Talk:Individual and political action on climate change

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[edit] External links - Lifestyle action

The last link - What is your carbon budget? - leads to something irrelevant. --Peggy Brennan (talk) 12:13, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Graph by Nrcprm2026

The cost of extreme weather is rising rapidly and could reach 4 trillion 2001 U.S. dollars per year by 2030. source data: IPCC, 2001. Some of the cost increase is due to added exposure such as building on the coast, and some is from increased atmospheric energy from radiative forcing by greenhouse gases.

on the discussion page for Global warming, Nrcprm2026 stated yesterday: "Hey, and thanks for everyone's patience with the graphs. I felt very strongly that they were the best way to convey the information, but after finding the British Insurers' report, I've come to the opinion that text is really the way to go, at least until we get the 1999-2004 data.". contrary to this claim however, he continues to post, repost, repost again, his fatally flawed graphs. on the Global warming discussion page, the consensus has found essentially a dozen or more people pointing out the manifold flaws in his graphs, and Nrcprm2026 still relentlessly trying to defend them. except for the comment above. I maintain that the comment above should be considered canonical, and on that basis, all repostings of this graph should be reverted. Neither, at the same time, do i by that statement maintain that i think his graphs will have any probative value *after* adding the 1994-2004 data. the extrapolations accomplish nothing - besides huge amounts of wasted time 'discussing' all the problems with them. The *existing data is cautionary enough*. leave it at that. use the graph recently found at IPCC showing the trend. interesting that IPCC felt that showing current data alone was all that was necessary, without extrapolating out into wild fiction. Nrcprm2026 always cuts off the graph at some arbitrary date in the future, to tailor it to the legend he provides. how about this - extrapolate your graph out to 2100. show us what the costs will be then (likely several orders of magnitude higher than the GDP worldwide could ever possibly cover). enough of this nonsense. no more self-made graphs. use IPCC graphs and data, or other sourced, non-original-research data. Anastrophe 18:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I continue to maintain that the graphs have value here. I'm sorry that Anastrophe feels it necessary to assert that "essentially a dozen or more" people have opposed the graphs on the main Global Warming article. In truth it has been less than a dozen, and none of them have had very convincing arguments. When there have been convincing suggestions, I have incorporated them into the graphs. I've asked that the graphs remain in place pending acqusition of more current data. —James S. 19:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

'none of them have had very convincing arguments'??? good god. you are the *only person* who believes this graph has probative value. the arguments put forth clearly show that your graph is pointless. the increases in cost are due to increases in development, and the cost/value of coastal real estate. your graph cannot and does not take that factor into account, which is responsible for the majority of the rise. *leave the graph out*. it serves only one purpose: your lone interest in it. Anastrophe 21:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I am certainly not the only person who recognizes the value of this graph, as various edit histories make clear. Moreover, the claim that the increase is mostly attributable to real estate development is not supported by sources -- it's closer to 20%. From Effects of global warming, "The Association of British Insurers has stated that limiting carbon emissions would avoid 80% of the projected additional annual cost of tropical cyclones by the 2080s.[1]" Therefore, I am replacing the graph. —James S. 19:48, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

do you not understand the difference between past, verifiable, and actual costs, and projected costs 74 years from now? claiming that the ABI's speculations about the future invalidate the verifiable facts regarding wealth and real estate development over the past forty/fifty years borders on the delusional. you seem to put more weight and belief into speculations about the future, than facts in hand now.Anastrophe 22:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

This is all a question of the certainty, which is explicitly displayed. Do you agree that the sun will rise 74 years from now? 740? 74,000? Of course. Projections about the future are only speculation apart from precise information on the accuracy of those projections. —James S. 22:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

i give up. bad, POV pseudo-science wins; wikipedia loses. Anastrophe 04:12, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

This figure is still nonsensical, and I am removing it from both articles you have placed it in. Dragons flight 08:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Whether it is appropriate for Wikipedia is one thing, and I believe it is. There is no question, however, that it is not nonsense. --James S. 08:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

By it's own error bars, your plot has essentially zero predictive confidence, and the construction ignores all sorts of limiting factors that would come into play well before the world starts spending 10% of global GDP on extreme weather events. You don't even show any of the actual data from which it is suppose to be based, and yet you make it sound like the IPCC is responsible for this calculation. So yes, I am happy to call it nonsense. Dragons flight 17:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, the graph has the correct confidence interval for the most appropriate extrapolation. You are welcome to redraw the data with as much or as little information about the trend as you like. I have made my editorial decision, that trend information is notable. --James S. 18:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Better title?

Something that's been bothering me for a while involves the title of this article. I believe that "Action on climate change" is a poor title for the article, and it needs to be changed to something more concrete. What that better title should be, however, has so far eluded me. Thoughts? SchuminWeb (Talk) 00:51, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion would be "Climate Change Response" Shaunjason 16:59, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It is very much overlapping with Politics of global warming as well as Mitigation of global warming. Action is the result of policies. Mitigation is part of the action. The issue is probably too hot for everybody to agree on such distinction. Gabriel Kielland 15:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External links

Sustainable Community Action Wiki is collating similar information - SCA's Climate change portal - (opportunities for some sort of collaboration?) Would 'Civil society action groups' be a more generic (and so inclusive) subtitle than 'Protest and direct action groups'? Philralph 07:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Japan

?Andycjp 05:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute personal choices

I added the dubious tag to this line: "Making various personal choices can be an effective method of fighting climate change" as I find it very unlikely to be true. One person's emissions are insignificant, calling cutting them an "effective method" is wrong. --Theblog 05:54, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Cumulative reductions in personal choices are significant. What you are saying amounts to the same as: Voting doesn't matter - because a single vote is insignificant and influences nothing. I've supplied a reference for how important it potentially could be btw. As a sidenote: currently in Denmark, the governments, next large Kyoto step is a campaign for personal choices - that has a target of several percent reduction in Denmarks carbon emissions - so its rather important i'd say. (i'll try to find english references to this to incorporate here). Nb: i'm not going to fight over much on this article, as quite alot of it is a mess (imho) --Kim D. Petersen 13:38, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

"Cumulative reductions in personal choices are significant." - thats not what the statement is saying. You found a source that somewhat supports the statement, so its cool. --Theblog 16:39, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] advocacy ?

this article reads like advocacy, not like an encyclopedia. it's filled with loaded phrases, and relative to the number of claims within the article, it has exceedingly few cites. i'm strongly inclined to slap 'fact' tags throughout the article (fact tagging at the top of articles tends to generate a big yawn unfortunately). the opening paragraph makes sweeping claims, with no verifiable references. frankly, i'm appalled. Anastrophe (talk) 16:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)