Talk:Climate change

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faq page Frequently asked questions To view an answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question. To view references used by an answer, you must also click the [show] for references at the bottom of the FAQ. Q1: Is there really a scientific consensus on climate change? A1: Yes. The IPCC findings of recent warming as a result of human influence are explicitly recognized as the "consensus" scientific view by the science academies of all the major industrialized countries. No scientific body of national or international standing presently rejects the basic findings of human influence on recent climate. This scientific consensus is supported by over 99% of publishing climate scientists.[1] See also: Scientific consensus on climate change Q2: How can we say climate change is real when it's been so cold in such-and-such a place? A2: This is why it is termed "global warming", not "(such-and-such a place) warming". Even then, what rises is the average temperature over time – that is, the temperature will fluctuate up and down within the overall rising trend. To give an idea of the relevant time scales, the standard averaging period specified by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) is 30 years. Accordingly, the WMO defines climate change as "a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer)."[2] Q3: Can't the increase of CO2 be from natural sources, like volcanoes or the oceans? A3: While these claims are popular among global warming skeptics,[3][4] including academically trained ones,[5][6] they are incorrect. This is known from any of several perspectives: Current human emissions of CO2 are at least 100 times larger than volcanic emissions. Measurements of CO2 levels over the past 50 years do not show any significant rises after eruptions.[7] This is easily seen in a graph of CO2 concentrations over the past 50 years: the strongest eruption during the period, that of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, produced no increase in the trend. Isotopic analysis of atmospheric carbon dioxide shows the observed change in the ratio of carbon isotopes reflects the isotopic ratios in fossil fuels.[8] Atmospheric oxygen content is decreasing at a rate that agrees with the amount of oxygen being used to burn fossil fuels.[9] If the oceans were giving up some of their carbon dioxide, their carbon dioxide concentration would have to decrease. But instead we are measuring an increase in the oceans' carbon dioxide concentration, resulting in the oceans becoming more acidic (or in other words, less basic).[10] Q4: I think the article is missing some things, or has some things wrong. Can I change it? A4: Yes. Keep in mind that your points need to be based on documented evidence from the peer-reviewed literature, or other information that meets standards of verifiability, reliability, and no original research. If you do not have such evidence, more experienced editors may be able to help you find it (or confirm that such evidence does not exist). You are welcome to make such queries on the article's talk page but please keep in mind that the talk page is for discussing improvements to the article, not discussing the topic. There are many forums that welcome general discussions of global warming, but the article talk page is not such a forum. Q5: Why haven't the graphs been updated? A5: Two reasons: There are many images used in the articles related to global warming, and there are many reasons why they may not be updated with the latest data. Some of the figures, like the Global Warming Map, are static, meaning that they are intended to show a particular phenomenon and are not meant to be updated frequently or at all. Others, like the Instrumental Temperature Record and Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent Anomalies, use yearly data and thus are updated once per year—usually in mid- to late-January, depending upon when the data is publicly released, and when a volunteer creates the image. Still others, like Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide, use monthly data. These are updated semi-regularly. However, just because an image is 6 months or a year old does not mean it is useless. Robert A. Heinlein is credited with saying, "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get", meaning that climate is defined as a long-term average of weather, usually about 30 years. This length was chosen to eliminate the year-to-year variations.[11] Thus, in terms of climate change, any given year's data is of little import. Q6: Isn't climate change "just a theory"? A6: People who say this are abusing the word "theory" by conflating its common meaning with its scientific meaning. In common usage, "theory" can mean a hunch or guess, but a scientific theory, roughly speaking, means a coherent set of explanations that is compatible with observations and that allows predictions to be made. That the temperature is rising is an observation. An explanation for this (also known as a hypothesis) is that the warming is primarily driven by greenhouse gases (such as CO2 and methane) released into the atmosphere by human activity. Scientific models have been built that predict the rise in temperature and these predictions have matched observations. When scientists gain confidence in a hypothesis because it matches observation and has survived intense scrutiny, the hypothesis may be called a "theory". Strictly speaking, scientific theories are never proven, but the degree of confidence in a theory can be discussed. The scientific models now suggest that it is "extremely likely" (>95%) to "virtually certain" (>99%) that the increases in temperature have been caused by human activity as discussed in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Global warming via greenhouse gases by human activity is a theory (in the scientific sense), but it is most definitely not just a hunch or guess. Q7: Does methane cause more warming than CO2? A7: It's true that methane is more potent molecule for molecule. But there's far less of it in the atmosphere, so the total effect is smaller. The atmospheric lifetime of methane (about 10 years) is a lot shorter than that of CO2 (hundreds to thousands of years), so when methane emissions are reduced the concentration in the atmosphere soon falls, whereas CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere over long periods. For details see the greenhouse gas and global warming potential articles. See also: Clathrate gun hypothesis and Arctic methane release Q8: How can you say there's a consensus when lists of "skeptical scientists" have been compiled? A8: Consensus is not the same as unanimity, the latter of which is impractical for large groups. Over 99% of publishing climate scientists agree on anthropogenic climate change.[1] This is an extremely high percentage well past any reasonable threshold for consensus. Any list of "skeptical scientists" would be dwarfed by a comparably compiled list of scientists accepting anthropogenic climate change. Q9: Did climate change end in 1998? A9: One of the strongest El Niño events in the instrumental record occurred during late 1997 through 1998, causing a spike in global temperature for 1998. Through the mid-late 2000s this abnormally warm year could be chosen as the starting point for comparisons with later years in order to produce a cooling trend; choosing any other year in the 20th century produced a warming trend. This no longer holds since the mean global temperatures in 2005, 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2016 have all been warmer than 1998.[12] More importantly, scientists do not define a "trend" by looking at the difference between two given years. Instead they use methods such as linear regression that take into account all the values in a series of data. The World Meteorological Organisation specifies 30 years as the standard averaging period for climate statistics so that year-to-year fluctuations are averaged out;[2] thus, 10 years isn't long enough to detect a climate trend. Q10: Wasn't Greenland much warmer during the period of Norse settlement? A10: Some people assume this because of the island's name. In fact the Saga of Erik the Red tells us Erik named the new colony Greenland because "men will desire much the more to go there if the land has a good name."[13] Advertising hype was alive and well in 985 AD. While much of Greenland was and remains under a large ice sheet, the areas of Greenland that were settled by the Norse were coastal areas with fjords that, to this day, remain quite green. You can see the following images for reference: A map of the Eastern Settlement A satellite image of that area today A map of the Western Settlement A satellite image of that area today A zoom in on the general area where the Brattahlíð (Erik the Red's farm) and Garðar farms were located Q11: Are the IPCC reports prepared by biased UN scientists? A11: The IPCC reports are not produced by "UN scientists". The IPCC does not employ the scientists who generate the reports, and it has no control over them. The scientists are internationally recognized experts, most with a long history of successful research in the field. They are employed by various organizations including scientific research institutes, agencies like NASA and NOAA, and universities. They receive no extra pay for their participation in the IPCC process, which is considered a normal part of their academic duties. Q12: Hasn't global sea ice increased over the last 30 years? A12: Measurements show that it has not.[14] Claims that global sea ice amounts have stayed the same or increased are a result of cherry picking two data points to compare, while ignoring the real (strongly statistically significant) downward trend in measurements of global sea ice amounts. Arctic sea ice cover is declining strongly; Antarctic sea ice cover has had some much smaller increases, though it may or may not be thinning, and the Southern Ocean is warming. The net global ice-cover trend is clearly downwards. See also: Arctic sea ice decline See also: Antarctic sea ice § Recent trends and climate change Q13: Weren't scientists telling us in the 1970s that the Earth was cooling instead of warming? A13: They weren't – see the article on global cooling. An article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has reviewed the scientific literature at that time and found that even during the 1970s the prevailing scientific concern was over warming.[15] The common misperception that cooling was the main concern during the 1970s arose from a few studies that were sensationalized in the popular press, such as a short nine-paragraph article that appeared in Newsweek in 1975.[16] (Newsweek eventually apologized for having misrepresented the state of the science in the 1970s.)[17] The author of that article has repudiated the idea that it should be used to deny global warming.[18] Q14: Doesn't water vapour cause 98% of the greenhouse effect? A14: Water vapour is indeed a major greenhouse gas, contributing about 36% to 70% (not 98%) of the total greenhouse effect. But water vapour has a very short atmospheric lifetime (about 10 days), compared with decades to centuries for greenhouse gases like CO2 or nitrous oxide. As a result it is very nearly in a dynamic equilibrium in the atmosphere, which globally maintains a nearly constant relative humidity. In simpler terms, any excess water vapour is removed by rainfall, and any deficit of water vapour is replenished by evaporation from the Earth's surface, which literally has oceans of water. Thus water vapour cannot act as a driver of climate change. Rising temperatures caused by the long-lived greenhouse gases will however allow the atmosphere to hold more vapour. This will lead to an increase in the absolute amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. Since water vapour is itself a greenhouse gas, this is an example of a positive feedback. Thus, whereas water vapour is not a driver of climate change, it amplifies existing trends. See also: Greenhouse gas and Greenhouse effect Q15: Is the fact that other solar system bodies are warming evidence for a common cause (i.e. the sun)? A15: While some solar system bodies show evidence of local or global climate change, there is no evidence for a common cause of warming. A 2007 National Geographic article described the views of Khabibullo Abdusamatov, who claims that the sun is responsible for global warming on both Earth and Mars.[19] Abdussamatov's views have no support in the scientific community, as the second page of the National Geographic article makes clear: "'His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion,' said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University. [...] Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that 'the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations.'"[20] There is no reliable source claiming that Jupiter is warming. However, observations of the Red Spot Jr. storm suggest Jupiter could be in a period of global climate change.[21][22] This is hypothesized to be part of an approximately 70 year global climate cycle, characterized by the relatively rapid forming and subsequent slow erosion and merging of cyclonic and anticyclonic vortices that help transfer heat between Jupiter's poles and equator. The cycle works like this: As the vortices erode, heat exchange is reduced; this makes the poles cool down and the equatorial region heat up; the resulting temperature difference destabilizes the atmosphere, leading to the creation of new vortices.[23][24] Pluto has an extremely elliptical orbit with a period of about 248 years. Data are sparse, but two data points from 1988 and 2002 indirectly suggest that Pluto warmed between those two dates.[25] Pluto's temperature is heavily influenced by its elliptical orbit – it was closest to the sun in 1989 and has slowly receded since. Because of thermal inertia, it is expected to warm for a while after it passes perihelion (similar to how a sunny day's warmest temperatures happen during the afternoon instead of right at noon). No other mechanism has so far been seriously suggested. Here is a reasonable summary, and this paper discusses how the thermal inertia is provided by sublimation and evaporation of parts of Pluto's atmosphere. A more popular account is here and in Wikipedia's own article. See also: Climate of Mars and Extraterrestrial atmosphere Q16: Do scientists support climate change just to get more money? A16: No, Scientists participate in international organizations like the IPCC as part of their normal academic duties. They do not receive any extra compensation beyond possibly for direct expenses. Scientific grants do not usually award any money to a scientist personally, only towards the cost of his or her scientific work. There is not a shortage of useful things that scientists could study if they were not studying global warming. Understanding our climate system better brings benefits independent of global warming. For instance, more accurate weather predictions save a lot of money (on the order of billions of dollars a year), and everyone from insurance agents to farmers wants climate data.[26][27] Scientists could get paid to study climate even if global warming did not exist. Q17: Doesn't the climate vary even without human activity? A17: It does, but the fact that natural variation occurs does not mean that human-induced change cannot also occur. Climate scientists have extensively studied natural causes of climate change (such as orbital changes, volcanism, and solar variation) and have ruled them out as an explanation for the current temperature increase. Human activity is the cause at the 95 to 99 percent confidence level (see the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report for details). The high level of certainty in this is important to keep in mind to spot mention of natural variation functioning as a distraction. Q18: Should we include the view that climate change will lead to planetary doom or catastrophe? A18: This page is about the science of climate change. It doesn't talk about planetary doom or catastrophe. For a technical explanation, see catastrophic climate change, and for paleoclimatic examples see PETM and great dying. Q19: Is an increase in global temperature of, say, 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) important? A19: Though it may not sound like much, a global temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) is huge in climate terms. For example, the sea level rise it would produce would flood coastal cities around the world, which include most large cities. Earth's climate has varied significantly over geological ages. The question of an "optimal temperature" makes no sense without a clear optimality criterion. Over geological time spans, ecosystems adapt to climate variations. But global climate variations during the development of human civilization (i.e. the past 12,000 years) have been remarkably small. Human civilization is highly adapted to the current stable climate. Agricultural production depends on the proper combination of soil, climate, methods, and seeds. Most large cities are located on the coast, and any significant change in sea level would strongly affect them. Migration of humans and ecosystems is limited by political borders and existing land use. In short, the main problem is not the higher absolute temperature but the massive and unprecedentedly fast change in climate and the related effects on human societies. The IPCC AR6 WG2 report has a detailed discussion of the effects of rapid climate change. Q20: Why are certain proposals to change the article discarded, deleted, or ignored? Who is/was Scibaby? A20: Scibaby is/was a long term abusive sock-master (or coordinated group of sock masters) who has created 1,027 confirmed sock puppets, another 167 suspected socks, and probably many untagged or unrecognized ones. This page lists some recent creations. His modus operandi has changed over time, but includes proposing reasonably worded additions on the talk page that only on close examination turn out to be irrelevant, misinterpreted, or give undue weight to certain aspects. Scibaby is banned, and Scibaby socks are blocked as soon as they are identified. Some editors silently revert his additions, per WP:DENY, while others still assume good faith even for likely socks and engage them. Q21: What about this really interesting recent peer-reviewed paper I read or read about, that says...? A21: There are hundreds of peer-reviewed papers published every month in respected scientific journals such as Geophysical Research Letters, the Journal of Climate, and others. We can't include all of them, but the article does include references to individual papers where there is consensus that they best represent the state of the relevant science. This is in accordance with the "due weight" principle (WP:WEIGHT) of the Neutral point of view policy and the "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" principle (WP:IINFO) of the What Wikipedia is not policy. Q22: Why does the article define "climate change" as a recent phenomenon? Hasn't the planet warmed and cooled before? A22: Yes, the planet has warmed and cooled before. However, the term "climate change" without further qualification is widely understood to refer to the recent episode and often explicitly connected with the greenhouse effect. Per WP:COMMONNAME, we use the term in this most common meaning. The article Climate variability and change deals with the more general concept. Q23: Did the CERN CLOUD experiment prove that climate change is caused not by human activity but by cosmic rays? A23: No. For cosmic rays to be causing global warming, all of the following would have to be true, whereas only the italicized one was tested in the 2011 experiment:[28] Solar magnetic field must be getting stronger The number of cosmic rays reaching Earth must be dropping Cosmic rays must successfully seed clouds, which requires: Cosmic rays must trigger aerosol (liquid droplet) formation, These newly-formed aerosols must grow sufficiently through condensation to form cloud-condensation nuclei (CCN), The CCN must lead to increased cloud formation, and Cloud cover on Earth must be declining. Perhaps the study's lead author, Jasper Kirkby, put it best: "...it [the experiment] actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step."[29] Q24: I read that something can't fix climate change. Is this true? A24: Yes, this is true for all plausible single things including: "electric cars", "planting trees", "low-carbon technology", "renewable energy", "Australia", "capitalism", "the doom & gloom approach", "a Ph.D. in thermodynamics". Note that it is problematic to use the word "fix" regarding climate change, as returning the climate to its pre-industrial state currently appears to be feasible only over a timeframe of thousands of years. Current efforts are instead aimed at mitigating (meaning limiting) climate change. Mitigation is strived for through the combination of many different things. See Climate change mitigation for details. References ^ a b Powell, James (20 November 2019). "Scientists Reach 100% Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming". Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. 37 (4): 183–184. doi:10.1177/0270467619886266. S2CID 213454806. Retrieved 15 November 2020. ^ a b "Commission for Climatology Frequently Asked Questions". World Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 5 May 2020. Retrieved 14 July 2020. ^ Harris, Tom. "Scientists who work in the fields liberal arts graduate Al Gore wanders through contradict his theories about man-induced climate change". National Post. Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 11 January 2009 – via Solid Waste & Recycling. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 4 February 2012 suggested (help) ^ Arriola, Benj. "5 Good Arguments Why GlobalWarming is NOT due to Man-made Carbon Dioxide". Global Warming Awareness Blog. Retrieved 11 January 2009. ^ Ahlbeck, Jarl. "Increase of the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration due to Ocean Warming". Retrieved 11 January 2009. ^ Kirby, Simon (11 April 2007). "Top scientist debunks global warming". Herald Sun. Retrieved 11 January 2009. ^ Brahic, Catherine (16 May 2007). "Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter". New Scientist. Retrieved 11 January 2009. ^ "More Notes on Global Warming". Physics Today. May 2005. Retrieved 10 September 2007. ^ Battle, M.; et al. (2000). "Global Carbon Sinks and Their Variability Inferred from Atmospheric O2 and d13C". Science. 287 (5462): 2467–2470. doi:10.1126/science.287.5462.2467. ^ The Royal Society (2005). "Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide". Retrieved 9 May 2012. ^ "Met Office: Climate averages". Met Office. Archived from the original on 24 February 2009. Retrieved 23 January 2009. ^ Climate Central (18 January 2017). "2016 Was the Hottest Year on Record". Climate Central. Retrieved 1 February 2017. ^ The Saga of Erik the Red, 1880, English translation by J. Sephton, from the original Eiríks saga rauða. ^ "Cold Hard Facts". Tamino. 8 January 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2009.[dead link] ^ Peterson, T. C.; et al. (2008). "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 89 (9): 1325. Bibcode:2008BAMS...89.1325P. doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1. ^ Gwynne, Peter (28 April 1975). "The Cooling World". Newsweek. p. 64. ^ Verger, Rob (23 May 2014). "Newsweek Rewind: Debunking Global Cooling". Newsweek. ^ Gwynne, Peter (21 May 2014). "My 1975 'Cooling World' Story Doesn't Make Today's Climate Scientists Wrong". insidescience.org. ^ Ravilious, Kate (28 February 2007). "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2008. ^ Ravilious, Kate (28 February 2007). "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says (page 2)". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2008. ^ Marcus, Philip; Shetty, Sushil; Asay-Davis, Xylar (November 2006). Velocities and Temperatures of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and the New Red Oval and Implications for Global Climate Change. American Physical Society. Retrieved 9 May 2007. ^ Goudarzi, Sara (4 May 2006). "New Storm on Jupiter Hints at Climate Change". Space.com. Retrieved 9 May 2007. ^ Philip, Marcus S. (22 April 2004). "Prediction of a global climate change on Jupiter" (PDF). Nature. 428 (6985): 828–831. Retrieved 9 May 2007. ^ Yang, Sarah (21 April 2004). "Researcher predicts global climate change on Jupiter as giant planet's spots disappear". University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 9 May 2007. ^ Elliot, J. L.; et al. (10 July 2003). "The recent expansion of Pluto's atmosphere". Nature (424): 165–168. doi:10.1038/nature01762.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ^ Foerster, Jim. "What's The Difference Between Private Weather Companies And The National Weather Service?". Forbes. ^ Eilts, Mike (27 November 2018). "The Role of Weather—and Weather Forecasting—in Agriculture". DTN. ^ "What do the CERN experiments tell us about global warming?". Skeptical Science. 2 September 2011. ^ Brumfiel, Geoff (23 August 2011). "Cloud Formation May Be Linked to Cosmic Rays". Scientific American.

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/Terminology section /General discussion

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This is the comparison between the section as it is now (and as it was a little earlier)

The WHO calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. Extreme weather leads to injury and loss of life, and crop failures to malnutrition. Various infectious diseases are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate, such as dengue fever and malaria. Young children are the most vulnerable to food shortages. Both children and older people are vulnerable to extreme heat. The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change would cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year. They assessed deaths from heat exposure in elderly people, increases in diarrhea, malaria, dengue, coastal flooding, and childhood malnutrition. Reductions in food availability and quality alone could lead up to 530,000 deaths between 2010 and 2050. By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population may face climate conditions that are life-threatening due to combined effects of extreme heat and humidity.

Climate change is affecting food security. It has caused reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans between 1981 and 2010. Future warming could further reduce global yields of major crops. Crop production will probably be negatively affected in low-latitude countries, while effects at northern latitudes may be positive or negative. Up to an additional 183 million people worldwide, particularly those with lower incomes, are at risk of hunger as a consequence of these impacts. Climate change also impacts fish populations. Globally, less will be available to be fished. Regions dependent on glacier water, regions that are already dry, and small islands have a higher risk of water stress due to climate change

and the version I rewrote, and which was just reverted.

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. They estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change could cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year. They assessed factors such as coastal flooding, deaths from heat exposure in elderly people, increased transmission of pathogens behind infectious diseases such as malaria, diarrhea and dengue fever and childhood malnutrition. In the early 21st century, less than a third of the global population lives in areas where combinations of extreme heat and humidity that can kill people (particularly children and the elderly) occasionally occur, such as during the 2003 European heatwave. By 2100, these areas will expand to cover 50% to 75% of the population.

Climate change is affecting food security. Global fishery yields will decline as every degree of warming reduces total fish biomass. By 2050, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10%, as less animal feed will be available. Global yields of staple crops have also been negatively affected by climate change, and the impacts will become worse as the warming increases, in spite of the CO2 fertilization effect. The risk of years with crop failures in multiple areas would also increase significantly even under low emissions. By 2050, between 8 and 80 million extra people would be at risk of hunger due to climate change, compared to its absence. However, total crop yields to date have been increasing due to improved farming practices and agricultural expansion. Under low and intermediate emissions, these developments are expected to continue to improve food security in most hunger-prone regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Food security is unlikely to improve under high emissions. Between 2010 and 2050, around 530,000 deaths could be caused by increases in malnutrition under high emissions. This mortality would be around 70% lower under low emissions.

Climate change would not affect agricultural land equally. Small islands and regions that are already dry or dependent on glacier water have a higher risk of agricultural water stress due to climate change. Impacts on crop production may be positive at northern latitudes, but are likely to be negative in low-latitude countries. Some places may stop being able to support agriculture and livestock rearing outright: by 2100, areas which currently account for 5% agricultural production are likely to stop being suitable under low emissions, while under high emissions, they would account for 31%. For livestock, 8% and 34% would become unsuitable. Those projections do not account for potential shifts of agriculture to other areas. Worldwide decreases in land suitable for agriculture would be less pronounced, but they are still expected, particularly after 2100.

A quick summary of the differences.

• Removed the four sentences between "the greatest threat to global health" and "250,000 additional deaths per year" because by and large, they said the same thing as the "they assessed" sentence.

• Added the present-day baseline for "climate conditions that are life-threatening" because that statistic can be read very differently in the absence of that information. Following that, I felt I had to expand on the idea further. Perhaps some of that explanation can be cut, but I do not see how we can avoid using the baseline.

• My sentence on fisheries actually has the same wordcount as the two sentences in the current article, and I believe it is a more accurate and encyclopaedic phrasing.

• Added a mention of AR6 livestock projections, since not mentioning impacts on livestock at all is untenable.

• Phrasing on reduced crop yields is fairly similar and about the same size. The greatest difference is the mention of CO₂ fertilization effect and that it doesn't overcome negative effects, which I consider to be an important point.

• Mentioned the increase of compound (multi-breadbasket) crop failures, which is clearly important.

• "Up to 183 million" figure, cited to the 2019 IPCC special report, was undated, and I decided AR6 year 2050 figure was superior.

• Increase in total global yields to date is a fact. Anyone who doubts can check Our World in Data, or refer to the studies which mention that yield declines have been statistically extracted from the increasing trend. It's also practically necessary context for the next part.

• The same World Bank report which is cited in the article for the "130 million in poverty by 2030" figure also has a graphic on page 4 which appears to unequivocally state exactly what I wrote in that section.

• Springmann study was awfully mis-cited earlier: until recently, this Featured Article claimed it estimated annual mortality of 530,000 rather than over 40 years, which does not appear supported by its text in any way. I further clarified that "Adoption of climate-stabilisation pathways" phrase in that paper seems to make it clear the 530,000 figure was for RCP 8.5 or thereabouts.

• The additional sentences about agricultural land potentially becoming unsuitable are admittedly awkwardly phrased now that I look at it. I also do not know how we can justify omitting those projections outright.

So, what are the other editors' opinions about this section? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 22:39, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I made some changes:

1) Removed 530,000 figure and Up to 183 million parts, changed those with AR6 (8-80 million by 2050).

2) Re-worded extremely hot and uninheritable climate parts, so the wording is less close to the wording used by the source.

I'm also ok with expanding the explanation for the heat and humidity part, using 2003 European heatwave as an example. Bogazicili (talk) 12:08, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your efforts. However, I do not fully agree with either change. To be fair, there is a lot of complexity with underlying research.

1) I agree with removing the AR5 "183 million" part, but not the 530,000 figure. For one thing, it is actually cited in AR6 as well (subsection "7.3.1.9.2 Climate Change, Carbon Dioxide, Diets, and Health") Secondly, it actually looks at the subject completely differently. It suggests that nearly all of those deaths would be caused not by hunger, but lack of vitamins and other micronutrients due to reduced availability of fruits and vegetables. This is very different from most model projections, which only look at the four staple crops, and this is likely the reason the IPCC found it worth citing.

Secondly, I'll have to admit to an embarrassing error. The earlier description of the study in this article, which I thought was egregiously wrong

Over 500,000 more adult deaths are projected yearly by 2050 due to reductions in food availability and quality.

Was actually more accurate than what I replaced it with. The study is paywalled and has a remarkably ambiguous abstract. It never uses words like "yearly" or "annually", and this sentence

The model projects that by 2050, climate change will lead to per-person reductions of 3·2% (SD 0·4%) in global food availability, 4·0% (0·7%) in fruit and vegetable consumption, and 0·7% (0·1%) in red meat consumption. These changes will be associated with 529 000 climate-related deaths worldwide (95% CI 314 000–736 000), representing a 28% (95% CI 26–33) reduction in the number of deaths that would be avoided because of changes in dietary and weight-related risk factors between 2010 and 2050.

Convinced me that the paper must be talking about the entire 2010-2050 period. It wasn't until I saw AR6 cite it as "an additional 529,000 deaths a year by 2050" that I realized this was wrong, and the original was more accurate.

However, focusing on the 530,000 figure might be missing the larger point - which is that this study still expects the overall number of deaths from hunger to go down, substantially. If 529,000 deaths reduces the number of lives saved by 28%, then that number is around 2 million, and the net figure is a decrease of ~1.5 million. The full text says as much:

Climate change reduced the number of avoided deaths

It also confirms that this is under RCP8.5: for RCP2.6, it is around 150,000, and for RCP4.5, some 350,000-400,000 depending on the SSP. This largely confirms the point I tried to make when citing year 2014 World Bank report in the version which was reverted.

So, I am not sure what would be the best way to cite this paper in the article, but it's clear that we cannot ignore it outright.

2) The main issue I highlighted here was that "live...in uninhabitable climates" is an obvious contradiction - if people can live in a place, it is, by definition, not uninhabitable. I looked at the source study (the one which first made this claim that was subsequently cited by our reference) again, and I confirmed that it never says "uninhabitable".

What it does say is "1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 y" in the abstract, and similar phrases later in the text.

The study is often interpreted as if it suggests that all of those people would not actually live in those climates and migrate elsewere, but it does not actually explicitly say that at any point. If anything, it repeatedly suggests the opposite.

Populations will not simply track the shifting climate, as adaptation in situ may address some of the challenges, and many other factors affect decisions to migrate.

and

As the potentially most affected regions are among the poorest in the world, where adaptive capacity is low, enhancing human development in those areas should be a priority alongside climate mitigation.

and

Obviously, our hypothetical redistribution calculations cannot be interpreted in terms of expected migration.

It's probably a good idea to read the entire paper before considering how to handle it. Perhaps, we should also cite it directly, instead, or at least in addition to, the review article we are currently citing. I think one thing is clear - the current sentence in the article

With worst-case climate change, models project that almost one-third of humanity might live in Sahara-like uninhabitable and extremely hot climates - does not really address the issues raised.

My suggestions are:

• Drop both "live" and "uninhabitable". Something like "almost one-third of humanity might end up in climates as hot as the Sahara Desert" is more accurate to the paper and should leave no room for misunderstandings. After that, we can attach "and those climates are unlikely to support permanent populations" or something like that to the end of that sentence.
• Specify the timeline. It feels incredible, but the article just says this, but does not actually note by when. In the original paper, this projection is for 2070. It seems like the review dropped that part, however.
• Potentially specify the full range. The review only cites the worst case, but the original paper says "1 to 3 billion people" (i.e. RCP 2.6 to RCP 8.5) and the supporting information clarifies that it'll be around 2 billion under RCP 4.5 Yes, it will add a few words, but it should be worth it.

InformationToKnowledge (talk) 13:56, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I am sorry to say this, but way you cited AR6 for the year 2050 figure is not accurate either.

Your phrase: Under a high emission scenario, climate change is expected to place an extra 8 to 80 million people at risk of hunger by 2050.

AR6: Climate change impacts could increase the global number of people at risk of hunger in 2050 by 8 million people under a scenario of sustainable development (SSP1) and 80 million people under a scenario of reduced international cooperation and low environmental protection (SSP3), with populations concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Central America

Base SSPs are not emission scenarios - they are purely about development and geopolitics, and are only associated with emission projections later - SSP2-4.5, SSP5-8.5, etc. I.e. the IPCC's implication seems to be that those changes in development and geopolitics would affect vulnerability from hunger due to climate change a lot more than the actual extent of climate change, at least for the next few decades. The wording I used in the lead of Effects of climate change on agriculture - climate change is expected to place an extra 8 to 80 million people at risk of hunger by 2050 (depending on the intensity of future warming and the effectiveness of adaptation measures - may not be the ideal rephrasing of this, but it is certainly a lot closer to its meaning. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 14:40, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

AR6 WG2: "for example, between 8 million under SSP1-6.0 to up to 80 million people under SSP3-6.0." So those are 6 C projections. That's why I said high emissions. But I'm also ok with the wording on Effects of climate change on agriculture. Bogazicili (talk) 15:37, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

...I just remembered I never updated my download of AR6 WG2 from the Final Draft they presented in early 2022 to the current, full version they quietly uploaded a lot later. You are right, one of the edits they made was specifying "-6.0" for both SSPs in that sentence. And yes, RCP 6 is a fairly high emission scenario, so your wording might actually be better. I'll have to think about it more.

Finally, I would like to note that if by "6 C", you mean +6C warming then not quite. 6 stands for RCP 6.0, which was the least-often used of the four pre-SSP scenarios, and nowadays, if studies go beyond the "2.6/4.5/8.5" trifecta, they usually use SSP3-7.0. Still, according to , RCP 6.0 would result in about 3.2 C by 2100 (and 2C by 2050 or thereabouts, which is more immediately relevant to this agricultural projection). After 2300, it would apparently fluctuate between 5 and 6 C up until at least 2500, and probably well beyond that too. (Remember that the figure is relative to 2000-2019, so it needs to be increased by 1 degree to be compared to increases from preindustrial.) InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:14, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. It now feels really tempting to describe the projection as An extra 8 to 80 million people would be at risk of hunger if global warming reaches 2°C by 2050, depending on the extent of socioeconomic development and adaptation. If this doesn't cross into WP:SYNTH, I probably would do just that. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:23, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking generally, I like your changes to the first paragraph, but I think you have way too much content here on food security. The second and third paragraphs just don't say much. At most, agricultural land management will need to change and some foods like meat and fish may become more expensive. Correct me if I'm wrong, but food security looks like a much less signficant issue than other impacts like heat waves, flooding, and fire. If it were me, I'd look to combine the second and third paragraphs and cut half the content there. Efbrazil (talk) 20:06, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, this is the revised version. Down to two paragraphs (though the second could certainly be split into two smaller ones), and it should hopefully be clear enough to address your misperception about this topic's significance.

In the early 21st century, less than a third of the global population lives in areas where combinations of extreme heat and humidity that can kill people (particularly children and the elderly) occasionally occur, such as during the 2002 India heatwave. By 2100, these areas will expand to cover 50% to 75% of the population. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. They concluded that it would increase the transmission of pathogens behind infectious diseases such as malaria, diarrhea and dengue fever, and add to deaths from coastal flooding, heat exposure in elderly people, and childhood malnutrition. Between 2030 and 2050, these factors could cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year. Under a warming of 4 °C, agricultural labourers in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and South America will often experience too much heat stress to work. In the worst-affected areas, this could reach 250 days a year.

Global fishery yields will decline as every degree of warming reduces total fish biomass. By 2050, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10%, as less animal feed will be available. Crop yields are already getting negatively affected by stronger heatwaves and water stress, but globally, this has so far been strongly outweighted by greater farm productivity and agricultural expansion. This is expected to continue into the near future, and there'll most likely be fewer malnutrition-related deaths in 2050 than now. At higher warming levels, climate risks to agriculture will increase substantially after 2050. By 2100, total land area suitable for key staple crops would decline by over 10% with high emissions. Total land area includes wilderness like forests and plains. Out of areas already used for agriculture and livestock rearing, around a third may stop being suitable under high emissions.

The first paragraph is larger, because I moved the part about agricultural labour from the inequality section, since it just seems to fit better here. The total size of the paragraph is about the same as it is now, and the first paragraph in "Inequality" would obviously become a lot smaller.(I think it would be a good idea to add a bit more detail about other economic impacts to that paragraph instead, like the skyrocketing insurance costs?)

In the second, I avoided most specific numbers around 2050 since they would be less important than the countervailing progress trend anyway. On the other hand, I rephrased the agricultural land part to make it clear just what is being lost. If you look at one graphic from my reference for total crop area, Lyon et al, 2021, you'll see that what it considers suitable agricultural land (whether now or in the future) includes the entirety of the Amazon rainforest, all of the boreal forests and eventually, the thawed tundra. To make the point even clearer, I found a fascinating study from France which suggests that the country would likely end up ploughing some of its forests in the future, particularly with high emissions. So, yes, it seems like we can offset the impact of climate change in this way, but it'll be a disaster for biodiversity.

And if you think that it would be better to split the second paragraph in two (probably at the "Higher warming levels" mark), then I would strongly suggest mentioning increase in short-term crop failure events again. The earlier, even larger version, which was reverted by Femke, mentioned a paper which found that if global food exports dropped by 10%, 55 million would lose over 5% of their calorie intake, and if Russia, the US and Thailand had sufficiently bad harvests to forbid food exports, 200 million people would. Even if 5% does not sound like much, you probably aware of the connections between poor harvests in 2010, food export bans and the Arab Spring. I am not sure on the best way to phrase this point within our size limits, but it would be unfortunate if we failed to mention that climate-driven events do not have to starve (a lot of) people to death to substantially increase instability. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 13:32, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I forgot to mention that I changed the 2003 European heatwave to a 2002 Indian heatwave, because a more careful look at the explanatory article for that paper (including an embedded infographic) suggests that it did not consider Europe vulnerable at present under its methodology! (With the commentary in the article instead seeming to bring up the 2003 heatwave as an example of the study's limitations.) Since it does consider India vulnerable, that event would be truer to the paper's text. (We really need to at least find an image for that heatwave, though, even if the text is already dramatic enough.) InformationToKnowledge (talk) 13:36, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The malnutrition issue has lot more to do with equitable food distribution than it does with production. Right now the vast majority of our arable land is used for livestock, livestock feed, or fuel supplements. We also waste at least a third of the food we produce.

Here is a rewrite of what you did, edit summary is down below:

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. Deaths will be caused by coastal flooding, childhood malnutrition, exposure to heat and humidity, and from increased transmission of infectious diseases such as malaria, diarrhea and dengue fever. Between 2030 and 2050 these factors could be causing 250,000 additional deaths per year, particularly threatening children and the elderly. Deadly heat waves such as the 2022 India–Pakistan heat wave will expand their range and could go from threatening 1/3rd of the world's population to about 2/3rds of it by 2100.

Global fishery yields will decline as every degree of warming reduces total fish biomass. By 2050, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10%, as less animal feed will be available. Crop yields are already getting negatively affected by stronger heatwaves and water stress, but globally, this has been strongly outweighted by greater farm productivity. This is expected to continue into the near future, but climate risks to agriculture will increase substantially at higher warming levels. Heat stress prevents agricultural labourers from working, and if warming reaches 4 °C then laborers in tropical zones could be unable to work 250 days per year. Out of areas currently used for agriculture and livestock rearing, a third may stop being suitable for use under high emission scenarios.

First paragraph changes:

• I combined the first two sentences of the first paragraph and moved them to later. The WHO statement is a better introductory sentence, and the first two sentences were awkward and wordy as written.
• Resequenced the sentence on health threat enumeration by WHO
• The statement about heat stress to those working should really not be limited to 4 C. I assume that the 4 C statement is meant for the 250 days a year metric, so I combined those sentences.
• The structure of the paragraph now goes from minimal impact (2030 to 2050) to more (2100 average) to extreme (4 C) and has fewer words.
• I switched the 2002 India heatwave to the more current 2022 India–Pakistan heat wave.

The second paragraph:

• My understanding is that agricultural land use has actually been declining lately, as efficiencies in farming increase yields per acre. If you have a source proving me wrong then great, but for now I just deleted "agricultural expansion".
• There was some grammatical issues I fixed
• This issue will be one of distribution, not production, so I cut it: "fewer malnutrition-related deaths in 2050 than now"
• Total land area available for agriculture is much less interesting than loss of existing agricultural land, so I cut total land area so the focus could be on existing agricultural land.
• As food and land has less content overall, I moved the sentence on agricultural labor back into it.

Efbrazil (talk) 18:09, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Added to the article. The only real change I made was to the last sentence; from a third may stop being suitable for use to a third may stop being usable by 2100, both specifying the date and making the wording less awkward.

Strictly speaking, I believe that the apparent peaking of agricultural land had been very recent, while the references about impacts of climate change on historical yields started detecting it from 1981. Back then, net expansion had still been ongoing. However, this point is too minor to quibble over in such a high-level article. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 19:13, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

With this done, any suggestions regarding the other discussion here, about the "human niche" study and Sahara-like climates? I actually found a reference which appears to question at least some of its premises, but it has attracted much less attention than the original study (so far), so I am unsure on how to handle it, at least for this article. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 19:13, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Glad we came together on this so quickly.

Regarding this sentence: With worst-case climate change, models project that almost one-third of humanity might live in Sahara-like uninhabitable and extremely hot climates

Like you say, the alamist studies and language attract the media attention, not the corrections or qualifications to those studies. Ideally, look for an IPCC source talking about desertification in the likely 2 C to 3 C range and use that as basis to present the issue. The general issue is simply that deserts are likely to expand in many areas and displace arable land. Efbrazil (talk) 22:03, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I re-added 8 to 80 million part. We can also add something like "depending on the effectiveness of adaptation measures" (given the range is for SSP1-6.0 to SSP3-6.0), but this might be redundant. I also returned the previous wording for "life-threatening due to combined effects of extreme heat and humidity" part. The example chosen seemed random. "combined effects of extreme heat and humidity" seems more descriptive than just saying deadly heatwaves with a random example. Also about 2/3rds is problematic (did you just average out 50% to 75%?) Bogazicili (talk) 16:26, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding climate niche, AR6 WG2 p.153:

"The rather narrow climatic niche favoured by human societies over the last 6000 years is poised to move on the Earth’s surface at speeds unprecedented in this time span (IPCC, 2021a), with consequences for human well-being and migration that could be profound under high-emission scenarios (Xu et al., 2020). This will overturn the long-lasting stability of interactions between humans and domesticated plants and animals as well as challenge the habitability for humans in several world regions (Horton et al., 2021) (medium confidence)."

I think something about climate niche should be mentioned in the article. Bogazicili (talk) 16:40, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We would probably need to do a deep dive into all the heat stress/wet bulb literature at some point. Incredibly, I am not even sure if there is even a Wikipedia article which is the accepted go-to place to cover it? (Effects of climate change on human health seems like it might be the closest one.)

The main issue I found the last time I looked at the subject, is that there are actually multiple different metrics of heat stress, which appear to have only partial overlap, yet even the recent major studies can still use all of those. To show you what I mean:

• There is wet bulb temperature, which is the one our readers of a certain age are likely to be the most aware of, in large part "thanks" to The Ministry for the Future.
• There is the "mean annual temperature", which is what the human niche study used - the study cited by the IPCC in the quote you provided. (And is also the metric which had been at least partially questioned in a study published about 6 months after that IPCC report.)
• There is the Universal Thermal Climate Index, which is what had been used by Lyon et al. 2021. For the record, their graphic of 2100-2500 changes might be the single best illustration for this section, since my earlier food-related graphics have been rejected for one reason or another.
• And then, there are whatever calculations the "50% to 75%" study used to arrive at their figures, because it's certainly not any of the three above. These are just the papers I know of, and I wouldn't be surprised to find even more.

So, it's a fairly complex subject to work on. The reason why I REALLY don't like your "life-threatening due to combined effects of extreme heat and humidity" wording is because nowadays, a lot of readers will read that and think it refers to areas that will be subject to scenes like the opening of The Ministry for the Future (a depiction which appears to be about as accurate as The Day After Tomorrow). As opposed to well, the paper defining it as an area which can have heatwaves that will kill at least one person. Except, the paper is not even good at that, because by that logic Europe would also already be in that zone after 2003, but in the paper, it isn't.

If we can't think of a proper clarification, then just tossing that paper entirely and instead writing a sentence on any one of the studies which use less-confusing metrics might be the best possible solution. Even if we keep the mention of that study, the current wording is untenable. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 10:29, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Deaths will be caused by coastal flooding, childhood malnutrition, exposure to heat and humidity, and from increased transmission of infectious diseases such as malaria, diarrhea and dengue fever" is also problematic, because this is not an exhaustive list of death causes due to climate change. Those are just some of the factors cited in WHO estimate. But WHO estimate is not an exhaustive list of climate change deaths. I'm going to restore previous wording, until a consensus can be reached. Bogazicili (talk) 16:53, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Again, some of the wording is worse than previous version. Eg: "This is expected to continue into the near future". This is so vague, and has bunch of sources cited. What is expected to continue? Greater farm productivity outweighing climate change losses? This is what world bank source says [1]:

" Lower crop yields and higher food prices. Modeling studies suggest that climate change could result in global crop yield losses as large as 5 percent in 2030 and 30 percent in 2080, even accounting for adaptive behaviors such as changed agricultural practices and crops, more irrigation, and innovation in higher yield crops (Biewald et al., forthcoming; Havlík et al., forthcoming). Over the short term, climate change will also create some benefits, but mostly in cold and relatively rich countries, while poorer regions will be the most negatively affected. The expected yield losses are likely to translate into higher agri cultural prices; and climate change will make it more difficult, even with more trade, to ensure food security in regions like Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia. In a world with rapid population growth, slow economic growth, and high GHG emissions (that is, a scenario in which global temperatures increase by approximately 4oC by 2100), food availability in these regions could pla teau at levels far below current levels in devel oped countries (figure O.2)."

Again, I'm restoring previous version. Bogazicili (talk) 17:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So I reverted the text in that section to what it was before edits by InformationToKnowledge (which included my edits) and then Bogazicili. Here is what it was after edits by Bogazicili, which I do not like as it has major readability issues, including run on sentences and repeated information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Climate_change&oldid=1203342399#Food_and_health

I'm fine with the substance of Bogazicili's concerns, but we need to come up with new text that incorporates them and is also readable. Let's try to get to consensus here before going live with edits. Efbrazil (talk) 21:52, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Efbrazil, can you quote repeated information and run on sentences in that version? Your reversion seems to be not justified and lack adequate explanation. Also I found your edit summary weird. What was exactly unreadable [2]? Bogazicili (talk) 22:05, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here are my concerns with the text as it had become:

• The death issues are enumerated, then the same laundry list of issues are enumerated a second time in the WHO statement. There is no need for the redundancy there.
• The last 2 sentences of the first paragraph are both way too long to be readable and digestible.
• The old wording simply says "Childhood malnutrition", while the new wording pads the content with an entire extra sentence saying "Young children are the most vulnerable to food shortages".

While I could have tried to patch those things up, I think the text as it had become was worse than what we had previously. I just hope one of us can propose text here that we all agree to rather than thrashing on page. Efbrazil (talk) 22:21, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Efbrazil, first of all, did you read what you reverted to? First and 3rd points are in the current version, which you reverted to. I had restored them to original earlier version myself. Bogazicili (talk) 22:26, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The thing about the World Bank quote is that it appears to be calculating those losses relative to an ideal counterfactual future without climate change, as opposed to calculating them relative to the present day, which is what most people will immediately assume. Same goes for the IPCC "8 to 80 million people" estimate. Likewise, in the quote, "food availability in these regions could plateau at levels far below current levels in developed countries", the key word is developed. If you look at the figure on page 4, you'll see that the only scenario where the graph of food availability in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia doesn't go up throughout the century is the one where there is both 4C climate change and CO2 fertilization effect does not work (and by now, we know well enough it does - see the figure in that article). Even then, it simply stays at about the same level as now. This is also confirmed by the Springmann paper in The Lancet, where most people only pay attention to the "~540,000 deaths" part, yet those at most offset a third of the lives which would be saved relative to now.

Granted, both the World Bank reference and the Springmann paper are from 2016. Out of what you called "a bunch of sources cited", the most recent one, from 2021, says the following:

Across five representative scenarios that span divergent but plausible socio-economic futures, the total global food demand is expected to increase by 35% to 56% between 2010 and 2050, while population at risk of hunger is expected to change by −91% to +8% over the same period. If climate change is taken into account, the ranges change slightly (+30% to +62% for total food demand and −91% to +30% for population at risk of hunger) but with no statistical differences overall.

It also makes a similar point in this figure (whose licensing appears prohibitive): under the extensive development pathways (the "perfect" SSP1, baseline SSP2 and even the "screw nature, extract everything to benefit all humans" SSP5), population at risk of hunger would greatly decline under all warming pathways, from lowest to highest. Under the "instability" pathway (SSP3) and the "rich countries prosper, poor suffer" pathway (SSP4), there is a chance the population at risk of hunger increases even in the complete absence of further climate change (NOCC).

Considering space limitations, this might be the best wording. (Bolded parts represent what I changed relative to what was recently reverted from the article.)

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. In 2019 (?), they assessed deaths from coastal flooding, childhood malnutrition, exposure to heat and humidity, and from increased transmission of infectious diseases such as malaria, gastroenteritic diarrhea and dengue fever. Between 2030 and 2050 these factors could be causing 250,000 additional deaths per year, particularly threatening children and the elderly. Days with high heat stress are unsuitable for outdoor work, and if the warming reaches 4 °C, then up to 250 days per year would become unsuitable in some tropical zones. [Additional sentence on heatwaves/heat stress here - either the one we had recently, or based on a completely different paper.]

Global fishery yields will decline as every degree of warming reduces total fish biomass. By 2050, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10%, as less animal feed will be available. Crop yields are already getting negatively affected by stronger heatwaves and water stress, but globally, this has been strongly outweighted by greater farm productivity. Between 2010 and 2050, the number of people at risk of hunger will be far more affected by socioeconomic developments than climate change. It is expected to increase by up to 30% if there is stagnation or major instability in the developing countries, and will decrease by hundreds of millions otherwise, substantially reducing annual deaths from malnutrition. Climate risks to agriculture increase after 2050 at higher warming levels. Out of areas currently used for agriculture and livestock rearing, a third may stop being usable by 2100 under high emission scenarios.

Reasoning for these changes: besides what I already mentioned above, I took into account the point that climate change can cause deaths in other ways too, and those were simply the ones WHO looked at during that year (probably 2019.) I also think it's important to clarify that "diarrhea" is not a disease "in and of itself", but it is often caused by various diseases which all cause inflammation known as gastroenteritis. For heat stress at 4C, the figure really applies to all outdoor work - it was reasonable to specify agricultural workers when it was in the paragraph on food, but not so much otherwise. What really should be specified instead is that 250 days was the upper limit which would apparently be limited to the most unlucky locations, not a blanket impact across all tropics. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:34, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I would still like to talk about short-term shocks to food supply from (multiple) breadbasket failures somewhere in this section. That, and I would ideally like to mention CO2 fertilization effect, and the reductions in crop micronutrient content it causes/global micronutrient deficiencies it can cause, but I am not sure on how to fit both of those. Hopefully, it would become easier if the section on Causes is shrunk. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:11, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

InformationToKnowledge, I disagree with above changes, a lot of information is lost. You are suggesting a massive re-write without adequately explaining reasoning. Some of my objections:

1) Why did "Extreme weather leads to injury and loss of life," got taken out for example?

2) "Various infectious diseases are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate, such as dengue fever and malaria." and then the WHO numbers are not repetition. One is explaining why there is an increase, the other is giving a number. "dengue fever and malaria" as examples from the earlier sentence can be taken out however.

3) What happened to "By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population may face climate conditions that are life-threatening due to combined effects of extreme heat and humidity."?

3) Why did 8 to 80 million people at risk of hunger by 2050 got taken out? Yes, population at risk of hunger may "decrease by hundreds of millions otherwise" in total because a lot of countries do get more developed. Why is this more relevant rather than just looking effects of climate change? I mean you complained about baseline being "ideal counterfactual future without climate change, as opposed to calculating them relative to the present day". But why would you compare 2050 with present day without accounting for the development of countries? 8 to 80 million is a more simple number, because it isolates effects of climate change. However, I'm more open to this change after wording changes. Your wording didn't make it clear that upper limit rose from 8% to 30% due to climate change. It made it sound like " stagnation or major instability in the developing countries" was the only factor. Misleading.

4) Why did "30 to 50%" numbers got removed for labour capacity reductions? The source doesn't specify this is just for food workers, although previous sentence talks about it.

5) Why did "it has caused reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans between 1981 and 2010." got removed?

6) Second paragraph does not accurately reflect the World Bank Source above

You are suggesting massive re-write of a version that's been stables for years, and I do not see the rationale for change. Definite no. We can go over some sentences one by one, like the at risk of hunger sentence. But I'm disagreeing with the proposed wholesale change. Bogazicili (talk) 15:17, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

InformationToKnowledge, also, given how you are proposing these massive changes, going over them is very time consuming. Moving forward, would you mind making these big change suggestions in one of the following formats:

Talk:Climate_change/Archive_93#Lead's_description_of_the_greenhouse_effect

Talk:Climate_change/Archive_92#Mention_inequity_between_polluters_and_pollutees_in_the_lead

Talk:Climate_change/Archive_85#Need_to_reevaluate_recent_edits_to_first_two_mitigation_paragraphs

Basically including both the current version and your suggested change, and striking out removals and bolding additions. This is very helpful, and multiple editors used something like this when suggesting big changes. Bogazicili (talk) 16:38, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I made a deeper revert to stable version, while talk page discussions go on. Just made 2 changes, which I don't think are controversial. Bogazicili (talk) 17:40, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, it's unfortunate that you aren't following this discussion very closely, because a substantial fraction of the current suggested wording has been there after @Efbrazil edited my earlier proposals. See this revision. Efbrazil also signed off on my previous addition, which you reverted, so need to take up those questions with them as much as you do with me.

Essentially, about half of your questions can be answered very simply - because I keep getting told that we are running out of article space, so any real additions would have to come at the expense of something else. Thus, we need to condense and prioritize.

I'll address the basic points first, and then I'll show the revised text.

1) Why did "Extreme weather leads to injury and loss of life," got taken out for example? - Because it's an extremely general and a very obvious statement, which does not even have a real number attached to it. It does not add any real value to the collage in the lead showing wildfires as an example, to the "Climate change impacts on the environment" gallery showing the Australian wildfires and, most of all, to the Extreme weather figure from the IPCC directly above this section already showing a massive increase in extreme weather. If you really want to keep this wording, I would suggest moving it to that graphic's caption instead.

2) "Various infectious diseases are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate, such as dengue fever and malaria." and then the WHO numbers are not repetition. One is explaining why there is an increase, the other is giving a number. One of my proposed sentences literally says {tq|from increased transmission of infectious diseases}}. The fact that the climate is getting warmer is said so many times throughout the article that any reader who would have made it to this section does not need it spelled out again. Efbrazil also believes that readers can make this connection for themselves. And it's not even a good explanation either, since it does not say what increases transmission in a warmer climate.

3) [I] What happened to "By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population may face climate conditions that are life-threatening due to combined effects of extreme heat and humidity."? - It's potentially a sentence I placed in square brackets: [Additional sentence on heatwaves/heat stress here - either the one we had recently, or based on a completely different paper.] I wrote very detailed comment on why we may not want to cite that particular paper (which will be 7 years old this year) and instead use any one of the newer and better-defined papers in this revision.

3) [II] But why would you compare 2050 with present day without accounting for the development of countries? Because, this article is aimed for a general reader. Here a couple of relevant examples of the mindset of many general readers.

This section is an excerpt from Climate change and civilizational collapse § Public opinion.[edit]

Some public polling shows that beliefs in civilizational collapse or even human extinction have become widespread amongst the general population in many countries. In 2021, a publication in The Lancet surveyed 10,000 people aged 16–25 years in ten countries (Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, Philippines, Portugal, the UK, and the US): one of its findings was 55% of respondents agreeing with the statement "humanity is doomed".^[1]

In 2020, a survey by a French think tank Jean Jaurès Foundation found that in five developed countries (France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US), a significant fraction of the population agreed with the statement that "civilization as we know it will collapse in the years to come"; the percentages ranged from 39% in Germany and 52% or 56% in the US and the UK to 65% in France and 71% in Italy.^[2]

The people who think this way do not expect there to be any real development of countries by 2050. Not acknowledging that these people now make up a significant fraction of our readers is tantamount to wilful blindness.

8 to 80 million is a more simple number, because it isolates effects of climate change. - Again, it's not simple when it relies on "common sense" assumed knowledge which potentially a majority of readers no longer possess. (If we assume that those ~52% of people from the UK/US who said civilization will collapse in that French poll are representative of English Wikipedia, which isn't the worst assumption to make.) Secondly, we already have both effects of climate change and effects of climate change on agriculture This overview article needs to give the most basic facts, which, in this case is the net effect here. The details relative to an ideal state are already present in effects of climate change on agriculture and they can stay there.

Why did "30 to 50%" numbers got removed for labour capacity reductions? Because I was repeatedly told that the article must stay under 9000 words, and I have already made some additions elsewhere that brought it closer to the limit, yet which I consider more necessary than this wording. (I.e. mentioning the Southern Ocean overturning circulation tipping point or the committed increase in ocean deoxygenation.) The article was at 8692 words before I started making edits. Before your reversions, it was at 8822 words. Now, it is at 8913 words. As I said, it seems like we might shorten it elsewhere quite a bit, but a few days ago, it didn't seem that way, so I had to compromise.

5) Why did "it has caused reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans between 1981 and 2010." got removed? Same reasons as in 3). a) this isn't effects of climate change on agriculture, where mentioning specific crops and dates is appropriate detail; b) it is very likely that declines occurred in other crops - those three are simply the ones we have the best data for; c) it does not specify how large the decline was, leading our readers to assume any number. d) it does not specify that this was relative to climate-free counterfactual; e) The new sentence, Crop yields are already getting negatively affected by stronger heatwaves and water stress conveys a similar amount of information (more in fact, as it explains what caused the reductions), while avoiding all of the issues above.

6) Second paragraph does not accurately reflect the World Bank Source above a) You haven't specified what exactly you meant; b) year 2021 Nature meta-analysis is a far more important source than the year 2016 World Bank report anyway.

More discussion of food and health

I wasn't aware of using table format for making comparisons, so there it is.

1st paragraph

2nd paragraph

I would hope I have already adequately explained the reasons for these changes, but just in case:

• We don't really need to talk about latitudes in this high-level article (rather than the "effects of" one) if we can't even do it with certainty.

• Likewise, the sentence on areas which may stop being usable outright, with specific estimates, is far more important than the one on water stress, which gives too much attention to the obvious (dry areas will have more water stress? Who knew?) without providing specific numbers.

• 183 million figure is fairly bad, even besides the "present-day vs. ideal 2050" discussion. It comes from SROCC (now 5 years old), and I don't remember seeing it in the AR6, suggesting it got overwritten between then and now. Further, it does not provide a date, rendering it nearly useless.

InformationToKnowledge (talk) 19:50, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not commenting on content (which I'm sure you're right about). Can we try to keep paragraphs to around 100 words? Much longer paragraphs impede readability. There are so many numbers in that text too, so even I am getting lost in here. I really hope you take the feedback to heart that number-heavy text is not easy to digest, and that Wikipedia has a lot of non-academic readers. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:24, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

InformationToKnowledge, thanks for the response. Again, would you mind striking out parts that you suggest deleting? Again, the format is hard to keep track of.

1) You said "- Because it's an extremely general and a very obvious statement". We do put obvious statements here, this is an encyclopedia. We do not assume prior knowledge. High school kids might be reading this article. We do not jump directly to complicated stuff. Those are more appropriate for detailed subarticles. See Wikipedia:Featured article criteria and Wikipedia:Summary_style

2) Again, "various infectious diseases are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate" is the general science. WHO just looked at malaria, diarrhea and dengue fever. WHO 250k number does not include an exhaustive list of all infectious diseases that are more easily transmitted with warming climate. It's also not the place to explain the general science. I'd keep "Various infectious diseases are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate" (general science) and simply say " increases in diarrhea, malaria, dengue" in later sentence.

3) I disagree with your rationale. The current wording better represents what the sources say. We try to best represent what the sources say in this article. By your own admission, you seem more concerned about your own assumptions about what readers might think

(You said: "The reason why I REALLY don't like your "life-threatening due to combined effects of extreme heat and humidity" wording is because nowadays, a lot of readers will read that and think it refers to areas that will be subject to scenes like the opening of The Ministry for the Future (a depiction which appears to be about as accurate as The Day After Tomorrow" [3]).

See: Wikipedia:Verifiability

4) More about your own assumptions about "relevant examples of the mindset of many general readers". Sources usually compare future projections with a base case scenario, and that base case scenario is usually NOT today with nothing changing. However, we can do compare to today without Wikipedia:No original research, eg: "which currently affects 30% of the global population" [4]

5)The point that some decline has already occurred is very important. It also comes from IPCC. That also seems contrary to what you were claiming that it was offset by "greater farm productivity". If there are two conflicting reliable sources, both should be there. See: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

6)Again, your paragraph is misleading. Upper limit rose from 8% to 30% due to climate change. By upper limit, I mean the bolded ranges below:

"Across five representative scenarios that span divergent but plausible socio-economic futures, the total global food demand is expected to increase by 35% to 56% between 2010 and 2050, while population at risk of hunger is expected to change by −91% to +8% over the same period. If climate change is taken into account, the ranges change slightly (+30% to +62% for total food demand and −91% to +30% for population at risk of hunger) but with no statistical differences overall."

Upper limit change is solely due to climate change, not due to "stagnation or major instability in the developing countries". Although the authors do say "no statistical differences overall", however we also have the IPCC source giving numbers. Both needs to be included per Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Bogazicili (talk) 20:45, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Femke, sure will keep that in mind. Not making any suggestions yet, just wanted to outline my concerns about new suggestions with respect to Wiki policies. Bogazicili (talk) 20:45, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and InformationToKnowledge, regarding your concerns about civilizational collapse surveys, you might want to instead address them in Climate_change#Public_awareness_and_opinion section. Put the information about public opinion polls, and then what the scientists say in that section maybe, instead of trying to edit the rest of the article trying to conform to a specific POV. Bogazicili (talk) 21:16, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bogazicili As you might have noticed, I am under multiple competing pressures here. I need to:

1. Add information which was absent from the section in spite of its undeniable importance. (The whole reason this is happening in the first place.)

1. Keep each paragraph small enough, as pointed out by Femke just earlier.

1. Keep entire article below 9,000 words.

With these pressures, trade-offs need to be made. I did what you suggested, and crossed out words/sentences to be removed in the old version - as well as bolding the new information to be added. Parts which are in quotes have been rephrased between the two versions.

2nd paragraph

As Femke has already pointed out, some of the wording I added in the last revision, in large part to address your concerns, is making some paragraphs too long, so at least one revision to cut some wording will be necessary. I have already written out the reasons for the changes I made in my previous message, so please ensure you check it before asking further questions.

Now...

1) and 2): When we are struggling with word counts, both within a paragraph and within an entire article, duplicative/explanatory wording is just less important than wholly new information. Like facts about the effects on livestock (completely absent in the older version) or about areas becoming unusable (much better and more concrete than the vague sentences about latitudes and water stress.) And as I said, the sentence on extreme weather & injury/loss of life can simply be moved to a caption of the extreme weather figure directly above it. If anything, more readers will see it there.

3 and 4): First and foremost, "which currently affects 30% of the global population" is NOT WP:OR by ANY means. It is taken directly from the Carbon Brief reference, which I have added in one of the revisions prior to the one you pointed to, yet which you had now removed with your reversions. That reference is also what provides explanations about what that paper actually means and why it's never been a particularly good citation.

Secondly, how can you possibly write we do not assume prior knowledge, and then immediately assume that all our readers know that Sources usually compare future projections with a base case scenario, and that base case scenario is usually NOT today with nothing changing? We are always making some assumptions about what our readers may or may not to know, particularly when struggling against word counts. The idea that our readers wouldn't understand extreme weather kills people without having it spelled out, yet would intuitively know that figures like "8 to 80 million" or "up to 183 million" are relative to a better future world and not relative to present seems bizarre.

Besides, even if we assume that most readers know that development will be doing a lot to improve food availability, we are still inherently making assumptions about how much they think/know it will improve if we don't spell out the numbers. Thus, it's just easier to write something closer to my wording in the first place. Like you said High school kids might be reading this article. The most reliable reference on the subject to date suggests that 55% of this approximate demographic thinks "humanity is doomed". That makes it fairly clear which base knowledge they are lacking.

5) The point that some decline has already occurred is very important. It also comes from IPCC. That also seems contrary to what you were claiming that it was offset by "greater farm productivity". - Unless I am misreading this, it seems like even you are getting caught up in the differences between what the present wording seems to say, and the reference's actual base case. I found the IPCC's reference, and it makes it very clear that the decline is again relative to a counterfactual world with no climate change, and that there has been an overall increase, which is what the globally, this has been strongly outweighted by greater farm productivity wording in my article is getting at.

From the abstract:

Here, we estimate the impacts of climate change on the global average yields of maize, rice, wheat and soybeans for 1981–2010, relative to the preindustrial climate. We use the results of factual and non-warming counterfactual climate simulations performed with an atmospheric general circulation model that do and do not include anthropogenic forcings to climate systems, respectively, as inputs into a global gridded crop model.

From a section near the end:

Although the present study assesses the impacts on the average yields for 1981–2010, our results have implications for the observed yield trends. Yield increases driven by technological improvements have been a predominant trend worldwide during the last half century. These increasing yield trends are common across the historical and non-warming crop simulations (Figure S3), as these trends have been driven to a greater degree by socio-economic factors than by climatic factors. Importantly, the estimated yield impacts in recent years are larger than those of previous years, because warming is the primary climatic driver of the estimated yield impacts (Figures 7 and 8). Therefore, when the estimated yield impacts are negative, the increasing yield trends have slowed down compared to those obtained under the non-warming conditions. When the impacts are positive, the increasing yield trends have accelerated relative to those obtained under the non-warming conditions.

And I don't know if this should be cited in the article, but this chart shows beyond doubt that the yields for those and other crops are larger now than they were in 1981. Hence, the negative effect was obviously offset.

6) Upper limit change is solely due to climate change, not due to "stagnation or major instability in the developing countries". I don't know if you looked at the 2021 paper's Extended Data Figure already, but I strongly suggest you do it now. That figure clarifies that any increases in hunger only have a chance to occur in the scenarios of instability (SSP3) and stagnation of the developing world (SSP4). 30% is at the upper end of an error bar for a scenario which combines stagnation (SSP-4) with very high emissions (RCP 8.5), with the median figure a much smaller increase. The same level of high warming (RCP 8.5) risks a lower upper-end increase in the instability scenario SSP3 (the median is no change), and produces large declines in the other scenarios.

Thus, socioeconomic changes are far more important than the 2010-2050 warming, according to the study. The wording in the suggested version reflects that. - Between 2010 and 2050, the number of people at risk of hunger will be far more affected by socioeconomic developments than climate change. It can increase if there is stagnation or major instability in the developing countries - by up to 30% if these conditions occur under high emissions. This number will decrease by hundreds of millions otherwise, substantially reducing annual deaths from malnutrition. This phrasing is probably too long now, but the bulk of it should certainly be kept.

Further, while it's going to be very difficult to explain this in the article, it should also be noted that this combination is extremely unlikely, because it effectively requires that massive quantities of fossil fuels are extracted and burnt every year (RCP 8.5), yet this somehow fails to benefit the developing world economically. When the IPCC uses RCP8.5 now, it's almost always in combination with SSP5 (massive fossil-fuelled development), since the developing countries would have to be the ones responsible for a huge bulk of the new coal pits/wells and new thermal power plants, cars, etc. - else there is no demand to produce those massive, continually accelerating emissions in the first place.

Finally, thanks for the suggestion about expanding the Climate_change#Public_awareness_and_opinion section. Unfortunately, it'll require at least 2-3 sentences, and I don't think I can add that until a similar amount is cut elsewhere in the article.InformationToKnowledge (talk) 07:07, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

InformationToKnowledge, the answer is long, I can't read or respond to all of it now. And you are simply repeating many of your suggestions. I also don't know why you aren't striking out parts you suggest to be deleted like this.

So we can try Wikipedia:Dispute resolution requests. I'm going to respond to some points only:

3 and 4): I know "which currently affects 30% of the global population" is not OR, that is what I had meant. And that was my suggestion too. It was in the version I changed before Efbrazil reverted.

Here's my suggestion for first paragraph. Additions are in bold:

I only added "up from 30% " as a new number, but I had also deleted this [5] in that paragraph, so that should satisfy Femke with respect to not too many numbers in the paragraphs.

For the second paragraph, I need to go over the sources.

"Days with high heat stress are unsuitable for outdoor work. If the warming reaches 4 °C, then up to 250 days per year would become unsuitable in some tropical zones, and their overall labour capacity will decline by 30 to 50%" information is currently in Inequality section, it should stay there. Bogazicili (talk) 15:04, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for dropping out of this discussion for a bit, I was busy IRL. To be clear, my concern is simply that we not thrash the page and come up with text that is readable and has consensus. I see Bogazicili is direct editing again, I will try to work with everyone that way, but if we start going in circles again then we need to revert and come back here. Efbrazil (talk) 17:45, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

InformationToKnowledge, looks like Efbrazil ignored the above discussion and changed the wording in first paragraph, please keep that in mind when responding to my above suggestion. Bogazicili (talk) 20:07, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if I missed something- a lot has been said. What in particular did I do that's controversial? I thought the edits I did were pretty incremental and safe. Feel free to back something out if you disagree. Efbrazil (talk) 22:05, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Efbrazil, btw, can you also fix your run-in sentence, given that you frequently complain about them:

Your edit [6]: "Heat stress can prevent labourers from working, and if warming reaches 4 °C then labour capacity in those regions could be reduced by 30 to 50%" Bogazicili (talk) 17:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, I broke it into 2 sentences and clarified that the labourers in question are outdoor. Efbrazil (talk) 19:17, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

InformationToKnowledge, for the "but globally, this has been strongly outweighted by greater farm productivity" part in your suggestion, can you provide a quote from the source ("IPCC AR6 WG2 2022, p. 727")? That was the source in this version [7]. I skimmed through that page, but couldn't find it. Can read more carefully tomorrow too, but a quote would be helpful. Bogazicili (talk) 23:40, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That is information suggested first by InformationToKnowledge, so they should speak to it. My contribution above was mostly wordsmithing and focusing content. Efbrazil (talk) 17:31, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Efbrazil:, I know, that's why I had pinged InformationToKnowledge in my response above. But thanks for confirming you were ok with that suggestion without checking sources. Bogazicili (talk) 16:58, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The statement is primarily true with exceptions for time frame and geographical area, so I wasn't fussing over the source at the time. I personally only check sources on content I don't write if I don't know the content to be true. You can go ahead and check sources on everything and good for you if you do. Efbrazil (talk) 17:49, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Efbrazil: nope, the overall paragraph was not correct or neutral. Bogazicili (talk) 18:55, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll let you sort that with I2K. Efbrazil (talk) 19:00, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Right, minor error: it was actually page 728. The quote is: Global yields of major crops per unit land area have increased 2.5- to 3-fold since 1960. Plant breeding, fertilisation, irrigation and integrated pest management have been the major drivers, but many studies have found significant impacts from recent climate trends on crop yield (high confidence) InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:17, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@InformationToKnowledge:, Ok, so this was your edit: Crop yields are already getting negatively affected by stronger heatwaves and water stress,[236] but globally, this has been strongly outweighted by greater farm productivity.[237] [8]. So that was WP:OR. Because while the productivity has increased, there is no information about the change in size of land area. Also, later in the page in WG2, it says this The combined effects of heat and drought decreased global average yields of maize, soybeans and wheat by 11.6%, 12.4% and 9.2%, respectively (Matiu et al., 2017).. So, nope, the productivity gain has not outweighed all negative effects. We can note productivity increase in another wording though. But your deletion of It has caused reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans... part to ONLY add growing productivity [9] was biased.

Your next sentence says this:

This is expected to continue into the near future,[238][239][240][241] but climate risks to agriculture will increase substantially at higher warming levels.[242][243][82]

I also find that rather biased, since the first source p.4 says this:

So as early as 2030, we might see overall crop yield losses despite increasing productivity. I'll go over the remaining sources and make a suggestion for second paragraph this week. Bogazicili (talk) 16:58, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@InformationToKnowledge: also, in your suggestion [10], there are several primary sources [11] [12] [13]. (or were you quoting from their lit review sections?) There's no need to use primary sources since there's a lot of research on climate change. Secondary sources such as IPCC or World Bank or this study you had added [14] are preferred. There was this primary study [15] before, but it was supported by this secondary source [16]. But that was taken out anyway after you pointed out the mistake (thanks for pointing that out btw). Bogazicili (talk) 19:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Bogazicili It is unfortunate that you appear to have overlooked much of what I wrote on this talk page to focus only on my past edits. It seems like I'll have to repeat myself again.

there is no information about the change in size of land area. Agricultural land area had been consistently increasing up until very recently. It might have peaked in the past decade because efficiency gains allowed for some it to be rewilded, at least for now, but it had been increasing up until then. My earliest rewrite (the one you can see at the start of "Food and health" heading on this talk page) actually phrased it as total crop yields to date have been increasing due to improved farming practices and agricultural expansion, but then @Efbrazil objected to that wording. If that is your main objection, this can be referenced rather easily.

Also, later in the page in WG2, it says this I am going to repeat my earlier suggestion that you should double-check the references in AR6 quotes before bringing them up. This is what their reference, Matiu et al., 2017 actually says:

Since the focus of this study was on year-to-year climate variability and not climate change, long-term trends in both crop yields and climate were removed, such that time is not a confounding variable anymore. Consequently, impacts of climate change on crop yields [78] or impacts of climate change on climate variability [9] could not be considered.

I.e. that paper compares warm and dry years with an average year. It is not about any increase in heat and drought caused by climate change. Thus, it is largely irrelevant here. I have already shown you this link before, but there it is again: a secondary source which proves beyond doubt that total crop yields have increased greatly. I guess I can add that reference in the latest edit once we agree on the wording.

So as early as 2030, we might see overall crop yield losses despite increasing productivity. - We have already talked about this. What makes you think that this entire paragraph refers to overall crop yield losses? Here are both of its references - Biewald and Havlík. Key quotes from those which prove that the paragraph doesn't, in fact, mean overall losses.

In all three regions under consideration (Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Sub‐Saharan Africa), the average yield of food crops decreases with climate change compared to no climate change

and

Food availability would decrease globally by 3% under the climate stabilization scenario compared to reference levels by 2030.

And once again, look at what figure 0.2 on the same page of the same source shows: a consistent increase in calorie availability throughout the century under all but a single scenario, where there is more of a plateau after 2030. (And that scenario of no CO₂ fertilization is now contradicted by more and more studies - see the latest research on fertilization's observed benefits.)

Lastly,

There's no need to use primary sources since there's a lot of research on climate change. Secondary sources such as IPCC or World Bank or this study you had added [14] are preferred.

I would have to disagree a little here. The World Bank reference in particular is now 10 years old, and it often cites 15-20 year old research. There are now whole new generations of both climate and agricultural models that were not available when that reference was written. Those differences are important - i.e. consider this reference, which explains how much they matter. I cite that paper in the agriculture article, but not here, because its abstract only gives detailed information on two major crops and even then inconsistently, so I don't know how to fit it effectively into this article, but I am open to suggestions. Likewise, Lyon et al., 2021 is genuinely groundbreaking, with no previous climate research considering such timescales in terms of their implications for agriculture. Unless a secondary reference which discusses its agricultural projections (the ones I have seen to date usually focus on its other projections about temperatures, humidity, etc.) is found, I strongly suggest keeping it. I am more open to disregarding Janssens et al. 2020 and Wing et al., 2021, but I would not make a final judgement until we approach more consensus on the text.

Finally, I have already admitted that at first, I was wrong about that study cited by NEJM. However, when considered in full, the study actually supports the point that there'll be less hunger by 2050. See this talk page revision. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 09:31, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

InformationToKnowledge, apologies for the delay in my response, I got sidetracked in other articles. Will respond this week. Bogazicili (talk) 22:22, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreeing here with both @InformationToKnowledge and @Bogazicili: primary sources and old sources are both not ideal. Primary sources in particular lead to very verbose text. We have plenty of high-quality secondary sources published in the last 5 years. The five-year rule is something loosely described in WP:MEDDATE, and probably also useful here, at least for the more contested elements of the text. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:50, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

InformationToKnowledge, You said: Also, later in the page in WG2, it says this I am going to repeat my earlier suggestion that you should double-check the references in AR6 quotes before bringing them up. This is what their reference, Matiu et al., 2017 actually says: I appreciate how through you are, but for Wikipedia purposes, this doesn't work. Most of us do not have the time or expertise to check IPCC's sources and decide they misinterpreted it. IPCC reports are a reliable secondary source. However, if you find another reliable secondary source, that can also be added. If you don't trust me on this, you can check: WP:V. Anyway, I moved higher in WG2 to summary for policy makers or technical summary. Those are the parts where it gives a more executive summary, using a variety of sources. Here's my suggestion:

So changes: 1) Reduces length in first paragraph. 2) gives context for heat and humidity ("which currently affects 30% of the global population") 3) Adds increase in agricultural productivity in second paragraph 4) Gives more executive summary in second paragraph, with mostly SPM and TS. 5) Incorporates study you found [18] 6) Might make further minor copy editing, and also will need to check against close paraphrasing again. Bogazicili (talk) 22:58, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Bogazicili The IPCC did not "misinterpret" anything. However, a misintepretation can well occur when a single sentence in the report is read on its own and out of context of the surrounding paragraphs. It seems like I'll have to remind you of this context.

Ortiz-Bobea et al. (2021) analysed agricultural total factor productivity (TFP), defined as the ratio of all agricultural outputs to all agricultural inputs, and found that, while TFP has increased between 1961 and 2015, the climate change trends reduced global TFP growth by a cumulative 21% over a 55-year period relative to TFP growth under counterfactual non-climate change conditions. Greater effects (30–33%) were observed in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean (Figure 5.3). Climate variability is a major source of variation in crop production (Ray et al., 2015; Iizumi and Ramankutty, 2016; Frieler et al., 2017; Cottrell et al., 2019)(Table SM5.1). Weather signals in yield variability are generally stronger in productive regions than in the less productive regions (Frieler et al., 2017), where other yield constraints exist such as pests, diseases and poor soil fertility (Mills et al., 2018; 5.2.2). Nevertheless, yield variability in less productive regions has severe impacts on local food availability and livelihood (high confidence) (FAO, 2021).

Climate-related hazards that cause crop losses are increasing (medium evidence, high agreement) (Cottrell et al., 2019; Mbow et al., 2019; Brás et al., 2021; FAO, 2021; Ranasinghe et al., 2021). Drought-related yield losses have occurred in about 75% of the global harvested area (Kim et al., 2019b) and increased in recent years (Lesk et al., 2016). Heatwaves have reduced yields of wheat (Zampieri et al., 2017) and rice (Liu et al., 2019b). The combined effects of heat and drought decreased global average yields of maize, soybeans and wheat by 11.6%, 12.4% and 9.2%, respectively (Matiu et al., 2017). In Europe, crop losses due to drought and heat have tripled over the last five decades (Brás et al., 2021), pointing to the importance of assessing multiple stresses. Globally, floods also increased in the past 50 years, causing direct damages to crops and indirectly reduced yields by delaying planting, which cost 4.5 billion USD in the 2010 flood in Pakistan and 572 million USD in the 2015 flood in Myanmar (FAO,2021).

So, this sentence is inside a paragraph where the preceding sentences talk about heatwaves and drought reducing yields in general. The previous paragraph has a sentence which specifically mentions "climate variability" - the annual differences between years with heatwaves and drought (or floods) and good agricultural years. Even if we forget about the text of the primary reference, a major hint that it does not refer to effects of climate change specifically is that these figures are undated. Basically every single time when the IPCC uses numbers to describe the actual impacts of climate change, it provides a baseline - i.e. "increased in the past 50 years" in the following sentences.

Nevertheless, all of this is semantics when compared to the most definitive argument.

However, if you find another reliable secondary source, that can also be added.

I did, and I provided it twice, in my comments on the 6th and 14th February. I'll link it again; please do not make me do this for the fourth time!

Now, here is my edit of your proposal.

Explanation for the changes:

1) I still don't like that we mention the WHO in the first sentence of the paragraph, then have three vaguely connected sentences, and then we mention the WHO again. This structure should make it clearer that the really vague "various selected causes" actually refers to extreme heat, extreme weather and disease transmission specifically. I decided to add "Lethal" to the sentence about malaria and dengue fever to underline the same point.

2) I also don't like how the paragraph first mentions extreme heat in its third sentence, then mentions other things, then jumps back to extreme heat at the end. Thus, I combined mentions of extreme heat into a single sentence.

3) "Agricultural productivity" is a somewhat vague and academic wording, so I used the simpler and more easily understood phrase, backed up by the OWID reference. Moved the phrase about food and water security a few sentences lower to improve paragraph flow.

4) Simplified the wording (and hopefully reduced close paraphrasing as well) in the sentence on latitudes.

5) Since we know that the sentence on the "decrease" in yields for those three crops misread the reference, I have removed it.

6) I removed the sentence on glacier water and small islands, because reference 241 is that awful thing which happens on Wikipedia sometimes - two disparate references jammed into one. One of those is a primary source from 2016, and the other one is AR5. I suggest writing another sentence on water scarcity based on AR6 specifically, without trying to retain this wording.

7) The sentence on changes by 2050 is both really hard to parse and is far too non-committal, suggesting uncertainty where it doesn't exist. We shouldn't be afraid of summarizing what the references as a whole actually say.

8) Re-added a sentence on changes to livestock by 2050, because there is no reason to neglect them.

9) Clarified that the WG2 SPM primarily meant impacts on food and water security from extreme weather events.

10) It doesn't make sense to suddenly mention the 2040 baseline after the rest of the section (and of the article) uses 2050, simply because of WG2 SPM (and only SPM). It also doesn't really make sense to mention health again at the end of a paragraph focused on food up until this point. Replaced that sentence with one summarizing likely impacts on food production after 2050 based on WG2. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 14:50, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@InformationToKnowledge: You said: I did, and I provided it twice, in my comments on the 6th and 14th February. I'll link it again; please do not make me do this for the fourth time!

Sorry about that! I don't always read all of your responses in full given their length. I see maize, wheat, and soybeans seem stable here [19], so we can drop that line ("Global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans have decreased").

1) It's vague because it should be. Your version says "changes in disease transmission". This is incorrect. WHO only looked at:

Compared with a future without climate change, the following additional deaths are projected for the year 2030: 38 000 due to heat exposure in elderly people, 48 000 due to diarrhoea, 60 000 due to malaria, and 95 000 due to childhood undernutrition

So they didn't look at ALL diseases. They only looked at diarrhoea, malaria and dengue (see page 4). Your suggested wording "changes in disease transmission" is a massive misrepresentation. There might be much more serious consequences of climate change when it comes to disease transmission [20]. Even US army is worried about that [21]

The vague wording is also to save space.

2) Opening sentences give general info.

3) I don't think it's academic. And I also don't like how you are shifting focus. This article is not Agriculture. If it were, a general sentence about increasing global crop yields would be perfectly ok. But this article is about climate change. Of course global crop yields have been increasing since 1960's. First of all world population is much greater. Tech is more advanced. And we haven't seen the worst of climate change effects yet. My suggestion was shifting the focus back to climate change.

4) You generalized. Was it positively affected at all high latitudes? What's a "high latitude" since you strengthened the wording now?

5) Ok, this is good

6) Water scarcity based on AR6 is fine.

7) Of course uncertainty always exists. These are models with bunch of inputs. The results give a range with a certain probability. There's always a probability that numbers outside the range can happen, even if assumptions and inputs of the model are correct. I am open to revising this sentence though

8) Too many numbers

9) Where does it say that?

10) There is no "baseline". We are reporting current, near term, mid term and long term effects. "By 2100" and "after 2040" are long term effects.

If you fundamentally disagree with above, and if there are no more comments from other editors, I'd suggest moving further in Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_requests. Given this is a complicated issue with bunch of sources, I wouldn't recommend an RFC. I'd recommend Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard. If you don't fundamentally disagree, I can make another suggestion later this week. Bogazicili (talk) 18:08, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

1) If the WHO did not look at a disease in the first place (i.e. it didn't have the data for it or didn't find the changes would be important) then it is effectively irrelevant in a sentence that is about the WHO estimate only, as we already say very clearly. We do not by any means imply that their estimate is already perfect or that it has had time to look at everything.

1.1) I actually wrote our article on that particular subject last year, Pathogenic microorganisms in frozen environments. It's a really sensationalized subject, and if you want to be consistent and use only reliable secondary sources, then the one review I found is largely dismissive of the idea. If you want to include a sentence to summarize a conclusion like

To date, there is no report of intact and infectious RNA viruses directly isolated from permafrost. Therefore, although RNA viruses can be preserved in permafrost, based on our current knowledge, the risk of these RNA viruses being infectious to humans or other animals is unlikely.

Or

As we have summarized in this review, although some of the microorganisms and viruses that are preserved in permafrost can be active after thawing, the risks to human health are generally low.

you can, as we should now have enough space for it, but would there be a point?

2 + 3) Exactly, and telling readers that crop yields have been increasing to date is general info, one which readers are much less likely to know than the bland "extreme weather kills people". In fact, the IPCC itself also considers it important to refer to this (see even the next sentence).

4) Better question: do we really need this sentence at all, in any way? In fact, I took it out earlier, but then you decided to re-add it. My issue is that your proposed wording just does not read well - while various high latitude areas were positively affected is just messy and completely unclear how much or little "various" means. Granted, the original IPCC wording - Although overall agricultural productivity has increased, climate change has slowed this growth over the past 50 years globally, related negative impacts were mainly in mid- and low latitude regions but positive impacts occurred in some high latitude regions is also vague, which highlights my point. Why do we need to mention latitudes in a top-level article if we cannot devote enough space to adequately explain what we mean? Consumers don't care which latitude their food comes from, and farmers can look at a sub-article.

7) Your proposed wording basically suggested scientists have no idea which direction it's most likely to go, when the models, reviews, etc. are fairly clear about the direction and the conditions it would take to upend it. You also really seem to overuse the word "various", which is almost never helpful if you can have more precise alternatives. That was my point.

8) I am open to replacing "under 2C of warming" with "under high warming", since 2C by 2050 only occurs in the high-warming scenarios. I don't think we should change anything else, or avoid including this sentence.

9) Climate change including increases in frequency and intensity of extremes have reduced food and water security + Increasing weather and climate extreme events have exposed millions of people to acute food insecurity and reduced water security + Jointly, sudden losses of food production and access to food compounded by decreased diet diversity have increased malnutrition in many communities - all of it in the same paragraph on this page. It's very clear it intends a special focus on weather extremes.

10) My point was that basically every other relevant reference we cite throughout this article chooses 2050 as the comparison year for this timeframe (including the relevant passage in AR6 WG2) and only WG2 SPM uses 2040 (and it doesn't seem to have anything like the wording you suggested either.) We should avoid confusing readers with inconsistency.

Lastly, my experience with these Wikipedia mechanisms so far has been that it takes a lot of time, and they often punt on the issue anyway. Granted, I have not tried DRN yet, but my preference would be to ask the editors active on this very page (i.e. @Efbrazil, @EMsmile, @Femke, @RCraig09, @Uwappa) for input before we involve these protracted mechanisms. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 06:07, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with I2K that we don't need to invoke one of those formal Wikipedia mechanisms yet. There should be enough of us good-willed and skillful editors here to find a solution. I currently don't have the bandwidth to involve myself in depth. In general, I find I2K's work and content very good although sometimes written in a bit of an "academic" style (long sentences / literature review style) - a lot of us with a uni background in science suffer from that. ;-)

For the climate change article here, my suggestion would be to keep the content on food security and health issues really brief and point our readers to the sub-articles effects of climate change on agriculture and effects of climate change on human health at the earliest opportunity. And then ensure that those sub-articles, especially their leads, are really perfect and up to date. We could then use the same sentences here and in the leads there (in the absence of using excerpts).

I find that our important CC sub-articles deserve more attention and sometimes we spend too much time on this main CC article and not enough time on those sub-articles. EMsmile (talk) 09:19, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@EMsmile:, InformationToKnowledge also said we should not include certain information because it says "after 2040", which would be confusing to readers because we said "by 2050" in another sentence. I mean this is ridiculous. Also this discussion has been going on for over a month. So yes, as I said, unless more editors provide input, we should proceed to dispute resolution noticeboard.

I'm assuming no one will bother to read the entire conversation, so if anyone wants to jump in, I'd suggest looking at the last 2 yellow boxes. Bogazicili (talk) 10:28, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify: your suggestion was to replace a proposed sentence which discussed impacts after 2050 with a less detailed sentence which had similar phrasing but said "after 2040", apparently only because you felt that the AR6 WG2 SPM would be a better reference than a chapter of AR6 WG2.

I concur that the last two yellow boxes are the most important parts, however. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 10:39, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The section name is "Food and health". "Beyond 2040, there will be increasing risks to food and water availability, and human health.[IPCC AR6 WG2 Summary for Policymakers pp. 14-15]." is a better and more concise concluding sentence, especially since there are issues we haven't covered in this section [22] Bogazicili (talk) 10:54, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If there are issues we haven't covered in this section then...that's an argument for rescoping the section? Besides, the only mention of 2040 on the pages you are citing is Beyond 2040 and depending on the level of global warming, climate change will lead to numerous risks to natural and human systems. You are then apparently combining that wording with some material from paragraphs B.4.3 and B.4.4 to arrive at your chosen wording (while omitting the bolded part - arguably "misrepresentation" by your own standards). I just think that it is much cleaner and less confusing when the section first cites a projection up until 2050, then starts talking about what could happen after 2050.

I should also mention there is no objective reason to keep the section named "Food and health" anyway. We could just as easily retitle the first paragraph "Human health" and the second "Food and agriculture", and then the rationale for combining the two in one sentence goes away entirely. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you are proposing to reorganize entire Humans section, it'd probably take a year with the speed this is going. And we can definitely add rephrased version of "and depending on the level of global warming". To borrow your phrase, I thought it was "a very obvious statement". You are suggesting we delete "Extreme weather leads to injury and loss of life" part because it's too obvious, but I guess CDC didn't think so. [23] There's also no objective standard why you thought it was too obvious to add, but you still suggested "Extreme weather events adversely affect both food and water security"? Oh and one paragraph sections would be too short. That's an objective reasons, at least for Wikipedia. Bogazicili (talk) 12:08, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, it's been 5 days, and still nobody else here is willing to simply compare two versions of a two-paragraph section here and express their opinion. Would we really have to move to DRN after all? If not, then how much longer must we wait? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 14:50, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

where exactly is the comparison table that we are meant to review? Is it the table that I can find when scrolling up? I suggest to add a new section heading here and then repeat (or summarise) what the current question or comparison is. Sorry if this is annoying but I fear people switch off or give up following after a while when they see two people discussing something for a long time. EMsmile (talk) 23:39, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Additional discussion of food and health

@EMsmile: here's my updated suggestion based on the new sources [24] (see the chart at the bottom) and [25]. Also added rephrased "and depending on the level of global warming" to the last sentence after InformationToKnowledge's suggestion. Keep in mind this is not the final suggestion. Might include minor copy editing, and also will need to check against close paraphrasing again.

Additions are bolded. Deletions are struck:

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. [229] Extreme weather leads to injury and loss of life.[230] Various infectious diseases are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate, such as dengue fever and malaria.[231] Crop failures can lead to food shortages and malnutrition, particularly effecting children.[232] Both children and older people are vulnerable to extreme heat.[233] Extreme weather events affect public health.[26] Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[27]Lancet The 2022 report Climate change can affect transmission of infectious diseases.[28] Lancet Editorial The WHO has estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change would cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year due to increases in diarrhea, malaria, dengue, coastal flooding, childhood malnutrition, and heat exposure in elderly people. They assessed deaths from heat exposure in elderly people, increases in diarrhea, malaria, dengue, coastal flooding, and childhood malnutrition.[234] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population may face climate conditions that are life-threatening due to combined effects of extreme heat and humidity,[235] which currently affects 30% of the global population.[29] [Days with high heat stress and labor are in below subsection]

Climate change is affecting food security. Despite overall increase in agricultural productivity, climate change has reduced water and food security, and have curtailed agricultural productivity growth.[IPCC AR6 WG2 Summary for Policymakers p.9] Agricultural productivity was negatively affected in mid- and low-latitude areas, while various high latitude areas were positively affected. [IPCC AR6 WG2 Summary for Policymakers p.9] It has caused reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans between 1981 and 2010.[236] Fisheries have been negatively affected in multiple regions.[IPCC AR6 WG2 Summary for Policymakers p.9] Future warming could further reduce global yields of major crops.[237] Crop production will probably be negatively affected in low-latitude countries, while effects at northern latitudes may be positive or negative.[238] Up to an additional 183 million people worldwide, particularly those with lower incomes, are at risk of hunger as a consequence of these impacts.[239] Climate change also impacts fish populations. Globally, less will be available to be fished.[240] Regions dependent on glacier water, regions that are already dry, and small islands have a higher risk of water stress due to climate change.[241] By 2050, climate change may affect tens to hundreds of millions of people in terms of undernourishment and nutrition-related diseases;[IPCC AR6 WG2 Technical Summary p. 60] change in population at risk of hunger may be positive or negative depending on several climate change and socioeconomic scenarios.(new meta-analysis study) Depending on climate change trajectories, there will be increasing risks to food and water availability, and human health beyond 2040.[IPCC AR6 WG2 Summary for Policymakers pp. 14-15].

Also I don't think there's any reason to be sceptical about Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard. I think it'd be more efficient with less back and forth. Bogazicili (talk) 16:36, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, my suggestion now has a word count of 231 vs the current 243. Bogazicili (talk) 16:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is this the same suggestion that InformationToKnowledge would put forward, or is the problem that both of you have different preferred versions that you're putting forward? Also, when you made the proposed changes, did you keep in mind reading ease aspects? E.g. this is perhaps using unnecessarily complex words: Climate change is projected to adversely impact water-related illnesses. Or perhaps the argument is: let's agree on content first and do the wordsmithing later? EMsmile (talk) 21:44, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@EMsmile: exactly, let's agree on content first (something about water-related illnesses there), and then we can agree on exact wording. Bogazicili (talk) 21:29, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the whole issue is that tend to disagree on every other sentence, so there have been about three waves of differing proposals from either of us by now. I have hidden the discussion about those three by now, so that the other editors can still click on the boxes to read them, but would otherwise focus their attention on the latest proposals for the section. You can see Bogazicili's proposal above, and my proposal is here. Since the former proposal already shows the original's section text in the struck-out sections, I decided not to duplicate that, and only to bold the writing that is mine:

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. It has estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change would cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year due to impacts such as increased levels of extreme heat, greater frequency of extreme weather and changes in disease transmission. Lethal infectious diseases such as dengue fever and malaria are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate.[231] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity can be potentially lethal, (CB reference) particularly to children and the elderly.[233] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[235]

Agricultural and socioeconomic changes had been increasing global crop yields since the middle of the 20th century, [Our World in Data reference] but climate change has already slowed the rate of yield growth.[IPCC AR6 WG2 Summary for Policymakers p.9] Fisheries have been negatively affected in various regions.[IPCC AR6 WG2 Summary for Policymakers p.9] By 2050, the number of people suffering from undernourishment and the associated health conditions is likely to decrease by tens to hundreds of millions, but some combinations of severe climate change and low socioeconomic development may increase that number instead. (2021 meta-analysis) By 2050, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10% under higher warming, as less animal feed will be available.[IPCC AR6 WG2 p.748] Extreme weather events adversely affect both food and water security, and climate change increases their frequency.[IPCC AR6 WG2 Summary for Policymakers p.9][230] If the emissions remain high, food availability will likely decrease after 2050 due to diminishing fisheries and livestock counts, and due to more frequent and severe crop failures.[IPCC AR6 WG2 p.797]

Basically, these are the main things we have been arguing about for the past two months or so, and what the rest of editors here can hopefully decide on without invoking outside mechanisms:

1) We both agree that the WHO's mortality increase should be mentioned in the first paragraph, but how much detail to devote to each cause? You can see that Bogazicili favours more writing there, and I favour less. I find that sentences like "Extreme weather events affect public health. Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death..." are too general and colourless to be of much use, and phrasing like "transmission risk of various diseases...Climate change is projected to adversely impact water-related illnesses." is outright confusing. I also find that mentioning WHO's words once, then writing several general sentences, then doubling back to WHO with a sentence running through each cause is outright duplicative at times.

2) Best way to phrase the sentence which discusses that finding on "life-threatening conditions" and extreme heat/humidity. You can probably just compare the two versions.

3) How explicitly to note that crop yields, etc. have been increasing to date? I also use "Extreme weather events adversely affect both food and water security" later in the article instead of "climate change has reduced water and food security" in Bogazicili's proposal, because I both find it closer to the reference, and because the other wording is unclear. "climate change has reduced water and food security" relative to what? A specific year in our recent past, or a counterfactual where climate change has not been happening? If we can't explain a particular wording in the paragraph text, we should not use it.

4) Do we need to talk about latitudes in this particular article, as opposed to the sub-articles? I would say that when the wording is as vague as "various high latitude areas", it's best not to bother.

5) Do we need to mention livestock, a massively important part of food production in many countries? I believe so, but Bogazicili is apparently unconvinced.

6) How explicit should we be about projections for mid-century? I find that Bogazicili's wording is far too confusing for this article and does not properly represent the reference chosen, as opposed to my wording.

7) How to talk about food security, etc. in the second half of the century? One issue we have been arguing is that Bogazicili chooses to use 2040 because WG2 SPM is separated into near-term (2022-2040) and 2040-2100 sections, but almost everything else uses 2050, including the relevant chapter of WG2. However, there have been other disagreements, as you can probably tell from the differences in wording.

I find that these are the 7 main questions other editors should comment on. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:45, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@InformationToKnowledge: again, no reason to omit opening sentences such as "Extreme weather events affect public health" etc. For the end of the second paragraph, higher up pages in IPCC AR6 WG2 like in Summary for Policymakers give better overview, as it is a summary for non-science people. Pages 14-15 is preferable to going to page 797.

For the first paragraph, I'll agree to your wording for the part starting with "30% of the global population currently..." (we can drop "particularly to children and the elderly") if you agree with my suggestion until that part of the first paragraph. Bogazicili (talk) 21:35, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps to just step back a little bit:

• how many paragraphs do we envision this section to have? How much space do we allow?
• And would it perhaps be helpful to split the section "food and health" into two separate sections? I think they ought to be separate and then both refer to their respective main article. For the food section (which might be better termed "food security"?), it would be effects of climate change on agriculture and effects of climate change on livestock, and for the health section it would be effects of climate change on human health.
• A side benefit of this approach would be that it would encourage us to improve those three sub-articles as well, or to at least look at them! Short of using excerpts from them (as excerpts are frowned upon for featured articles) we could at least ensure that they match up fully with their content (i.e. nothing in the main article that is not also in the sub-article). Most of the detailed numbers should only be in the sub-articles, not in the main article, in my opinion. EMsmile (talk) 21:43, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's only 2 paragraphs. The formatting might make it look longer (with the striking). My suggestion is 231 words, shorter than the current version here Climate_change#Food_and_health. Bogazicili (talk) 21:54, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

EMsmile, I modified my suggestion and included a new source [30]. The older source we had ("The 2019 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate") doesn't seem very accessible as it directs to the entire issue. It's open access but hard to find what you are looking for and verify information. Bogazicili (talk) 22:09, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, but what do you think of my suggestion to split it into two sections? Wouldn't that help to address this and to achieve greater clarity? They are really two different issues. Not all health issues are food related (only nutrition is). I don't see why they have to be lumped together. I would envision two paragraphs for food/crops/agriculture, and two paragraphs for health. Keep in mind that we will likely gain some space once we finally have the causes of climate change sub-article and can move some content from the "causes" section to there. EMsmile (talk) 22:40, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have also proposed splitting the sections in the "third phase" of discussion up above. One issue, though, is that Bogazicili insists on only using the secondary sources to reference this section. I don't think is a requirement even for a FA articles, but if it is, that could be quite limiting if we want to go from two paragraphs to four. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 05:08, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A bold alternative: try an inverted pyramid. Recommended reading: Inverted Pyramids in Cyberspace, Jakob Nielsen, 1996. First step: try to agree on just 2 sentences that summarize the whole chapter. My suggestion, based on current text:

• An additional 183 million people are at risk of hunger.
• By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population may face life-threatening conditions.

Once you agree on such a core, add more detail. Uwappa (talk) 08:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's not that simple. I would say that for the first paragraph, both of us already agree that the WHO "250,000 extra deaths" figure is the core summary, but it doesn't help us agree on the best way to follow it up with explanatory detail. With the "50% to 75%" figure, we agree on most of the phrasing, but not on how to explain the remarkably broad manner in which it defines "life-threatening".

And the 183 million figure is actually something both of us agreed to move away from, because it is defined relative to a hypothetical future without climate change, and not relative to the present as most people would assume. This makes it needlessly confusing and the way it's currently used in the article is arguably misleading. The more up-to-date reference (2021 vs. 2019) explicitly notes that relative to the present, the number of people at risk of hunger would decrease in many scenarios, but we are still arguing over the best way to phrase that. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 08:46, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please shift your focus from example text to a different approach. How can the two of you cooperate after weeks of discussion?

Are you willing and able to turn text around, start with the conclusion? Suggestion:

1. create a sandbox where the two of you can cooperate
2. start with just 2 core sentences. Agree on those 2 core sentences first. Celebrate your agreement!
3. take it from there, add more detail.

My hope: Once the two of you agree on 2 core sentences, adding detail will be relatively easy. Uwappa (talk) 09:46, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Uwappa: I had already offered a compromise to InformationToKnowledge [31], but InformationToKnowledge doesn't seem to want to compromise.

Here's the compromise text for the first paragraph. The bolded parts are InformationToKnowledge's wording (with "particularly to children and the elderly" taken out):

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[32] Extreme weather events affect public health.[33][34] Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[35][36] Climate change can affect transmission of infectious diseases.[37] [38] The WHO has estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change would cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year due to increases in diarrhea, malaria, dengue, coastal flooding, childhood malnutrition, and heat exposure in elderly people.[39] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity can be potentially lethal.[40] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[41]

Bogazicili (talk) 22:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Uwappa: and @EMsmile: another issue is that InformationToKnowledge sometimes seems to want to play down effects of climate change because he is concerned about our readers freaking out too much ("Here a couple of relevant examples of the mindset of many general readers." [42]) I can see that mindset here Talk:Effects_of_climate_change_on_human_health#Article_appears_too_large_and_unwieldy_to_be_usable. Bogazicili (talk) 22:43, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please avoid dragging implications about other editors' mindset into content disputes. For anyone who hasn't looked at the diff or observed the discussion at the time, my statement referred to a dispute regarding the right choice of a baseline, and those examples I cited help to establish which baseline is more useful for most readers. Contrary to what you appear to have seen in the talk section I cited, I don't think that article is going to result in "our readers freaking out too much" - to me, it seems more likely to bore them to sleep. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 07:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you willing to try a different approach? Uwappa (talk) 22:48, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's why I suggested Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard. I don't think me working one on one with InformationToKnowledge is going to be useful. Bogazicili (talk) 22:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll admit that if no-one else here decides to take up the responsibility to choose between versions by the wen, it'll likely have to go to DRN after that. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 07:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't really work like that anyway. If another editor voiced their opinion, I'd certainly consider it and factor their opinion in, but I'd still take it further along dispute resolution if I really didn't like the text. Compromise and consensus is more preferable. Uwappa and EMsmile, do you want to join Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard discussion? Bogazicili (talk) 09:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't go to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard as the discussion is purely about content and uninvolved people would have a really hard time to follow. I do like the suggestion by Uwappa that the two of you work together in a Sandbox, as I somehow can't really follow those strike out, bolding etc. way of showing what is different. Or perhaps you could add just one sentence to the live article, wait for reactions, then add the next sentence. (I think the problem originally was that User:I2K added so much new text in one go that it was too much at once for anyone to follow)

For me personally, I generally stay away from the main climate change article because due to its FA status there is usually very strong resistance to change anything (rightly or wrongly). The FA status can sometimes feel a bit stifling but I can also understand that those who were involved in getting to FA status are sick and tired if they have to revisit stuff again and again, especially when it's had a recent FA review. But I had the problem once before at sea which was a featured article and then it made it really hard to change anything. This is not the case here though, editors are more open to changes and updates.

So for me, I tend to put my brain power into the sub-articles, even though it's not quite as satisfying as their pageviews are lower.

Sorry that I am not being more helpful with regards to the actual content questions here. I am pondering if we should ping RCraig09, Efbrazil and Femke although I am sure they have this on their watchlist so perhaps they don't want to be pinged (?). EMsmile (talk) 10:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No I'm not doing the sandbox thing with InformationToKnowledge. We've been talking about this since the beginning of February. Enough. Bogazicili (talk) 10:55, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Bogazicili for the invitation, but sorry, I won't join you to dispute resolution.

New suggestion: Try to reach disagreement on 2 core sentences in a sandbox.

• What would InformationToKnowledge's two core sentences be?
• What would your two core sentences be?

Take those two versions to dispute resolution, so it does not get lost in details.

Success! Uwappa (talk) 11:55, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have already listed what I consider to be the main 7 points of disagreement, and basically none of them are about "core sentences". I don't see how this would be helpful. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 09:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Bogazicili @EMsmile I started the Dispute Resolution discussion here. Since it appears that the other editors on this page are not particularly interested in this discussion (notice how many comments the most recent discussion about phrasing in the lead has attracted in comparison to this one), I opted not to include anyone else besides us three. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 09:24, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. You may wish to renumber your current list: 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8. Please note 4th bullet of rules: "Ensure that you deliver a notice to each person you add to the case filing by leaving a notice on their user talk page." Success! Uwappa (talk) 10:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for reminding me about this! Done. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:39, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence about 250,000 additional deaths

I've started a sub-heading here so that it's easier to follow. Regarding "I would say that for the first paragraph, both of us already agree that the WHO "250,000 extra deaths" figure is the core summary", I actually think this figure is not something that needs to be pushed and included, let alone be our "main message". I would exclude it from the climate change main article. It can be discussed in the sub-article on CC and health. I've already argued along the same lines last year; the discussion is visible in the archive here. I think the discussion didn't properly conclude and needs to be revisited (if you agree, shall I copy the discussion text across to here?). Basically, a figure of 250,000 extra deaths is rather meaningless, as all the indirect causes of death are not included. But more importantly, it puts too much emphasis on deaths whereas the more important issue with CC and health is the morbidity issue. We are not necessarily going to die from CC but life will be less comfortable and people will get more sick and suffer etc. EMsmile (talk) 10:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's just a number for estimates for several selected causes, nothing comprehensive: "The WHO has estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change would cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year due to increases in diarrhea, malaria, dengue, coastal flooding, childhood malnutrition, and heat exposure in elderly people" Also, it's in the source this is not comprehensive, but I'm open to expanding it to say it's not comprehensive in the text too. Bogazicili (talk) 11:05, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And the number is 10 years old by now (the WHO publication is from 2014). If there has been no updated figure on that in any of the literature in the last 10 years, not in the relevant Lancet "countdown" publications nor anywhere else, doesn't this tell us something? It's simply not relevant / reliable / up to date and therefore should not be included in this high level article. It can be in effects of climate change on human health and be spelled out in more detail there. EMsmile (talk) 13:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's also cited in IPCC AR6 WG2 (2022) as people pointed out in the archived topic you provided. We can also replace it with "Over 9 million climate-related deaths per year are projected by the end of the century" that you pointed out. Bogazicili (talk) 14:58, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this can be left out, as it's quite outdated by now. Are the 9 million death climate or climate-change related? In the first case, it may be confusing to the reader. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:41, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the quote: "TS.C.6 Climate change will increase the number of deaths and the global burden of non-communicable and infectious diseases (high confidence). Over nine million climate-related deaths per year are projected by the end of the century, under a high emissions scenario and accounting for population growth, economic development and adaptation. Health risks will be differentiated by gender, age, income, social status and region (high confidence)." [IPCC AR6 WG2 Technical Summary p. 63] Bogazicili (talk) 20:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So the IPCC is quite vague too, but seems to refer to CC-related deaths. Their referral to other sections that expand on this is terrible. I would like to know what they consider a high-emissions scenario (SSP6 or SSP8.5), given that the latter is very much a "very high emissions" scenario, which isn't too realistic anymore. Happy to highlight SSP6.0 though. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:55, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not wedded to a specific number, but I would strongly prefer the "Food and health" section mentions potential loss of human life in one form or another. WHO's number is more immediate (2030 and 2050) and narrow Bogazicili (talk) 21:03, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Latest suggestions

• Here's Bogazicili's suggestion from above, just updated the formatting:

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[43] Extreme weather events affect public health.[44][45] Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[46][47] Climate change can affect transmission of infectious diseases.[48] [49] The WHO has estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change would cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year due to increases in diarrhea, malaria, dengue, coastal flooding, childhood malnutrition, and heat exposure in elderly people.[50] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population may face climate conditions that are life-threatening due to combined effects of extreme heat and humidity,[51]p. 988 which currently affects 30% of the global population.[52]

Despite overall increase in agricultural productivity, climate change has reduced water and food security, and have curtailed agricultural productivity growth.p.9 Agricultural productivity was negatively affected in mid- and low-latitude areas, while various high latitude areas were positively affected. p.9 Fisheries have been negatively affected in multiple regions.p.9 By 2050, climate change may affect tens to hundreds of millions of people in terms of undernourishment and nutrition-related diseases;p.60 change in population at risk of hunger may be positive or negative depending on several climate change and socioeconomic scenarios.[53] Depending on climate change trajectories, there will be increasing risks to food and water availability, and human health beyond 2040.pp. 14-15.

Bogazicili (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• InformationToKnowledge's suggestion, copied from above

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. It has estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change would cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year due to impacts such as increased levels of extreme heat, greater frequency of extreme weather and changes in disease transmission. Lethal infectious diseases such as dengue fever and malaria are more easily transmitted in a warmer climate.[231] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity can be potentially lethal, (CB reference) particularly to children and the elderly.[233] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[235]

Agricultural and socioeconomic changes had been increasing global crop yields since the middle of the 20th century, [Our World in Data reference] but climate change has already slowed the rate of yield growth.[IPCC AR6 WG2 Summary for Policymakers p.9] Fisheries have been negatively affected in various regions.[IPCC AR6 WG2 Summary for Policymakers p.9] By 2050, the number of people suffering from undernourishment and the associated health conditions is likely to decrease by tens to hundreds of millions, but some combinations of severe climate change and low socioeconomic development may increase that number instead. (2021 meta-analysis) By 2050, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10% under higher warming, as less animal feed will be available.[IPCC AR6 WG2 p.748] Extreme weather events adversely affect both food and water security, and climate change increases their frequency.[IPCC AR6 WG2 Summary for Policymakers p.9][230] If the emissions remain high, food availability will likely decrease after 2050 due to diminishing fisheries and livestock counts, and due to more frequent and severe crop failures.[IPCC AR6 WG2 p.797]

• Here's the compromise text for the first paragraph by Bogazicili. The bolded parts are InformationToKnowledge's wording (with "particularly to children and the elderly" taken out)

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[54] Extreme weather events affect public health.[55][56] Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[57][58] Climate change can affect transmission of infectious diseases.[59] [60] The WHO has estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change would cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year due to increases in diarrhea, malaria, dengue, coastal flooding, childhood malnutrition, and heat exposure in elderly people.[61] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity can be potentially lethal.[62] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[63]

Bogazicili (talk) 20:35, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussions

Lets be brief here and use this subsection for discussion of above (and latest) suggestions. We can update the text in suggestions. Bogazicili (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was hoping to place the suggested versions side-by-side myself, but to do it directly on the DRN page. Their word count limits have hindered that, so I thank you for doing that instead.

However, I still have mostly the same issues with your suggestions:

1) I still don't think that mentioning the WHO at the start of the paragraph, then writing three very general sentences, and then mentioning the WHO again in a very long sentence (around 40 words!) makes for good or approachable encyclopaedic writing. To be fair, my proposed second sentence is about the same length, but I think it can be more easily split in half than your proposal.

2) Again, I think that any mention of temperature extremes and increased illness/death should be grouped together with the 50%/75% of the population under extreme heat and humidity part, not separated from it by two unrelated sentences.

3) I find it interesting that you chose to effectively weaken the wording on infectious diseases to a mere "can affect". When the next sentence effectively asserts that deaths from malaria, dengue and diarrhea will increase, this looks outright inconsistent. (We should also almost certainly use the full name of dengue fever, and to specify infectious diarrhea, as there are other kinds.)

4) I see that you still don't like my "particularly to children and the elderly" wording. Well, I found the full text of the study cited by the IPCC (and that CB article) and it actually includes this sentence: "The consequences of exposure to deadly climatic conditions could be further aggravated by an ageing population (that is, a sector of the population highly vulnerable to heat) and increasing urbanization (that is, exacerbating heat-island effects)". However, if you want to mention risk to the elderly in the WHO sentence itself, then this could work if the rest of that sentence is good.

5) After reading the full text of that study, I would rather modify my two closing sentences to the following: 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity are already associated with excess deaths. By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.

I really like this wording because it makes it very clear what the original study's definition of "deadly" means, much better than "life-threatening" (current) or "potentially lethal" (previous suggestion). InformationToKnowledge (talk) 09:34, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some effects of climate change: Wildfire intensified by heat and drought, bleaching of coral caused by marine heatwaves, and worsening droughts compromising water supplies.

Please vote below whether you Support or Oppose having the effects collage (shown on the right) restored to the lead, as it was here before being edited out. The argument for cutting it was simply "too many images in the lead". Arguments for restoring it are that we don't have a visual presentation of effects until much later, plus the lead is long and is followed by a definitions section that does not have images, so I don't know that having lots of images in the lead is a problem. As an introductory article visuals are important. Efbrazil (talk) 20:39, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Support keeping in it. The balance between graphs (technical & scary) and images (accessible) is worse than it was previously. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get consensus for it, but if we want to be closer to normal practice with the number of figures in the lead, I would skip the very first one. (minor Point of order, we don't vote, but !vote on Wikipedia, as these things are still discussions even with bolded declarations). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:43, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Mild support. As overflow into the non-image-bearing /*Terminology*/ section does not seem to bother most other editors, it's fine to replace the image collage in the lead (but not lower in the article, where subsections under /*Impacts*/ already contain two five-image image collages that include a wildfire, coral and drought). —RCraig09 (talk) 21:54, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Neutral The collage was fine where it was before deletion, showing impacts in chapter Impacts. The current 2 graphs in the lead show temperature change. What the lead of Climate Change should show is a climate change graph. For example: What are the climate changes, pre-industrial versus current of Tokyo, Delhi or Shanghai? Uwappa (talk) 18 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Not surprisingly, I am opposed to restoring it (as I was the one who took it out in the first place). I don't understand why this article should need 5 images in the lead when other featured articles on Wikipedia manage to stick closer to the convention of having just one representative image (or an image collage of 4). Couldn't we devise an image collage of 4, just like at effects of climate change on agriculture? It could be a mixture of graphs and images, but in a 2 x 2 collage.
  If people insist that the 3-image collage of effects need to be in the lead, can we take another closer look if the choice of images is really ideal? Each of the images shown also has other causes, not just climate change. So I think it's hard to explain it all with the short caption. I especially find the coral bleaching image problematic, as coral bleaching has a range of causes (also nutrient pollution). Plus, it only speaks to those people who have ever seen colourful corals in real life (like scuba divers, or locals) or in movies... One could argue that a more important image on effects would be one showing an extreme weather event, like a flood from an intensified hurricane, or a photo showing a heatwave.
  By the way, the 4 image collage at effects of climate change is also not the best; I am not sure about the one showing an abandoned village in Mali; again, there could be all sorts of causes for that. I think the causal link is not clear. Also it says there "bleached coral caused by ocean acidification and heating" which I think is unclear and possibly wrong (do we have evidence that the ocean acidification is already now contributing to coral bleaching?) EMsmile (talk) 11:11, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm very happy to re-look at the 3 images in a separate discussion. I think this should ideally be a 4-image collage; I believe one image may have been removed due to something like copyright, and we started out with four.

  I don't think a 4-image collage with a graph can be made accessible. The text would not be readable for a reasonable size of a 4-image collage. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:55, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Like Femke says, we do not want charts and graphs shrunk down so the content is not longer visible in thumbnail view. A lot of work has gone into making the charts and graphs readable in thumbnail and smartphone views. Regarding other points raised above:

  1. There are major benefits to having all the images, and the only drawback seems to be "it's not conventional". We should care about the user experience, not what's conventional.
  2. The vast majority of our users are on smartphone, and for them whether the content is a collage or separate images makes no difference, as the images are shown the same way. The articles "effects of climate change" and "effects of climate change on agriculture" will have 4 or 5 images in the lead for the vast majority of our users.
  3. Whether the images should be changed is really a separate discussion like Femke says. Briefly, heatwaves, hurricanes, and floods all happened before climate change of course, so they have the same issue you are raising with coral. Heatwaves are hard to show visually. Hurricanes and climate change is a very mixed story we shouldn't lead with. Floods are a serious issue and could be added in place of drought or fire. Coral I would want to keep as it is likely the ecosystem being most damaged by climate change currently and the science shows that virtually all coral reefs are vulnerable this century to destruction by the combination of temperature change and acification.
  4. What is in the Effects of Climate Change collage should be discussed on the talk page there.

  Efbrazil (talk) 18:58, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support Likely obvious as I brought this forward for discussion. I just don't see any harm in having more images in the lead, and I see major benefits in having a visual presentation of effects early on. Efbrazil (talk) 18:41, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For comparison: this is the image collage used at effects of climate change: Some climate change effects: wildfire caused by heat and dryness, bleached coral caused by ocean acidification and heating, environmental migration caused by desertification, and coastal flooding caused by storms and sea level rise.

As per request above I am starting a new section to discuss and revisit the choice of images for the effects in the lead. I think we should have a 2 x 2 collage and maybe - to make our lives easier and for efficiency reasons - simply take the same collage as is used at effects of climate change (or make them the same at the end of the discussion). I copy my concerns about the current group of 3 from above: EMsmile (talk) 23:59, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Each of the images shown also has other causes, not just climate change. So I think it's hard to explain it all with the short caption. I especially find the coral bleaching image problematic, as coral bleaching has a range of causes (also nutrient pollution). Plus, it only speaks to those people who have ever seen colourful corals in real life (like scuba divers, or locals) or in movies... One could argue that a more important image on effects would be one showing an extreme weather event, like a flood from an intensified hurricane, or a photo showing a heatwave.

By the way, the 4 image collage at effects of climate change is also not the best; I am not sure about the one showing an abandoned village in Mali; again, there could be all sorts of causes for that. I think the causal link is not clear. Also it says there "bleached coral caused by ocean acidification and heating" which I think is unclear and possibly wrong (do we have evidence that the ocean acidification is already now contributing to coral bleaching?) - I could put this on the talk page of effects of climate change but it might be more efficient to discuss both issues together here, and to use the same 4 images and caption in both articles. EMsmile (talk) 23:59, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also copied from above is Femke's reply "I'm very happy to re-look at the 3 images in a separate discussion. I think this should ideally be a 4-image collage; I believe one image may have been removed due to something like copyright, and we started out with four" EMsmile (talk) 23:59, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also copied from above is Efbrazil's reply: "Briefly, heatwaves, hurricanes, and floods all happened before climate change of course, so they have the same issue you are raising with coral. Heatwaves are hard to show visually. Hurricanes and climate change is a very mixed story we shouldn't lead with. Floods are a serious issue and could be added in place of drought or fire. Coral I would want to keep as it is likely the ecosystem being most damaged by climate change currently and the science shows that virtually all coral reefs are vulnerable this century to destruction by the combination of temperature change and acidification." EMsmile (talk) 23:59, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The image collage does not show climate change. It shows effects of climate change, which is fine for the lead of Effects_of_climate_change.

The current 2 graphs show change of temperature, global warming. Neither shows temperatures since 1850.

Revolutionary idea: The lead of climate change should show... an image that depicts climate change, differences between a pre-industrial climate and its current version. Yes I know, it is a big step. At the moment Climograph at the English Wikipedia does not yet have graphs such as

Japanese Wikipedia

French and German Wikipedia

Take those climate graphs one step further, create an original image that shows climate change:

a pre-industrial climate versus the current climate.

What are the climate changes?

• Which months are drier?
• Which are wetter?
• Which months are hotter?
• Which are cooler?

Jumping 2 steps forward: Show the impact with background colours. Which months are moving into a 'red' danger zone, agriculture not possible anymore? Which months are moving towards green? Uwappa (talk) 08:45, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The current lead images crystalize the issue of hotter temperatures, their location, and their cause. The effects collage then shows some effects of those hotter temperatures, which include droughts and fire and ecosystem damage. I'm not sure how it can be said the current lead images don't focus on climate change.

This is an introductory article and the lead in particular should be targeted at a middle school level of education. I don't support going to a more confusing, graduate level set of images.

In general, the only changes I think could make sense here are updating the effects collage. Maybe somebody could make a proposal with updated images that include an image on storm intensification, maybe from the 2022 Pakistan floods. Efbrazil (talk) 17:31, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Impact section has 4 subsections:

5.1 Environmental effects

5.2 Tipping points and long-term impacts

5.3 Nature and wildlife

5.4 Humans

Maybe we can have an image for each. For tipping points, we can put an image representing one of the tipping points likely before 2C (in dark red) here [64]. The images suggested by EMsmile might already cover all 4 subsections. Bogazicili (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Efbrazil, how current lead images don't focus on climate change? It is the difference between temperature change and climate change.

• 
  one temperature
• 
  temperature change

• 
  one climate
• 
  climate change

Uwappa (talk) 09:37, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Temperature is a major part of climate. Climate involves many other things too numerous to capture in one or two images or charts, which is why you have a "?" graphic above. Also, after a renaming/move a few years ago, "global warming" redirects here, so temperature is probably the most important aspect of climate change. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:43, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seconding what Craig said. Also, I'm not sure what you are expecting people to learn from looking at the "one climate" image. I don't see a monthly breakdown as interesting. For showing precipitation changes, the soil moisture map that is later in the article works better, as precipitation changes will be a highly localized phenomena. That image is unfortunately a bit too technical for the lead I think, as it shows standard deviations of moisture change and is a projection at 2 C. We want to keep the lead squarely focused on the basics. Efbrazil (talk) 19:05, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What I expect people to learn from looking at a Thermopluviogram (or any Climograph)?

Two variables are important for a climate:

1. temperature (thermo)
2. rain (pluvio).

Two variables is a big mental step from: only one variable matters for a climate and that is temperature.

The question mark: What would the big brother of a thermopluviogram look like, a climate change diagram showing long term changes in temperature and precipitation? What would your design be for a simple diagram that suits the lead of climate change?

Alternative: a 'precipitation change over the past 50 years' globe, similar to that complements .

Suggestion: swap green for blue, the colour of water. Uwappa (talk) 20:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Uwappa: I don't think you are convincing anybody here on the thermopluviogram or any other highly technical type of graph. I'm not that keen on another graph in the lead, but the precipitation change over 50 years is quite nice. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:48, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that consensus here over the years is to resist foundational changes in how things are charted. Warming stripes were resisted because they were new and too simplistic; conversely, climograms are resisted because they're new and techy (and describe only two dimensions of climate change rather than one—not much of an improvement). I'm afraid we have to be ~conventional in our communication, especially in high-level articles, mostly because our audience is lay people who are not eager to learn new charting methods. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:34, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am not suggesting a thermometer, thermopluviogram or any highly technical graph. Here is a rephrase of the question:

• 
  one temperature
• 
  temperature change

• 
  one climate
• 
  climate change

Uwappa (talk) 08:05, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Two possible answers to the question "What would a climate change diagram look like":

• 
  Four periods of each 30 years. Each period is hotter and drier than the previous, with the exception of 1941-1970 which was hotter but drier.
• 
  Climate change in Paris 1881-2000 by month. All months are hotter. Most months are wetter, but summer months June and August are drier.

Suggestion: zoom out. These are diagrams for just one city. What would a diagram look like for a country, a continent, earth? My answer: same style of diagrams can be used, just feed them with other data. Uwappa (talk) 08:10, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talking of graphs and charting I'm minded to include this (from NOAA) to introduce a long term context. What do you think?

[65]https://www.climate.gov/media/11332 Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:52, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's from here BTW Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:54, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Extremely long time frames like the one you linked to are more likely to be confusing to a lay audience, as they could make it appear that climate change is no big deal in the grand sweep of planetary history. What's important about climate change is how it relates to life on Earth today (including us), not how it relates to our planetary history of solar, atmospheric, and geological processes.

I think the best "long" time frame to add would be from when modern humans evolved, which is about 300K years ago. Ideally the smoothing would be a 20 year interval, to match the IPCC definition of climate. We have this high resolution data from the last 2K years, maybe it could be extended back further. The trouble is that data sets going back further are less reliable and don't have annualized data. Efbrazil (talk) 18:48, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure providing a long time frame for context is going to mislead anyone.

Can you help me understand why that would be the case. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 17:51, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Current global warming, which is "only" 1.4+ °C in comparison, looks dwarfed by changes millions of years ago. This visual juxtaposition gives layman viewers the impression the current global warming is trivial, which it's not. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:00, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well said. I'd also point out that current warming is happening on a time scale that those older charts do not include, as they smooth data over time periods of thousands to millions of years. If you honor that smoothing function, current warming wouldn't show up at all.

Also, the impacts of climate change are going to be felt by life on Earth today, so what's relevant is the time period that life on Earth evolved to live in. Data prior to a few million years back may be interesting in an academic sense, but it's irrelevant to the concerns of life on Earth today. Efbrazil (talk) 19:54, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I understand. I'll have a more thorough look at our section

Temperature records prior to global warming

and Main articles: Climate variability and change; Temperature record of the last 2,000 years; and Paleoclimatology

and see how these articles are fitting together and come back. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 21:58, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that there are quite a few of these notifications in the list of sources now: "Harv warning: There is no link pointing to this citation. The anchor is named CITEREFThe_Guardian,_26_January2015." (I can't remember now if one needs to have a script installed to see this Harv warnings or if they're always there). Can someone, or shall I, remove those particular sources now? I assume they are "left overs" when sentences were removed. EMsmile (talk) 10:39, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(I've brought this back from the archive because I think this needs to be revisited, now that we have a sub-article on causes of climate change. I think the discussion hadn't concluded yet.) EMsmile (talk) 22:40, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

+++++++++

We talk a lot about space constraints here. And I think that is good; the article shouldn't get too big. Suggestion to generate more space: let's take the plunge and move some content from the "causes" section to causes of climate change. This would free up a lot of space for other content. See also move discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Attribution_of_recent_climate_change#Requested_move_29_January_2024 (which has been "stuck" and sadly no inputs from uninvolved editors yet (but I am not surprised; it's not easy for an uninvolved editor to get their heads around it; I think we need to resolve it ourselves). EMsmile (talk) 09:08, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That would be great. But it's a highly technical section, so I'm not sure who's going to do it. It's also been stable for a long time. Bogazicili (talk) 15:58, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bold suggestion: Prune, prune, prune the whole chapter down to just a list. No background. Little explanation. No history. No-where-does-it-come-from. No expectations. No what-to-do-about-it. Provide all of that in other chapters, other pages. Move feedback mechanisms to modelling. Keep it simple, no jargon, no abbreviations. Just list the causes.

Sort the list. Main, long term factors first. Put small impact factors last.

1. Carbon dioxide and methane are the main greenhouse gases that trap heat near the Earth's surface.
2. Deforestation. Living trees remove carbon and cool by evaporation. Dead trees release CO2 and can't cool anymore.
3. El Niño causes spikes upto several years while La Niña causes cooling.
4. Vulcanic eruptions have a negligible impact for just several years.
5. The received energy from the sun has not really changed since 1880.

The word count will reduce dramatically. Uwappa (talk) 16:41, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want this section to become "just a list". It's important to have this section be clear and stand alone. We need to lay the foundation before launching into impacts. I wouldn't want to see the overall word count of the section drop by more than half.

Here is a proposal for cut downs on reading through the sections as they are now:

1. The intro to the section: This is good framing and I wouldn't change it
2. Greenhouse gases: The first 4 paragraphs I wouldn't change. The last paragraph on the carbon cycle could be merged into the section Reducing and recapturing emissions / Carbon sequestration. We'd then just add one sentence to the first or second paragraph of Greenhouse gases that mentions carbon sequestration as an issue.
3. Land surface changes: This is the other cause that deserves top level billing and I wouldn't change it at all.
4. Other factors: All remaining sections I'd stuff into a new section called "Other factors". That includes existing sections called "Aerosols and clouds", "Solar and volcanic activity", and "Climate change feedback". None of those are "causes" of climate change, so they don't belong as a subtitle under "Causes of Climate Change". I'd reduce all those sections to 1 paragraph each so that "Other factors" is 3 or 4 paragraphs long.

So that cuts 4 or 5 paragraphs total. Thoughts? Efbrazil (talk) 18:30, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given Attribution of recent climate change is in a poor state, and this article is FA, I'd suggest a conservative approach, certainly not chopping off large portions. Bogazicili (talk) 20:13, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've just added the section sizes table to the talk page at the top. It shows that the biggest section is the one on causes (although not by far). This is a hint for me that some trimming of that section could be a good move. The fact that Attribution of recent climate change (possibly future causes of climate change) is in a bad state should not stop us from making such changes.

I like Efbrazil's suggestion of "other factors" (or better wording?) as "Climate change feedback" shouldn't be on the same level as "greenhouse gas emissions" with regards to causes.

The fact that this section has been "stable for a long time" shouldn't stop us from taking a hard critical look at it to see if it can be improved.

I disagree with Uwappa's suggestion. A mere list wouldn't do it justice. But a section with fewer and shorter sub-sections would. EMsmile (talk) 21:13, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It used to be called 'drivers of climate change' before, which made the feedback section work there. Other factors work if we don't rename the section back to how it was. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 21:17, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For now I stuffed those sections into a new "Other factors" section, to help clarify that they aren't causes. I didn't want to revisit the section title name, as that change was a long debate. Efbrazil (talk) 21:36, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Promote "3.3 Other factors" to "4 Other factors", so "3. Causes" will be have just 2 subheadings: "3.1 Greenhouse gases" and "3.2 Land surface changes"? Uwappa (talk) 21:48, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Other factors doesn't make sense as a stand alone section, it would need to be something like "Other factors influencing climate", but then you're getting into a laundry list that is already covered in Climate variability and change. I kind of like it where it is, being subordinate to causes. Makes it clear we aren't forgetting these complicating factors, but also makes it clear they aren't the cause. Efbrazil (talk) 22:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's all not ideal... But maybe we could call the sub-section just that: "Complicating factors"? I think that could add some clarity.EMsmile (talk) 23:50, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I don't see "complicating factors" as better than "other factors". All it means to me is other + complicated. The other factors are not really "complicating" as they can, in fact, be ignored. They are just background noise or feedbacks that complicate modeling, but don't complicate understanding the cause of climate change. Some stuff like solar variability we're discussing mostly because it's been a red herring used by climate deniers. Maybe you could clarify what you don't like about "other factors"? Efbrazil (talk) 01:21, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How about same terminology as and move feedback to Modelling?

3. Natural variability

3.1 El Niño & La Niña

3.2 Solar and volcanic activity

3.3 Aerosols and clouds

 

4. Human forces

4.1 Greenhouse gases

4.2 Land surface changes

 

5. Modelling

5.1 Climate change feedback

Describe Natural variability first, before Human forces? Uwappa (talk) 10:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Aerosols are human caused, clouds are not. Also, this is an article on climate change, not natural variability, so I don't think that topic deserves top billing.

I thought about combining other factors with modelling but I think it's best to keep all the factors influencing climate grouped together. How to model those factors is really a separate topic.

The only idea that kind of makes sense to me is renaming "Other factors" to "Other factors influencing global temperatures". That would help with clarity but is wordy. I also don't know if that scratches your itch, as you didn't jump on that idea when I suggested it in edit comments.

So, again, I just don't see the problem with things as they are now. It is an appropriate hierarchy that makes it clear what's important, plus it groups all forces influencing climate. Can you please clarify what the problem is, instead of looking for a solution? Efbrazil (talk) 15:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is (but it's maybe only a minor problem) that things appear under "Causes" which are not actually causes. Namely these: Aerosols and clouds; Solar and volcanic activity; Climate change feedbacks (as Femke pointed out earlier, they are drivers and the section used to be called drivers). Now perhaps it doesn't matter for lay persons (drivers and causes are kind of similar...) or perhaps we want to make sure we make it very clear (?) (even for me as a layperson I have to think twice if aerosols is a cause or not; since the aerosols are also emitted by human activities...).

So therefore, a sub-heading 1 with the title "other factors" glosses over this too much. Maybe "Other factors that act as drivers but are not causes " as a section heading (too long, I know). Or "Other related drivers". Or "drivers that interact with causes". Or lift it up to become its own main level heading called "Drivers apart from causes" or "Other drivers"?

And since Uwappa mentioned ENSO: the articles does mention climate variability a few times but has no dedicated sub-heading 1 for that. I am wondering if we need one. Could also be a sub-heading 2. EMsmile (talk) 14:42, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that we should get that article renamed and fixed up before doing much to this article. Maybe some edits here could be moves of content to that article though. Regardless, the renaming should happen first. Efbrazil (talk) 21:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please indicate at Talk:Attribution of recent climate change which of the proposed options you favour? I am just trying to move things along. It's been stuck for a long time (and no uninvolved editors have shown up yet). EMsmile (talk) 23:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, thanks for the ping Efbrazil (talk) 01:13, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By now, I would actually support something much closer to the suggestion of @Uwappa then what the other editors seem to be proposing. This is because I have done my best to combine this section of this article and the relevant parts of the "attribution" article in my draft of the article on "Causes of climate change", which can now be viewed at my sandbox. Editors are encouraged to comment on that draft wherever they find it convenient, or even edit it directly. If there are no strong objections to the structure of that draft, then I would like to reduce the section here to a cogent summary of that article once it goes live. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:16, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(moved from above to keep this all together) EMsmile (talk) 22:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@EMsmile: I think we should be cautious about cutting causes section. First of all, this article is FA. Causes of climate change is a long way from FA quality. So I'm cautious about sending readers to lower quality articles. Also consider the massive difference in page views. When there is still so much scepticism about science, the most important information should still be in the main article. Btw only "about 0.09% or one out of every 1,050 articles" in English Wikipedia are Wikipedia:Featured articles. So I'm cautious about changes in FA articles in general. So I think we should proceed with caution in cutting causes section and expanding other sections. Bogazicili (talk) 22:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Much of Causes of climate change, as currently written, was based directly on the exact section of this article we are trying to condense. In particular, the sections on Land cover changes, aerosols and feedbacks are exactly the same, word-for-word, between the two articles. "Solar and volcanic activity" section is another example. It had been renamed to "natural variability", but is otherwise very similar. If that content is FA while it is here, how does it become less so by simply being moved elsewhere?

Further, those are the sections where a lot of sentences go well and beyond "the most important information". You can argue that they already provide too much detail for a high-level article: i.e. how many people need to see a fairly detailed paragraph on cloud feedback and why it can be different in models when they are simply trying to learn about climate change in general? This is why they are the prime candidates for condensing here, now that they are already replicated in a separate article. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 07:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we need to cut from causes of climate change again? What is being proposed to be expanded? Bogazicili (talk) 09:26, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the reasons that I2K gave as a good motivation for condensing some of the content about causes of climate change (even if we were to not expand any other section). Overall, the CC article is definitely on the long side and "less is more" in this case. (I tried to check the page size with the page size tool but am getting this info at the moment: "Prose size (text only): undefined B (undefined words) "readable prose size""). EMsmile (talk) 11:48, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see 8,929 words, it's actually at the recommended length (under 9k). I don't think it expanded much since last FAR either. If there is no proposed expansion, cutting from causes of climate change is completely redundant. Bogazicili (talk) 12:11, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree: cutting content (or rather condensing content) is not "redundant" if one doesn't expand at the same time in another section. There can be other reasons for condensing content, and I think I2K spelled out those reasons quite well. E.g. they said You can argue that they already provide too much detail for a high-level article: i.e. how many people need to see a fairly detailed paragraph on cloud feedback and why it can be different in models when they are simply trying to learn about climate change in general? EMsmile (talk) 13:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How are we assessing DUE weight? It also seems summary style to me as most sections have their own articles, except "Land surface changes" and "Aerosols and clouds" sections. Bogazicili (talk) 15:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've used the readability tool to spot difficult to read sentences in the lead. This one caught my eye: Strategies to phase out fossil fuels involve conserving energy, generating clean and sustainable electricity, and using electricity to power transportation, heat buildings, and operate industrial facilities. I have simplified it to this but the score is still low: Strategies to phase out fossil fuels include conserving energy, generating sustainable electricity, and switching to using electricity as an energy source.. Better to go back to how it was, or try again with some simpler words?

But I didn't like how the transport example was given, as it's Global North focused. The aim is to go from cars with combustion engines to EVs, but the aim is not to go from bicycles to EVs. The example of "heating buildings" is also Global North focused. So I think it's better to not have those three examples at all.

Just for fun, I asked Chat GPT how it would simplify the sentence and it came up with something similar to my proposal: The plan to replace fossil fuels includes saving energy, creating clean power sources, and using electricity for transportation, heating, and industry.. I like that one actually. EMsmile (talk) 12:19, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I undid your last 2 edits to the lead. Any lead changes require consensus here first.

I agree with trying to simplify the text, but I disagree with removing content as a way to resolve the issue. It is important to enumerate what electrification requires. Perhaps the text could be split into 2 sentences instead, like this:

Strategies to phase out fossil fuels involve conserving energy and powering systems with sustainably generated electricity. Electricity must replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and operating industrial facilities. Efbrazil (talk) 18:32, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Efbrazil. Removing content for purposes of simplification—especially when guided by a sage as circumspect and wise as Chat GPT—is another example of elevating form over substance. We should avoid that. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:25, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Efbrazil, for being open to changing that sentence. Sorry that I made the change before discussing it on the talk page first. Breaking the sentence in two could work. Although this is not easy to read either: "powering systems with sustainably generated electricity". The second sentence is good although I am not sure about the word "must". Should it be rather like this?: "Electricity can replace fossil fuels..." or "Electricity should replace fossil fuels...". EMsmile (talk) 21:37, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As to the remark by RCraig09, well Chat-GPT is a tool like any other tool. If it gives a good suggestion then why not consider its merits and take inspiration from it? I see nothing wrong with it. Eventually, it will likely replace many of us knowledge workers and/or help us enormously with making our texts more reader friendly. You'll see. The proposal by Chat-GPT was not bad: The plan to replace fossil fuels includes saving energy, creating clean power sources, and using electricity for transportation, heating, and industry.. Quite to the point, really. (what this means regarding copyright is another question, i.e. are the outputs of chat-GPT under copyright or not... ) EMsmile (talk) 21:37, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

must --> should works for me, and I see your point on the first sentence. How about this:

Transitioning away from fossil fuels requires conserving energy and using sustainably generated electricity. Electricity should replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and operating industrial facilities.

Reasoning:

• People had complained about "phase out" before, and saying "transitioning away" is maybe better. It allows for minor use cases for fossil fuels provided they are offset.
• We say power in the next sentence, so simplified to just say "using" in the first sentence, which lowers the word count a fair bit

Efbrazil (talk) 21:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I like your proposal. Some minor further points:

• Would "transitioning away" still be hyperlinked to fossil fuel phase-out? I think it should.
• Is it a stylistic problem that the sentence ends with "electricity" and the next one starts with the same word? Or not a problem.
• Could we simplify it to "powering transportation, heating, and industry"? Reasoning: what else would you heat than buildings. So "buildings" is superfluous. "Operating industrial facilities" sounds odd in my ears. If anything it's about "industrial processes". But simply "industry" might do the trick?
• (but I am also fine with your proposal, don't want to chew up too much of your time.) EMsmile (talk) 22:09, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Even simpler alternative:

Fossil fuels can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to sustainable electricity. Uwappa (talk) 10:59, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly that first sentence works for me Uwappa, but I don't like removing "generated" from "Sustainably generated electricity". Having it in there helps to clarify what makes the electricity sustainable.

As for the second sentence, replying to EMsmile:

• Issue resolved by taking Uwappa's text
• We can say "this electricity" to begin the second sentence, to draw the connection more tightly.
• Heating and powering are actions, industry is not an action, so I don't like shortening the text too much there. I think it is good to have a 2 word phase, with "ing" followed by the thing. We could go with "generating heat", but I think "heating buildings" is more descriptive and hits the largest issue there. We can replace "operating industrial facilities" with "running industrial processes", which I think is a bit more to the point and in line with your suggestion. So maybe "powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes".
• No worries, best to get it right!

Finally, I think it is best to replace the judgy "should" in the second sentence and instead say "can", as we do in the first sentence.

So maybe this:

Fossil fuels can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to sustainably generated electricity. This electricity can replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes. Efbrazil (talk) 16:02, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like announcing the obvious that electricity needs to be generated. How about a link to Low-carbon_electricity, merging the 2 sentences and provide links to use of electricity:

Fossil fuels can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to low-carbon electricity for transport, heat and industrial processes. Uwappa (talk) 16:45, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We need low-carbon electricity for everything, including what we are currently powering with electricity. The second sentence is talking about stuff that still needs to be electrified. Merging the sentences loses that idea.

While it may be obvious that electricity needs to be generated, it's not obvious what sustainable electricity is. In the age of green washing everything is labeled as sustainable. The key point is that how the electricity is generated is what makes it sustainable- pointing to that connects the dots for people just being inttroduced to climate change, which is who this article is targeted at. Consider the middle schooler, that's our primary audience here.

Can you live with what I suggested above? Efbrazil (talk) 18:44, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think I'll survive this and live to tell the tale. Uwappa (talk) 18:47, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What I was hoping for:

• the hyperlink to low-carbon electricity targets the readers that like to know more, while those who already know need not follow that link.
• the word switching makes it clear that it is a change. It can be a change from 'dirty' electricity or from fossil fuels.
• the hyperlinks to electric vehicles, electrical heating and electrical industry processes provide alternatives for those who would consider switching.

Uwappa (talk) 19:02, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! We're getting close:

• In terms of wording, "sustainably generated electricity" points people at what needs to change, while "low-carbon electricity" doesn't point anywhere and is confusing, as it seems it should be no-carbon electricity for phase-out. In terms of links, I think it's OK to link to either "Sustainable energy" or "Low-carbon electricity", but I think the sustainable energy is the article in better shape.
• Switching is fine, but what isn't good is scoping the switch too narrowly. All electricity needs to be switched over, not just electricity used in the cases mentioned.
• In terms of hyperlinks, electric vehicles is good. I don't know about Electric heating- that's a general topic, and we're talking buildings in specific, so maybe heat pumps should be called out in specific? There is no topic on "electrical industry processes", but we do have "Green industrial policy", so we could use that.

I added those links in down below, but I'm a bit concerned that there's too much linking going on now. Maybe it's fine?

Fossil fuels can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to sustainably generated electricity. This electricity can replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes. Efbrazil (talk) 20:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we are getting close. Yes, it's a lot of links, so be it. I think it's fine. Yes, the links point people at what needs to change. Good!

• I agree. "sustainably generated electricity" is a better link text, although it is a bit of a mismatch with the link target, Sustainable_energy.
• The switch should be broader than just electricity, from fossil to sustainable in general.
• The quality of the Low-carbon_electricity article is a separate issue.
• I'm not sure about electric heating as the prime solution for heating buildings. It might be when there is plenty of low carbon electricity available. I expect other methods to be more energy efficient, such as Ground_source_heat_pump, Solar_thermal_collector and reusing industry heat waste for District_heating.

Suggested fine-tuning:

Fossil fuels can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to sustainable energy. Low-carbon electricity can replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes. Uwappa (talk) 10:32, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't like saying "low-carbon electricity" or "sustainable energy". Sustainable energy frequently omits nuclear, and natural gas is often advertised as "low-carbon", because the carbon output is much less than coal or oil. Despite that, generating electricity from natural gas is not on the pathway to phase out. We need to be more clear here about electricity being generated without fossil fuels.

A the risk of scope creep, I looked at the rest of the paragraph and think our work here would be better if we included the next sentence as well, since it enumates what energy sources we are talking about. It currently reads "The electricity supply can be made cleaner and more plentiful by vastly increasing the deployment of wind, and solar power, alongside other forms of renewable energy and nuclear power."

That sentence is hard to parse and easy to tighten up. "cleaner and more plentiful" should just be "clean" as that's the point. "more plentiful" is both inaccurate and besides the point, as the idea is to replace fossil fuel generated electricity. It's also a confusing read as the sequencing requires a lot of parsing and commas. It's more natural to begin with nuclear and then to enumerate renewable energy sources. It's also odd we are leaving out hydroelectric power. It also makes sense to enumerate energy sources first, then talk secondly about using that energy to electrify transportation and so forth. So, here is an updated proposal:

Fossil fuels can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to carbon-free energy. Carbon-free energy sources include nuclear power and renewable energy sources like wind, hydroelectric, and solar power. Cleanly generated electricity can replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes. Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover and farming with methods that capture carbon in soil. Efbrazil (talk) 21:03, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I think the list of renewable sources is too detailed here and will open a new can of worms. I suggest to leave those details on other pages.

I think the idea is wider than replacing fossil fuel generated electricity: replace fossil generated energy. E.g. replace diesel and petrol in cars.

Bold suggestion for the next sentence: Just remove it. Uwappa (talk) 06:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I really like the friendly, collaborative tone that you two have displayed here over the weekend! This is what makes Wikipedia editing fun. I can see some clear improvements. For greater clarity I have created a table to show a side-by-side comparison (and will add some comments just now):

My comments:

• I'd like to run the readability tool over this new text to see if the sentence is now no longer in bright red as it was before. But there is no readability tool for talk pages. Could use Web-FX instead or just wait until the new text is in the live article, and re-check then. The first sentence uses passive voice which always lowers the score a bit.
• I don't understand where "carbon-free energy" came from all of a sudden? We don't even have a Wikipedia article for it? Wouldn't low-carbon electricity be better? I doubt that any electricity could ever be completely carbon free.
• I see hydroelectric appearing in the list which wasn't there before (was it not there before on purpose?). Firstly, I know that technology more under the term "hydro power" (the other two also use "power"). Secondly was it perhaps not in the list to start with due to the sustainability issues that come from large dams? I mean we don't need to provide a comprehensive list here, we also don't mention tidal energy or geothermal. Perhaps we just limit to to wind and solar as those are the two that most people are familiar with?
• Should the last sentence wikilink to carbon dioxide removal rather than Carbon sequestration behind "removed from the atmosphere"? (I've done a bit of work on those two articles lately; I find the one on Carbon sequestration really could do with a bit more brain power and improvements).
• I agree with your take that the wording "can be made cleaner and more plentiful" is not worth keeping. "More plentiful" sounds very odd, now that you pointed it out. EMsmile (talk) 23:23, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Regarding carbon-free energy vs low-carbon, please see my comment dated 21:03, 17 March 2024 (UTC). I am fine with different phrasing as well (eg clean energy), but low-carbon and sustainable both miss the mark.
• Hydro leads nuclear, solar, and wind at present, we shouldn't leave it out. Hydroelectricity is the article we have on the topic, but I'm fine with hydropower as well.
• As for the last sentence, begin a new section if you want to crack that open. It can be edited separately. The second to last sentence I brought in here because it's integral to this edit.

Efbrazil (talk) 00:31, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your compliments EMsmile. Yes, it is a joy to cooperate with Efbrazil, as voluntary work should be. It is a please to work with someone who can focus on text improvements, aims for a clear, easy to read text.

The readability tool might work on text copied to a sandbox. Suggestion: extend the WP manual of style so editors know what to aim for.

I prefer to keep the scope as small as possible. Work on just one or two sentences at the time. That is hard enough as it is. Once those are stable, shift focus to other sentences. I expect that to be a relatively easy process once the first sentences are stable. Next time we could start with the focus on a whole paragraph.

A list of energy sources seems off topic to me in the lead of climate change. It triggers an endless debate. The list should include XYZ. No it should not because... etc. See text of 17 Mar 10:32 above for suggested text that links to a another page with energy sources. Uwappa (talk) 09:07, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's all good and I think we are close to being ready to make the changes to the live article. But I really think we cannot use the new term of "carbon-free energy". There is no such thing. If there was, there'd be a wikipedia article for it. Maybe we could say instead "and switching to those energy sources that have much lower CO2 emissions". Or "switching to suitable energy sources". Whichever term we use, it needs to be wikilinked to a Wikipedia article, shouldn't it? It's such a crucial sentence (in the lead!) and we can't figure out the best term to use, hmmmmm.... NB: "clean energy" redirects to "sustainable energy". And there were debates in the past to give the "sustainable energy" article another name, too. Tricky. EMsmile (talk) 13:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we are close! And yes, it is a crucial sentence that must be good.

I am not sure about "no such thing as carbon-free". A simple Solar_cooker seems carbon free to me.

There may be some carbon emissions during one-time construction, but not during long term usage.

My suggestion: don't get lost in details, do not list low-carbon solutions in the intro of climate change, do not focus on clean electricity, zoom out. Stay focussed on climate change and deal with other details on other pages.

Bold new suggestion, just too easy:

"A low-carbon economy fases out fossil fuels." Uwappa (talk) 14:19, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I looked online a fair bit, and carbon-free is the correct term to use as far as I can tell. Carbon-free or zero-carbon energy is nuclear plus renewables. Low-carbon energy is carbon-free energy plus biofuels and sometimes natural gas. In the context of phase-out, carbon-free is the correct term to use.

I also think enumerating the energy sources is a good thing. It makes it clear what we're talking about and avoids linking to an article we don't have. The list we have in the proposal is the correct list to use, as it covers all the significant carbon-free energy sources. So, in other words, I'd like to see us simply roll with the content in "Proposal to change last para of the lead". Efbrazil (talk) 15:46, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, go for it! Implement the improvements and let us take it from there if needed.

Include a link to carbon free so it can become an article?

Did you have a look at Low-carbon_economy, that's economy not energy? Uwappa (talk) 16:21, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is the last line in the previous paragraph btw: "Limiting warming to 1.5 °C will require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.[21]" So maybe we should say something about what net zero means first or at the end of the last paragraph? Here's a good source btw: Net Zero by 2050 p. 47

So I think the last paragraph should concentrate on net-zero, not necessarily fossil fuel phase out. "plants with carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS)" is not ruled out per above. Bogazicili (talk) 21:44, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, here's my suggestion. Remember that the last sentence in previous paragraph is this "Limiting warming to 1.5 °C will require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.[21]"

Achieving net zero means leaving no carbon emissions in the atmosphere. This is done by reducing emissions to a minimal level that can be sucked in and stored by nature or by other methods.[69] Reducing emissions involves cutting fossil fuel use significantly, switching to sustainable energy, and conserving energy. It also involves increasing electrification, using carbon capture and storage methods, and utilizing hydrogen.[70] Sustainable energy includes wind and solar power. Electrification refers to switching to electrically-powered methods, such as for transport and heating buildings.[71] Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover and by farming with methods that capture carbon in soil.

Bogazicili (talk) 23:32, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the statement above that "Carbon-free or zero-carbon energy is nuclear plus renewables", this cannot be true. It takes a lot of GHG emissions to build a nuclear power plant, to mine the uranium, to transport it and so forth. Same with solar panels, they have to be made somewhere, transported, later recycled. You need to look at the whole product lifecycle, not just one phase of it (see also carbon footprint). There is no such thing as a free lunch. Do the IPCC reports talk about "carbon-free energy" anywhere? I checked the AR 6 WG 3 report and it doesn't mention that term. EMsmile (talk) 11:00, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, there is no "Carbon-free or zero-carbon energy". There is also no phasing out fossil fuels to 0. It looks like we all did an oversight here Talk:Climate_change/Archive_93#Reducing_energy_use?.

This is for net zero by 2050: "Coal demand declines by 90% to less than 600 Mtce in 2050, oil declines by 75% to 24 mb/d, and natural gas declines by 55% to 1 750 bcm."

Also pinging Clayoquot since she was also involved in the discussion and inserted the new wording [72]. Clayoquot, you might be interested in this discussion. Bogazicili (talk) 11:12, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Zero carbon or carbon-free energy refers to the operational byproduct of an energy production facility, not the embodied carbon that is part of the construction of that facility. See here for the definition on the EPA web site:

https://www.epa.gov/greeningepa/carbon-pollution-free-electricity-epa#:~:text=Carbon%20pollution%2Dfree%20electricity%20(CFE,and%20electrical%20energy%20generation%20from

If you want to talk about a carbon free construction industry and the issue of embodied carbon, that's contained in the issue of electrifying transportation and industrial processes, which the suggested consensus text also covers.

Finally, the text that we were converging on up above is not saying that all fossil fuels use must be phased out, it is going through ways that fossil fuel use can be phased out. In other words, the text is succinct and correct, and I see no reason not to proceed with it. Efbrazil (talk) 16:56, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That EPA website calls it "Carbon pollution-free electricity (CFE)" which is slightly different. I don't think we should be pushing a little used and ill-defined term of "carbon free energy" which neither the IPCC uses, nor is there a Wikipedia article for it. The rest of the proposed wording changes seem pretty good to me. EMsmile (talk) 17:04, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a significant difference between carbon-free and carbon pollution-free. It is problematic that we have articles on sustainable, renewable, and low-carbon, but none of them cover exactly what we need to talk about here.

Would it work for you if we amend the consensus text to remove a term, and instead just say "energy sources that do not produce carbon pollution"? That's a way to skirt the issue. So this text:

Fossil fuel use can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to energy sources that do not produce carbon pollution. These energy sources include nuclear power and renewable energy, which includes wind, hydroelectric, and solar power. Cleanly generated electricity can replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes. Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover and farming with methods that capture carbon in soil. Efbrazil (talk) 17:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How about shifting focus away from energy towards Low-carbon_economy? Uwappa (talk) 17:40, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That seems like jargon and indirection to me. It's best in a beginner introduction like this to be succinct and clear about what we mean in terms of change that needs to happen, not talk in terms of frameworks or pathways or jargon. Efbrazil (talk) 18:01, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I like the 17:22, 19 March 2024 proposal of Efbrazil. I mean it's never absolutely perfect but better than what we currently have. Someone could now say we need an article on carbon pollution or that we shouldn't place nuclear power before renewables. We could also specify that the phrase "do not produce carbon pollution" refers to the "operational byproduct of an energy production facility, not the embodied carbon that is part of the construction of that facility". But that's all too much for the lead of this high level article.

At this stage, I would say thumbs up for implementing those changes. (interesting that a similar discussion took place only a few months ago, as pointed out by Bogazicili). It's a big challenge.

By the way, once we are happy with this para, we should also revisit the lead of climate change mitigation and check if the wording there matches well. EMsmile (talk) 23:13, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Bogazicilli for the ping. Looking over the proposed changes in the table:

• I think most of our readers will have no idea what we mean by "carbon-free" and some will probably think we mean hydrogen. "Low-carbon" is a bit more widely understood but still jargon. I suggest saying what we mean: "switching to sources of energy that produce near-zero greenhouse gas emissions. These sources include..."
• To reflect projected growth rates, renewable energy sources should be mentioned before nuclear, and solar should be mentioned before hydro. The IEA net zero scenario envisions that in 2050, renewables will produce around 90% of electricity and nuclear around 5%.[73]
• "Removed from the atmosphere" should link to Carbon dioxide removal and not carbon sequestration as the context implies anthropogenic processes. CDR is by definition anthropogenic. Most carbon sequestration is not anthropogenic.

Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:53, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Clayoquot, EMsmile, and Efbrazil, I think you missed my proposed text so I moved it into the table above. I think the current text in the article and the suggestion by Efbrazil and Uwappa? are incorrect based on the IEA quote in the gray box above. Sorry, I was a bit late because I was working on other issues. Bogazicili (talk) 06:03, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Clayoquot:

• You understandably missed the recent update that replaced "carbon-free energy" with "energy sources that do not produce carbon pollution", as requested by EMSmile. It is dated 17:22, 19 March 2024 and endorsed by emsmile down below, and I think addresses your concern.
• That's a fair point. Nuclear was mentioned first because of sentence structure, not priority. I think the best solution could be to omit mention of "renewables" as a category and just go with "These energy sources include wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power." That also goes further in the direction of cutting jargon in favor of less words that just present the fact of the matter, which is really what we want in an introduction for middle schoolers.
• That link update is good by me, but in general we are not editing the last sentence here so that we can hopefully get to consensus.

Making those updates, that leaves us with this compromise text:

Fossil fuel use can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to energy sources that do not produce carbon pollution. These energy sources include wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power. Cleanly generated electricity can replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes. Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover and farming with methods that capture carbon in soil.

Bogazicili: Please review the discussion leading to the consensus text we are working on. What you are proposing greatly lengthens the text, adds jargon, and is confusing in several places. If we're going to get to consensus it's best to focus on the text proposal we've been working on. Efbrazil (talk) 17:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Efbrazil: I read it and it's incorrect. There is no fossil fuel phase out per IEA even in a net zero by 2050 scenario. The problem is you are making suggestions without looking at sources. Bogazicili (talk) 17:31, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to recap the discussion above that led to the current text: The text does not say "all fossil fuels must be phased out", it says "fossil fuel use can be phased out by...". In other words, we are describing the ways to stop using fossil fuels, which is the key component of net zero pathways that lead to fossil fuels being used in only residual situations. We talked about words like reduce or low-carbon, but those terms can be interpreted as saying a large amount or even the majority of fossil fuel use continues. If you have a particular suggestion you think makes the point better without adding much to overall word count please suggest it. Efbrazil (talk) 17:59, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I like the text. It's an improvement on the current text, as it's a bit easier to read. Removing "plentiful" makes the text feel more neutral. Of the mainstream high-quality sources, the IEA is likely the most conservative wrt getting rid of combustion. The illustrative mitigation pathways in the IPCC report do have an either full or near-full phase-out of fossil fuels in the three substantative mitation scenarios (page 312, corresponding text on 309). The compromise language of phase down isn't really compatible with those scenarios. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:01, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, that makes me feel better, I don't like adding unverifiable text to the article. I still feel the balance is off though. IEA does mention carbon capture and storage methods, and utilizing hydrogen. Those seem more important than hydro for example. Bogazicili (talk) 18:10, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So Bogazicili, if the words 'phase out' are the problem, I suggest to replace them by 'reduced'.

Other finetuning:

• replace the list of low-carbon energy types by a hyperlink and leave the 'can of worms' at another page.
• I would still prefer less words in the hyperlink, e.g. sustainable energy. I am not really worried about such words being too difficult for the average reader. Go and have a look where climate change scores in the top 1000 Wikipedia pages. Disconcerting.... It doesn't score at all in the top 1000. The average reader seems to use Wikipedia primarily for fancruft, TV shows, artists, sport, games. Reading serious subjects seems to be an exception.
• add a hyperlink to Low-carbon_electricity

How about:

Fossil fuel use can be reduced by conserving energy and switching to energy sources that do not produce carbon pollution. Cleanly generated electricity can replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes. Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover and farming with methods that capture carbon in soil. Uwappa (talk) 18:13, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also like people to think how we are connecting paragraphs. The last paragraph ends with this: "Limiting warming to 1.5 °C will require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050." So we expect everyone to know what exactly net-zero is and go directly to fossil fuel phase out? Bogazicili (talk) 18:18, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Uwappa, how about "Near or full fossil fuel phase-out can be achieved by..." Bogazicili (talk) 18:20, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think a 100% phase-out is impossible. I expect there will be a minimal usage of fossil fuels left. So to me the words "phase-out" are OK, meaning great reduction, but not all the way down to zero. Uwappa (talk) 18:27, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please keep the scope small and solve one thing at the time. This started as a simplification of just one sentence. Let us get that done first and then worry about connecting paragraphs. Uwappa (talk) 18:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Phase out means to 0 to me. Fossil fuel phase-out says the same: Fossil fuel phase-out is the gradual reduction of the use and production of fossil fuels to zero (bolding is mine). Bogazicili (talk) 18:33, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you interpret zero as a computer would do, you would be right.

In real life, it is a different story.

• If one person somewhere outback still uses coal or peat, the phase-out has failed?
• If small groups of old-timer enthusiasts still use petrol, the fase-out has failed?

A computer would say 'failed'. As a human I would say 'success'. Uwappa (talk) 18:45, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Uwappa. For instance, we say incandescent lights are phased out all the time. Still, I would be very surprised if none remain in 2100. Phase out mean it disappears from day to day life, rather than a reduction to 0. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:52, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, again, I was also influenced by this from IEA: "Coal demand declines by 90% to less than 600 Mtce in 2050, oil declines by 75% to 24 mb/d, and natural gas declines by 55% to 1 750 bcm. " Bogazicili (talk) 19:03, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like good, hopeful news.

At a small scale I see the same thing happening with petrol in my own neighbourhood. A lot of people switch to electric cars, just because it is so cheap to charge batteries with solar panels. I have good hope the phase-out of fossil fuels will be faster than expected, when clean energy becomes the cheaper option. As prices of clean energy go down, the market will phase-out fossil fuels.

I think that is a bit of good news that should be reflected in the climate change article. Let us deal with that in a new talk subject. Uwappa (talk) 19:09, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's their 2050 projections IF net zero by 2050 happens Bogazicili (talk) 19:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Let us deal with those projections in a new talk subject and refocus here on improving the few sentences in the lead.

Bogazicili, would you like to start a new subject. Propose a new text, e.g. for Climate_change#Modelling or Climate_change#Clean_energy? Uwappa (talk) 19:23, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is about few sentences in the lead though.

I am saying last paragraph should talk about reducing emissions or "Near or full fossil fuel phase-out can be achieved by..." because IEA says: By 2050, unabated fossil fuels for energy uses account for just 5% of total energy supply: adding fossil fuels used with CCUS and for non-energy uses raises this to slightly less than 20%. [74]

About 20% is not insignificant. You can't talk about fossil fuel phase out without any qualification in the lead. Bogazicili (talk) 19:29, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the quantification does not need to be in the lead of climate change. It can be down in some chapter or at the main page Fossil_fuel_phase-out.

My preference would be to keep the lead as short as possible and keep it focussed on climate change. Uwappa (talk) 19:38, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Then why even mention fossil fuel phase out in the lead? Explain what net-zero is and talk about how to reduce emissions. Bogazicili (talk) 19:39, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. My own preference would be to take it out of the lead. But taking things out is surprisingly hard, probably too hard. Uwappa (talk) 19:42, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In December 2023, the last paragraph started with "Reducing emissions" [75]. Bogazicili (talk) 19:46, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bold suggestion: Let us ditch the whole last paragraph of the lead. Uwappa (talk) 19:49, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4th paragraph ends with net-zero by 2050 goal. 5th paragraph should explain the realistic pathway to that goal. Bogazicili (talk) 19:54, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see why that need to be in the lead of climate change.

Other options:

• Net_zero_emissions#Approaches
• somewhere in Fossil_fuel_phase-out

Uwappa (talk) 20:01, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Per Wikipedia:Featured article criteria and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, the lead needs to summarize the topic. The last paragraph covers "Reducing and recapturing emissions" section. Bogazicili (talk) 15:33, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break

As for why to include hydro, it is the leading source of clean electricity today. The IEA as of 2022 says worldwide electricity generation was 61% fossil fuels, 15% hydro, 9% nuclear, 7% wind, 4% solar, and 3% other sources. While future growth of hydro is limited, it will remain a major clean energy source and is needed for managing fluctuating renewable energy output.

To repeat the issue of "reduce" and "low-carbon" vs "phase-out", which has been discussed extensively up above: "Reduce" or "low-carbon" are weak terms that can mean as little as a 5% reduction. They are terms that are frequently used for greenwashing natural gas. All pathways call for the substantial elimination of fossil fuel use. The wording we've converged on does not mandate 100% phase-out, rather it is describing methods for phasing-out fossil fuel use.

I think we are in general agreement that the new text is better than what's there now, so I rolled with it in the article and added a reference to IEA data mentioned above. Nothing saying we can't revisit for further edits, but hopefully part of a new section. The discussion above is getting over long and is going in circles in several places. Efbrazil (talk) 17:02, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the discussion is still ongoing, please do not unilaterally change the lead. As I said, the last paragraph should concentrate on explaining what net-zero is and concentrate on reducing emissions. You can use "reduce" in conjunction with "Near or full fossil fuel phase-out" or something like that. The last paragraph is about future, so using the current electricity consumption percentages do not make sense to me. Bogazicili (talk) 17:29, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I believe there is a rough consensus for the change Efbrazil introduced here. I agree with Bogazicili that we should ideally cite a source about the future (2050) energy mix, rather than current. Good chance hydro will still be included, and I'm okay with including it in the lead, but it may be that sources focus more on wind and solar only. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:40, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Femke: IEA mentions "Energy efficiency, wind and solar provide around half of emissions savings to 2030 in the NZE". But after 2030 they mention "increasing electrification, hydrogen use and CCUS deployment". So the balance in the lead is off. I also don't want us getting into habit of making changes without looking at sources. Bogazicili (talk) 17:43, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Arriving a little late to the discussion as I'm currently travelling.) Regarding the most recently-proposed change to the lead, I like how it's actually a bit more comprehensive than the old version, which was narrowly focused on electricity.

I object to the term "carbon pollution" as I don't think it's as widely understood as "greenhouse gas emissions" or "carbon emissions". When I do a Google search for "carbon pollution" many of the first results are pages that don't use the term. To some people it will probably sound like a reference to black carbon.

There is no such thing as an energy source that does not produce GHGs. I suggest "energy sources that produce near-zero emissions". "Near zero" is a term the Hydrogen Science Coalition uses to cut through greenwash.[76]. I would leave out hydro because the GHG emissions of hydro are highly variable and in the worst cases are higher than coal.

Bogazicili's proposal to explain the meaning of net-zero is interesting. After we finish discussing the energy-related sentences I'd like to return to his ideas. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:47, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am fine replacing carbon pollution with carbon emissions.

Regarding "There is no such thing as an energy source that does not produce GHGs", the issue is addressed up above.

Regarding a source explaining the need for hydro, the consensus text I went forward with that Bogazicili backed out includes that. See the first source after the hydro sentence:

Fossil fuel use can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to energy sources that do not produce carbon emissions. These energy sources include wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power.^[4][5] Cleanly generated electricity can replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes. Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover and farming with methods that capture carbon in soil.^[3] Efbrazil (talk) 16:17, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One of your sources is Teske et al 2019. It explicitly says (p. xxvi) "Nuclear energy is phased out in both the 2.0 °C and 1.5 °C Scenarios". The other source, the UN source just mentions renewables in p. xxiii. In US EIA source, it just gives current electricity production by source and nuclear is not under renewables. So including nuclear is WP:OR with these sources. Bogazicili (talk) 19:24, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch, although to be clear that's an issue with the existing text, which also mentions nuclear and also has the same source. The Teske source is really off base if you read through it a bit- It seems to be an idea of what would be cool rather than a reflection of reality or consensus science.

We should probably use IPCC AR6 WG3 (mitigation). There are many quotes that could work, but maybe this from page 84: "Stringent emissions reductions at the level required for 2°C or 1.5°C are achieved through the increased electrification of buildings, transport, and industry, consequently all pathways entail increased electricity generation (high confidence). Nearly all electricity in pathways limiting warming to 2°C (>67%) or 1.5°C (>50%) is also from low- or no-carbon technologies, with different shares across pathways of: nuclear, biomass, non-biomass renewables, and fossil fuels in combination with CCS."

Would that source swap address your concerns Bogazicili? Efbrazil (talk) 22:55, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That works. Actually, now that you mentioned WG3, there's an excellent summary here, p. 89:

So given above, I think this paragraph misses iv and vi.

My later suggestion would be explaining net-zero in the beginning and adding a sentence covering iv and vi later.

But I now have no issues with your above text as an intermediate change. You just need to update the source. Bogazicili (talk) 23:31, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, given vii above (DACCS and BECCS), you might want to update the last sentence: "Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover and using direct air carbon capture methods." Bogazicili (talk) 23:42, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Efbrazil for the links and summaries of previous discussions. I really appreciate your patience.

I checked all three of the citations at the end of "These energy sources include wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power." Unless I've been looking at the wrong page, none of them say that these energy sources produce no GHGs.

It seems we are relying on this EPA source for the claim that certain energy sources do not produce carbon emissions. What this page says that a U.S. government Executive Order[77] set out a mandate for U.S. federal agencies to use a certain amount of certain energy sources. The Executive Order calls electricity from these energy sources "carbon pollution-free electricity". The use of this label was not a decision made by the EPA or by EPA scientists. It was a decision made by one country's politicians. Government regulations are an unsuitable source for scientific claims.

It is true that wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power produce no direct GHG emissions, and it's also true that for the most part, energy sources that produce no direct emissions produce low lifecycle emissions. However, in some countries big efforts are being made to promote fossil-based hydrogen and ammonia which have very high lifecycle emissions. These things are promoted as "zero emission" fuels, and the only way to get the public to realize that "zero emission fossil-based hydrogen" is nonsense is to encourage them to think about lifecycle emissions. The distinction between lifecycle emissions and direct emissions is becoming more important, first because the fossil fuel industry is increasingly creative about selling false solutions, and second because the best hydro sites are mostly taken and poorly-situated hydro sites produce high lifecycle emissions.

In this article we should model thinking about lifecycle emissions. We can do this by referring to solar, wind, and nuclear as near-zero emission sources. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:50, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As expected, the list of energy types already fuels (pun intended) discussion and will continue to do so in the future. I suggest to zoom out, not mention any specific energy types here and link to Sustainable_energy, Low-carbon_energy or Low-carbon_economy. Use any link label you prefer, e.g. energy sources that do not produce carbon emissions. Let the energy discussions happen at an other page. Uwappa (talk) 18:10, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But there is no such thing as energy sources that do not produce carbon emissions, unless you are only counting direct emissions (which is a problematic practice) or are talking about weird things like BECCS. How about if we say "switching to energy sources that produce near-zero greenhouse gas emissions. These energy sources include wind, solar, nuclear power, and most implementations of hydropower"? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:27, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest to refrain from mentioning any specific energy types and shorten it, e.g. to:

switching to energy sources that produce near-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Or any other link label you may agree upon. Uwappa (talk) 18:35, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That suggestion is reasonable but I prefer the status quo version as it's more informative. The words "wind" and "solar" should be in the lead. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:49, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not mention any specific energy types. It will fuel discussion. O, but it is not just wind and solar, energy type xyz must be in as well! And there you go again... Please leave a list of energy types on another page. Uwappa (talk) 18:53, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Per Clayoquot, I think the lead should continue to mention wind and solar. (at least wind and solar). —RCraig09 (talk) 19:16, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I also think mentioning the primary clean energy sources here is critical to do.

Regarding item (iv) from the source from Bogazcilli, hydrogen and ammonia are energy forms (like electricity), not energy sources. Additionally, those forms of energy are not significant components of the energy mix according to the IEA source. Bringing them into the lead seems to be too soon relative to their importance and complexity. Bioenergy is also not as significant as the clean sources mentioned and is also dirtier than those sources. In the interest of being clear and concise I would rather leave it out as well.

Item (vi), grid upgrades, is more important I think, but I don't know that it needs to be mentioned in the lead necessarily. It would require an extra sentence to explain, and the lead is already overlong.

I don't think it is helpful to say "near-zero" emissions. We explicitly talk about "cleanly generated electricity" as a source and raise the issue of industry (which includes building powerplants), so we are addressing lifecycle emissions issues in that context. Going further into embodied emissions would add complexity that I don't think is warranted in the lead.

Please keep in mind this is an introduction to the issue and the likely audience is middle school education levels and the lead is already over-long. We should be making an effort to be clear here. Complexity and caveats can go in the article. Efbrazil (talk) 19:56, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a high-quality RS supporting the claim that that these energy sources produce no carbon emissions? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:16, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How about moving energy details out of the lead, to chapter Climate_change#Clean_energy? Uwappa (talk) 02:19, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bold suggestion, simplify the whole paragraph and use inpage links:

Reducing CO2 can be achieved by

• conserving energy
• switching from fossil fuels to clean energy
• removing CO2 from the atmosphere

Uwappa (talk) 04:16, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding zero-carbon energy source, there's the EPA source, and the term is used all over the IPCC AR6 WG3 report. The report typically says "very low- or zero-carbon energy sources" because it is including bioenergy and fossil fuels with CCS, but when talking renewables specifically they describe them as zero carbon. For instance, page 674: "Net-zero energy systems will rely on decarbonised or net-negative CO2 emissions electricity systems, due to the many lower-cost options for producing zero-carbon electricity and the important role of end use electrification in decarbonising other sectors (high confidence)."

I am opposed to speaking in code like saying "clean energy" without saying what that means. We need to be clear and succinct. Efbrazil (talk) 17:55, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Clayoquot: thanks for noticing that EPA wording was done by politicians. IPCC says: "Nearly all electricity in pathways limiting warming to 2°C (>67%) or 1.5°C (>50%) is also from low- or no-carbon technologies" (AR6 WG3 p.84).
@Efbrazil: Green hydrogen is for industrial processes that can't be electrified. The current and suggested lead wording makes it sound all industrial processes or sectors can easily be electrified, but there's no technology for that yet. Bogazicili (talk) 05:15, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I wish the IPCC would make it clear what they mean by no-carbon technologies. You can make a process no-carbon by coupling it with a CDR process, as BECCS does. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 14:08, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it self-evident that zero-carbon energy is energy produced from sources that do not product carbon emissions in operation? I really don't understand the issue here.

Here's a definition from the US department of energy: https://www.directives.doe.gov/terms_definitions/carbon-pollution-free-electricity Efbrazil (talk) 18:00, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's self-evident. And it raises the question of why the lead should talk about no-carbon technologies and omit talking about low-carbon ones. Note that Our World in Data refers to renewables and nuclear as "low-carbon".[78] You might be right in assuming that the IPCC considers wind, solar, hydro and nuclear to be zero-carbon. They might round down small lifecycle emissions to zero. But I don't think we can be confident-enough about this to satisfy WP:V.

As I explained in my comment on 16:50, 25 March, government regulations are not suitable sources for scientific claims. The DOE's definition is classic political committee-written stuff: It says that fossil fuels with CCS generate "no carbon emissions" if the CCS meets EPA requirements, but the EPA requirements for CCS don't require a 100% capture rate. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:11, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is worth arguing over further. We currently say this in the first sentence:

Fossil fuel use can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to energy sources that do not produce carbon emissions.

We could change it to this to match the IPCC wording. It's harder to read and is less accurate in my opinion, but I can live with it:

Fossil fuel use can be phased out by conserving energy and switching to very low and zero-carbon energy sources.

Are you OK moving forward with the text if it includes that change? Efbrazil (talk) 17:54, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What you're saying the current first sentence is was reverted to a longstanding version which says "Strategies to phase out fossil fuels involve conserving energy, generating clean and sustainable electricity, and using electricity to power transportation, heat buildings, and operate industrial facilities." It's a marvel that a bunch of random people once managed to agree on how to explain such a difficult issue. I agree that finding consensus on how to further improve it might not be worthwhile. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 23:50, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The current wording seems incorrect or misleading to me per IEA and IPCC quotes above (gray boxes). It's not just Sustainable energy options that are at the table. At least not by 2050. Maybe it'll be doable by 2100. I really don't want to put an ugly tag in the lead. Bogazicili (talk) 00:29, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bogazicili, I reviewed the above discussion and the things you want to add seem to be 1) Explanation of net zero, 2) CCS, and 3) hydrogen, is that right? This would take at least 3-4 sentences to explain. It might help to get consensus on the length and the issues to cover first. Once consensus on those things are in place it's easier to get consensus on the actual wording. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:51, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for reviewing them. I agree that we should finish the other discussion first. But yea, explanation of net zero, and a sentence about processes that can't be electrified (CCS and/or hydrogen). Bogazicili (talk) 10:56, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In improving readability of the last paragraph of the lead, several issues were raised several times, so that the discussion up above went in circles. Below is my best attempt to make everyone happy. I think we need an up or down vote at this point, as we are not coming together with consensus. Here is the rationale for the changes, see above for gory details:

• Improving readability with shortened sentences, particularly breaking the first sentence into 2 parts
• Eliminating jargon (sustainable, renewable) in favor of just talking about the key energy sources that do not produce significant carbon pollution. Sustainable and renewable are really beside the point.
• Adding in hydro with sourcing from IEA, as hydro is currently the primary clean energy source and a key element of demand management for fluctuating renewable sources
• Removing unsourced text saying energy will be "more plentiful" after being made renewable
• Cutting teske source that imagines a world without nuclear power, particularly as it is currently after a sentence talking about nuclear power
• Change operating industrial facilities to running industrial processes to be more precise
• A lot of disagreement went into the first sentence describing nuclear + renewables as being energy sources that "do not produce carbon pollution". The US EPA and DOE define nuclear and renewables as carbon free, but other places put them under the umbrella of being "low carbon". The issue of embodied carbon was frequently raised, but carbon free is describing their operation, while embodied carbon is under industry (construction). The IPCC AR6 says "very low- or zero-carbon energy sources" typically, but they are including sources without market presence, like fossil fuels with CCS. Things get further muddled as natural gas is frequently advertised as low-carbon. In the end I went with "do not produce significant carbon pollution". Hopefully that helps.

Note sources below are not in "harvnb" format as that doesn't work on the talk page best I can figure, I'll switch to that format if this change is approved.

Efbrazil (talk) 20:01, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed version is friendlier, and avoids pedantic micro-arguments. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:47, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great summary and compromise. Thumbs up on the condition that 1) the DOE not be cited as a source. A better source is this one from the IPCC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_energy#cite_note-AnnexIII_IPCC-84. And 2) Don't link to Green industrial policy, as this essay-like article is mostly not about industrial processes. I'd also add a "some" before "industrial processes". Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:49, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! The source change and link removal are good by me. I'm not sure about qualifying industrial processes with "some" though. Do you mean there are exceptions? That's true, but I don't think the text requires that all instances in every category are electrified, but rather that electrification is the principal pathway. If we are going to focus on exceptions they also apply to transportation and buildings. For instance, planes may be powered by hydrogen created using clean energy instead of by electricity. Efbrazil (talk) 17:36, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great work here Ef finding a compromise. The text is definitely better. Agree with changing away from the DOE source, as hydro in the US is lower-carbon than globally, so a global source is needed. In terms of industrial processes, I get where Clayoquot is coming from, but want to note that using hydrogen produced from electricity is sometimes also called electrification. Not sure I agree, but that makes quite a large share of industry electrifyable. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:10, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with leaving out "some". Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 23:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to suggest additional sentence covering things that can't be electrified after this round. But we have discussed enough for the current suggestion I think lol Bogazicili (talk) 10:44, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, change made! Covering the challenges of electrification in a single sentence is going to be a sticky wicket. There's corner cases that can't be electrified, grid changes needed, handling flutuating renewables, environmental issues around disposal / mining, and so on. Whether any of that is lead worthy is debatable. Efbrazil (talk) 22:55, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is a definite improvement to the current text. Can we just change the last example, given Ar6 WG3 p. 89 quote above (vii about DACCS and BECCS): "Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover and using direct air carbon capture methods." (change in bold). It's also mentioned prominently in Summary for Policymakers (Ar6 WG3 pp.24-25 C.3 and C.3.5) Bogazicili (talk) 10:52, 30 March 2024 (UTC) Actually now that I looked at Ar6 WG3 more, the suggested text is good. We can also add an additional source at the end (Ar6 WG3 p.114) Bogazicili (talk) 11:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to DuncanHill for fixing my attempt at adding a harvnb reference.

Addressing their edit comments: All the references in the lead are because of discussions that happen on the talk page on how to word things. Getting to consensus on lead text is difficult, and long discussions usually fall back to references for wording, so we find it's best to back stop the text with those references.

I personally dislike the harvnb format as I find it very hard to understand and edit. Since the reference isn't self contained you can't put it in a talk page or preview it correctly, and I find bugs in preview mode. However, femke spent a long time getting that format in place and it does slim down the article content by pushing reference declarations to the end, so I can live with it. The edit was adding an IPCC reference so I figured I should follow harvnb, but obviously I introduced syntax errors in the process. Thanks again for fixing that. Efbrazil (talk) 17:31, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I loathe harvnb, and all shortened references, as they almost inevitably cause errors. For an article where there are numerous sources missing and it's impossible for the uninitiated to fix see Causes of climate change, which at my count has 38 missing sources. DuncanHill (talk) 01:20, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A big "well done" to EfBrazil for not giving up and for bringing this difficult consensus-finding mission to a conclusion!! Excellent work.

As the one who started this discussion, based purely on the reading ease aspect, I am humbled to see how difficult it has been. But also glad it's done.

Using the readability took again, there is only one sentence now remaining in bright red ( = difficult to read) in this paragraph now (and only three red sentences in the lead in total). It is this one: Cleanly generated electricity can replace fossil fuels for powering transportation, heating buildings, and running industrial processes. Not sure why it scores so low on readability, probably because of the many multi-syllable words. We can live with that.

Could we however either wikilink "cleanly generated electricity" to another Wikipedia article (to clean energy? I see that one of the earlier versions above had wikilinked this to Low-carbon electricity) or otherwise perhaps add a footnote to explain what we mean with that? Or do we purposefully intend to leave this vague so as to not "commit" to anything? EMsmile (talk) 15:09, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I could go either way on adding a wikilink. On the con side, the low-carbon electricity article isn't in great shape- the definitional statement is very iffy (needs a reference) and the lead is both short and dated to 2020. The sustainable energy article is in much better shape but is less accurate to the topic. We say "cleanly generated" immediately after enumerating and linking to the primary sources, so I think it's OK to not have a link here. Efbrazil (talk) 15:45, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. Would it perhaps then be better and easier for the reader if we linked the two sentences like this: These energy sources include wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power. They can replace fossil fuels for .... It wasn't obvious to me that "cleanly generated electricity" was referring to those 4 listed in the previous sentence. Mind you, perhaps electricity is not exactly the same as energy sources). So then maybe better like this: These energy sources include wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power. Electricity generated from those energy sources can replace fossil fuels for ....

I just don't like "cleanly generated" unless we have a wikilink for it.

For our to-do list: let's also improve low-carbon electricity as well as low-carbon economy (see talk page discussion there)... EMsmile (talk) 17:01, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@DuncanHill: references in the lead are absolutely necessary or we'd have endless debates here about which sentence comes from what source. Or people would be more likely to challenge the wording in the lead in the future. So it's important for long-term stability of the article. Climate change is also a Wikipedia:Contentious topic. It's not a non controversial article that can get away with no sources in the lead. Bogazicili (talk) 20:30, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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Which of the following sections should be used in the Food and health section?

Robert McClenon (talk) 04:47, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A.

Human health

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[79] Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet have warned about the irreversible harms it poses.[80] According to the World Economic Forum, the most likely future scenario is of 14.5 million deaths caused by climate change by 2050.[81] Of those, 8.5 million deaths are associated with flooding, mostly because flooded areas expand the range of malaria. By 2050, the range of vector-borne diseases may expand to reach 500 million more people. Saltwater intrusion caused by sea level rise will also add over 800,000 cases of hypertension in coastal areas.[82]

Under the same scenario, around 1.6 million people will die in heatwaves by 2050, primarily those aged 65 and older, and 300,000 more will be killed by wildfires.[83] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity are already associated with excess deaths.[84] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[85]p. 988 These and other climate change impacts are also expected to substantially increase the burden of stress-related mental health conditions.[86] The overall healthcare costs from climate change impacts would exceed 1$ trillion by 2050.[87] If the emissions continue to increase for the rest of century, then over 9 million climate-related deaths would occur annually by 2100.p.63

Food supply

Climate change has strong impacts on agriculture in the low latitudes, where it threatens both staple crops and important cash crops like cocoa and coffee.p.788 Agriculture will experience yield gains at high latitudes, but will also become more vulnerable to pests and pathogens.p.794 Extreme weather events adversely affect both food and water security, and climate change increases their frequency.p.9 Food prices spike after climate shocks.p.794 An increase in drought in certain regions could cause 3.2 million deaths from malnutrition by 2050, primarily in children under five. Many more children would grow up stunted as the result.[88] Under higher warming, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10% by 2050, as less animal feed will be available.p.748 Marine animal biomass decreases by 5% with every degree of warming, reducing fishery yields.p.718

In isolation, climate change is expected to increase the risk of hunger for 8 to 80 million people by 2050.p.725 However, total crop yields have been increasing since the middle of the 20th century due to agricultural improvements, and in spite of climate change.[89]p.832 By 2050, the overall number of people suffering from undernourishment and the associated health conditions is likely to decrease by tens to hundreds of millions.[90] Food security only worsens by 2050 in some combinations of severe climate change and low socioeconomic development,[91] but if the emissions remain high, it will likely decrease after 2050. This would be due to diminishing fisheries and livestock counts, and due to more frequent and severe crop failures.p.797

B.

The World Health Organization calls climate change the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.[92] Over 100 scientists writing in The Lancet have warned about the irreversible harms it poses.[93] Extreme weather events affect public health, and food and water security.[94][95]p. 9 Temperature extremes lead to increased illness and death.[96][97] Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events.[98]p.9 It can affect transmission of infectious diseases.[99] [100] According to the World Economic Forum, 14.5 million more deaths are expected due to climate change by 2050.[101] 30% of the global population currently live in areas where extreme heat and humidity are already associated with excess deaths.[102] By 2100, 50% to 75% of the global population would live in such areas.[103]p. 988

While total crop yields have been increasing in the past 50 years due to agricultural improvements, climate change has already slowed the rate of yield growth.p. 9 Fisheries have been negatively affected in multiple regions.p. 9 Agricultural productivity was negatively affected in mid- and low-latitude areas, while some high latitude areas were positively affected. p.9 An increase in drought in certain regions could cause 3.2 million deaths from malnutrition by 2050 and stunting in children.[104] With 2C warming, global livestock headcounts could decline by 7-10% by 2050, as less animal feed will be available.p.748 If the emissions continue to increase for the rest of century, then over 9 million climate-related deaths would occur annually by 2100.p.63

C. Something else - Please provide a complete section.

Please enter A, B, or C (with the text) in the Survey. Please do not respond to the statements of other editors in the Survey.

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