Talk:List of climate change controversies: Difference between revisions

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	:Global warming is a fact. There is no data that disproves global warming. There are people who don't understand the science, and there are those who refuse to understand it for political or selfish reasons. See ] and ] for why I say this. we have articles like ] and ] that try to cover other viewpoints too. All facts stated in Misplaced Pages have to be referenced to ], ], especially controversial ones. --] (]) 19:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)		:Global warming is a fact. There is no data that disproves global warming. There are people who don't understand the science, and there are those who refuse to understand it for political or selfish reasons. See ] and ] for why I say this. we have articles like ] and ] that try to cover other viewpoints too. All facts stated in Misplaced Pages have to be referenced to ], ], especially controversial ones. --] (]) 19:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
	::How can you call it one-sided when it cites without objection the results of Douglass et al drawing conclusions that "contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data"? --] (]) 20:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)		::How can you call it one-sided when it cites without objection the results of Douglass et al drawing conclusions that "contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data"? --] (]) 20:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
			:::A problem I see with all these related articles , whether it's global warming, global warming controversy, climate change, etc..., is that the definition in the headers and in paragraph to paragraph varies as to what the definition is. That definition variability is buried in general conversations also. The Global warming article right there in it's first sentence says NOTHING about global warming being anthropogenic. The climate change article says about the same thing except it states that anthropogenic warming is popularly called global warming. I never know from conversations of person to person or, in wikipedia, article to article, whether people are arguing about the same thing. If by definition global warming is anthropogenic it should state as thus right in the first sentence. If not then there should be a different article on anthropogenic global warming. The same with the climate change article. At least make the definition consistent to avoid extra controversy that these articles don't need. ] (]) 21:09, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

	== Climate change skepticism ==		== Climate change skepticism ==

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Can the Global WArming article be trusted in light of what Solomon reports about a Misplaced Pages Administrator?

The allegations were addressed at the appropriate noticeboard.
Allegations of impropriety made against William M. Connolley by Lawrence Solomon in the National Post and then repeated uncritically by James Delingpole in the Daily Telegraph were addressed in this discussion at Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. An article by Lawrence Solomon claims that the Climate-Gate emails show that Misplaced Pages has been manipulated on the issue of global warming. An excerpt from the article: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/19/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-climate-doctor.aspx “Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known – Misplaced Pages. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Misplaced Pages site. He rewrote Misplaced Pages’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period. “All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Misplaced Pages articles. His control over Misplaced Pages was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Misplaced Pages as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Misplaced Pages contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Misplaced Pages’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Misplaced Pages into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.” Currently the Global Warming Article is locked and even the discussion page is locked. Is it locked a biased article controlled by Connolley or has this been corrected? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.55.27.48 (talk) 17:12, 20 December 2009 (UTC) Misplaced Pages has thousands of administrators, and Solomon's opinion piece is, sorry to say so, drivel. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:28, 20 December 2009 (UTC) I think it's a mistake to man the barricades against the implications of Climategate. As an example, this article is studded with IPCC references. All these national science academies cited the IPCC in their endorsement of AGW. But the IPCC's reports relied on input from the Hockey Team -- the scientists implicated in Climategate. In an open encyclopedia, shouldn't these articles by now reflect the obvious need to get an accounting of what exactly occurred? The whole edifice is in question. How much of it is tainted? Won't the public view the whole field as deeply suspect until those questions are aired and answered? Trying to pretend nothing happened looks odd. Has curiosity died? Greenbough (talk) 00:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC) Consider taking your concerns to Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Climate_Change Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 20:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

The allegations were addressed at the appropriate noticeboard.

Allegations of impropriety made against William M. Connolley by Lawrence Solomon in the National Post and then repeated uncritically by James Delingpole in the Daily Telegraph were addressed in this discussion at Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard.

An article by Lawrence Solomon claims that the Climate-Gate emails show that Misplaced Pages has been manipulated on the issue of global warming. An excerpt from the article: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/19/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-climate-doctor.aspx

“Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known – Misplaced Pages. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Misplaced Pages site. He rewrote Misplaced Pages’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.

“All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Misplaced Pages articles. His control over Misplaced Pages was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Misplaced Pages as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Misplaced Pages contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Misplaced Pages’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Misplaced Pages into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.”

Currently the Global Warming Article is locked and even the discussion page is locked. Is it locked a biased article controlled by Connolley or has this been corrected? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.55.27.48 (talk) 17:12, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages has thousands of administrators, and Solomon's opinion piece is, sorry to say so, drivel. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:28, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a mistake to man the barricades against the implications of Climategate. As an example, this article is studded with IPCC references. All these national science academies cited the IPCC in their endorsement of AGW. But the IPCC's reports relied on input from the Hockey Team -- the scientists implicated in Climategate. In an open encyclopedia, shouldn't these articles by now reflect the obvious need to get an accounting of what exactly occurred? The whole edifice is in question. How much of it is tainted? Won't the public view the whole field as deeply suspect until those questions are aired and answered? Trying to pretend nothing happened looks odd. Has curiosity died? Greenbough (talk) 00:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Consider taking your concerns to Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Climate_Change Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 20:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Could Someone Add This?

I wonder if someone could add a bit about former climate change skeptic Gregg Easterbrook's change from denialism to acceptance of AGW to the Changing Positions of Skeptics section?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/opinion/24easterbrook.html

Here's a comment from Easterbrook: "As an environmental commentator, I have a long record of opposing alarmism. But based on the data I'm now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert." 4.246.203.234 (talk) 08:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Done. The NYT date was 2006, so I inserted it right after a link to a 2006 source.--SPhilbrick T 21:00, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks much SPhilbrick. In looking at it I'm thinking it might be better to put in it's own paragraph perhaps after the Ron Bailey comments. The name of Gregg Easterbrook should be an internal wiki link too.

Wikilinked. However, I don't follow why this entry is deserving of a full paragraph, so I didn't break it out.SPhilbrick T 15:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I also noticed this in that section "U.S. Climate Action Report 2002". Looks like something got messed up at some point. I suppose it would be easier to contribute if I got a username but I don't contribute enough here to justify it. Don't want one anyway... :-) 4.246.206.49 (talk) 03:36, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Multiple nonsense removed. Q Science (talk) 05:35, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Muchas gracias. 4.246.202.162 (talk) 00:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

BEWARE - there would seem to be two Easterbrooks in the frame. There is Gregg and there is this man: "EASTERBROOK, Don J., Dept. of Geology, Western Washington Univ, Bellingham, WA 98225, dbunny@cc.wwu.edu" who believes the opposite, according to this source, because he presented a paper entitled "THE CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING AND PREDICTIONS FOR THE COMING CENTURY" to the "2006 Philadelphia Annual Meeting (22–25 October 2006)" which states "... changes, 10 orders of magnitude greater than the 0.8° C global temperate of the past century, were clearly not caused by changes in atmospheric CO2" and "... If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end soon and global temperatures should cool slightly until about 2035, then warm about 0.5° C from ~2035 to ~2065, and cool slightly until 2100. The total increase in global warming for the century should be ~0.3 ° C, rather than the catastrophic warming of 3-6° C (4-11° F) predicted by the IPCC." Are there really two notable Easterbrooks with opposing beliefs? The sceptic (ie Don Easterbrook) claims to have made a 2001 prediction that there would be global cooling (neither proven nor disproven at the moment) and seemed to be still sticking by his guns in 2006. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 16:57, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

emails

addition to the controversy?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.86.205.97 (talk) 13:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the section on the Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy because it's amply covered elsewhere and its significance to the wider controversy is hard to judge (Misplaced Pages:Recentism). Possibly a "See also" is merited at this stage, but it's hard to see this as being more than a nine-day wonder. The major news outlets already appear to be running out of new things to say on the matter, and most of the climate change news today appears to relate to the Copenhagen summit. --TS 16:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

This is far too big for you to remove on your opinion only. For a start, why didn't you put in links to justify your assertion "because it's amply covered elsewhere"? I'm putting it back until a much better argument for removing it is presented.--Damorbel (talk) 18:07, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I've just added a see also section as proposed by TS who removed the full section. Please discuss it here if this also is not relevant and shall out. Nsaa (talk) 00:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

WTF guys? Why is there no mention of the E-mail hacking incident other than a lame 'see also' at the end? I don't mean to be Mr. Obvious here but this is a big thing and it belongs in the controversy section. Methinks someone here (*coughTonySidaway*) is gate blocking this, similar to the activist-scientists who were caught up in the controversy. Let's not make the same mistake twice. This is information and Misplaced Pages is an information site, people. JettaMann (talk) 16:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Why didn't I put in links to illustrate that it's covered adequately elsewhere? It's my impression that I did so when I typed the following link: Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy. I'm fine with a "See also" at the moment, and expect that in due course we may have a section on the subject--when we're clear about the impact the hacking incident will have on the controversy. --TS 01:50, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

How is this not notable in the context of an article on the global warming controversy? There are multiple reliable sources that make it clear it's already had an impact on the debate. There may be some question about how long-term that impact will be (although it seems quite politically naive to me to imagine this will go away), but the impact is already there. Granted, many of these sources don't speak to the science of global warming, but they do speak to the controversy. Given what we already know, I don't see any justification for not covering it in this article. Do we honestly think this is going to go away? Especially given the nature of the allegations, which are not merely ones of scientific error, but of scientific misconduct? EastTN (talk) 16:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Geoffrey Lean, "Climate e-mails topple Australian opposition leader", The Daily Telegraph, December 1st, 2009. EastTN (talk) 16:09, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

And, just for kicks, John Tierney, "E-Mail Fracas Shows Peril of Trying to Spin Science," The New York Times, November 30, 2009. EastTN (talk) 19:27, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I think the email hack and ensuing controversy has developed enough that it's time to include it in this article.--CurtisSwain (talk) 09:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

As much as I don't think it will change anything in the long-term, the e-mail controversy needs to be covered. Removing it is going to just make people think that "Misplaced Pages" is trying to sweep things under the rug. Scholarly work needs to cover all sides, dissenting opinions, and relevant issues. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Airborne84 (talk • contribs) 04:22, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

ClimateGate , there it is boys and girls, the word that can't be spoken at wikipedia !

This is a topic about controversy, so grow up and actually mention climategate in these pages if you wish to have any legitamacy.

206.172.0.195 (talk) Sun Spot —Preceding undated comment added 19:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC).

Related Controversies?

In checking in I noticed that the Related Controversies section dealing with the skeptics anti-science positions on the regulating of ozone depleteing chemicals and the risks of passive smoking were removed on March 29, 2009 by "ChyranandChloe". Why was this allowed? It is quite clear that the skeptics simply did not want it known that they have resisted the scientific consensus on other notable issues as well. It was quite relevant because it lets people know just where these liars-4-hire are idealogically coming from, as spokespeople and spinmeisters for industry not for people. Clearly that kind of philosophy of distortion reflects on their positions on climate change as well. For those having such a disproportionate voice on such an important issue surely that little bit of knowledge is appropriate? I would hope it could be re-added. People need to know that these are not honest people. 4.246.203.104 (talk) 04:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. We are going to have a lot of people asking about this, because it was linked from comments in the realclimate blog.

I am a strong advocate of the conventional science on global warming and a big fan of realclimate; but I am also active in wikipedia and know how it works. It's not a question of what is "allowed". Anyone can edit, and anyone can remove. It's completely counter to wikipedia principles to "disallow" changes. We presume that everyone is making their changes with a view to improving the encyclopedia, and try to reach a consensus on the content of the encyclopedia rather than laying down rules.

I personally think that this information is relevant and would like to see it included; but it's not just up to me or you. This was discussed at the time, in these pages. —Duae Quartunciae (talk · cont) 09:10, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Climate change consensus

Controversy surrounding the presence of a scientific consensus

Just a heads up - folks watching here might be interested in the debate occurring at Talk:Climate change consensus#RfC: Split Article? and Talk:Climate change consensus#More spaghetti... ‒ Jaymax✍ 09:44, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

references section

The refs look like a dismal swamp of poor & inconsistent formatting. Eek. I dare not even try to fix them. If anyone wants to figure out where to put it, note #2 refers to:

McCright, Aaron M. & Dunlap, Riley E. (2000). Challenging Global Warming as a Social Problem: An Analysis of the Conservative Movement's Counter-Claims. Social Problems, Vol. 47, No. 4. , pp. 499-522.
• Ling.Nut 13:13, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I presume this would be your reference for:

"The level of coverage that mass media devoted to global warming "was minimal prior to 1988... but soon peaked between the middle of 1989 and early 1990".

I'm a bit worried about this. It seems improbable that the level of coverage of global warming in 1990 was anything like as high as it is now, when many mainstream newspapers have environment correspondents, the subject is a regular news item, major climate-related legislation is a regular occurrence in most countries and international agreements are in place.

To which mass media does it refer? Global, or only American? It's from 2000 so it's a bit out of date--an article 10 years ago claiming a "peak" of about 20 years ago. --TS 13:28, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for challenging this. I can email you the article; it is indeed outdated but is otherwise extremely informative. I forget if I accessed it via the Internet or a subscription-based database. However, the data sources are think tanks etc. The "peaked" is indeed misleading, as you say. My original intent was to provide context: when did these ideas began to hit the public consciousness? • Ling.Nut

Well in the UK context I think we can say that Margaret Thatcher's speech at the United Nations in 1989 really wakened things up. To say that media attention peaked in a global context in 1990 or so seems unacceptable, though in 2000 it might have been true of the USA. I suggest we use this source for whatever we can get out of it, but be aware of its limitations and continue looking for better information. --TS 15:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The full paper is online at http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/McCrightDunlap2000.pdf. I've not yet read it, but it looks interesting indeed. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Human cause missing from lede

It seems to me that the extent to which human activity is responsible of global warming is a central part of the controversy and should be mentioned in the intro and not just alluded to. Am I missing something?--agr (talk) 23:54, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

..perhaps the fact you're missing is that there's no proof of the "A" in "AGW"... • Ling.Nut 00:07, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The opening sentence says "The global warming controversy is a dispute regarding the nature, causes, and consequences of global warming" (my italics). Whether one wants to elaborate that the question of whether anthropogenic CO2 is a relatively large part of the public controversy, at least in the USA, is a question of balance. According to the figures cited in the "Public opinion" section, even that question isn't one where there is major dissent even in the USA, with some 79% of Americans agreeing that "Human activity is a significant cause of climate change." And our section on scientific opinion says "no remaining scientific society is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change." So maybe it isn't such a big part of the controversy that we should put it into the lead section. --TS 00:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Our article goes on to say "There is a notable difference between the opinion of scientists and that of the general public in the US. A 2009 poll by Pew Research Center found that "hile 84% of scientists say the earth is getting warmer because of human activity such as burning fossil fuels, just 49% of the public agrees." According to Science Digest "The global warming controversy is an ongoing dispute about the effects of humans on global climate and about what policies should be implemented to avoid possible undesirable effects of climate change." The two primary questions that the IPCC answers are whether there is warming and whether it is human caused. In our article List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming, the largest group of scientists is listed under "Global warming is primarily caused by natural processes." i.e. not human caused. The word causes in the lede just alludes to the anthropogenic vs natural issue, why not be explicit? What other potential cause is at issue?--agr (talk) 01:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

We have conflicting sources. We should resolve the conflict by drilling deeper and seeing which of the sources are more reliable. --TS 02:03, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

If you actually want to *know* about whether GW is anthro, then you should follow the links to global warming. If you want to know about the pointless chatter about it and the uninformed media and political debate, then you should be here, and this article should point you at suitable instances of this "debate" William M. Connolley (talk) 13:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Well the chatter is not pointless in so far as it is holding up legislation on cap and trade in the U.S. Justified or not, there is controversy about global warming, at least in the U.S., and the extent to which humans are causing warming is very much a central part. I think that should be in the lede. Look, I'm not trying to open a new front in the climate wars here, I thought I was just pointing out an editorial oversight. Y'all have a Happy New Year.--agr (talk) 23:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, that is a matter of opinion. I was just trying to point out the distinction between the science and the politics. This article itself is somewhat trashy and I usually ignore it William M. Connolley (talk) 20:58, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

This article, Global warming controversy, is not about the politics or societal issues. It is about the science as the article makes clear. Politics of global warming discusses the political controversy. How much of global warming of the 20th century was due to man is a part of the scientific controversy and should be mentioned in the lead paragraph. RonCram (talk) 15:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Assuming the above is true (this is about the scientific controversy, not the political problem), I'm wondering where we describe the "climate change denial", the "climate change skepticism", and the "AGW skepticism" positions and participants. I can't find any clear organization here. "Climate change denier/denial" has its own article, but the link from this one is in the "scientific consensus" section - I don't think denial is a matter of the consensus but rather the politics of it. "Climate change skeptic/skepticism" redirect here - by the above it should redirect to the political controversy article, right? But neither article has a section that tries to give an overview of that position. This one has a "changing positions" section that describes only part of the issue, and doesn't define it before saying that it has changed. AGW skepticism seems to be a new flavor of CC skepticism (not sure if it's the same people or the same political position), but there are no articles, sections, or redirects for that. So overall, a reader interested in getting a good overview of the political camps is out of luck. Sorry if this has been discussed before, I don't see it and I'm new to the page! - Wikidemon (talk) 01:51, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Article probation

Please note that, by a decision of the Misplaced Pages community, this article and others relating to climate change (broadly construed) has been placed under article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Misplaced Pages. Please see Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

One sided article

Much of the article seems to be sided as global warming is fact. It needs more data against global warming.--92.28.135.31 (talk) 18:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Global warming is a fact. There is no data that disproves global warming. There are people who don't understand the science, and there are those who refuse to understand it for political or selfish reasons. See Global warming and Scientific opinion on climate change for why I say this. we have articles like Public opinion on climate change and Economics of climate change that try to cover other viewpoints too. All facts stated in Misplaced Pages have to be referenced to verifiable, reliable sources, especially controversial ones. --Nigelj (talk) 19:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

How can you call it one-sided when it cites without objection the results of Douglass et al drawing conclusions that "contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data"? --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 20:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

A problem I see with all these related articles , whether it's global warming, global warming controversy, climate change, etc..., is that the definition in the headers and in paragraph to paragraph varies as to what the definition is. That definition variability is buried in general conversations also. The Global warming article right there in it's first sentence says NOTHING about global warming being anthropogenic. The climate change article says about the same thing except it states that anthropogenic warming is popularly called global warming. I never know from conversations of person to person or, in wikipedia, article to article, whether people are arguing about the same thing. If by definition global warming is anthropogenic it should state as thus right in the first sentence. If not then there should be a different article on anthropogenic global warming. The same with the climate change article. At least make the definition consistent to avoid extra controversy that these articles don't need. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:09, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Climate change skepticism

Climate change skepticism redirects to this article. In a discussion at Talk:Climate change denial#Climate Change Skepticism vs. Denial it appears that the consensus there was that there are in fact three groups of people in the world:

those who accept the scientific view on AGW
those who are involved in denial of the scientific view (deniers)
those who are rationally and legitimately sceptical of the science for valid reasons (sceptics)

I personally dispute that group 3 really exists, as I don't see 65% of the US population (or whatever the %age is) running their own figures through their own climate models and eagerly awaiting more data before they make their independent minds up. (I think many have said, in effect, "Only 97% of scientists agree with this? Well I'll go with the 3%, because that suits my lifestyle", which I would call a form of denial). That said, if that is the WP:CONSENSUS, I am happy to go along with it.

The point is, that if there is denial and scepticism, then should we have separate articles specifically describing the two positions? This would be preferable to trying to shoehorn discussion of this 'rational' scepticism into parts of the denial article and into parts of this one. What do editors here think of separating this concept out from here, there and possibly from elsewhere too? {{Main}} links would obviously tie the reading back together after any such refactor. --Nigelj (talk) 18:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems reasonable to have separate categories for "deniers" and "scientifically minded skeptics". But it may be impossibly difficult for us to definitely decide who belongs in which category. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 22:54, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

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