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I believe we removed the figure that showed the relative contributions of human influence , solar/volcanic activity, and internal variability a while back, most likely due to space issues. But given the recent denial on non-EN sites that include a focus on solar variability, I’m wondering if it doesn’t make sense to re-insert data from the current figure on SPM-8 into a revised graphic. That figure clearly shows the negligible effect of solar and volcanic drivers. We have text that discounts solar effects, but I still wonder if people don’t just skim that paragraph and think “oh, solar is a source”. I realize there’s a lot of graphics already in this section, so just a suggestion to consider. —Dtetta
@ Femkemilene, Dtetta, and Efbrazil: After Femke's 17:12 30 Dec comment (above),(Of course, I'll add a Celsius scale.) I've been puzzling about the scientifically proper way to resolve how the "Observed gw" and "Human forces" traces should be visually aligned. My reasoning:
Question: Am I therefore correct that I, as a graphist, may simply choose the vertical position of the gray "Observed gw" trace? Thanks in advance for your concise response. — RCraig09 ( talk) 20:08, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
@ RCraig09: Can you clarify what you are trying to accomplish with this graphic that is not already accomplished with the newer data that built the second image on the climate change page? I can modify that image if you find it somehow lacking. Efbrazil ( talk) 18:58, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
I'd rather see a suggestion to strengthen existing wording of the first paragraph instead of adding to the lede. One idea is to cut the second sentence: "There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are more rapid than any known events in Earth's history." Earth had more dramatic changes after the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, so factually that sentence is just wrong. See here: https://www.livescience.com/cretaceous-extinction-darkness
We also mistakenly put too much focus on feedbacks in the first paragraph. Feedbacks are both positive and negative, and while net positive in the near term, they are a very small part of the issue so far. The fact that we spend two sentences on feedbacks and none on land use is clearly a mistake. We should be putting full weight on human activity in the first paragraph. -- Efbrazil ( talk) 18:50, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
The following green text can be modified until we come to consensensus, just please:
FIRST PHASE (now CLOSED):
Contemporary climate change includes both the global warming caused by humans, and its impacts on Earth's weather patterns. There have been
previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are particularly rapid. There have been
previous periods of climate change, but current changes are happening at a rate and scale unknown outside of supervolcano eruptions and asteroid collisions.
[1] Climate change is caused mainly by burning of fossil fuels to produce
greenhouse gases, most commonly
carbon dioxide and
methane. Agriculture, steelmaking, cement production, and forest loss are additional sources. Climate change is caused by increased concentrations of
greenhouse gases, mainly
carbon dioxide and
methane. Burning
fossil fuels for
energy use creates most of these gases, with additional contributions from agriculture, steelmaking, cement production, and forest loss.
[2] Greenhouse gases are transparent to incoming sunlight but trap the heat the Earth reflects, thus warming the lower atmosphere. Greenhouse gases allow sunlight to reach the Earth and heat it, but when the Earth emits that heat as
infrared radiation the gases absorb it and
trap the heat near the Earth's surface.
[3] Natural phenomena, such as variations in sunlight, volcanos, and regional phenomena such as
El Niño/
La Niña, have effects that are minimal and short-lived. Natural phenomena are not a cause of
climatic variability is much smaller than contemporary global warming.
· (some proposed changes made by —
RCraig09 (
talk)
21:22, 3 January 2022 (UTC))
SECOND PHASE:
Contemporary climate change includes both the global warming caused by humans, and its impacts on Earth's weather patterns. There have been
previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are more rapid than any known events in Earth's history. particularly rapid and are not scientifically attributable ed to natural causes climate variability.
[4] The main cause of contemporary global warming is the growing concentration in our atmosphere of
greenhouse gases, mostly
carbon dioxide (CO2) and
methane. Greenhouse gases allow sunlight to reach the Earth and heat it, but when the Earth emits that heat as
infrared radiation the gases absorb it,
trapping the heat near the Earth's surface.
[3] Burning
fossil fuels for
energy use creates most of these greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture, steelmaking, cement production, and forest loss are additional sources.
[2] Temperature rise is also affected by
climate feedbacks such as the loss of
sunlight-reflecting snow cover, and the release of carbon dioxide from drought-stricken forests. Collectively, these amplify global warming. (~moved GHE sentence up~)
· (some proposed changes made by —
RCraig09 (
talk) 02:38, 5 January 2022 (UTC))
--
Efbrazil (
talk)
23:55, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
Changes from existing paragraph:
Efbrazil ( talk) 22:55, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes distinctly/particularly/exceptionally rapid/fast. That would allow for a shorter sentence too!
Aside: My general suggestion is for someone to draft specific text inserted in a special color/font here on the Talk Page, which others by mutual consent can freely amend without long discussion. I've seen this approach, and I think it shortens the ~ WP:WALLOFTEXT situation that often befalls thoughtful, thorough people. — RCraig09 ( talk) 22:23, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
References
I strongly disagree with the proposed edits to the first paragraph, for the following reasons:
1-The current paragraph was approved by several editors back in November. I think it looks good as is. Not perfect, but very good.
2-From a process standpoint, you are proposing a major rewrite again, when we just spent a good bit of time doing this in November, when all of these ideas could have been presented.
3-This particular paragraph is a significant step backward in terms of readability. The grade level has gone up from 10 to 12.5. Reading ease has gone down from 47 to 42. That’s a significant degradation in readability.
4-If you want to talk about how best to write a sentence on the greenhouse effect, let’s do that separately. I can’t support any of these other changes. The sentence I proposed is a bit complex, with an associated grade level of almost 12. But the current proposal in green for this sentence has a grade level of nearly 14. We are trying to keep this understandable, and this proposed sentence is not easily readable.
5- I disagree completely with the statement that climate feedbacks don’t belong in this paragraph, but rather the third. The third paragraph deals with impacts, mitigation, and adaptation. I don’t see the sentence on feedbacks as a good fit here at all. The first paragraph covers the causes of warming, and cumulatively, feedbacks are a cause of warming. So I think they make much more sense in the first paragraph.
6-I have no idea what is meant by the “supervolcano and astroid test”. As I mentioned earlier, the asteroid analogy is not relevant here, in my opinion (I believe dave souza had a similar opinion). I think my suggested edit, which is to just change “known” to “similar”, leaves a sentence that is a more accurate characterization of the text that’s being referenced and quoted in the citation (compared to what’s being proposed in green). There is no astroid test for this, it’s simply an issue of source/text integrity. Dtetta ( talk) 02:25, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
@ RCraig09: Good! We are getting there.
Regarding the last sentence, it is struggling with the same issue as this sentence was: "There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are more rapid than any known events in Earth's history."
Both are trying to convey the same point, which is that natural phenomena couldn't be causing global warming because of the rate of change we are seeing. However, it is important to account for the fact that supervolcanos and asteroids have caused more dramatic climate changes in short time periods. The most recent supervolcano, Toba, produced a global temperature drop of between 3.5C and 9C, all while humans were around: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00141-7
To try and address the concerns here, I have this as a suggested new sentence, replacing what Femke suggested (edit made above): "There have been previous periods of climate change, but current changes are happening at a rate and scale unknown outside of supervolcano eruptions and asteroid collisions." I think that makes it clear that what we are currently seeing is "unnatural". Efbrazil ( talk) 21:43, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
The current chart (shown on the right) is based on AR6 WG1 SPM.1b. NASA just released new current numbers here for 2021: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4/#
I would update the image to include 2021 data but don't want to be accused of compositing an image. And of course the drivers will get increasingly out of date over time, unless somebody knows how to get refreshed versions of those (they only seem to appear when there's a new report that's released). Thoughts? Efbrazil ( talk) 21:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Hello folks long time no speak for me. Good to see many familiar names still hard at work here. I've gone in a new direction and won't be sticking around for followup discussion here. I just wanted to say I noticed that in the great work that has been happening, the lead first sentence seems to have hyperfocused on the narrow definition of "climate" (long term weather avgs) instead of the broader definition, "statistical changes in the state of the climate system". For example, see the definitions of "climate" and "climate change" in this IPCC special report. It includes both a "narrow" and a "More broadly" definition of "climate". Alas the definition of "climate change" says its a change in the longterm stats of "climate" but does not explicitly shed light on whether they mean the narrow or broad definition of "climate".
Meanwhile, I salute the effort to write in very simple English. At a USA-NOAA news page I found this simple statement, "...climate change includes warming and the “side effects” of warming..." In the brief list of examples they included extreme weather, but they ALSO included "melting glaciers" as an example of "climate change". Obviously, a melting glacier is not a meteorological thing, but according to that NOAA page the melting glacier is "climate change" rather than merely being an effect of it. How is this possible?
Making sense of this, and speaking from my personal understanding, I think the plain English writing on the social/political/economic/existential issue of "climate change" usually uses the broad definition of climate and climate change, and so includes the significant aspects of the climate system beyond just weather. And the fine print in technical writing usually uses the narrow definition, and dilineates between longterm weather and impacts of it. Further complicating things is the occassional use of both meanings in the same piece of writing.
So what I wanted to float, for those trying to make this comprehensible at an 8th grade level (or whatever target audience has been agreed) is this..... in my view, the title and scope should reflect the broad definition and whatever words we use "and its related effects" should be restored to the first sentence. Secondly, any other time we write "climate change" we should use wording to explicitly say whether we're talking about IPCCs narrow or broad definition ((changing weather avgs only, or including impacts of them)
So there you go, thanks for reading and considering and for your continued work here. I'll go back to the other work I'm doing in the world. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 16:14, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm requesting climate change-knowledgeable editors to resolve a wall-of-words conflict between myself (focusing on WP:NEUTRAL and WP:Minority viewpoints and WP:RELEVANT-to-climate-change-adaptation issues) versus two nearly-single-purpose accounts promoting Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in a specific "Adaptation" section of the CC in the US article. The most concisely stated question at this point is which one of the following two TEK sections are acceptable for Wikipedia:
Go to this section at WikiProject Climate Change for more background. Thanks in advance. — RCraig09 ( talk) 22:25, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
The current first paragraph has two sentences on feedbacks that I think we should replace with a description of how greenhouse gases work. The two sentences highlighted in context:
Contemporary climate change includes both the global warming caused by humans, and its impacts on Earth's weather patterns. There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are more rapid than any known events in Earth's history. [1] The main cause is the emission of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane. Burning fossil fuels for energy use creates most of these emissions. Agriculture, steelmaking, cement production, and forest loss are additional sources. [2] Temperature rise is also affected by climate feedbacks such as the loss of sunlight-reflecting snow cover, and the release of carbon dioxide from drought-stricken forests. Collectively, these amplify global warming. [3]
I would like to see that feedback content replaced with this description of how greenhouse gases work:
Greenhouse gases are transparent to sunlight, allowing it to heat the Earth's surface. When the Earth emits that heat as infrared radiation the gases absorb it, trapping the heat near the Earth's surface. [4]
Reasoning is that the first paragraph needs to be squarely about the cause of climate change. Saying what the mechanism is works better than just repeating over and over again that "Experts say it is so"; one thing we know about climate denial is that it is rooted in a distrust of experts.
Feedbacks will move down to the third or fourth paragraph in the lede. Feedbacks are not a cause of climate change, but are rather a complicating factor that impacts mitigation and modelling, as in how much temperature change is there for a given intervention or change in greenhouse gas concentrations. Further, the key question is not whether feedbacks are net positive or negative, but how much they will change in a positive or negative direction going forward. This plays into estimates of how much emissions will result in how much temperature change, and feeds into the tipping point issues with regards to particular feedbacks. Further still, there are both positive and negative feedbacks that are large issues and we need to address, such as on the negative side a hotter Earth results in more radiation into space, and increased CO2 has resulted in increased plant growth. Feedbacks are an extremely complicated issue, and putting them in the first paragraph is asking for a FUD response from readers. Meanwhile, the third and fourth paragraphs have redundancies and deal in feedback type issues like tipping points and temperature targets, so that's a better place to touch on them.
I'll start another section on how to restructure the third and fourth paragraphs to eliminate redundancis and incorporate feedbacks. Please focus comments here on the new sentence and making this change overall. Efbrazil ( talk) 19:30, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
References
Plus one more proposal, that I think Efbrazil hinted at elsewhere
Contemporary climate change includes both global warming and its impacts on Earth's weather patterns. There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are distinctly rapid and are not due to natural causes. [1] Instead, they are caused by the emission of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane. Burning fossil fuels for energy use creates most of these emissions. Agriculture, steelmaking, cement production, and forest loss are additional sources. [2] Greenhouse gases are transparent to sunlight, allowing them to heat the Earth's surface. When the Earth emits that heat as infrared radiation the gases absorb it, trapping the heat near the Earth's surface.Temperature rise is amplified by the collective action of climate feedbacks such as the loss of sunlight-reflecting snow cover.As the planet heats up it causes changes like the loss of sunlight-reflecting snow cover, amplifying climate change. [3] Reading score: 57 (was 52)
There is consensus on adding an explanation of the greenhouse effect. I think the above paragraph shows that this fits in the first paragraph, without moving the feedbacks. I'm not wild yet about the flow of the second sentence, but please add it while I try to formulate a better sentence (which may be never..). Femke ( talk) 11:00, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
This section is based on removing feedbacks from the first paragraph and inserting it here. The basic structural change:
Here is the current text with removals as strikeouts and additions in bold. I'll update this text as per discussion that follows:
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming, which is about 1.2 °C (2 °F). The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects even greatermore impacts as warming continues to 1.5 °C and beyond.
[4] Additional warming also increases the risk of triggeringcan also trigger
tipping points, such as the melting of the
Greenland ice sheet.
[5] Responding to these changes involves
taking actions to limit the amount of warming, and
adapting to them.
[6] Future warming can be
reduced (mitigated) by lowering greenhouse gas emissions and removing them from the atmosphere.
[6] This will involve changes like using more
wind and solar energy,
phasing out coal, and increasing
energy efficiency. Switching to
electric vehicles, and to
heat pumps for homes and commercial buildings, will further limit emissions, and switching to
electric vehicles.
[7]
[8]
Prevention of
deforestation and enhancing forests,
reforestation, and
managing forests to withstand climate change impacts can help absorb CO2.
[9] Temperature rise is also affected by
climate feedbacks such as the loss of
sunlight-reflecting snow cover, and the release of carbon dioxide from drought-stricken forests. Collectively, these amplify global warming.
[10]
Damage to forests and loss of
sunlight-reflecting snow cover are examples of
climate change feedbacks, which are projected to increasingly amplify global warming.
[11]
Under the 2015
Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C" through mitigation efforts. However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century.
[12] Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
[13] Some communities mayInternational agreements also try to increase the ability of all to
adapt to climate change through betterby supporting efforts like
coastline protection,
disaster management, and development of more resistant crops. By themselves, these efforts to adapt cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread and permanent impacts.
[14]
References
Here's the rationale for changes:
Efbrazil ( talk) 21:30, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Efbrazil: Frankly, I've not followed the above discussion, but if you say the unresolved issue is placement of content on feedbacks: I favor keeping feedbacks out of the first paragraph simply because the abstract concept is hard to describe briefly, additionally requiring concrete examples that a general audience can readily understand. Such content, no doubt several sentences, would provide too much prominence for a less influential driver. Since subsequent paragraphs already exceed the "one concept per paragraph" rule I learned in eighth grade, 'feedback' content should would not be a burden there. — RCraig09 ( talk) 18:41, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming, which is about 1.2 °C (2 °F). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projectseven greatermore impacts as warming continues to 1.5 °C and beyond. [1] Additional warmingalso increases the risk of triggeringcan also trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. [2]Responding to these changes involves taking actions to limit the amount of warming, and adapting to them. [3]Future warming can be reduced (mitigated) by lowering greenhouse gas emissions and removing them from the atmosphere. [3] This will involve changes like using more wind and solar energy, phasing out coal,andincreasing energy efficiency. Switching to electric vehicles, and to heat pumps for homes and commercial buildings, will further limit emissions, and switching to electric vehicles. [4] [5]Prevention of deforestation and enhancing forests can help absorb CO2.Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere through efforts like increasing forest cover. [6]Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C"
through mitigation efforts. However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. [7] Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. [8] Communitiesmaycan also adapt to climate change through better coastline protection, disaster management, and development of more resistant crops. By themselves, these efforts to adapt cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread and permanent impacts. [9]Reading score: 50
Which would become:
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming, which is about 1.2 °C (2 °F). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects more impacts as warming continues to 1.5 °C and beyond. [1] Additional warming can also trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. [10] Future warming can be reduced (mitigated) by lowering greenhouse gas emissions and removing them from the atmosphere. [3] This will involve changes like using more wind and solar energy, phasing out coal, increasing energy efficiency, and switching to electric vehicles. [11] [12] Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere through efforts like increasing forest cover. [13]Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. [7] Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. [14] Communities can also adapt to climate change through better coastline protection, disaster management, and development of more resistant crops. By themselves, these efforts to adapt cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread and permanent impacts. [15]
Reading score: 46
I've repeated your suggestions in the old format. The changes are wrt to some intermediate suggestion, which has disappeared again. Ideally, changes should be given wrt the last consensus version.
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming, which is about 1.2 °C (2 °F)This is a bridge sentence, but would be better as the bridge between the first paragraph (1.2C is almost definitional) and the second paragraph (impact). It has no mitigation aspect.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects even greater impacts as warming continues to 1.5 °C and beyond.This is again impacts, and has the political 1.5C goal, but attributes it to the IPCC (reality shows a smooth detoriation, rather than something that happens more abruptly at 1.5C). The 1.5C report was requested by policymakers, and wasn't the IPCC's idea.
Additional warming also increases the risk of triggering tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.Purely impact Femke ( talk) 20:51, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Femkemilene: With these points in mind:
I made these changes:
I looked at the readable scoring site but didn't think it was useful, as it really just looks at word and sentence length. A sentence can be long and readable or short and full of jargon.
Since it's a lot of changes, here's the new cut:
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming, which is about 1.2 °C (2 °F)(1.2 °C).The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects even greater impacts as warming continues to 1.5 °C and beyond.Additional warmingalso increases the risk of triggeringwill increase these impacts and risks triggering tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. [1] [16] Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C"through mitigation efforts. However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. [7] Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. [17]
Responding to these changes involves taking actions to limit the amount of warming, and adapting to them. [3] Future warming can be reduced (mitigated) by lowering greenhouse gas emissions and removing them from the atmosphere. [3] This will involveReducing emissions will involve changes like using more wind and solar energy, phasing out coal,andincreasing energy efficiency. Switching to electric vehicles, and to heat pumps for homes and commercial buildings, will further limit emissions, and switching to electric vehicles. [18] [19]Prevention of deforestation and enhancing forests can help absorb CO2.Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere through efforts like increasing forest cover. [20]Communities may adapt to climate change through better coastline protection, disaster management, and development of more resistant crops. By themselves, these efforts to adapt cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread and permanent impacts.While communities may adapt to climate change through efforts like better coastline protection and disaster management, they cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread, and permanent impacts. [21]
Which would become:
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming (1.2 °C). Additional warming will increase these impacts and can also trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. [22] Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. [7] Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. [23]Reducing emissions will involve changes like using more wind and solar energy, phasing out coal, increasing energy efficiency, and switching to electric vehicles. [24] [25] Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover. [26] While communities may adapt to climate change through efforts like better coastline protection and disaster management, they cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread, and permanent impacts. [27]
Efbrazil ( talk) 20:42, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming (1.2 °C). Additional warming will increase these impacts and
can alsomay trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nationscollectivelyagreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
- Reducing emissions will involve using
changes likemore wind and solar energy, phasing out coal, increasing energy efficiency, and switching to electric vehicles. Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover. Communities may adapt to climate change by better coastline protection and disaster management. Yet, such efforts cannotavertrule outthe risk ofsevere, widespread, and permanent impacts.
Reducing emissions will involve changes like using more wind and solar energy, phasing out coal, increasing energy efficiency, and switching to electric vehicles.with: "The literature on reducing emissions describes pathways in which the world rapidly phases out coal-fired power plants, produces more electricity from clean sources such as wind and solar, shifts towards using electricity instead of fuels in sectors such as transport and heating buildings, and takes measures to conserve energy."
removed from the atmosphereshould link to carbon dioxide removal not carbon sequestration.
Making deep cuts in emissions would require a transformation of the energy system. In an energy systemcompatiblein line with climate goals,abundantelectricity is generated withlow-emissions methodslow-carbon sources and it is used as much as possible instead of burning fuels for energy. This transformation involvesmanychanges such as phasing out coal-fired power plants, dramatically increasing production of clean electricity from sources such as wind and solar, adopting electric vehicles, and measures to conserve energy."
Making deep cuts in emissions will require switching away from burning fossil fuels and towards using electricity generated from low-carbon sources. This includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, dramatically increasing use of wind and solar power, switching to electric vehicles, and taking measures to conserve energy.Efbrazil ( talk) 00:11, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Some comments from someone with a fresh pair of eyes (and only because I have been pinged). I feel honored to have been pinged (and no problem if you don't want to take these suggestions on board; I am coming to the party late):
Here's my attempt at bringing together rationale as per dtetta's critique:
1- Readability. My free trial of readable is gone, but in my experience the score mostly just looks at word and sentence length. In the end, I think the best way to assess readability is to read out loud and imagine you're a middle schooler. When I do that, the new text seems clearly better.
2- The new text cuts more than 1/3rd of the old text length, from 225 words to 149 words. Our current third paragraph is 169 words, which is long by any measure. As Wikipedia guidance says regarding ledes, "Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs": Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section. Some content in there really wasn't necessary, like introducing mitigation and adaptation separately from talking about what they are, or saying "through mitigation efforts" in talking about limiting warming.
3- We should not be mixing tipping points into mitigation / adaptation. It's a better fit with trying to set temperature targets and immediately after impacts (which tipping points also pair with).
4- We should not be talking about impacts in terms of 1.5 C as we do now. As Femke said about the 1.5C number: "This is again impacts, and has the political 1.5C goal, but attributes it to the IPCC (reality shows a smooth detoriation, rather than something that happens more abruptly at 1.5C). The 1.5C report was requested by policymakers, and wasn't the IPCC's idea."
5- When we listed examples of categories like mitigation and adaptation we previously did not specify that the examples were incomplete, but now we do. That makes it clear that the examples are meant to be illustrative and not exhaustive or definitional (as in "mitigation means these things: X, Y, and Z").
6- We currently talk about preventing deforestation and "enhancing forests" (?) while ignoring afforestation. The new text just mentions increasing forest cover overall.
7- Stretching the list of mitigations across 2 sentences was very awkward, so we cut "heat pumps for residential and commercial buildings" (what about industrial? why enumerate building types at all?). Heat pumps are just a form of energy efficiency if you compare them to electric heaters / ac units (as opposed to comparing them to gas furnaces, in which case it's a fuel switching). That brings the mitigation example list down to single sentence size.
8 We similarly condensed adaptation to one sentence, to avoid awkwardness in wording and to correctly frame it as insufficient.
Here's my attempt at new consensus text. Changes from the proposal above are shown through strikeout / underline (I'll integrate more changes here as they come in):
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming (1.2 °C). Additional warming will increase these impacts andcan alsomay trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. [28] Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. [7] Limiting warming to 1.5 °Cwouldwill require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. [29]Making deep cuts in emissions will require switching away from burning fossil fuels and towards using electricity generated from low-carbon sources. This includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, vastly increasing use of wind and solar power, switching to electric vehicles, switching to heat pumps in buildings, and taking measures to conserve energy. [30] [31] Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover. [32] While communities may adapt to climate change through efforts like better coastline protection
and disaster management, they cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread, and permanent impacts. [33]
I edited the above for these changes:
Efbrazil ( talk) 20:37, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
One change I made from discussion above is I kept the existing wording of "avert the risk of" instead of going with "rule out". "Rule out" suggests that adaptation should be able to avoid the risk of "severe, widespread, and permanent impacts", but they still may occur. "Avert the risk of" makes it clear that adaptation on its own is insufficient. Efbrazil ( talk) 20:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
Efbrazil -Above I’ve summarized my responses to each of your points directly below each one. Apologies for messing up your numbering by doing it this way. Again my main point is that, although this version is shorter, it’s no more readable, it has significant problems with it. IMO it’s not an improvement to what’s there, and that’s what should be the basic criteria that we use when making any edit. Dtetta ( talk) 17:02, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
I think a better approach would be to focus on shortening the third paragraph, if that’s what the main concern is. Dtetta ( talk) 17:11, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
To avoid adding length to Talk Page discussions, I've participated minimally, but: since I largely support the newly-posted lede paragraphs, I think a more fruitful way to proceed is to possibly make minor incremental changes to the lede text (for everyone to see how it would read), which I think is preferable over pursuing longer discourses here. I think our current crop of editors is rational, thoughtful and respectful enough for that approach to succeed. — RCraig09 ( talk) 18:22, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
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Our section on "Scientific consensus and society" comes across as biased. We exclusively cover climate denial, but ignore the content out there that plays up climate change using unrealistic scenarios, like Waterworld or Day after Tomorrow, or when every bad weather incident is attributed to climate change (remember how the recent, bad hurricane season was heavily featured in "an inconvenient truth"?) The activist movement sets false numbers or dates for change as a means to gain traction, saying that if society doesn't do as told then an apocalypse will occur. Just as some people benefit from denial, others benefit from exaggeration to sell books, movies, or clicks.
I think the section needs a rewrite to account for this. For instance, we absurdly say that there is "An echo chamber of climate-denying blogs and media" as though it is exclusively a right wing phenomena. A nod to the exaggerations on the left is appropriate given how much real estate we are allocating to denial in this article. Efbrazil ( talk) 18:09, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
During extensive discussion at Talk:Greenhouse effect, the wording here was raised: "Greenhouse gases are transparent to sunlight, allowing it through to heat the Earth's surface. When the Earth emits that heat as infrared radiation the gases absorb it, trapping the heat near the Earth's surface." My comment was that ""the heat" isn't [all] trapped, indeed about as much [heat] energy goes out as comes in from the Sun, and increased heat goes all the way up to "an altitude of roughly 5-6 kilometers [where] the concentration of greenhouse gases in the overlying atmosphere is so small that heat can radiate freely to space." [1]" Having reached an agreed introductory paragraph there, I've Boldly edited that part of the lead here, it was reverted. Do please discuss and find accurate wording. . . dave souza, talk 17:28, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
There are a couple awkward sentences in the second paragraph I would like to change. The first is this tongue twister:
In places such as coral reefs, mountains, and the Arctic, many species are forced to relocate or become extinct, as their environment changes.
I think this wording is more natural, accurate, and succinct:
Rapid environmental changes in coral reefs, mountains, and the Arctic are forcing many species to relocate or become extinct.
Secondly, the second sentence here implies that human migration is not related to all the threats we list out in the first sentence:
Climate change threatens people with food and water scarcity, increased flooding, extreme heat, more disease, and economic loss. It can also drive human migration.
I'd like to see us follow the train of thought and also mention human conflict, like this (only the second sentence is tweaked):
Climate change threatens people with food and water scarcity, increased flooding, extreme heat, more disease, and economic loss. Human migration and conflict can be a result.
These are fairly minor tweaks, so hopefully not controversial? Efbrazil ( talk) 23:07, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
@ RCraig09: Craig- Femke would like a second opinion on the second minor tweak above (the first change is already live). Can you chime in? Efbrazil ( talk) 16:55, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Hello. I don't think linking to Taleb's black swan theory in the "Livelihoods" section is appropriate, as the discussion of Taleb's theory (e.g. hindsight and psychology) is not particularly relevant and unlikely to be found in sources about climate change. What we mean here is just A rare and hard-to-predict event with major consequences
, without the baggage of the rest of the theory.
Without a note or link to explain it, like tail risk (which is only discussing financial risk), the term is probably too technical to be helpful, so I think it may be better to remove it in place of something simpler like "chance of disastrous effects". I would make that change myself, but given this is a featured article I thought I would make a post on the talk page instead. Endwise ( talk) 03:39, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
Suggest change "avert" to "completely avert" to read:
"While communities may adapt to climate change through efforts like better coastline protection, they cannot completely avert the risk of severe, widespread, and permanent impacts."
Chidgk1 ( talk) 18:53, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
Below are my observations on the elements of the AR6WGII SPM that merit looking at in terms of strengthening the Effects portion of the article. These appear to me to be either new findings, or findings that expand on or help focus current text in the document.
I found it striking to see the extent to which vulnerability is mentioned in this document, the treatment of this topic is significantly stronger in this document compared to its AR five counterpart. I also found extent to which adaptation is recognized as an important complements to Mitigation to be significantly stronger than in the AR5 report. What I conclude from this is that 1)we might want to retitle the adaptation section to be vulnerability and adaptation, and interweave vulnerability concepts into the text on adaptation, and 2)we should strengthen the language on adaptation in terms of its potential effectiveness to address climate change. At a minimum we should certainly provide a stronger sentence in the flawed fourth paragraph of the lead that better recognizes the role that the IPCC is placing on adaptation. I did not include any of the specific adaptation findings in this post, these recommendations are based strictly on my reading of the effects/impacts section of the SPM (i.e I did not include any of the findings in SPM.C)
I was also struck by the extent to which the report repeatedly points out the disproportionate impacts on more vulnerable populations. In a discussion on the adaptation section last year, I believe there was strong opposition to over emphasizing this in that section. Based on the findings of this report, I think this decision should be revisited.
Some other issues: Do we only include high confidence findings? In particular, many of the findings in the section B.4 (mid to long term risks) have a medium confidence associated with them, which seems natural given that they are predictions further into the future.
Here are what seem to me to be significant SPM findings for the purposes of edits to the article. I added headings to sections where they seemed focused on a specific topic. SOme of these may be more suited to the Effects of Climate Change article, but I think they are at least worth considering.
B1
B1.1
B.1.2 - Ecosystems
B.1.3 - Food and Water Security
B.1.4 - Human Health
B.1.5 - Urban Impacts
B.1.6 - Economic Impacts
B.1.7 - Humanitarian Issues
B.2. - Vulnerability
B.2.1
B.2.3 - Ecosystems
B.2.5 - Human Vulnerability
B.2.6 - Future Human Vulnerability
Figure SPM2 - This would be nice to summarize, but it’s detailed, nuanced and that might be difficult.
Risks in the near term (2021-2040)
B.3.2
B3.3
Mid to Long-term Risks (2041–2100)
B.4.1 - Ecosystems/biodiversity
B.4.2 - Water Availability
B.4.3 - Food Security
B.4.4 - Human Health
B.4.5 - Cities/settlements/infrastructure
Note 1: IMO, many of the statements in this section of the report, particularly the conclusions in C2, which are headline conclusions, render the current last sentence in the lead, as well as the second sentence in the Adaptation section (which to me imply a “don’t rely too much on adaptation” message), as outdated. Nowhere in the AR6WGII report do those statements, taken from the AR5 Synthesis report, appear to be repeated. I take that as meaning that the IPCC no longer supports that type of qualification of adaptation when describing it. In fact, many of the statements in this section of the report, as well as the breadth of findings in general, are at odds with that position, and appear to indicate a strong embrace of adaptation as being a crucial, unqualified priority in terms of CC response.
Note 2: I didn’t include any statements from the climate resilient development section. Although the idea of needing to combine adaptation and mitigation is important, there’s so much techno speak here that my eyes started to glaze over, and I found it hard to grab onto specific statements that could easily be incorporated into the article. If someone else wants to take a shot at capturing relevant statements from the section that would be great.
C.1 - Overview
C.1.1
C.1.2
Future Adaptation Options and their Feasibility
C.2
C.2.1
C.2.2 - Food Availability
C.2.3 - Forests
C.2.4 - Ecosystems
C.2.5 - Ecosystem based adaptation
Urban, Rural and Infrastructure Transition
C.2.6
C.2.7
C.2.8
C.2.9
Energy System Transition
C.2.10
Dear Chidgk1 could you please specify the reason for deleting this sentence, please? The risks posed by disasters and climate change affect these groups and populations in different ways and vary also depending on the populations’ societal differences, including their gender identity, sex, ethnicity, and age. Unfortunately, we did not manage to reply to the below 'clarification needed' request per time: "surely not gender identity as such but whether other people or govt marginalize people whose gender identity they don't like (for example Hijra (South Asia)) - so surely covered by next sentence about marginalised people (March, 2022)." The second part of the sentence, which includes gender identity, refers to “societal differences”, and reinforces the concept. This content is taken from this FAO publication: https://doi.org/10.4060/cb7431en. User:Richard Nevell (WMUK) Gaia797 ( talk) 15:04, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
The final sentence of this section ends with a single sentence, concluding that "Globally, these effects are estimated to have led to a slight cooling, dominated by an increase in surface albedo." This is contradicted in the citation provided [1]. The sentence immediately preceding the sentence quoted in the citation states that there is a "net small warming signal".
I suggest editing both the citation, to include the preceding sentence, and the body text, to indicate that there is a slight warming effect, not a slight cooling effect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bordriiv ( talk • contribs)
References
I'm proposing a sub-heading in the section on "observed temperature rise" for the following reasons: It would give this long section (5 paragraphs) a sub-structure which would also make it accessible from the the TOC. As an aside, I am also contemplating transcribing this section to instrumental temperature record which also has a section on regional aspects ( /info/en/?search=Instrumental_temperature_record#Regional_temperature_changes). It could include the same content, and not more because I feel that the details of the regional aspects should be at effects of climate change. A second sub-heading within "observed temperature rise" might also be helpful, such as "global temperature observations" (to distinguish from regional aspects) or something about "Methodology". I understand it's meant to be short and a summary of Main articles: "Temperature record of the last 2,000 years" and "Instrumental temperature record", and maybe that's the reason why now sub-headings were used. But I think the sub-headings could give the readers some useful orientation. EMsmile ( talk) 15:44, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
I am wondering if the article might benefit from a bit more information about ozone (as a GHG but also in terms of air quality / surface ozone concentrations). In the AR6 WG I report, the term ozone appears nearly 1,200 times. I am thinking in particular the information about surface ozone is missing, e.g. this kind of statement " Sustained methane mitigation reduces global surface ozone, contributing to air quality improvements and also reduces surface temperature in the longer term, but only 15 sustained CO2 emission reductions allow long-term climate stabilization (high confidence)" (technical summary, page 68). Also the links between heatwaves and surface ozone. Note the article effects of climate change doesn't mention ozone once. I came to this topic via the route of air quality that is mentioned at effects of climate change on human health. EMsmile ( talk) 11:24, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
I reverted Efbrazil’s 15 March @16:57 and @16:44 edits. Re-organizing the limitations to renewable energy paragraph to highlight bio energy as the main concern makes no sense to me. From all of the articles I am reading, the key challenge/obstacle still remains the intermittency of renewable energy sources. I don’t often see the issues around bio energy being discussed nearly as often, although they are legitimate concerns and deserve mentioning in this section. The edit justification “Reorganizing renewable energy obstacles paragraph for readability and flow”, also doesn’t seem accurate, given what was changed. Clearly stating that the edit was highlighting the prominence of bioenergy issues would have been more helpful.
I also reverted the 16:44 edit that moved the hydropower sentence. IMO it works better in the context of discussing obstacles to renewable energy. The first sentence is mainly about trends in renewable energy compared to fossil fuels, and the main drivers of those trends (cheaper renewables). I would also prefer to see the nuclear energy sentence moved out of that paragraph to a different location in the section, but that’s another story.
All-in-all there were a number of revisions that day to the mitigation section that, cumulatively, were a significant change. There was one other that I disagree with, but not strongly enough to revert it. It would be helpful, when making edits of that magnitude, if we could all post the proposal here on the talk page first. Maybe others would support these edits, but it would be good to have that discussion first. Dtetta ( talk) 15:17, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
In terms of the sentence starting with “Solar and wind have seen…”, that had been deleted, I suggest we keep it and edit that sentence (and the next) to: “Solar and wind have seen substantial growth and progress over the last few years, and are now the cheapest forms of adding new power generation capacity in most countries.” Dtetta ( talk) 15:32, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
How about changing "Renewable energy is key to limiting climate change." to " Low-carbon power is key to limiting climate change." or " Low-carbon power and heat is key to limiting climate change."? Chidgk1 ( talk) 18:59, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
Just saying that this article's edit summaries are just... perfect. I wish that I could do the same! CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 17:03, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Along with reverting my recent edit to the article, Efbrazil has removed some recent posts I made to this page regarding the Clean energy subsection (which strikes me as a violation of the basic precepts of this talk page, as well as several elements of the Wikipedia:Etiquette policy). I am reposting them here, along with a proposed compromise that I hope can resolve this content dispute, and avoid the repeated editing and reverting of these portions of the article.
Here are the most recent posts that Efbrazil and I made on this topic: So I would suggest that we move both the nuclear power and hydropower sentences to that latter paragraph, where bioenergy still is. The last sentences of that paragraph on obstacles to renewables would now read: ”Nuclear power generation is now several times more expensive per megawatt-hour than wind and solar, and its share of renewables has remained unchanged over the past decade. Hydropower growth is also slowing as the best sites have been developed and concerns about social and environmental impacts grow.” Same references. Again, the purpose of this would be to keep the intro paragraph focused more on trends in renewable energy generation (and the most significant trend is the current and expected future increases in solar/wind), and that latter paragraph focused on obstacles (and some potential solutions). I think we will still have a balance between solar, wind, nuclear and hydro, but it will be in that paragraph. Dtetta (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
I don't know that there's a problem with the intro breaking down the mix the way it does. Nuclear, hydro, and other renewables each generate about a third of clean energy, so it makes sense to begin the topic with that breakdown. Also, the suggested sentence has some issues. Nuclear is not a renewable and it's share of clean power has been decreasing (although its overall use is growing). Efbrazil (talk) 22:12, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Efbrazil Sorry, just made that change, and did not see your comment, having waited a couple of days. If you want to propose starting with that breakdown you mention, then I think the whole paragraph needs to be redone, as the paragraph starts with “Renewable energy is key to limiting climate change.” I’m fine with looking at alternative ways of introducing the idea of clean energy in that opening paragraph. Do you want to make a proposal? You’re correct in that nuclear is not a renewable. So, in terms of the latter paragraph, I would suggest we just change the first sentence to “There are obstacles to the continued growth of clean energy, including renewables.” That intro sentence would then be broad enough that it would include nuclear. I imagine there are folks who would also object to categorizing either nuclear or hydro as “clean energy”, but that is another issue. Dtetta (talk) 23:28, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
A note of caution, though. IMO, a key concern regarding including hydro and nuclear in the first paragraph is that the overall mitigation lead clearly states that “ Although there is no single pathway to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2 °C, most scenarios and strategies see a major increase in the use of renewable energy in combination with increased energy efficiency measures to generate the needed greenhouse gas reductions.” The second Clean energy paragraphs also features renewable energy in describing transitions to lower GHG emissions. So I think the first Clean energy paragraph would ideally support those statements, and focusing on nuclear and hydro (as well as bioenergy) in that paragraph seems like a distraction from that standpoint. I’m not aware of any major reports that feature nuclear or hydro as significant solutions to lowering GHG emissions over the next 30 years.Dtetta (talk) 00:34, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
___________________________________________
And here is what I propose for these paragraphs (using the same references as are currently in the text). The first paragraph would read:
“Renewable energy is key to limiting climate change. Fossil fuels accounted for 80% of the world's energy in 2018. The remaining share was split between nuclear power and renewables (including solar and wind power, bioenergy, geothermal energy, and hydropower). That mix is projected to change significantly over the next 30 years. Solar panels and onshore wind are now the cheapest forms of adding new power generation capacity in most countries. Renewables represented 75% of all new electricity generation installed in 2019, nearly all solar and wind. Meanwhile, nuclear power share remains the same but costs are increasing. Nuclear power generation is now several times more expensive per megawatt-hour than wind and solar. Hydropower growth is also slowing as the best sites have been developed and concerns about social and environmental impacts grow. Other forms of clean energy, such as nuclear and hyrdopower, are, experiencing intermittent growth, or remaining steady.“
The latter paragraph would read:
“There are obstacles to the continued rapid growth of clean energy, including renewables. For wind and solar, there are environmental and land use concerns for new projects. Wind and solar also produce energy intermittently and with seasonal variability. Traditionally, hydro dams with reservoirs and conventional power plants have been used when variable energy production is low. Going forward, battery storage can be expanded, energy demand and supply can be matched, and long-distance transmission can smooth variability of renewable outputs. Bioenergy is often not carbon-neutral and may have negative consequences for food security. Other forms of clean energy have their own drawbacks. Nuclear power generation is now several times more expensive per megawatt-hour than wind and solar, which limits its growth potential. Hydropower growth is limited by the fact that the best sites have been developed, and concerns about social and environmental impacts have grown.“
To repeat my rationale for this edit:
Femke, Clayoquot, Chipmunkdavis, or RCraig09, would any of you be willing to weigh in here to help resolve this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dtetta ( talk • contribs)
OK, deep breath... I appreciate everyone's efforts that have been made to improve flow. I'm also struggling to choose between any of the above options because I think there are big substance issues with this section.
I think a major rewrite is needed. I might be able to draft one if we can get consensus on the general direction for it. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 17:09, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
So just to summarize, my suggested edits for these two paragraphs are, for the intro paragraph:
“Renewable energy is key to limiting climate change. Fossil fuels accounted for 80% of the world's energy in 2018. The remaining share was split between nuclear power and renewables (including solar and wind power, bioenergy, geothermal energy, and hydropower). That mix is projected to change significantly over the next 30 years. Solar panels and onshore wind are now among the cheapest forms of adding new power generation capacity in most countries many locations
Our World in Data
IEA 2020. Renewables represented 75% of all new electricity generation installed in 2019, nearly all solar and wind.Meanwhile, nuclear power share remains the same but costs are increasing. Nuclear power generation is now several times more expensive per megawatt-hour than wind and solar. Hydropower growth is also slowing as the best sites have been developed and concerns about social and environmental impacts grow. Other forms of clean energy, such as nuclear and hydropower, currently have a larger share of the energy supply. However, their future growth forecasts appear limited in comparison.
IEA - Net Zero by 2050 Fig2.5 p57
Teske 2019 Table 8.1 p.180“
And for the paragraph on obstacles to clean energy:
“There are obstacles to the continued rapid growth of clean energy, including renewables. For wind and solar, there are environmental and land use concerns for new projects. Wind and solar also produce energy intermittently and with seasonal variability. Traditionally, hydro dams with reservoirs and conventional power plants have been used when variable energy production is low. Going forward, battery storage can be expanded, energy demand and supply can be matched, and long-distance transmission can smooth variability of renewable outputs. Bioenergy is often not carbon-neutral and may have negative consequences for food security. Other forms of clean energy have their own drawbacks. The growth of nuclear power is constrained by controversy around nuclear waste, nuclear weapon proliferation, accidents, and costs World Nuclear Industry Status Report Fig. 44, p.293. Hydropower growth is limited by the fact that the best sites have been developed, and new projects are confronting increased social and environmental concerns.“
I included the text that Clayoquot proposed in the topic below and put in the article on 4/3. Listed references here are for sources not currently in the article. As a side note, I found the Lester reference to be fairly inaccessible. I would prefer a source for the second to last sentence in the obstacles paragraph for which the reader doesn’t need to have ready access to scientific books. I added the “World Nuclear Industry Status Report” citation to that sentence (along with the additional mention of costs. Dtetta ( talk) 19:32, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for the feedback above. I think I'll approach issues bit by bit.
Here is what we currently say about nuclear energy:
Meanwhile, nuclear power share remains the same but costs are increasing. Nuclear power generation is now several times more expensive per megawatt-hour than wind and solar. [1]
Other than the statistic of nuclear's current share of the energy mix, this is all we say about nuclear energy: the cost aspect. Focusing exclusively on one aspect isn't presenting a balanced perspective of aspects of the topic. The growth of nuclear energy is hindered by cost (in many locations at least) but it's also hindered by concerns around nuclear waste, nuclear weapon proliferation, and accidents.
The sourcing we're currently using is a Reuters article whose subject is an annual report by the World Nuclear Industry Status Report. Our WP:RS guidelines say "Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than ne ws reports for academic topics." We shouldn't be using a single news story as the basis of everything we say about the relationship between nuclear energy and climate change, especially when the news story is centered on an announcement from activists.
There are a couple of better alternatives: 1) If succinctness is critical, we could simply say that nuclear energy is controversial and link to nuclear power debate for people who want to see why it's controversial. 2) We could summarize the main aspects of the controversy. With either approach, we should use higher-quality sourcing. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 14:13, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189. Over the past decade, (costs) for utility-scale solar have dropped by 88% and for wind by 69%. For nuclear, they have increased by 23%.
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I believe we removed the figure that showed the relative contributions of human influence , solar/volcanic activity, and internal variability a while back, most likely due to space issues. But given the recent denial on non-EN sites that include a focus on solar variability, I’m wondering if it doesn’t make sense to re-insert data from the current figure on SPM-8 into a revised graphic. That figure clearly shows the negligible effect of solar and volcanic drivers. We have text that discounts solar effects, but I still wonder if people don’t just skim that paragraph and think “oh, solar is a source”. I realize there’s a lot of graphics already in this section, so just a suggestion to consider. —Dtetta
@ Femkemilene, Dtetta, and Efbrazil: After Femke's 17:12 30 Dec comment (above),(Of course, I'll add a Celsius scale.) I've been puzzling about the scientifically proper way to resolve how the "Observed gw" and "Human forces" traces should be visually aligned. My reasoning:
Question: Am I therefore correct that I, as a graphist, may simply choose the vertical position of the gray "Observed gw" trace? Thanks in advance for your concise response. — RCraig09 ( talk) 20:08, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
@ RCraig09: Can you clarify what you are trying to accomplish with this graphic that is not already accomplished with the newer data that built the second image on the climate change page? I can modify that image if you find it somehow lacking. Efbrazil ( talk) 18:58, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
I'd rather see a suggestion to strengthen existing wording of the first paragraph instead of adding to the lede. One idea is to cut the second sentence: "There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are more rapid than any known events in Earth's history." Earth had more dramatic changes after the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, so factually that sentence is just wrong. See here: https://www.livescience.com/cretaceous-extinction-darkness
We also mistakenly put too much focus on feedbacks in the first paragraph. Feedbacks are both positive and negative, and while net positive in the near term, they are a very small part of the issue so far. The fact that we spend two sentences on feedbacks and none on land use is clearly a mistake. We should be putting full weight on human activity in the first paragraph. -- Efbrazil ( talk) 18:50, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
The following green text can be modified until we come to consensensus, just please:
FIRST PHASE (now CLOSED):
Contemporary climate change includes both the global warming caused by humans, and its impacts on Earth's weather patterns. There have been
previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are particularly rapid. There have been
previous periods of climate change, but current changes are happening at a rate and scale unknown outside of supervolcano eruptions and asteroid collisions.
[1] Climate change is caused mainly by burning of fossil fuels to produce
greenhouse gases, most commonly
carbon dioxide and
methane. Agriculture, steelmaking, cement production, and forest loss are additional sources. Climate change is caused by increased concentrations of
greenhouse gases, mainly
carbon dioxide and
methane. Burning
fossil fuels for
energy use creates most of these gases, with additional contributions from agriculture, steelmaking, cement production, and forest loss.
[2] Greenhouse gases are transparent to incoming sunlight but trap the heat the Earth reflects, thus warming the lower atmosphere. Greenhouse gases allow sunlight to reach the Earth and heat it, but when the Earth emits that heat as
infrared radiation the gases absorb it and
trap the heat near the Earth's surface.
[3] Natural phenomena, such as variations in sunlight, volcanos, and regional phenomena such as
El Niño/
La Niña, have effects that are minimal and short-lived. Natural phenomena are not a cause of
climatic variability is much smaller than contemporary global warming.
· (some proposed changes made by —
RCraig09 (
talk)
21:22, 3 January 2022 (UTC))
SECOND PHASE:
Contemporary climate change includes both the global warming caused by humans, and its impacts on Earth's weather patterns. There have been
previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are more rapid than any known events in Earth's history. particularly rapid and are not scientifically attributable ed to natural causes climate variability.
[4] The main cause of contemporary global warming is the growing concentration in our atmosphere of
greenhouse gases, mostly
carbon dioxide (CO2) and
methane. Greenhouse gases allow sunlight to reach the Earth and heat it, but when the Earth emits that heat as
infrared radiation the gases absorb it,
trapping the heat near the Earth's surface.
[3] Burning
fossil fuels for
energy use creates most of these greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture, steelmaking, cement production, and forest loss are additional sources.
[2] Temperature rise is also affected by
climate feedbacks such as the loss of
sunlight-reflecting snow cover, and the release of carbon dioxide from drought-stricken forests. Collectively, these amplify global warming. (~moved GHE sentence up~)
· (some proposed changes made by —
RCraig09 (
talk) 02:38, 5 January 2022 (UTC))
--
Efbrazil (
talk)
23:55, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
Changes from existing paragraph:
Efbrazil ( talk) 22:55, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes distinctly/particularly/exceptionally rapid/fast. That would allow for a shorter sentence too!
Aside: My general suggestion is for someone to draft specific text inserted in a special color/font here on the Talk Page, which others by mutual consent can freely amend without long discussion. I've seen this approach, and I think it shortens the ~ WP:WALLOFTEXT situation that often befalls thoughtful, thorough people. — RCraig09 ( talk) 22:23, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
References
I strongly disagree with the proposed edits to the first paragraph, for the following reasons:
1-The current paragraph was approved by several editors back in November. I think it looks good as is. Not perfect, but very good.
2-From a process standpoint, you are proposing a major rewrite again, when we just spent a good bit of time doing this in November, when all of these ideas could have been presented.
3-This particular paragraph is a significant step backward in terms of readability. The grade level has gone up from 10 to 12.5. Reading ease has gone down from 47 to 42. That’s a significant degradation in readability.
4-If you want to talk about how best to write a sentence on the greenhouse effect, let’s do that separately. I can’t support any of these other changes. The sentence I proposed is a bit complex, with an associated grade level of almost 12. But the current proposal in green for this sentence has a grade level of nearly 14. We are trying to keep this understandable, and this proposed sentence is not easily readable.
5- I disagree completely with the statement that climate feedbacks don’t belong in this paragraph, but rather the third. The third paragraph deals with impacts, mitigation, and adaptation. I don’t see the sentence on feedbacks as a good fit here at all. The first paragraph covers the causes of warming, and cumulatively, feedbacks are a cause of warming. So I think they make much more sense in the first paragraph.
6-I have no idea what is meant by the “supervolcano and astroid test”. As I mentioned earlier, the asteroid analogy is not relevant here, in my opinion (I believe dave souza had a similar opinion). I think my suggested edit, which is to just change “known” to “similar”, leaves a sentence that is a more accurate characterization of the text that’s being referenced and quoted in the citation (compared to what’s being proposed in green). There is no astroid test for this, it’s simply an issue of source/text integrity. Dtetta ( talk) 02:25, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
@ RCraig09: Good! We are getting there.
Regarding the last sentence, it is struggling with the same issue as this sentence was: "There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are more rapid than any known events in Earth's history."
Both are trying to convey the same point, which is that natural phenomena couldn't be causing global warming because of the rate of change we are seeing. However, it is important to account for the fact that supervolcanos and asteroids have caused more dramatic climate changes in short time periods. The most recent supervolcano, Toba, produced a global temperature drop of between 3.5C and 9C, all while humans were around: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00141-7
To try and address the concerns here, I have this as a suggested new sentence, replacing what Femke suggested (edit made above): "There have been previous periods of climate change, but current changes are happening at a rate and scale unknown outside of supervolcano eruptions and asteroid collisions." I think that makes it clear that what we are currently seeing is "unnatural". Efbrazil ( talk) 21:43, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
The current chart (shown on the right) is based on AR6 WG1 SPM.1b. NASA just released new current numbers here for 2021: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4/#
I would update the image to include 2021 data but don't want to be accused of compositing an image. And of course the drivers will get increasingly out of date over time, unless somebody knows how to get refreshed versions of those (they only seem to appear when there's a new report that's released). Thoughts? Efbrazil ( talk) 21:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Hello folks long time no speak for me. Good to see many familiar names still hard at work here. I've gone in a new direction and won't be sticking around for followup discussion here. I just wanted to say I noticed that in the great work that has been happening, the lead first sentence seems to have hyperfocused on the narrow definition of "climate" (long term weather avgs) instead of the broader definition, "statistical changes in the state of the climate system". For example, see the definitions of "climate" and "climate change" in this IPCC special report. It includes both a "narrow" and a "More broadly" definition of "climate". Alas the definition of "climate change" says its a change in the longterm stats of "climate" but does not explicitly shed light on whether they mean the narrow or broad definition of "climate".
Meanwhile, I salute the effort to write in very simple English. At a USA-NOAA news page I found this simple statement, "...climate change includes warming and the “side effects” of warming..." In the brief list of examples they included extreme weather, but they ALSO included "melting glaciers" as an example of "climate change". Obviously, a melting glacier is not a meteorological thing, but according to that NOAA page the melting glacier is "climate change" rather than merely being an effect of it. How is this possible?
Making sense of this, and speaking from my personal understanding, I think the plain English writing on the social/political/economic/existential issue of "climate change" usually uses the broad definition of climate and climate change, and so includes the significant aspects of the climate system beyond just weather. And the fine print in technical writing usually uses the narrow definition, and dilineates between longterm weather and impacts of it. Further complicating things is the occassional use of both meanings in the same piece of writing.
So what I wanted to float, for those trying to make this comprehensible at an 8th grade level (or whatever target audience has been agreed) is this..... in my view, the title and scope should reflect the broad definition and whatever words we use "and its related effects" should be restored to the first sentence. Secondly, any other time we write "climate change" we should use wording to explicitly say whether we're talking about IPCCs narrow or broad definition ((changing weather avgs only, or including impacts of them)
So there you go, thanks for reading and considering and for your continued work here. I'll go back to the other work I'm doing in the world. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 16:14, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm requesting climate change-knowledgeable editors to resolve a wall-of-words conflict between myself (focusing on WP:NEUTRAL and WP:Minority viewpoints and WP:RELEVANT-to-climate-change-adaptation issues) versus two nearly-single-purpose accounts promoting Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in a specific "Adaptation" section of the CC in the US article. The most concisely stated question at this point is which one of the following two TEK sections are acceptable for Wikipedia:
Go to this section at WikiProject Climate Change for more background. Thanks in advance. — RCraig09 ( talk) 22:25, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
The current first paragraph has two sentences on feedbacks that I think we should replace with a description of how greenhouse gases work. The two sentences highlighted in context:
Contemporary climate change includes both the global warming caused by humans, and its impacts on Earth's weather patterns. There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are more rapid than any known events in Earth's history. [1] The main cause is the emission of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane. Burning fossil fuels for energy use creates most of these emissions. Agriculture, steelmaking, cement production, and forest loss are additional sources. [2] Temperature rise is also affected by climate feedbacks such as the loss of sunlight-reflecting snow cover, and the release of carbon dioxide from drought-stricken forests. Collectively, these amplify global warming. [3]
I would like to see that feedback content replaced with this description of how greenhouse gases work:
Greenhouse gases are transparent to sunlight, allowing it to heat the Earth's surface. When the Earth emits that heat as infrared radiation the gases absorb it, trapping the heat near the Earth's surface. [4]
Reasoning is that the first paragraph needs to be squarely about the cause of climate change. Saying what the mechanism is works better than just repeating over and over again that "Experts say it is so"; one thing we know about climate denial is that it is rooted in a distrust of experts.
Feedbacks will move down to the third or fourth paragraph in the lede. Feedbacks are not a cause of climate change, but are rather a complicating factor that impacts mitigation and modelling, as in how much temperature change is there for a given intervention or change in greenhouse gas concentrations. Further, the key question is not whether feedbacks are net positive or negative, but how much they will change in a positive or negative direction going forward. This plays into estimates of how much emissions will result in how much temperature change, and feeds into the tipping point issues with regards to particular feedbacks. Further still, there are both positive and negative feedbacks that are large issues and we need to address, such as on the negative side a hotter Earth results in more radiation into space, and increased CO2 has resulted in increased plant growth. Feedbacks are an extremely complicated issue, and putting them in the first paragraph is asking for a FUD response from readers. Meanwhile, the third and fourth paragraphs have redundancies and deal in feedback type issues like tipping points and temperature targets, so that's a better place to touch on them.
I'll start another section on how to restructure the third and fourth paragraphs to eliminate redundancis and incorporate feedbacks. Please focus comments here on the new sentence and making this change overall. Efbrazil ( talk) 19:30, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
References
Plus one more proposal, that I think Efbrazil hinted at elsewhere
Contemporary climate change includes both global warming and its impacts on Earth's weather patterns. There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are distinctly rapid and are not due to natural causes. [1] Instead, they are caused by the emission of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane. Burning fossil fuels for energy use creates most of these emissions. Agriculture, steelmaking, cement production, and forest loss are additional sources. [2] Greenhouse gases are transparent to sunlight, allowing them to heat the Earth's surface. When the Earth emits that heat as infrared radiation the gases absorb it, trapping the heat near the Earth's surface.Temperature rise is amplified by the collective action of climate feedbacks such as the loss of sunlight-reflecting snow cover.As the planet heats up it causes changes like the loss of sunlight-reflecting snow cover, amplifying climate change. [3] Reading score: 57 (was 52)
There is consensus on adding an explanation of the greenhouse effect. I think the above paragraph shows that this fits in the first paragraph, without moving the feedbacks. I'm not wild yet about the flow of the second sentence, but please add it while I try to formulate a better sentence (which may be never..). Femke ( talk) 11:00, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
This section is based on removing feedbacks from the first paragraph and inserting it here. The basic structural change:
Here is the current text with removals as strikeouts and additions in bold. I'll update this text as per discussion that follows:
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming, which is about 1.2 °C (2 °F). The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects even greatermore impacts as warming continues to 1.5 °C and beyond.
[4] Additional warming also increases the risk of triggeringcan also trigger
tipping points, such as the melting of the
Greenland ice sheet.
[5] Responding to these changes involves
taking actions to limit the amount of warming, and
adapting to them.
[6] Future warming can be
reduced (mitigated) by lowering greenhouse gas emissions and removing them from the atmosphere.
[6] This will involve changes like using more
wind and solar energy,
phasing out coal, and increasing
energy efficiency. Switching to
electric vehicles, and to
heat pumps for homes and commercial buildings, will further limit emissions, and switching to
electric vehicles.
[7]
[8]
Prevention of
deforestation and enhancing forests,
reforestation, and
managing forests to withstand climate change impacts can help absorb CO2.
[9] Temperature rise is also affected by
climate feedbacks such as the loss of
sunlight-reflecting snow cover, and the release of carbon dioxide from drought-stricken forests. Collectively, these amplify global warming.
[10]
Damage to forests and loss of
sunlight-reflecting snow cover are examples of
climate change feedbacks, which are projected to increasingly amplify global warming.
[11]
Under the 2015
Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C" through mitigation efforts. However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century.
[12] Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
[13] Some communities mayInternational agreements also try to increase the ability of all to
adapt to climate change through betterby supporting efforts like
coastline protection,
disaster management, and development of more resistant crops. By themselves, these efforts to adapt cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread and permanent impacts.
[14]
References
Here's the rationale for changes:
Efbrazil ( talk) 21:30, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Efbrazil: Frankly, I've not followed the above discussion, but if you say the unresolved issue is placement of content on feedbacks: I favor keeping feedbacks out of the first paragraph simply because the abstract concept is hard to describe briefly, additionally requiring concrete examples that a general audience can readily understand. Such content, no doubt several sentences, would provide too much prominence for a less influential driver. Since subsequent paragraphs already exceed the "one concept per paragraph" rule I learned in eighth grade, 'feedback' content should would not be a burden there. — RCraig09 ( talk) 18:41, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming, which is about 1.2 °C (2 °F). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projectseven greatermore impacts as warming continues to 1.5 °C and beyond. [1] Additional warmingalso increases the risk of triggeringcan also trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. [2]Responding to these changes involves taking actions to limit the amount of warming, and adapting to them. [3]Future warming can be reduced (mitigated) by lowering greenhouse gas emissions and removing them from the atmosphere. [3] This will involve changes like using more wind and solar energy, phasing out coal,andincreasing energy efficiency. Switching to electric vehicles, and to heat pumps for homes and commercial buildings, will further limit emissions, and switching to electric vehicles. [4] [5]Prevention of deforestation and enhancing forests can help absorb CO2.Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere through efforts like increasing forest cover. [6]Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C"
through mitigation efforts. However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. [7] Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. [8] Communitiesmaycan also adapt to climate change through better coastline protection, disaster management, and development of more resistant crops. By themselves, these efforts to adapt cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread and permanent impacts. [9]Reading score: 50
Which would become:
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming, which is about 1.2 °C (2 °F). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects more impacts as warming continues to 1.5 °C and beyond. [1] Additional warming can also trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. [10] Future warming can be reduced (mitigated) by lowering greenhouse gas emissions and removing them from the atmosphere. [3] This will involve changes like using more wind and solar energy, phasing out coal, increasing energy efficiency, and switching to electric vehicles. [11] [12] Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere through efforts like increasing forest cover. [13]Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. [7] Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. [14] Communities can also adapt to climate change through better coastline protection, disaster management, and development of more resistant crops. By themselves, these efforts to adapt cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread and permanent impacts. [15]
Reading score: 46
I've repeated your suggestions in the old format. The changes are wrt to some intermediate suggestion, which has disappeared again. Ideally, changes should be given wrt the last consensus version.
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming, which is about 1.2 °C (2 °F)This is a bridge sentence, but would be better as the bridge between the first paragraph (1.2C is almost definitional) and the second paragraph (impact). It has no mitigation aspect.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects even greater impacts as warming continues to 1.5 °C and beyond.This is again impacts, and has the political 1.5C goal, but attributes it to the IPCC (reality shows a smooth detoriation, rather than something that happens more abruptly at 1.5C). The 1.5C report was requested by policymakers, and wasn't the IPCC's idea.
Additional warming also increases the risk of triggering tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.Purely impact Femke ( talk) 20:51, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Femkemilene: With these points in mind:
I made these changes:
I looked at the readable scoring site but didn't think it was useful, as it really just looks at word and sentence length. A sentence can be long and readable or short and full of jargon.
Since it's a lot of changes, here's the new cut:
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming, which is about 1.2 °C (2 °F)(1.2 °C).The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects even greater impacts as warming continues to 1.5 °C and beyond.Additional warmingalso increases the risk of triggeringwill increase these impacts and risks triggering tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. [1] [16] Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C"through mitigation efforts. However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. [7] Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. [17]
Responding to these changes involves taking actions to limit the amount of warming, and adapting to them. [3] Future warming can be reduced (mitigated) by lowering greenhouse gas emissions and removing them from the atmosphere. [3] This will involveReducing emissions will involve changes like using more wind and solar energy, phasing out coal,andincreasing energy efficiency. Switching to electric vehicles, and to heat pumps for homes and commercial buildings, will further limit emissions, and switching to electric vehicles. [18] [19]Prevention of deforestation and enhancing forests can help absorb CO2.Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere through efforts like increasing forest cover. [20]Communities may adapt to climate change through better coastline protection, disaster management, and development of more resistant crops. By themselves, these efforts to adapt cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread and permanent impacts.While communities may adapt to climate change through efforts like better coastline protection and disaster management, they cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread, and permanent impacts. [21]
Which would become:
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming (1.2 °C). Additional warming will increase these impacts and can also trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. [22] Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. [7] Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. [23]Reducing emissions will involve changes like using more wind and solar energy, phasing out coal, increasing energy efficiency, and switching to electric vehicles. [24] [25] Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover. [26] While communities may adapt to climate change through efforts like better coastline protection and disaster management, they cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread, and permanent impacts. [27]
Efbrazil ( talk) 20:42, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming (1.2 °C). Additional warming will increase these impacts and
can alsomay trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nationscollectivelyagreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
- Reducing emissions will involve using
changes likemore wind and solar energy, phasing out coal, increasing energy efficiency, and switching to electric vehicles. Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover. Communities may adapt to climate change by better coastline protection and disaster management. Yet, such efforts cannotavertrule outthe risk ofsevere, widespread, and permanent impacts.
Reducing emissions will involve changes like using more wind and solar energy, phasing out coal, increasing energy efficiency, and switching to electric vehicles.with: "The literature on reducing emissions describes pathways in which the world rapidly phases out coal-fired power plants, produces more electricity from clean sources such as wind and solar, shifts towards using electricity instead of fuels in sectors such as transport and heating buildings, and takes measures to conserve energy."
removed from the atmosphereshould link to carbon dioxide removal not carbon sequestration.
Making deep cuts in emissions would require a transformation of the energy system. In an energy systemcompatiblein line with climate goals,abundantelectricity is generated withlow-emissions methodslow-carbon sources and it is used as much as possible instead of burning fuels for energy. This transformation involvesmanychanges such as phasing out coal-fired power plants, dramatically increasing production of clean electricity from sources such as wind and solar, adopting electric vehicles, and measures to conserve energy."
Making deep cuts in emissions will require switching away from burning fossil fuels and towards using electricity generated from low-carbon sources. This includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, dramatically increasing use of wind and solar power, switching to electric vehicles, and taking measures to conserve energy.Efbrazil ( talk) 00:11, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Some comments from someone with a fresh pair of eyes (and only because I have been pinged). I feel honored to have been pinged (and no problem if you don't want to take these suggestions on board; I am coming to the party late):
Here's my attempt at bringing together rationale as per dtetta's critique:
1- Readability. My free trial of readable is gone, but in my experience the score mostly just looks at word and sentence length. In the end, I think the best way to assess readability is to read out loud and imagine you're a middle schooler. When I do that, the new text seems clearly better.
2- The new text cuts more than 1/3rd of the old text length, from 225 words to 149 words. Our current third paragraph is 169 words, which is long by any measure. As Wikipedia guidance says regarding ledes, "Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs": Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section. Some content in there really wasn't necessary, like introducing mitigation and adaptation separately from talking about what they are, or saying "through mitigation efforts" in talking about limiting warming.
3- We should not be mixing tipping points into mitigation / adaptation. It's a better fit with trying to set temperature targets and immediately after impacts (which tipping points also pair with).
4- We should not be talking about impacts in terms of 1.5 C as we do now. As Femke said about the 1.5C number: "This is again impacts, and has the political 1.5C goal, but attributes it to the IPCC (reality shows a smooth detoriation, rather than something that happens more abruptly at 1.5C). The 1.5C report was requested by policymakers, and wasn't the IPCC's idea."
5- When we listed examples of categories like mitigation and adaptation we previously did not specify that the examples were incomplete, but now we do. That makes it clear that the examples are meant to be illustrative and not exhaustive or definitional (as in "mitigation means these things: X, Y, and Z").
6- We currently talk about preventing deforestation and "enhancing forests" (?) while ignoring afforestation. The new text just mentions increasing forest cover overall.
7- Stretching the list of mitigations across 2 sentences was very awkward, so we cut "heat pumps for residential and commercial buildings" (what about industrial? why enumerate building types at all?). Heat pumps are just a form of energy efficiency if you compare them to electric heaters / ac units (as opposed to comparing them to gas furnaces, in which case it's a fuel switching). That brings the mitigation example list down to single sentence size.
8 We similarly condensed adaptation to one sentence, to avoid awkwardness in wording and to correctly frame it as insufficient.
Here's my attempt at new consensus text. Changes from the proposal above are shown through strikeout / underline (I'll integrate more changes here as they come in):
Many of these impacts are already felt at the current level of warming (1.2 °C). Additional warming will increase these impacts andcan alsomay trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. [28] Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C by the end of the century. [7] Limiting warming to 1.5 °Cwouldwill require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. [29]Making deep cuts in emissions will require switching away from burning fossil fuels and towards using electricity generated from low-carbon sources. This includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, vastly increasing use of wind and solar power, switching to electric vehicles, switching to heat pumps in buildings, and taking measures to conserve energy. [30] [31] Carbon can also be removed from the atmosphere, for instance by increasing forest cover. [32] While communities may adapt to climate change through efforts like better coastline protection
and disaster management, they cannot avert the risk of severe, widespread, and permanent impacts. [33]
I edited the above for these changes:
Efbrazil ( talk) 20:37, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
One change I made from discussion above is I kept the existing wording of "avert the risk of" instead of going with "rule out". "Rule out" suggests that adaptation should be able to avoid the risk of "severe, widespread, and permanent impacts", but they still may occur. "Avert the risk of" makes it clear that adaptation on its own is insufficient. Efbrazil ( talk) 20:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
Efbrazil -Above I’ve summarized my responses to each of your points directly below each one. Apologies for messing up your numbering by doing it this way. Again my main point is that, although this version is shorter, it’s no more readable, it has significant problems with it. IMO it’s not an improvement to what’s there, and that’s what should be the basic criteria that we use when making any edit. Dtetta ( talk) 17:02, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
I think a better approach would be to focus on shortening the third paragraph, if that’s what the main concern is. Dtetta ( talk) 17:11, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
To avoid adding length to Talk Page discussions, I've participated minimally, but: since I largely support the newly-posted lede paragraphs, I think a more fruitful way to proceed is to possibly make minor incremental changes to the lede text (for everyone to see how it would read), which I think is preferable over pursuing longer discourses here. I think our current crop of editors is rational, thoughtful and respectful enough for that approach to succeed. — RCraig09 ( talk) 18:22, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
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References
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Our section on "Scientific consensus and society" comes across as biased. We exclusively cover climate denial, but ignore the content out there that plays up climate change using unrealistic scenarios, like Waterworld or Day after Tomorrow, or when every bad weather incident is attributed to climate change (remember how the recent, bad hurricane season was heavily featured in "an inconvenient truth"?) The activist movement sets false numbers or dates for change as a means to gain traction, saying that if society doesn't do as told then an apocalypse will occur. Just as some people benefit from denial, others benefit from exaggeration to sell books, movies, or clicks.
I think the section needs a rewrite to account for this. For instance, we absurdly say that there is "An echo chamber of climate-denying blogs and media" as though it is exclusively a right wing phenomena. A nod to the exaggerations on the left is appropriate given how much real estate we are allocating to denial in this article. Efbrazil ( talk) 18:09, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
During extensive discussion at Talk:Greenhouse effect, the wording here was raised: "Greenhouse gases are transparent to sunlight, allowing it through to heat the Earth's surface. When the Earth emits that heat as infrared radiation the gases absorb it, trapping the heat near the Earth's surface." My comment was that ""the heat" isn't [all] trapped, indeed about as much [heat] energy goes out as comes in from the Sun, and increased heat goes all the way up to "an altitude of roughly 5-6 kilometers [where] the concentration of greenhouse gases in the overlying atmosphere is so small that heat can radiate freely to space." [1]" Having reached an agreed introductory paragraph there, I've Boldly edited that part of the lead here, it was reverted. Do please discuss and find accurate wording. . . dave souza, talk 17:28, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
There are a couple awkward sentences in the second paragraph I would like to change. The first is this tongue twister:
In places such as coral reefs, mountains, and the Arctic, many species are forced to relocate or become extinct, as their environment changes.
I think this wording is more natural, accurate, and succinct:
Rapid environmental changes in coral reefs, mountains, and the Arctic are forcing many species to relocate or become extinct.
Secondly, the second sentence here implies that human migration is not related to all the threats we list out in the first sentence:
Climate change threatens people with food and water scarcity, increased flooding, extreme heat, more disease, and economic loss. It can also drive human migration.
I'd like to see us follow the train of thought and also mention human conflict, like this (only the second sentence is tweaked):
Climate change threatens people with food and water scarcity, increased flooding, extreme heat, more disease, and economic loss. Human migration and conflict can be a result.
These are fairly minor tweaks, so hopefully not controversial? Efbrazil ( talk) 23:07, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
@ RCraig09: Craig- Femke would like a second opinion on the second minor tweak above (the first change is already live). Can you chime in? Efbrazil ( talk) 16:55, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
Hello. I don't think linking to Taleb's black swan theory in the "Livelihoods" section is appropriate, as the discussion of Taleb's theory (e.g. hindsight and psychology) is not particularly relevant and unlikely to be found in sources about climate change. What we mean here is just A rare and hard-to-predict event with major consequences
, without the baggage of the rest of the theory.
Without a note or link to explain it, like tail risk (which is only discussing financial risk), the term is probably too technical to be helpful, so I think it may be better to remove it in place of something simpler like "chance of disastrous effects". I would make that change myself, but given this is a featured article I thought I would make a post on the talk page instead. Endwise ( talk) 03:39, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
Suggest change "avert" to "completely avert" to read:
"While communities may adapt to climate change through efforts like better coastline protection, they cannot completely avert the risk of severe, widespread, and permanent impacts."
Chidgk1 ( talk) 18:53, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
Below are my observations on the elements of the AR6WGII SPM that merit looking at in terms of strengthening the Effects portion of the article. These appear to me to be either new findings, or findings that expand on or help focus current text in the document.
I found it striking to see the extent to which vulnerability is mentioned in this document, the treatment of this topic is significantly stronger in this document compared to its AR five counterpart. I also found extent to which adaptation is recognized as an important complements to Mitigation to be significantly stronger than in the AR5 report. What I conclude from this is that 1)we might want to retitle the adaptation section to be vulnerability and adaptation, and interweave vulnerability concepts into the text on adaptation, and 2)we should strengthen the language on adaptation in terms of its potential effectiveness to address climate change. At a minimum we should certainly provide a stronger sentence in the flawed fourth paragraph of the lead that better recognizes the role that the IPCC is placing on adaptation. I did not include any of the specific adaptation findings in this post, these recommendations are based strictly on my reading of the effects/impacts section of the SPM (i.e I did not include any of the findings in SPM.C)
I was also struck by the extent to which the report repeatedly points out the disproportionate impacts on more vulnerable populations. In a discussion on the adaptation section last year, I believe there was strong opposition to over emphasizing this in that section. Based on the findings of this report, I think this decision should be revisited.
Some other issues: Do we only include high confidence findings? In particular, many of the findings in the section B.4 (mid to long term risks) have a medium confidence associated with them, which seems natural given that they are predictions further into the future.
Here are what seem to me to be significant SPM findings for the purposes of edits to the article. I added headings to sections where they seemed focused on a specific topic. SOme of these may be more suited to the Effects of Climate Change article, but I think they are at least worth considering.
B1
B1.1
B.1.2 - Ecosystems
B.1.3 - Food and Water Security
B.1.4 - Human Health
B.1.5 - Urban Impacts
B.1.6 - Economic Impacts
B.1.7 - Humanitarian Issues
B.2. - Vulnerability
B.2.1
B.2.3 - Ecosystems
B.2.5 - Human Vulnerability
B.2.6 - Future Human Vulnerability
Figure SPM2 - This would be nice to summarize, but it’s detailed, nuanced and that might be difficult.
Risks in the near term (2021-2040)
B.3.2
B3.3
Mid to Long-term Risks (2041–2100)
B.4.1 - Ecosystems/biodiversity
B.4.2 - Water Availability
B.4.3 - Food Security
B.4.4 - Human Health
B.4.5 - Cities/settlements/infrastructure
Note 1: IMO, many of the statements in this section of the report, particularly the conclusions in C2, which are headline conclusions, render the current last sentence in the lead, as well as the second sentence in the Adaptation section (which to me imply a “don’t rely too much on adaptation” message), as outdated. Nowhere in the AR6WGII report do those statements, taken from the AR5 Synthesis report, appear to be repeated. I take that as meaning that the IPCC no longer supports that type of qualification of adaptation when describing it. In fact, many of the statements in this section of the report, as well as the breadth of findings in general, are at odds with that position, and appear to indicate a strong embrace of adaptation as being a crucial, unqualified priority in terms of CC response.
Note 2: I didn’t include any statements from the climate resilient development section. Although the idea of needing to combine adaptation and mitigation is important, there’s so much techno speak here that my eyes started to glaze over, and I found it hard to grab onto specific statements that could easily be incorporated into the article. If someone else wants to take a shot at capturing relevant statements from the section that would be great.
C.1 - Overview
C.1.1
C.1.2
Future Adaptation Options and their Feasibility
C.2
C.2.1
C.2.2 - Food Availability
C.2.3 - Forests
C.2.4 - Ecosystems
C.2.5 - Ecosystem based adaptation
Urban, Rural and Infrastructure Transition
C.2.6
C.2.7
C.2.8
C.2.9
Energy System Transition
C.2.10
Dear Chidgk1 could you please specify the reason for deleting this sentence, please? The risks posed by disasters and climate change affect these groups and populations in different ways and vary also depending on the populations’ societal differences, including their gender identity, sex, ethnicity, and age. Unfortunately, we did not manage to reply to the below 'clarification needed' request per time: "surely not gender identity as such but whether other people or govt marginalize people whose gender identity they don't like (for example Hijra (South Asia)) - so surely covered by next sentence about marginalised people (March, 2022)." The second part of the sentence, which includes gender identity, refers to “societal differences”, and reinforces the concept. This content is taken from this FAO publication: https://doi.org/10.4060/cb7431en. User:Richard Nevell (WMUK) Gaia797 ( talk) 15:04, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
The final sentence of this section ends with a single sentence, concluding that "Globally, these effects are estimated to have led to a slight cooling, dominated by an increase in surface albedo." This is contradicted in the citation provided [1]. The sentence immediately preceding the sentence quoted in the citation states that there is a "net small warming signal".
I suggest editing both the citation, to include the preceding sentence, and the body text, to indicate that there is a slight warming effect, not a slight cooling effect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bordriiv ( talk • contribs)
References
I'm proposing a sub-heading in the section on "observed temperature rise" for the following reasons: It would give this long section (5 paragraphs) a sub-structure which would also make it accessible from the the TOC. As an aside, I am also contemplating transcribing this section to instrumental temperature record which also has a section on regional aspects ( /info/en/?search=Instrumental_temperature_record#Regional_temperature_changes). It could include the same content, and not more because I feel that the details of the regional aspects should be at effects of climate change. A second sub-heading within "observed temperature rise" might also be helpful, such as "global temperature observations" (to distinguish from regional aspects) or something about "Methodology". I understand it's meant to be short and a summary of Main articles: "Temperature record of the last 2,000 years" and "Instrumental temperature record", and maybe that's the reason why now sub-headings were used. But I think the sub-headings could give the readers some useful orientation. EMsmile ( talk) 15:44, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
I am wondering if the article might benefit from a bit more information about ozone (as a GHG but also in terms of air quality / surface ozone concentrations). In the AR6 WG I report, the term ozone appears nearly 1,200 times. I am thinking in particular the information about surface ozone is missing, e.g. this kind of statement " Sustained methane mitigation reduces global surface ozone, contributing to air quality improvements and also reduces surface temperature in the longer term, but only 15 sustained CO2 emission reductions allow long-term climate stabilization (high confidence)" (technical summary, page 68). Also the links between heatwaves and surface ozone. Note the article effects of climate change doesn't mention ozone once. I came to this topic via the route of air quality that is mentioned at effects of climate change on human health. EMsmile ( talk) 11:24, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
I reverted Efbrazil’s 15 March @16:57 and @16:44 edits. Re-organizing the limitations to renewable energy paragraph to highlight bio energy as the main concern makes no sense to me. From all of the articles I am reading, the key challenge/obstacle still remains the intermittency of renewable energy sources. I don’t often see the issues around bio energy being discussed nearly as often, although they are legitimate concerns and deserve mentioning in this section. The edit justification “Reorganizing renewable energy obstacles paragraph for readability and flow”, also doesn’t seem accurate, given what was changed. Clearly stating that the edit was highlighting the prominence of bioenergy issues would have been more helpful.
I also reverted the 16:44 edit that moved the hydropower sentence. IMO it works better in the context of discussing obstacles to renewable energy. The first sentence is mainly about trends in renewable energy compared to fossil fuels, and the main drivers of those trends (cheaper renewables). I would also prefer to see the nuclear energy sentence moved out of that paragraph to a different location in the section, but that’s another story.
All-in-all there were a number of revisions that day to the mitigation section that, cumulatively, were a significant change. There was one other that I disagree with, but not strongly enough to revert it. It would be helpful, when making edits of that magnitude, if we could all post the proposal here on the talk page first. Maybe others would support these edits, but it would be good to have that discussion first. Dtetta ( talk) 15:17, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
In terms of the sentence starting with “Solar and wind have seen…”, that had been deleted, I suggest we keep it and edit that sentence (and the next) to: “Solar and wind have seen substantial growth and progress over the last few years, and are now the cheapest forms of adding new power generation capacity in most countries.” Dtetta ( talk) 15:32, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
How about changing "Renewable energy is key to limiting climate change." to " Low-carbon power is key to limiting climate change." or " Low-carbon power and heat is key to limiting climate change."? Chidgk1 ( talk) 18:59, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
Just saying that this article's edit summaries are just... perfect. I wish that I could do the same! CactiStaccingCrane ( talk) 17:03, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Along with reverting my recent edit to the article, Efbrazil has removed some recent posts I made to this page regarding the Clean energy subsection (which strikes me as a violation of the basic precepts of this talk page, as well as several elements of the Wikipedia:Etiquette policy). I am reposting them here, along with a proposed compromise that I hope can resolve this content dispute, and avoid the repeated editing and reverting of these portions of the article.
Here are the most recent posts that Efbrazil and I made on this topic: So I would suggest that we move both the nuclear power and hydropower sentences to that latter paragraph, where bioenergy still is. The last sentences of that paragraph on obstacles to renewables would now read: ”Nuclear power generation is now several times more expensive per megawatt-hour than wind and solar, and its share of renewables has remained unchanged over the past decade. Hydropower growth is also slowing as the best sites have been developed and concerns about social and environmental impacts grow.” Same references. Again, the purpose of this would be to keep the intro paragraph focused more on trends in renewable energy generation (and the most significant trend is the current and expected future increases in solar/wind), and that latter paragraph focused on obstacles (and some potential solutions). I think we will still have a balance between solar, wind, nuclear and hydro, but it will be in that paragraph. Dtetta (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
I don't know that there's a problem with the intro breaking down the mix the way it does. Nuclear, hydro, and other renewables each generate about a third of clean energy, so it makes sense to begin the topic with that breakdown. Also, the suggested sentence has some issues. Nuclear is not a renewable and it's share of clean power has been decreasing (although its overall use is growing). Efbrazil (talk) 22:12, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Efbrazil Sorry, just made that change, and did not see your comment, having waited a couple of days. If you want to propose starting with that breakdown you mention, then I think the whole paragraph needs to be redone, as the paragraph starts with “Renewable energy is key to limiting climate change.” I’m fine with looking at alternative ways of introducing the idea of clean energy in that opening paragraph. Do you want to make a proposal? You’re correct in that nuclear is not a renewable. So, in terms of the latter paragraph, I would suggest we just change the first sentence to “There are obstacles to the continued growth of clean energy, including renewables.” That intro sentence would then be broad enough that it would include nuclear. I imagine there are folks who would also object to categorizing either nuclear or hydro as “clean energy”, but that is another issue. Dtetta (talk) 23:28, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
A note of caution, though. IMO, a key concern regarding including hydro and nuclear in the first paragraph is that the overall mitigation lead clearly states that “ Although there is no single pathway to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2 °C, most scenarios and strategies see a major increase in the use of renewable energy in combination with increased energy efficiency measures to generate the needed greenhouse gas reductions.” The second Clean energy paragraphs also features renewable energy in describing transitions to lower GHG emissions. So I think the first Clean energy paragraph would ideally support those statements, and focusing on nuclear and hydro (as well as bioenergy) in that paragraph seems like a distraction from that standpoint. I’m not aware of any major reports that feature nuclear or hydro as significant solutions to lowering GHG emissions over the next 30 years.Dtetta (talk) 00:34, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
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And here is what I propose for these paragraphs (using the same references as are currently in the text). The first paragraph would read:
“Renewable energy is key to limiting climate change. Fossil fuels accounted for 80% of the world's energy in 2018. The remaining share was split between nuclear power and renewables (including solar and wind power, bioenergy, geothermal energy, and hydropower). That mix is projected to change significantly over the next 30 years. Solar panels and onshore wind are now the cheapest forms of adding new power generation capacity in most countries. Renewables represented 75% of all new electricity generation installed in 2019, nearly all solar and wind. Meanwhile, nuclear power share remains the same but costs are increasing. Nuclear power generation is now several times more expensive per megawatt-hour than wind and solar. Hydropower growth is also slowing as the best sites have been developed and concerns about social and environmental impacts grow. Other forms of clean energy, such as nuclear and hyrdopower, are, experiencing intermittent growth, or remaining steady.“
The latter paragraph would read:
“There are obstacles to the continued rapid growth of clean energy, including renewables. For wind and solar, there are environmental and land use concerns for new projects. Wind and solar also produce energy intermittently and with seasonal variability. Traditionally, hydro dams with reservoirs and conventional power plants have been used when variable energy production is low. Going forward, battery storage can be expanded, energy demand and supply can be matched, and long-distance transmission can smooth variability of renewable outputs. Bioenergy is often not carbon-neutral and may have negative consequences for food security. Other forms of clean energy have their own drawbacks. Nuclear power generation is now several times more expensive per megawatt-hour than wind and solar, which limits its growth potential. Hydropower growth is limited by the fact that the best sites have been developed, and concerns about social and environmental impacts have grown.“
To repeat my rationale for this edit:
Femke, Clayoquot, Chipmunkdavis, or RCraig09, would any of you be willing to weigh in here to help resolve this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dtetta ( talk • contribs)
OK, deep breath... I appreciate everyone's efforts that have been made to improve flow. I'm also struggling to choose between any of the above options because I think there are big substance issues with this section.
I think a major rewrite is needed. I might be able to draft one if we can get consensus on the general direction for it. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 17:09, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
So just to summarize, my suggested edits for these two paragraphs are, for the intro paragraph:
“Renewable energy is key to limiting climate change. Fossil fuels accounted for 80% of the world's energy in 2018. The remaining share was split between nuclear power and renewables (including solar and wind power, bioenergy, geothermal energy, and hydropower). That mix is projected to change significantly over the next 30 years. Solar panels and onshore wind are now among the cheapest forms of adding new power generation capacity in most countries many locations
Our World in Data
IEA 2020. Renewables represented 75% of all new electricity generation installed in 2019, nearly all solar and wind.Meanwhile, nuclear power share remains the same but costs are increasing. Nuclear power generation is now several times more expensive per megawatt-hour than wind and solar. Hydropower growth is also slowing as the best sites have been developed and concerns about social and environmental impacts grow. Other forms of clean energy, such as nuclear and hydropower, currently have a larger share of the energy supply. However, their future growth forecasts appear limited in comparison.
IEA - Net Zero by 2050 Fig2.5 p57
Teske 2019 Table 8.1 p.180“
And for the paragraph on obstacles to clean energy:
“There are obstacles to the continued rapid growth of clean energy, including renewables. For wind and solar, there are environmental and land use concerns for new projects. Wind and solar also produce energy intermittently and with seasonal variability. Traditionally, hydro dams with reservoirs and conventional power plants have been used when variable energy production is low. Going forward, battery storage can be expanded, energy demand and supply can be matched, and long-distance transmission can smooth variability of renewable outputs. Bioenergy is often not carbon-neutral and may have negative consequences for food security. Other forms of clean energy have their own drawbacks. The growth of nuclear power is constrained by controversy around nuclear waste, nuclear weapon proliferation, accidents, and costs World Nuclear Industry Status Report Fig. 44, p.293. Hydropower growth is limited by the fact that the best sites have been developed, and new projects are confronting increased social and environmental concerns.“
I included the text that Clayoquot proposed in the topic below and put in the article on 4/3. Listed references here are for sources not currently in the article. As a side note, I found the Lester reference to be fairly inaccessible. I would prefer a source for the second to last sentence in the obstacles paragraph for which the reader doesn’t need to have ready access to scientific books. I added the “World Nuclear Industry Status Report” citation to that sentence (along with the additional mention of costs. Dtetta ( talk) 19:32, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for the feedback above. I think I'll approach issues bit by bit.
Here is what we currently say about nuclear energy:
Meanwhile, nuclear power share remains the same but costs are increasing. Nuclear power generation is now several times more expensive per megawatt-hour than wind and solar. [1]
Other than the statistic of nuclear's current share of the energy mix, this is all we say about nuclear energy: the cost aspect. Focusing exclusively on one aspect isn't presenting a balanced perspective of aspects of the topic. The growth of nuclear energy is hindered by cost (in many locations at least) but it's also hindered by concerns around nuclear waste, nuclear weapon proliferation, and accidents.
The sourcing we're currently using is a Reuters article whose subject is an annual report by the World Nuclear Industry Status Report. Our WP:RS guidelines say "Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than ne ws reports for academic topics." We shouldn't be using a single news story as the basis of everything we say about the relationship between nuclear energy and climate change, especially when the news story is centered on an announcement from activists.
There are a couple of better alternatives: 1) If succinctness is critical, we could simply say that nuclear energy is controversial and link to nuclear power debate for people who want to see why it's controversial. 2) We could summarize the main aspects of the controversy. With either approach, we should use higher-quality sourcing. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 14:13, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189. Over the past decade, (costs) for utility-scale solar have dropped by 88% and for wind by 69%. For nuclear, they have increased by 23%.