Wiki143:Articles for deletion/Adaptation to global warming

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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 of the debate was keep Proto||type 09:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Adaptation to global warming

~~Survival guide of sorts for global warming. ~~ Alex (t) 23:37, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Request review of expanded and revised article

I admit that the original article was anemic because the content was just text extracted (perhaps prematurely) from the Mitigation of global warming article. I have expanded the original article substantially and I believe it no longer is subject to the criticisms leveled below.

This is not to say that the article rises to the full quality standards of a "good" Wikipedia article. Not yet anyway.

I'm just saying that it is as good as many other articles. It still needs further work but I think that could be tagged as {needs cleanup} instead of {candidate for deletion}.

Please reconsider and vote as appropriate.

Richard 05:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


In retrospect, I see that my original response to Alex's criticism missed the point of his criticism. I thought he was suggesting that it was a bad idea to try to adapt to global warming. I see from the comments of others that the point is that Wikipedia should not have "how-to" instruction manuals. The article is not and was never intended to be a "how-to" instruction manual and Alex was wrong in characterizing it as such.

Richard 00:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

  • So what if it is a "survival guide"?
What makes you sure that global warming can be stopped? If it can't be stopped, shouldn't we figure out how mankind can survive? This is like arguing that we shouldn't have seat belts and airbags because good driving will keep us out of accidents.
Your criticism of the raison d'etre for this article sounds very POV to me. It is not the intent of the article to argue against global warming or even against mitigation of global warming.
If global warming is a fact and if the world is unable to mitigate it quickly enough, there will be significant effects on the environment. We cannot be pollyannaish and assume that global warming can and will be stopped. We must be prepared for the possibility that the predicted temperature rises will happen and that the expected climate changes will occur.
If these "doomsday scenarios" do come to pass, how will mankind survive? Those are the points that this article is meant address.
There is significant evidence that the world is being very slow to address global warming and that current attempts won't decrease the generation of CO2 quickly enough. Some people argue that irreparable damage has already been done and that temperatures will rise. From their POV, the only question is how much they will rise and whether we can stop them from rising even further.

IPCC Working Group II makes the following observations:

1) Adaptation is a necessary strategy at all scales to complement climate change mitigation Efforts.

2) Those with the least resources have the least capacity to adapt and are the most vulnerable

3) Adaptation, sustainable development, and enhancement of equity can be mutually reinforcing

[1]

More to the point, this article is composed of text that was extracted from the Mitigation of global warming article. Discussion on Talk:Mitigation of global warming suggested that the article be split into two articles, "Mitigation" and "Adaptation". I am "being bold" and acting on that suggestion made by others.
NOTE: If this article is deleted, please put the text back into Mitigation of global warming
--Richard 23:47, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
  • How-to guide = misplaced content = wrong website. From WP:NOT:
Instruction manuals - while Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places, and things, Wikipedia articles should not include instruction - advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain "how-to"s. This includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, video game guides, and recipes. Wikibooks is a Wikipedia sister-project which is better suited for such things..

No it doesn't. Read the article again. The proscription against "instruction manuals" is about "how-to" manuals primarily for individuals (tutorials, cookbooks, etc.). This isn't a how-to for individuals. It is a list of policy alternatives. Read the article again, please. Richard 00:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete This how-to OR article cannot adapt to wiki standards. --Mmx1 00:02, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep after updated article. --Mmx1 18:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it is extremely POV to assert that the article cannot adapt to wiki standards. The original article was admittedly a stub and perhaps should have been labelled as such. I don't know if it is OR (original research?). Somebody else wrote the text. I do know that there is an IPCC report on Adaptation so the methods in that report would not constitute OR. It is no more a how-to article than the article on Mitigation is. Both articles are about policy alternatives and recommendations. Richard 00:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete and redirect to Mitigation of global warming. WP:NOT an instruction manual or a place for original research (which this seems to me to be close to, if not actually violating WP:NOR). Also, this article seems redundant of Mitigation of global warming. Hbackman 00:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Vote changed to keep after seeing the expanded article. I hadn't realized that this had been suggested as a fork from Mitigation of global warming, either. That said, this definitely needs an introductory section and more transitional text between sections so that this reads like an article rather than a list of information that's just been pulled from a bunch of other sources. Hbackman 18:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it would seem redundant of Mitigation of global warming. That's where the original text was pulled from (at the suggestion of people on Talk:Mitigation of global warming).

No, it's not an instruction manual. Read the article again, please.

No, it's not original research (at least not by me). If there is OR in it, we can pull it out. There is a reputable source for the general topic and that is the IPCC report cited in the article and above. I cannot certify at this time that every item in the article can be sourced in the IPCC report but that's an argument for deleting parts of the article not the article itself. Richard 00:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

All of the above comments are missing the point of the article. I admit that I contributed to this by not immediately challenging the characterization of this article as a "survival guide". Thus, the above comments seem to be based on the idea that this is a "how-to" guide. It is, sort of. It is a "how to guide" for policymakers and, as such, is describing policy alternatives that can be implemented at all scales from personal to national to regional and international. As such, it is the same type of article as Mitigation of global warming. All we're doing is separating out "Mitigation" from "Adaptation".

Please re-read the article. While some of the topics may seem like "how-to survive global warming" for individuals, at least half of the recommended measures are things that only corporations and governments can do (e.g. damming glacial moraines, weather control and increasing the capacity of stormwater systems).

Also, please read the discussion on [[Talk:Mitigation of global warming] about separating that article into two articles which is exactly what I have done in creating this article. I have already expanded the original article beyond the original stub text that was extracted from Mitigation of global warming.

Finally, please note that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) specifically calls out Adaptation as being a necessary complement to Mitigation. (see references in my response to the original deletion recommendation by Alex Richard 00:28, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


This criticism of the article is also off the mark. My defense of the article here may be a bit of a "soapbox". The article itself is not meant to be one and, if you read it again, is not one. Well, at least, no more than the Global warming and Global warming controversy articles are.

If not deleted, it needs lots of work to become more than essentially a list of related topics. Alex (t) 01:00, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I am mining the IPCC report for material. Perhaps the creation of this article was premature. One of the writers on the Talk page for Mitigation of global warming said that he was waiting for the section to be further developed before creating this article. I jumped the gun and created the article assuming that I would have time to develop the content slowly. Please give me that time.


  • Delete. I can't see how this is encyclopedic.Montco 02:40, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I am continually frustrated by this kind of comment. The topic is encyclopedic although the article in its current form may not be.

I think that one contribution to Montco's POV is the following text in the article:

"If global warming is a fact and if the world is unable to mitigate it quickly enough, there will be significant effects on the environment. We cannot be pollyannaish and assume that global warming can and will be stopped. We must be prepared for the possibility that the predicted temperature rises will happen and that the expected climate changes will occur. If these "doomsday scenarios" do come to pass, how will mankind survive?

There is significant evidence that the world is being very slow to address global warming and that current attempts won't decrease the generation of CO2 quickly enough. Some people argue that irreparable damage has already been done and that temperatures will rise. From their POV, the only question is how much they will rise and whether we can stop them from rising even further."

I stand behind the ideas in the text but I suspect the wording sounds unencylopedic. I have deleted it from the article and will eventually put back something more encyclopedic.

Richard 04:26, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep but cleanup. The topic is encyclopedic, even if the current presentation needs a lot of work to reach encyclopedic standards. The topic used to be part of Mitigation of global warming, but the talk page comments there favored splitting off the adaptation portions, which Richard took it upon himself to do. The article should (and more or less does) focus on the role of adaptation within existing government-level strategies and recommendations for dealing with global warming. In this sense it is (or should be) a discussion of an important part of the political actions planned and taken in response to global warming, and not, as some people have suggested, a personal how-to manual. As an aside, might I suggest to Richard that it is not necessary to provide lengthy rebuttals to every negative comment made here. Dragons flight 09:53, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep But add some history of adaptation to global warming. For instance, humans have been adapting to rising sea levels for centuries. At the time of the Roman invasion of England at Richborough, sea level was three to four meters higher than today. Human's are even more adapable today.--Silverback 11:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and expand the article. Hardern 13:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • keep as per all the above keeps. This isn't a soapbox or a how-to anymore William M. Connolley 14:53, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm withdrawing my nomination and hoping the article continues to improve. Alex (t) 19:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep can become an interesting article...sea level rise will be insignicant unless we see a major meltdown of the Antarctic and Greenland icecaps where the vast majority of frozen water is located.--MONGO 07:03, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


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.
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