Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Global warming conspiracy theory (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. The article is not very well-written but the subject is clearly notable enough to warrant an entry on Wikipedia. @pple complain 19:27, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Global warming conspiracy theory

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This article was kept under a thin criteria, and has really not gotten better. It is still a collection of partisan sources with thin primary backing sourcing, tons of OR, and after four years the issues still exist, pretty much untouched. I thought that maybe merger into Global warming controversy might be a good idea, but this is way too WP:FRINGE so that merging into that article would raise significant WP:UNDUE issues. This article is an aberration - even WP:FRINGE beliefs or views held by notable people doesn't mean these views are notable enough for their own article. Cerejota (talk) 13:06, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep It's an ugly article and I don't like it, but it establishes that the concept of conspiracy theories concerning global warming are notable. BigJim707 (talk) 15:13, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it does, but even then that might be irrelevant - let me explain. Adoption of WP:FRINGE ideas on the part of notable individuals might be noted in their biographies, and the mere existence of conspiracy theories, even if mentioned in reliable sources, is not enough for an article. The bulk, the immense bulk, of those that question global warming do not do so via conspiracy theories, they do so by other means, and we already have a number of articles that deal with that, such as Global warming controversy. This article here serves as a dual purpose coatrack, one for the conspiracists to give wider audience to their loony tune ideas, the other for pro-climate change forces to discredit less loony skeptics. Both are terrible in terms of quality. Its is essentially a convergence POV fork from Global warming controversy, a result of the inability of editors to find WP:UNDUE solutions to WP:FRINGE ideas. In this case, notability - while not established in my view - is even irrelevant: we should delete coatracks, specially ones that are racks for both POVs, as they are hopelessly doomed to lack quality. As it stands, it should be mergesd into controversies with a heavy dose of WP:FRINGE/WP:UNDUE, but all efforts to do so meet no consensus because of the WP:COATRACK pov pushing, we need to put a stop to that for the sake of quality.--Cerejota (talk) 19:26, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment "the immense bulk, of those that question global warming do not do so via conspiracy theories" The article quotes, among others, leading US Republican Congressmen, thinktanks such as Cato, prominent conservative newspapers and a number of individual scientists who are among the most prominent "sceptics". And that's just people who use explicitly conspiracy-theoretic language. Virtually everyone on the sceptical side embraced the conspiracy-theoretic interpretation of Climategate, even if they did not use the word. Can you point to prominent sceptics who simply assert that the results of mainstream climate science are the product of honest error? JQ (talk) 22:50, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The article had barely been started when it was first brought to AFD four years ago. Consensus showed that the article was more than notable enough to warrant being kept, and I see no reason to overturn that consensus four years later. Agent Vodello^{OK, Let's Party, Darling!} 21:26, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment/question. There is obviously a very real and significant phenomenon whereby a large number of people hold that not only is anthropogenic global warming not happening, there has been some sort of conspiracy to pretend that it is. We should cover that somehow, though this article is far from ideal. I also see a problem in that Global warming conspiracy theory and Climate change denial are sort of talking about the same thing--obviously there are some distinctions--but largely from two different partisan perspectives. Has there been discussion about an article, perhaps of a completely different title, that would supersede both of these and be formulated neutrally to discuss the full range of AGW naysayers, be they "conspiracy theorists" or simply folks who don't agree with it? Obviously this would be a sub-article to Global warming controversy. I'm just curious as to how we got where we are--I know the infighting on this topic has been nuts--and if the debate about this particular article should maybe be part of a larger discussion. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:57, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 01:11, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Conspiracy theories-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 01:11, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I want to make clear I do not think that skepticism of the theory of global warming is WP:FRINGE. I think the conspiracy theories (which are a small sub-set of this skepticism) are. Since there are articles that already deal with skepticism, support, scientific views, and other long etcs, giving any kind of coatrack to WP:FRINGE ideas used mostly to defame one side or the other of the debate , we should delete. All merger attempts are met by heavy resistance from POV pushers, which is why I didn't start a merge discussion: this whole topic area needs a nice hard spanking, but while that happens, we should at least cull the coatrackcruft.--Cerejota (talk) 01:37, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I think you have things the wrong way around. Considered as a scientific theory, Climate change denial is WP:FRINGE. On the other hand, in political/cultural terms the Global warming conspiracy theory is a mainstream viewpoint, advocated by most right-of-centre political parties, commentators and news outlets in the US and many in other English speaking countries. JQ (talk) 06:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

strong keep WP:FRINGE applies to uncommon ideas being talked about by a few fanatics. Things like the time cube, or orgonne energy. This conspiracy theory is being talked about on TV news, on the floor of the US senate, it is as mainstream as a conspiracy theory can get. It has even more mainstream widespread support than 9/11 conspiracy theorism. It's obviously notable, obviously there's a lot of verifiable information, NPOV requires we report this ample acceptance accurately. HominidMachinae (talk)

Keep. Not the best written article at the moment, but the topic is covered by reliable sources as cited. —Yk Yk Yk talk ~ contrib 06:32, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as well supported article on politically significant phenomenon of spurious allegations that scientists reporting findings on anthropic global warming are conspiring to obtain funding. Considerable improvements are needed, but the article forms at least a basis for such improvements. . dave souza, talk 00:17, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, with a demotion to an article incubator. This article is incoherent, disorganized, badly written, and riddled with partisan opinions presented as fact. I've read it twice now, and I have no idea what it's trying to say -- except that climate deniers are wicked, and Exxon is eeevil. Try reading Global_warming_conspiracy_theory#Counterclaims_of_conspiracy, for instance: the body has (sfaict) nothing at all to do with the title, and the content is poor rehashes from other (bad) articles. This is an embarrassment to the project.

There are certainly people who believe that global warming is some sort of conspiracy, and probably some usable sources hidden in with all the coatracked politicking -- but ordinary readers who come to this article will quickly leave, shaking their heads. Needs a complete rewrite -- which won't be an easy task. Pete Tillman (talk) 03:22, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as it is a notable mostly politically motivated conspiracy theory with valid references. As the topic area elicits strong feelings it will likely be a hotly disputed topic and suffer from POV pushing which results in some problematic content. As pointed out above, the article isn't perfect -- so fix it. Vsmith (talk) 15:38, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This is an extremely popular, and very notable, conspiracy theory, so well worth an article. The article is in bad shape, and in particular the section "Counterclaims of conspiracy" changes topic every few sentences, probably due to its strange title, which presumably has been interpreted by various editors to mean various totally different things. A merge with climate change denial may or may not be beneficial. In either case a lot of work is needed here, but not deletion. As always, adherents of this conspiracy theory are not all happy with the fact it is called a conspiracy theory and discussed as such on Wikipedia, but we don't have to make them happy. Hans Adler 15:56, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- Comment. Both Hans Alder and Pete Tillman above mention the section Global warming conspiracy theory#Counterclaims of conspiracy. I do not see how it 'changes topic every few sentences', or see what is strange about its title, or how that could have been misinterpreted by various editors, i.e. any of the problems claimed. The article is about claims that a cabal of scientists have conspired to convince the world of global warming, when there is none. This section is about the counterclaim that in fact a cabal of global warming deniers have tried to convince the world there is no global warming, when there is. It goes on to quote Bruce Babbitt making that counterclaim, saying that oil and coal companies have joined in a conspiracy. It then cites Greenpeace's Exxon project, quotes from an Exxon statement, and gives further statements about Exxon from the Royal Society. Exxon is an oil company. The whole thing makes perfect sense and is well cited. I don't see a problem. Maybe the last two paragraphs could be merged as they're both about Exxon. --Nigelj (talk) 17:13, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I just tried to make sense of it again, & failed. Maybe because I'm not a full member of the Cabal?? Hans & I both agree, the article is in very bad shape. --Pete Tillman (talk) 17:27, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are overstating our agreement. Hans Adler 17:36, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When I first saw the section title, I had no idea whether it was (A) about the claim of a conspiracy to deny global warming, (B) about the claim that the topic of the article is not a conspiracy theory in the usual sense because the conspiracy exists, or some third idea I couldn't think of. So it's not a good title. Now let's look at the content. First sentence is about (A). Second sentence is off-topic. People who deny something that is obviously true (such as evolution or the Holocaust) usually do so without being part of a conspiracy, although they may have a tendency to believe in conspiracy theories (such as the global warming conspiracy theory, but not the "counter-claim"). The rest is on-topic, i.e. essentially about (A). Somehow I managed to misread the last paragraph, and I partially retract my comment. But apart from one explicit claim of conspiracy, the rest of the discussion is about essentially open industry lobbying, so the section is broken. Hans Adler 17:36, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Maybe one day someone will produce a 'site map' of all the global warming articles. There's Climate change at the top, with Global warming (the current climate change) under that. Then maybe we have Global warming controversy below that, off to one side alongside many other scientific, social, political, economic and other high-level sub-articles. Under Global warming controversy we have a spectrum from current and past legitimate scientific and other academic controversies played out in peer reviewed journals at one end, through to the other end where this article and Climate change denial have their rightful places. We seem to be suffering from a small 'denial of the conspiracy theories' push from a few editors at the moment, but that does not change the facts as per the sources. There is not an article on Wikipedia that cannot be improved and updated, but there is no argument for deleting this. It is a notable topic that has gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and is not excluded for any other reason. This attention can be shown by considering the evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers, as shown by the four dozen refs in the article at the moment, and many more to be found by simple searches. --Nigelj (talk) 16:41, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete for the very good reasons given by the person who proposed this deletion. Alex Harvey (talk) 13:39, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep When will people get it through their heads that lack of notability is the only acceptable reason to delete an article? ☻☻☻Sithman VIII !!☻☻☻ 17:41, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.