dtetta (talk) 21:58, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for clarifying. I too would like to be spending more time on substance. Personally I believe normal Wikipedia editing processes are the most efficient way to do that. However, regardless of what I or any other regular contributors to this page believe, it's not in our purview to declare a special editing process for this article. The normal editing process is that anyone may edit boldly and if someone does, you revert only if you believe the edit actually made the article worse and/or if the edit is going against a previous Talk page consensus. (And when possible, you only revert the part of the edit that's a problem, not the entire edit.) It's not OK to revert just because the other person didn't first get consensus on the Talk page. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:44, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
Thanks everyone. I'm hearing, to my relief, that nobody seems to expect consensus to be established for every change before implementing the change. The sentiment seems to be more to advise a cautious editing style relative to other articles. I'll try to work with that. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:21, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
More compact TOC? (and discussion about tipping points section)
This is a minor thing and I don't want to make a big deal out of it. However, it could be useful to reach some consensus here, also for the other CC articles. I would like to make the table of content (TOC) more compact by adding the command {{TOC limit|3}}. User:RCraig09 reverted this by saying "More detailed ToC provides information that's especially useful in longer, more technical articles, and provides quicker navigation to subtopics that readers might be looking for". I feel that lay persons could be put off by overly detailed TOCs (as a scientist myself I do like them but I think lay persons might have different preferences). Has this been investigated in the past? I know that at WikiProject Medicine the broad consensus was to use the compact TOC style. It would mean in this case that the "sub-heading 2" section headings do not show up in the TOC. I think they are not that important for lay persons (and if they were, then perhaps they should become a sub-heading 1 level, such as "Tipping points and long-term impacts" which is currently below "physical environment"). Other sub-heading 2 headings are food and health, livelihoods, 12.3.1 IP C reports, 12.3.2 Other peer-reviewed sources, 12.3.3 Books, reports and legal documents, 12.3.4 Non-technical sources. - is it really crucial that they are accessible from the TOC? EMsmile (talk) 08:44, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
- I agree with a more compact TOC. I think we'd be better in compliance with FA criterion 2b of a
not overwhelming system of hierarchical section headings
. I would agree even more if we give mitigation it's own heading. An entire IPCC report is dedicated to mitigation, but we put it as a subheading?. Femke (talk) 16:23, 20 May 2022 (UTC)- I agree that mitigation and adaptation should each move up a level and become Level 1 headers. However, perhaps the term "mitigation" is unclear for lay persons, so perhaps "Mitigation to reduce emissions"? Or is that too inaccurate. Mitigation is defined in the CC mitigation article like this "Climate change mitigation consists of actions to limit global warming and its related effects. This is mainly reductions in human emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) as well as activities that reduce their concentration in the atmosphere.". - And the heading adaptation could become "Adaptation by adjusting to effects of climate change" (or maybe that's too long). EMsmile (talk) 17:37, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
- I agree with bumping "Mitigation" and "Adaptation" up a level, especially since "Responses" doesn't have standalone content. But if you condense the ToC, you will delete all of the following important concepts which would be hard to find because the article itself is so long: Tipping points and long-term impacts, Food and health, Livelihoods, Clean energy, Energy conservation, Agriculture and industry, Carbon sequestration Climate movement. Three levels is not "overwhelming" under FA criterion 2b. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:59, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
- The content would not be deleted, it would just not be directly accessible from the TOC. I doubt that so many readers of that article want to jump directly to "clean energy" or livelihoods for exaxmple. If they did, they would type in "clean energy" in the search field, wouldn't they? It all comes down again to who our target readers for this article are. Is it scientists and engineers like you and me (who enjoy a very detailed TOC), or is it the general public (who might not require a detailed TOC). Any popular science book, article blog etc. that I've read recently, usually has a high level TOC, only showing chapter titles (or no TOC at all in the case of blog posts). The books with detailed TOCs are those that are textbooks or scientific reports like the IPCC reports maybe. So therefore, I would like to add the {{TOC limit|3}} to this article and make the TOC showing one level of headings less than currently. EMsmile (talk) 09:46, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
- Hierarchical TOCs show the relationship between concepts, and it's extremely important to note how, for example, "clean energy" relates to the mitigation within broad topic of climate change. Fortunately, bumping up "Mitigation" has rendered the issue moot for most sub-topics. Separately, I agree with bumping up "Tipping points..." as it's a crucial topic. I also agree with explanatory section titles, though they may run afoul of official Wikipedia guidelines for conciseness. (P.S. "sink" is a techy term, but I'm having trouble thinking of a concise alternative.) —RCraig09 (talk) 16:09, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry, I did not see your response when I reverted the tipping point edit. My reason for reverting it is the little attention tipping points got in the AR6 report. Iirc, it was 1.5 page in the technical summary. As such, it seems undue and not NPOV to bump this "scary" effect up a level. Femke (talk) 16:16, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
- No problem. I see your point about the IPCC's (de-)emphasis re tipping points. I was thinking about the topic disappearing from the ToC if the ToC is cut to only two levels. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:34, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
- It's surprising to me that tipping points are downplayed in the IPCC AR6 reports but so be it (perhaps some time in future they will be played up again?). So if tipping points must stay at sub-heading 2 level and are regarded as not so important (at this stage9 then we could now switch over to the more compact TOC, right, RCraig09? There are only a few fairly unimportant sub-heading 2 type section headings that would no longer be visible in the more compact TOC. Like those groupings of sources in the references section. EMsmile (talk) 21:25, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- This is another example of form versus substance. Cutting the ToC to two levels would remove from the ToC the tipping point topic that is widely referenced even though de-emphasized in AR6—with minimal change in how "overwhelming" the ToC is under FA criterion 2b. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:14, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- It's not just a "form versus substance" issue. (and even if it was, so what? Form and substance are both important, given our target audience). Like I wrote above, our target audience are lay persons, not scientists and engineers. They don't value a detailed TOC as much as you do (this is my opinion; I'd love to back it up with facts from studies that others have conducted?). Why do you insist that things like this be accessible through the TOC? IPCC reports, Other peer-reviewed sources, Books, reports and legal documents, Non-technical sources? Anyway, the two us us may need to agree to disagree on this one. Do any of the other page watchers have an opinion? We heard from Femke that they were supportive of my suggestion of a more compact TOC. EMsmile (talk) 22:44, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- Again: the ToC provides a quick summary of the relation of various concepts, including the important concept of tipping points which readers wouldn't easily see since that section is eight desktop-screenfuls down in this long article. Our target audience should know about that topic despite AR6's treatment of it. (The Sources section is an idiosyncrasy of a movement in this particular article's history of a few years ago, regrettably.) It's not " "overwhelming" in any event. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:06, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- Another view: I think I agree with Craig's view that either tipping points should be bumped up to L2 or the TOC should be kept at 3 levels, and I'd prefer the bump up to L2 and collapse option because other L3 topics can be hidden. While the IPCC may underplay tipping points (partly because the science is muddled), politicians and the media always talk about climate change in terms of tipping points. Every action must be taken before it is "too late" and this is our "last chance" or there will be "irreversible effects" and so forth. Nobody says stuff like "if we wait another 5 years to act then the land surface will likely be another 0.1 C hotter in 50 years". So while the IPCC may underplay the issue, it's of great interest to the general public, and that's our audience. Nothing brings climate change into focus like talking about species extinction or lost farmland or ecosystem collapses like the Amazon, the Arctic, and the Great Barrier Reef. Efbrazil (talk) 00:43, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- I agree. I would also like to bump the tipping point section up to sub-heading 1 level for the same reasons that you listed, RCraig09 and Efbrazil (and then condense the TOC so that sub-headings 2 are no longer visible). Perhaps as a compromise would be that we come up with a suitable title for this sub-heading 1 level (perhaps the current one ("Tipping points and long-term impacts") is not ideal yet). And I don't think we need to stick like slaves to the "weightings" that the AR6 applies for the various topics. It's an extremely important source but not the only one that would inform us on how we'd like to structure this article. EMsmile (talk) 07:28, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- Good! I personally wouldn't mind just keeping the same title and bumping it up a level and doing the collapse. I'm open to a different title but nothing occurs to me as better. We should also probably be mentioning tipping points as they relate to ecosystems, but we aren't currently (maybe because of the current TOC location). Efbrazil (talk) 15:46, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- What sources are you looking at to support so much attention to tipping points? Femke (talk) 19:26, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- I don't see a way to break down media coverage by TOC category, but I don't see that as a reason to just mirror the IPCC TOC. Our audience is not the IPCC audience.
- We should also consider how the term is used in communications by authorities. For instance, PEW research summarizes the latest IPCC report this way: "Central to the report is evidence that rising temperatures could push our planet beyond tipping points at which changes can no longer be avoided or undone.". Similarly, the UN secretary general recently said "We have reached a tipping point on the need for climate action."
- It's easy of course to search google news and find tons of hits on "climate change tipping point". Even when the word tipping point is not used, the issues covered by media very often center on tipping point issues. I think the section we have also has a good pairing with long term effects, making it clear that a tipping point typically is not an abrupt thing but rather a long term, irreversible thing.
- In the interest of compromise and not overhyping the issue, one thing we could do is move the section down to the end of Impacts, so it is at L2 but after Humans. Efbrazil (talk) 16:51, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
- I think that is a good analysis and suggestion by Efbrazil. Is it perhaps the term "tipping point" that you (Femkemilene) don't like? Would it be better to talk about "irreversible impacts"? Or is it more about climate feedbacks? In the article on effects of climate change we've called it "Abrupt changes and irreversible impacts", see here (although that section might also require further work).EMsmile (talk) 09:03, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
- I, also, agree with Efbrazil. But I strongly favor tipping points (much used in literature) over irreversible impacts (sounds like a euphemism). —RCraig09 (talk) 14:01, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
- I don't mind the term tipping point much. I'm mostly concerned we're giving a bit too much emphasis on what people think are abrupt changes (most tipping points aren't that abrupt) wrt the literature. I think I'm in the minority here though, so please go ahead. I prefer a section before humans (either 2nd or 3rd), as that makes more sense. Femke (talk) 17:09, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
- I, also, agree with Efbrazil. But I strongly favor tipping points (much used in literature) over irreversible impacts (sounds like a euphemism). —RCraig09 (talk) 14:01, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
- I think that is a good analysis and suggestion by Efbrazil. Is it perhaps the term "tipping point" that you (Femkemilene) don't like? Would it be better to talk about "irreversible impacts"? Or is it more about climate feedbacks? In the article on effects of climate change we've called it "Abrupt changes and irreversible impacts", see here (although that section might also require further work).EMsmile (talk) 09:03, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
- What sources are you looking at to support so much attention to tipping points? Femke (talk) 19:26, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- Good! I personally wouldn't mind just keeping the same title and bumping it up a level and doing the collapse. I'm open to a different title but nothing occurs to me as better. We should also probably be mentioning tipping points as they relate to ecosystems, but we aren't currently (maybe because of the current TOC location). Efbrazil (talk) 15:46, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- I agree. I would also like to bump the tipping point section up to sub-heading 1 level for the same reasons that you listed, RCraig09 and Efbrazil (and then condense the TOC so that sub-headings 2 are no longer visible). Perhaps as a compromise would be that we come up with a suitable title for this sub-heading 1 level (perhaps the current one ("Tipping points and long-term impacts") is not ideal yet). And I don't think we need to stick like slaves to the "weightings" that the AR6 applies for the various topics. It's an extremely important source but not the only one that would inform us on how we'd like to structure this article. EMsmile (talk) 07:28, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- Another view: I think I agree with Craig's view that either tipping points should be bumped up to L2 or the TOC should be kept at 3 levels, and I'd prefer the bump up to L2 and collapse option because other L3 topics can be hidden. While the IPCC may underplay tipping points (partly because the science is muddled), politicians and the media always talk about climate change in terms of tipping points. Every action must be taken before it is "too late" and this is our "last chance" or there will be "irreversible effects" and so forth. Nobody says stuff like "if we wait another 5 years to act then the land surface will likely be another 0.1 C hotter in 50 years". So while the IPCC may underplay the issue, it's of great interest to the general public, and that's our audience. Nothing brings climate change into focus like talking about species extinction or lost farmland or ecosystem collapses like the Amazon, the Arctic, and the Great Barrier Reef. Efbrazil (talk) 00:43, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- Again: the ToC provides a quick summary of the relation of various concepts, including the important concept of tipping points which readers wouldn't easily see since that section is eight desktop-screenfuls down in this long article. Our target audience should know about that topic despite AR6's treatment of it. (The Sources section is an idiosyncrasy of a movement in this particular article's history of a few years ago, regrettably.) It's not " "overwhelming" in any event. —RCraig09 (talk) 23:06, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- It's not just a "form versus substance" issue. (and even if it was, so what? Form and substance are both important, given our target audience). Like I wrote above, our target audience are lay persons, not scientists and engineers. They don't value a detailed TOC as much as you do (this is my opinion; I'd love to back it up with facts from studies that others have conducted?). Why do you insist that things like this be accessible through the TOC? IPCC reports, Other peer-reviewed sources, Books, reports and legal documents, Non-technical sources? Anyway, the two us us may need to agree to disagree on this one. Do any of the other page watchers have an opinion? We heard from Femke that they were supportive of my suggestion of a more compact TOC. EMsmile (talk) 22:44, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- This is another example of form versus substance. Cutting the ToC to two levels would remove from the ToC the tipping point topic that is widely referenced even though de-emphasized in AR6—with minimal change in how "overwhelming" the ToC is under FA criterion 2b. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:14, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- It's surprising to me that tipping points are downplayed in the IPCC AR6 reports but so be it (perhaps some time in future they will be played up again?). So if tipping points must stay at sub-heading 2 level and are regarded as not so important (at this stage9 then we could now switch over to the more compact TOC, right, RCraig09? There are only a few fairly unimportant sub-heading 2 type section headings that would no longer be visible in the more compact TOC. Like those groupings of sources in the references section. EMsmile (talk) 21:25, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- No problem. I see your point about the IPCC's (de-)emphasis re tipping points. I was thinking about the topic disappearing from the ToC if the ToC is cut to only two levels. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:34, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry, I did not see your response when I reverted the tipping point edit. My reason for reverting it is the little attention tipping points got in the AR6 report. Iirc, it was 1.5 page in the technical summary. As such, it seems undue and not NPOV to bump this "scary" effect up a level. Femke (talk) 16:16, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
- Hierarchical TOCs show the relationship between concepts, and it's extremely important to note how, for example, "clean energy" relates to the mitigation within broad topic of climate change. Fortunately, bumping up "Mitigation" has rendered the issue moot for most sub-topics. Separately, I agree with bumping up "Tipping points..." as it's a crucial topic. I also agree with explanatory section titles, though they may run afoul of official Wikipedia guidelines for conciseness. (P.S. "sink" is a techy term, but I'm having trouble thinking of a concise alternative.) —RCraig09 (talk) 16:09, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
- The content would not be deleted, it would just not be directly accessible from the TOC. I doubt that so many readers of that article want to jump directly to "clean energy" or livelihoods for exaxmple. If they did, they would type in "clean energy" in the search field, wouldn't they? It all comes down again to who our target readers for this article are. Is it scientists and engineers like you and me (who enjoy a very detailed TOC), or is it the general public (who might not require a detailed TOC). Any popular science book, article blog etc. that I've read recently, usually has a high level TOC, only showing chapter titles (or no TOC at all in the case of blog posts). The books with detailed TOCs are those that are textbooks or scientific reports like the IPCC reports maybe. So therefore, I would like to add the {{TOC limit|3}} to this article and make the TOC showing one level of headings less than currently. EMsmile (talk) 09:46, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
- I agree with bumping "Mitigation" and "Adaptation" up a level, especially since "Responses" doesn't have standalone content. But if you condense the ToC, you will delete all of the following important concepts which would be hard to find because the article itself is so long: Tipping points and long-term impacts, Food and health, Livelihoods, Clean energy, Energy conservation, Agriculture and industry, Carbon sequestration Climate movement. Three levels is not "overwhelming" under FA criterion 2b. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:59, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
- I agree that mitigation and adaptation should each move up a level and become Level 1 headers. However, perhaps the term "mitigation" is unclear for lay persons, so perhaps "Mitigation to reduce emissions"? Or is that too inaccurate. Mitigation is defined in the CC mitigation article like this "Climate change mitigation consists of actions to limit global warming and its related effects. This is mainly reductions in human emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) as well as activities that reduce their concentration in the atmosphere.". - And the heading adaptation could become "Adaptation by adjusting to effects of climate change" (or maybe that's too long). EMsmile (talk) 17:37, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
About the sub-structure in "Sources" and why so many?
Hi Rcraig09 what did you mean with "The Sources section is an idiosyncrasy of a movement in this particular article's history of a few years ago, regrettably."? What happened and what were the different options at the time? I am not used to seeing a sub-structure under "Sources". I wonder if we could have just references and sources, without the sub-structure below that? And do we really need this incredibly long list under Other peer-reviewed sources, Books, reports and legal documents, Non-technical sources? If anything that should be under "further reading" but I wonder why we even have it at all? Perhaps a legacy from the days when climate change was very controversial? I would radically cull it, perhaps even remove it completely. After all, other articles on "hot" topics (e.g. abortion, vaccination) don't have this either. Who does the "vetting" and updating of such long lists of publications? Waste of time? EMsmile (talk) 07:35, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- We don't have sources appropriate for a 'further reading' section in this article: All sources are used to support text. Therefore they cannot be deleted. (That is why every time you delete a harvnb / sfn source from the body of the text, you should likely delete the corresponding source in the sources section.) We had a user very adament that FA articles needed to be fully sfn (which is a great format for sources that are used multiple times & require page numbers) OR no sfn at all. In practice, the two styles of citations are sometimes used in a mixed way, even in FAs, as long as the system is internally consistent.
- About a year ago, I proposed that we go towards this mixed style (books/reports still in sfn format, but news articles and scientific papers using the "normal" or simple citation style). I got one person mostly agreeing, and have been doing this since. I think we shouldn't be spending active energy on this, just use this from now on, until we have the next FAR (would be good in a year or 3). Femke (talk) 19:25, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for the explanations. I didn't realise all those newspaper articles were actually used as refs. I think what confused me was that the IPCC reports are shown in 1-column style but the other sources are in 4-column style. So it felt like there was something different between them. Wondering if we could change the IPCC reports also into 4 column style to save space? I tried and it didn't look good but it might work by putting the {{refbegin|30em}} at the start of each of the IPCC reports? And I like your approach of mixing styles: books/reports still in sfn format, but news articles and scientific papers using the "normal" or simple citation style. In general, when working across a range of smaller sub-articles where we move text blocks from A to B I am finding the "simple citation style" better, especially when collaborating with newbies and students. EMsmile (talk) 08:55, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
Biology
Make a project file on climate change its consequences Hazards and methods to control the pollination 2409:4043:4C8B:C5AA:42F9:F94A:B0A2:D2BF (talk) 05:10, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- I don't understand what you mean. Do you want us to change the article? And how so? Femke (talk) 16:31, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
Business section
I've just deleted the following section, to be improved before it can feature in this WP:featured article.
- Mention of AI paper seems WP:undue (is AI that important to identify nonsustainable business?)
- Not sure an interview the Paulson Institute is reliable, quite sure it's not a high-quality reliable source as required by WP:FA criteria
- The iShares website is a primary source, again not high-quality. Doesn't support the full statement.
- The GSIA is a blog post, not highly reliable.
That said, I think we may be missing some information here. We don't really mention climate finance or business, but I'm not sure where it logically fits. I think we could add a paragraph to the initial part of the reducing emissions section (even if a four paragraph into is a bit too long).
Courtesy ping to @Omygoshogolly: (don't be discouraged by this: editing a featured article is very difficult, and I'm sure you can put your mark on the article with some help from experienced users).
By the end of 2021, investors were expressing a preference for businesses that act to reduce CO2 and methane pollution.[1] Improved ways of handling computer data (including Big data and artificial intelligence) were beginning to help identify "climate responsible" businesses, governments and other organizations.[2]
As of December 2021, the equivalent of 4 trillion US dollars had been invested worldwide in sustainable enterprises, using a variety of new investment strategies.[3][4] Examples include Climate Investment Funds, Green Climate Fund, and iShares by Blackrock.[5]
Femke (talk) 16:10, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
References
- ^ Paulson 2021a ; Paulson, Henry (6 December 2021). "Straight Talk with Hank Paulson: Larry Fink". Paulson Institute. At 15 minutes. Archived from the original on 9 February 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ Gopal 2021a ; Gopal, Sucharita (22 November 2021). "The Evolving Landscape of Big Data Analytics and ESG Materiality Mapping". The Journal of Impact and Esg Investing. 2 (2): 77–100. doi:10.3905/jesg.2021.1.034. S2CID 245744494. Archived from the original on 25 February 2022. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
- ^ Paulson 2021a ; Paulson, Henry (6 December 2021). "Straight Talk with Hank Paulson: Larry Fink". Paulson Institute. At 15 minutes. Archived from the original on 9 February 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ GSIA 2021 ; "Global Sustainable Investment Alliance Releases Global Sustainable Investment Review 2020". The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment. 19 July 2021. Archived from the original on 21 August 2021. Retrieved 26 March 2022.
- ^ iShares 2022 ; "Sustainable Investing". iShares. 14 March 2022. Archived from the original on 15 March 2022. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
I’m working on revisions. I will appreciate further suggestions about where to place this information within the article. Omygoshogolly (talk) 19:58, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
- Great! The IPCC AR6 WGIII report should be a good place for high-quality information about the roles the business sector plays in retarding and accelerating the transition, I would guess. Femke (talk) 20:00, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
Images impacts, revisited
For ages I've been discontent about the images in the impact section. I think there are too many, and the fact we put them in a line means it's quite ugly on loads of devices (either a lot of greyspace, or on phone, a lot of images to scroll through)
What about something like this instead? I've replaced the image of the fire, as the one I selected is higher quality (finalist in Picture of the Year 2019.). I think we should crop the image of the polar bear a bit, to make it more horizontal and not too dominant. And we should be able to find a better picture instead of unclear coral, unclear pest / unclear permafrost. Note that Commons now allows you to select "any assessment" to only get the images of higher quality. Femke (talk) 17:05, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
- I think the Woolsey Fire image is a definite improvement.
- Does the uncropped image, File:Endangered arctic - starving polar bear.jpg, accomplish what you want?
- I suggest adding a pic showing sea level rise SLR in the same row as our old friend, the polar bear, to make him less dominant. A tidal flooding pic is easier to find since "average" SLR isn't very dramatic or visible. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:09, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
- Re permafrost, see Category:Effects of thawing permafrost. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:15, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
- The uncropped image is still somewhat square, I'm really looking for those panorama images to be able to get away with displaying three images. Good suggestion about flooding (even if it may become a bit redundant wrt the human photos, for which I want to make a similar suggestion later). I found a nice tree submerged. Also included a second animal, as we're a second example (next to the lede's coral reef) of climate change under the ocean. Chelonia mydas have a temperature-dependent sex determination: some hatches are now 99% female. Femke (talk) 19:31, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
- I disagree with replacing the galleries with collages. There are a lot of effects to cover, and mushing them all together means cutting all the caption content and the images that highlight those captions. I think that will be seriously damaging to comprehension. I find the galleries that are there now look good both on desktop and on smartphones.
- I have no objection to swapping out some images in the galleries. Efbrazil (talk) 21:11, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
- Cutting down on the captions is one of my main intentions, absolutely. I believe long captions will just cause readers to not read them, rather than get a better understanding. Because there is so little horizontal space per caption, the text flow is poor, with only 2 to 5 words per line. To highlight which part of the caption belongs to which image we can include text like "(Clockwise from upper left)" or "sea ice retreat endangers polar bears (top), higher temperatures make bush fires more likely (bottom left)..."
- The gallery looks really ugly on my side because of the grey space between the captions, and the grey space left/right of the WP:gallery. For me, that grey left/right takes up 45% of screen space. On some smaller screens, the fifth image drops to a second line, also causing around 40% of grey space. As such, the two galleries act as barriers between different parts of the text. That in combination with the conservative language on WP:GALLERY makes me feel really strongly about improving this aspect of the article.
- Before we continue the discussion, it may be nice to gauge the opinions of the wider group: @EMsmile, Clayoquot, Dtetta, and Chidgk1:. Femke (talk) 07:52, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
(I'm frankly not following the distinction among galleries, collages and multiple images, but...) In terms of content, I think the more recent set of (4) pics is an improvement. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:14, 29 May 2022 (UTC)- Basically the question: do we want 5 images horizontally with individual captions (Efbrazil preference), or 2x2 (or 1/2) collage with a common caption? (my preference) Femke (talk) 17:39, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
- I find the 2x2 image collages of Femke a great idea and would prefer them over the horizontal "galleries". I can't really say why but somehow the gallery style with the long captions for each image seem old-fashioned whereas the image collage seem more modern. Also, they nicely tie a range of issues together which are all related and all caused by the 1 deg warming even if they manifests themselves in different ways - often through the water cycle. Perhaps Femke's new approach will help the readers to understand that things fit together. EMsmile (talk) 18:25, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
- At the same time, I would not build up the impacts section too much with too many images (the current number is fine, I guess, but not more; perhaps less?) because I feel that at some point we need to find the jump-off to the sub-article on effects of climate change (which we need to also build up to GA and perhaps FA eventually). It'll be hard to decide exactly what the weighting should be, i.e. how much space the impacts can receive in a climate change overarching Wikipedia article. On the one hand: "a lot" (the whole of the IPCC AR 6 WG II report is about impacts & adaptation, so one third or one sixth of the overall content of the AR6 reports? But we do have a sub-article so people can read more about it at effects of climate change. Maybe we need to (soon) turn our attention to the very important three sub-articles: effects of climate change, climate change adaptation, climate change mitigation and be ambitious about them as well. EMsmile (talk) 18:25, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry, I thought we were talking about the lead images, where I think the 2x2 arrangement is best. However, in the Impacts section, I favor the wide "gallery" display to convey the wide-ranging impacts. I don't have a strong opinion on this formal question, as long as the range of substantive content is communicated. (I've struck out my previous comment.) —RCraig09 (talk) 19:25, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
- At the same time, I would not build up the impacts section too much with too many images (the current number is fine, I guess, but not more; perhaps less?) because I feel that at some point we need to find the jump-off to the sub-article on effects of climate change (which we need to also build up to GA and perhaps FA eventually). It'll be hard to decide exactly what the weighting should be, i.e. how much space the impacts can receive in a climate change overarching Wikipedia article. On the one hand: "a lot" (the whole of the IPCC AR 6 WG II report is about impacts & adaptation, so one third or one sixth of the overall content of the AR6 reports? But we do have a sub-article so people can read more about it at effects of climate change. Maybe we need to (soon) turn our attention to the very important three sub-articles: effects of climate change, climate change adaptation, climate change mitigation and be ambitious about them as well. EMsmile (talk) 18:25, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
- I find the 2x2 image collages of Femke a great idea and would prefer them over the horizontal "galleries". I can't really say why but somehow the gallery style with the long captions for each image seem old-fashioned whereas the image collage seem more modern. Also, they nicely tie a range of issues together which are all related and all caused by the 1 deg warming even if they manifests themselves in different ways - often through the water cycle. Perhaps Femke's new approach will help the readers to understand that things fit together. EMsmile (talk) 18:25, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
- Basically the question: do we want 5 images horizontally with individual captions (Efbrazil preference), or 2x2 (or 1/2) collage with a common caption? (my preference) Femke (talk) 17:39, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
- The uncropped image is still somewhat square, I'm really looking for those panorama images to be able to get away with displaying three images. Good suggestion about flooding (even if it may become a bit redundant wrt the human photos, for which I want to make a similar suggestion later). I found a nice tree submerged. Also included a second animal, as we're a second example (next to the lede's coral reef) of climate change under the ocean. Chelonia mydas have a temperature-dependent sex determination: some hatches are now 99% female. Femke (talk) 19:31, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
I have a slight preference for the current gallery. I think the idea of trying to regularly focus on what are the best graphics and text is good, so for me this is a useful conversation to be having. My first impression with the 2x2 proposal is that it’s more challenging to create good text when you are distilling down the caption into one long sentence. And I think a strength of the current gallery generally is that it has a good text-picture connection for each of the impacts being described. The main issues I see with it is that the permafrost description and accompanying picture don’t seem to work particularly well together. Same with the pest propagation picture - I don’t think beetle infestation when I look at that picture. With the 2 x 2 gallery it’s seems more challenging to capture these same ideas in fewer words, and it’s also harder to go back and forth between the picture and the text that’s trying to describe the impacts. When I look at the sea turtle picture, for instance, it doesn’t conjure up an image of a climate impact, and it’s more work to find the relevant text in the caption than it is in the current gallery, where there’s a clear 1 to 1 relationship between the text and the picture. Dosen’t mean the 2x2 format couldn’t work, but I think it’s harder to do well. Dtetta (talk) 21:41, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
- The second 2x2 proposal, with a single caption for everything, is my favourite option so far. The new flood picture and turtle picture are clear and not emotionally overwhelming. Ideally I'd rather not have a polar bear picture at all. It's been known for over a decade that "standard polar bear images have a limited effect, because even when they raise awareness and elicit emotion they tend to only appeal to people who are wildlife lovers already, with little or no impact outside of this group."[9] Any picture of a starving mammal will also generate an avoidance response for many people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clayoquot (talk • contribs)
- Yes remove polar bear - maybe Ringed seal could replace it. Er was there some other question/proposal awaiting opinions? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:03, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
- I think that's a really interesting point, Clayoquot. We currently only have (boring) graphs in our sections about reducing emissions and adaptation. It would be good if we can balance that out, and not only show how bad climate change it. We have 10 photos in total, which is rather ridiculous. Eight would still be quite a lot, but definitely a step towards balance. Femke (talk) 19:29, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
- I'd love to have more photos that show the co-benefits of clean energy. Another thought for the Impact section is if we're going to include animal photos, we could use photos of species that people recognize as being economically important. Salmon, mosquitoes, that kind of thing. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:25, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
Intermezzo about lead images
- Too many images in lead is causing mobile readers to scroll many times before any real info - most readers will only scroll 1 time....thus most will only read the first paragraph. This can change if images are removed. data.Moxy- 11:55, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
- I just tested on the wikipedia mobile app and the browser and in neither case was that true as far as I can tell. Images only appear after paragraphs of text and aren't out of proportion, although the first 2 images are stacked together. We could move the image "Change in average surface air temperature" to the end of the lead from the beginning if that would help address the concern. Efbrazil (talk) 21:05, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
Back to impacts section
Third proposal. Note that User:Castncoot has added a second picture about the California drought (there is a less clear one in the lead of the article). I've incorporated it here, but it may instead be better placed in the lede. Very cool picture with the boats, but I do not believe it's clear from context what it's about.
I've added bumblebees in. I did not want to put in an animal that is mostly associated with humans (that what the second set of photos is about. I think bumblebees / pollinator is a problem most people are familiar with. Climate change is only one of the pressures on these animals, and as far as I know the jury is still out what percentage cliamte change contributes to their loss (I believe pesticides are considered more important.. )
As a compromise to Efbrazil and others who prefer a gallary for its space, I've bulleted some commentary about the images, so that they become more distinct and easier to follow. What do you guys think? Femke (talk) 20:00, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you for this discussion, Femke. The most immediate dichotomous issue with drought is that there are two very different immediate issues at hand. As you have mentioned, the extremely pertinent problem of catastrophic wildfire emerges; but even more acutely, there is simply less water all around, for potable purposes, for bathing, and for the environment. The best way in my humble opinion to demonstrate that water deficit illustratively is to include a combination of low water flows juxtaposed with the cracked, desiccated earth that this exposes—and hence the image I posted. I think it is very reasonable to include images that demonstrate both aforementioned sides of that drought coin. Castncoot (talk) 01:46, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
- I like it. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:33, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
There's only one lonely "explanatory note"?
How about we move the one lonely "explanatory note" into the main text and then do away with the section that is called "explanatory notes"? I've also just removed the section heading called "notes" as I felt it was superfluous. Many articles just have references and sources, I think that works quite fine. EMsmile (talk) 18:31, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
- Femke Haven't scientists agreed whether to use air or ground temperature by now do you know (e.g. in AR6)? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:19, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
- I restarted the explanatory notes when we started simplifying the article in terms of readability. That process isn't quite finished, so maybe there will be more.
- And no, don't think so Chidgk1, because this is about historical measurements, there continue to be advantages and disadvantages to how it is reported. I'm okay with deleting it, as instrumental temperature record should cover this too. Femke (talk) 19:38, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
- I've moved the sentence now to instrumental temperature record (perhaps User:RCraig09 can help to embed it better there?). I've taken out the explanatory notes section. The intention might be noble but I think it'll make it feel more "academic" if we now started to add several explanatory notes. Better to have them in the main text if needed. I can't imagine that many featured articles in Wikipedia use many footnotes (at least I haven't come across it yet). EMsmile (talk) 08:51, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
- I agree that the distinction between temperature measurement methods causes too small a difference to warrant explicit discussion in this high-level article. EMsmile's recent addition to Instrumental temperature record seems appropriate, based on my initial, brief reading of "near surface air temperatures" (AR6). The apparently small difference in resulting measurements, and whether those measurement differences affect any ultimate scientific conclusions, might be appropriate content there. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:21, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
- I've moved the sentence now to instrumental temperature record (perhaps User:RCraig09 can help to embed it better there?). I've taken out the explanatory notes section. The intention might be noble but I think it'll make it feel more "academic" if we now started to add several explanatory notes. Better to have them in the main text if needed. I can't imagine that many featured articles in Wikipedia use many footnotes (at least I haven't come across it yet). EMsmile (talk) 08:51, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
- Femke Haven't scientists agreed whether to use air or ground temperature by now do you know (e.g. in AR6)? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:19, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
Inspiring pictures for "Reducing and recapturing emissions" section?
Following on from above discussion but I started new talk section as title above is about a different article section.
I know we can only have a few photos but currently there are none. As this article is so popular I think they need to be excellent in some way.
Any great pics of, for example: agriculture, cycling, wind and solar(most are boring - maybe need sexy installer on roof or turbine!), carbon in sea (whale in marine protected area to surprise readers?)?
If there are several great ones they could perhaps be swapped in and out every few months.
Any ideas?