Talk:Climate apocalypse

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 September 2021 and 23 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Tesjes167. Peer reviewers: Xaviangreene, Abbyrozzz.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:09, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

About this page

In this first version all of the cited sources describe an apocalypse due to the climate change following global warming. Many of them use the term "apocalypse", while some of them talk about a coming dystopia, disaster, catastrophe, crisis, horrors, or similar term. I only cited publications which use a term to mean the worst event to happen in human history in terms of death and negative changes to every part of the human experience. In continued development of this article people might add other sources which do not explicitly describe an apocalypse, but instead focus on some detail. For example, a scientific article might talk about ecological collapse of a region due to climate change, but neglect to frame that as apocalyptic because they are publishing in a context which already established the apocalypse and now they are describing it.

The reason why I want to start with sources describing the apocalypse is to give this article a stable foundation in the source material. Wikipedia has criteria at WP:Notability which requires that for anyone to create an article, they should identify multiple reliable third-party sources which present the concept. The Wikipedia article should reflect those sources as a summary and cite them. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:03, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Mistakes with this article

There are lots of them. I established notability through general notability guidelines that many reliable sources discuss this topic. There comes a point when one has to balance more research versus publishing for correction and development through the Wikimedia process. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:16, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

First apocalyptic scenario discussed seriously since the advent of wiki?

I am curious how the development of this article will play out because of the copious but ambiguous source material. I looked to consider whether this article already existed in Wikipedia by some name.

This is not an easy topic to sort. I think no one in academic literature, journalism, or even the books attempting to approach this topic really captured "Climate Apocalypse" as a subject for a review of everything published on the topic. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:20, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

A lot of work done - maybe it could be somehow mentioned in the introductory paragraphs more clearly, that this article is about the term "Climate Apokalypse" which is used quite frequently in literature and in media now and this article makes some summary of use and explanation. As it is almost not used in scientific literature and you will not find it in IPCC reports at all and even if I am interested in topic for years I do not believe in real Apocalypse in such a short time period (but this is only my personal opinion). Well, and maybe than could be cited some sources which say psychologist that the term "Climate Apocalypse" can evoke a loss of the will to do something against climate change for many people. Jirka Dl (talk) 20:53, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Is Vox Future Perfect really an RS

The column seems to appear in an advocacy section of Vox, not the section descriptor "Future Perfect- Finding the best ways to do good. Made possible by The Rockefeller Foundation." That doesn't sound like simple news reporting is their mission, and I wonder if this is really an RS? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:29, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Here is the source

• Piper, Kelsey (28 June 2019). "Is climate change an "existential threat" — or just a catastrophic one?". Vox (website). Vox Media.

The author credits this person for fact checking

• David Wallace-Wells

Here is the source publication

• Vox (website)

Here is their named sponsor

• Rockefeller Foundation at Future Perfect

There is no longer any such thing as simple neutral news reporting. That Vox discloses funders and relationships does not conflict with its authority for what it is. If there are multiple sides to an issue, and each side represents a mainstream demographic, then the sources presenting each side are all reliable to reflect the view of what they represent. Vox is known as a liberal new media channel producing "explainer" content based on data and technology. The Rockefeller Foundation is known for promoting the Rockefeller Republican ideology. It is possible to describe a bias here but I think this source is solidly in the reliable presentation of mainstream views for a demographic at the top tier of social influence.

@NewsAndEventsGuy: talk it out if you like. Bounce it around if you have a feeling that the article could be better. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:08, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

No time for me to dig into this now. If others are motivated, have at it. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:25, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

More sources

• Turner, Chris (4 November 2019). "We're Doomed. Now What?". The Walrus.

Anyone drop more sources here to sort. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:01, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

• apocalypse now, said to be in The West Australian on 1 January but I am unable to find it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:30, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Structural changes

I'm very interested (worried) about this topic so have attempted to improve the quality of this article as much as possible. I've taken the liberty of adding a lot more sources and research publications in order to improve the legitimacy of some of the subject matter. I've also made large structural changes to the article to increase its readability and the logical flow of the article (although I've tried not to delete content), adding sections which help any readers to better understand the factors contributing to a possibility of climate-induced collapse. I've tried to indicate where a scientific consensus has been reached and where it has not and have attempted to add opposing opinions where relevant. I'm new to editing Wikipedia so if anyone has any opinions or disagree with the information I've added or changes I've made, or if any of it is against Wikipedia's copyright policy, please feel free to make changes. Although I would prefer it if changes could be discussed before parts are deleted (like last time!)

Best, --Ebenwilliams (talk) 16:03, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ebenwilliams: Thanks for all the development you have done to this article. I will say for now that I consider everything that you have done to be an improvement. The article has had a lot of changes. I started this article not knowing much about the topic. To me the changes you have done in particular seem to have made it better.

Other people are jumping in. The most chaos I see is with the addition and removal of copyright-violating content. Other than that, this is the Wikipedia churn of things. Thanks for all your contributions. If I were to critique something, I see that you did delete a bit of original text that I wrote, and I encourage you to delete more just because you say you tried to not delete content. If something does not work then saying less is better, and use your judgement. Thanks and glad to have you around. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:52, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

See also section

I removed some links that were already linked to in the article. This section could be worked on further. --Malerooster (talk) 13:15, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Neologism

Before I propose deletion at WP:AFD, I'm interested whether editors can demonstrate via reliable sources that this article is not promulgating a WP:Neologism? Certainly the idea is out there, but I'm not persuaded that it is well represented by this article title. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:14, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Greg Garrard's book Ecocriticism contains a chapter titled 'Environmental Apocalypse.' The chapter describes the historical and literary development of apocalyptic idioms. It starts with the role of apocalypse in religious and snake person narratives. Then it describes how apocalyptic narratives were spread through secular contexts, such as in poetry and literature. The next 10 pages are a subsection called 'environmental apocalypticism,' in which Garrard discusses works such as The Population Bomb, Silent Spring, as well as the organization Earth First!. Garrard ends the chapter with a section titled 'The Trouble with Apocalypse.' Climate catastrophe is discussed at several points as a subcategory of 'environmental apocalypse,' though Garrard is clearly more interested in the later due to longer literary and cultural history.

I remain unsure whether the page can attain notability, I suspect large sections could be folded into existing pages (such as Abrupt climate change, Tipping points in the climate system, and Runaway greenhouse effect) and it is clear that there's a bit WP:OR issue with the page. As I look at the sourcing in the article so far, I'm not seeing many instances of the term 'climate apocalypse' in the first or last couple of sources (though I do see it in a few titles).

The clearest examples supporting this idea would probably be the Franzen article, which contains the term 'climate apocalypse,' as well as some of the responding articles. I suspect a notability argument could be made for some sort of 'climate apocalypse in culture' article or something like this, or a more general discussion of 'environmental apocalypse.' The Garrard book gives good support to this general idea. Jlevi (talk) 02:13, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Go for it William M. Connolley (talk) 10:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for input, William. Re the last paragraph, seems like even that already has a place, i.e., Global warming in popular culture. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:38, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Based upon what I'm seeing so far in academic discussions, I think 'climate apocalypticism' meets notability guidelines for its own article, and that this representation does not fall under 'popular culture.' The academic sources align well with the 'Etymology and usage,' 'Predictions,' and 'Narratives of climate change' sections currently in the article. However, some of the more science-focused aspects of the current article seem like they're Wikipedia:Original Research or out-of-scope. This in itself does not warrant deletion, however. Jlevi (talk) 14:52, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Might be biased because I've spent hours and hours editing this article (so you know, don't flag it for deletion in the next 30 seconds before I can join the discussion ;))... but if the main issue with this article is the title (which honestly I've never been keen on) could the title not be changed? "Environmental apocalypse" is one option to broaden the topic or else "Climate change as a global catastrophic risk" could be a good compromise as a descriptive term as recommended in WP:Neologism for concepts which don't have a single-agreed term as yet. I'd argue strongly for the notability of a page detailing information on the possibility of societal collapse or human extinction as a result of environmental impacts though. If it is indeed a global catastrophic risk or an existential risk then how so? This isn't addressed in the Global warming or Effects of global warming pages and there are other cases like where Nuclear holocaust has an article alongside Nuclear warfare, etc. I think there's an important argument for collating and presenting tail-end risks as long as they are presented as such with reference to scientific sources (which I believe I've done my best to do, and with the Sky News video being flagged as originally from an unreliable source I'm working on sourcing the original papers instead). The concept itself I believe is a clear one addressed in non-fiction works like David Wallace-Wells' The Uninhabitable Earth; Facing the Apocalypse: Arguments for Ecosocialism; and Jem Bendall's work on Deep Adaptation, as well as scientific journals. Not to mention it's helped spawn global movements like Extinction Rebellion and the Transition Network. I guess that's my piece on the whole thing. I think I've been fair and communicative so I'd appreciate the same in return before any action is taken. Thanks! --Ebenwilliams (talk) 12:08, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• If there is any doubt I support submitting this to AfD for a review. I think it would pass but I would rather have the doubt cleared than lingering. The article seems in great shape to me. I found content then Ebenwilliams here found yet more content from perspectives I did not identify or imagine. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:25, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Epoch Times is not an RS

After repeated visits to the noticeboard, there was consensus to deprecate Epoch Times due to non reliability. The prior discussion is here NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:16, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Moved the following from my user talk @Ebenwilliams: this stuff belongs here where others can benefit also, per WP:TPGNewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:38, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your updates to the climate apocalypse page! I've noticed you've deleted a lot of content based on the epoch times being an untrustworthy source, but the reference was to Sky News. Sky News itself isn't the best source admittedly, but I'm a bit confused why you deleted the content referring to the Epoch Times? Best, --Ebenwilliams (talk) 20:06, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Sky news simply posted a video produced by Epoch Times. GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:33, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventsGuy: You tagged this video.

• Sky News (3 December 2015). "Climate Change: What Happens If The World Warms Up By 5°C?". YouTube. Sky News.

Can you confirm that this is the video you have in mind, and show the connection to Epoch Times? Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:02, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I think this was part of a video series by Sky News. They claim authorship and their logo appears in the video at the top and at the end. I appreciate that referencing the research itself would be an improvement, though. --Ebenwilliams (talk) 13:19, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@Blue, as Ebenwilliam says, the vid is brand-stamped "Epoch Times" in the upper left visible when the vid opens. @Ebenwilliam.... FYI, when you reference research directly you are citing a WP:PRIMARY source. That's hard to do well, which is why we prefer WP:SECONDARY and sometimes WP:TERTIARY sources. But they still have to meet WP:RS. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:50, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventsGuy: No I said the video is branded "Sky News". Nothing in the video itself or on the page indicates that Epoch News is affiliated. :) --Ebenwilliams (talk) 14:02, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventsGuy: I fail to see the Epoch Times brand stamp. You seem to have checked something, but perhaps not this source? Can you confirm what you see? Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:45, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

My bad! When I clicked I first got a youtube Ad for Epoch Times. I didn't listen, I just instantly turned it off since I knew it was a rejected source... but before I realized I was listening to an ad. I'll fix this after I sleep. If I try to do it now I'll just make more mistakes. Sorry. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:57, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Okay, anyone can discuss this source further, but it is not associated with any restricted media outlet. Personally, I think this source is fine for inclusion. It is a high production value short explainer video which discusses the subject of this article. I think this video is especially suitable for the "further consideration" section. It could be a placeholder source in the body of the article, but I expect that all the information in this journalism comes from a higher level scientific paper. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:07, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

At one point the only other ed to have made changes was EbenWilliams, I left a note at his/her talk suggesting we do a reset to priot to my tinkering. Events hvae overtaken us with two other editors also making changes. I think I have finished auditing and repairing my Epoch Times related goof. There was one I could not repair due to subsequent text changes

• Re my erroroneous edit in the atmosphere subsection, that section has been redone by Ebenwilliams, so i don't think I can undo my work without messing up the new work.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:48, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Jem Bendell and Deep Adaptation

I suspect folks here might be interested in page move suggestion over at Talk:Jem_Bendell, given the related content. Jlevi (talk) 02:17, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the question has been settled: no move. Thanks for the comments! Jlevi (talk) 20:45, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Murky central topic and synthesis

It seems to me that, though there are some problems with this page right now, it probably has a place in Wikipedia (though maybe under a different name). To start moving from its current state to the shining beacon of light that we all know this page can become, I'd like to bring up the two big issues that I see. With some discussion, I hope to determine what changes would be best.

The first main issue I see is with page scope. The page currently has two main chunks: a description of those who believe in climate apocalypse, and a description of the details of what they believe. That is, the 'Etymology and usage' and 'Narratives of climate change' sections both (mostly) describe a collection of people and what they believe. In contrast, the 'Apocalyptic impacts of climate change and ecological breakdown' seem to me to present aspects and pieces of the scientific literature (or lay interpretations of it) through the lens of those people.

Two questions need to be answered, I think: 1) Is my division reasonable? and 2) Should both be covered by this page?

The second main issue is related to the second of those page topics (i.e. interpretations through the lens). It seems that a fair bit of the page, and especially the 'Apocalyptic impacts of climate change and ecological breakdown' section, merges together sources in a way that tries to make an argument for the idea of climate apocalypse. I don't think this is a good idea from a WP:NPOV, and I don't think the section works due to how it handles its sources. I will work from an example:

Consider the Disease section of the article. It uses a source that at least superficially seems WP:RS, and it appears to largely make statements that do in fact appear in that source. However, the source never discusses 'climate apocalypse' or related terms; it discusses increased risks. It could be interpreted in the the context of climate apocalypse, which is what the article is doing, but the source does not make an argument through this lens.

To address the weird framing of sources in this manner, I suggest finding reliable sources that describe narratives which use climate apocalypse. I think it might be reasonable to summarize the main points used in apocalyptic narratives, but we shouldn't write through the apocalyptic lens.

Sorry for the rambling. If anything is unclear, I can try to better articulate my points, so please ask. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jlevi (talk • contribs) 21:06, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I do not have strong opinions about this. In general, I do not plan article splits for short article. Right now this article is 30k readable prose, and by WP:TOOLONG, splitting with length as a rationale should not happen when text is less than 40k.

Also in general, I care less about where content goes than I care about keeping content matched with sources. If you have ideas for reworking the article then either try them out or discuss further or do whatever you think makes sense. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:22, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

aspects and pieces of the scientific literature (or lay interpretations of it) through the lens of those people: I think this is a problem; perhaps the central problem with the page. Simply because this is about "CA" there's no reason for that. The "science" presented is slanted (or simply fabricated: The more carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere, the less oxygen is able to penetrate the oceans!?!_ William M. Connolley (talk) 07:17, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I think there is some coverage of the science necessary for this article. After all, if 'climate apocalypse' is indeed a lens through which scientific facts are re-interpreted, then what exactly is distorted (or made more clear) would be relevant if covered in reliable sources. However, given that I feel there is unclear scope, I think I agree with Bluerasberry for the moment: let's edit and see where things take us. Jlevi (talk) 10:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Jlevi: Not rambling at all! Good points made. My logic for including the apocalyptic impacts of climate change section was based on my own interpretation of page scope, although I agree at some point content may need to be moved around to other pages, or at least this should all be moved to a new page RE NewsAndEventsGuy's comments on WP:NEO. In my interpretation, the relevant questions for this page were "What is a climate apocalypse scenario?", "How could it happen?", and "How likely is it?" since I think that this is the information that someone referring to this page would be searching for and follows the structure of other pages like Nuclear holocaust. Because it's a controversial topic, I agree that keeping to a WP:NPOV is crucial and we should be careful with bias towards whether or not this will/could happen (and this goes both ways). But because panic and misinformation abounds on this subject, I think the examination of science through the lens of such a scenario is not only arguable, but responsible. The article should definitely avoid cherry picking the science at all costs, but should address relevant concerns in the scientific community, in the media, etc. and assess the likelihood and scientific consensus of such pathways. In the section you've described, a pandemic is more likely to occur as a result of climate change and that is one of the roads that could lead to a collapse (and will certainly be on the radar of readers due to current circumstances). The direct correlation isn't addressed in the source because sources usually address either "Pandemic -> Collapse" or "Climate change -> Pandemic" rather than "Climate change -> Pandemic -> Collapse". I don't want to make jumps, so additional sources might be necessary to bridge the gap, but the connection is there. I completely understand your point about the murky central topic (it is a hypothetical scenario after all). I guess I would recommend scrutinising sources first and then managing structure second? If we decide parts are out of scope and should be moved, we can do that, but priority should be on presenting good science.

@William M. Connolley: The part you mentioned is a misquote, which I've fixed. Warming reduces oxygen's capacity to permeate the oceans, not CO2. I think the source is good, however.

--Ebenwilliams (talk) 17:07, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Removed content

As mentioned above, there are some cases I noticed where there are effects of climate change that could be talked about in terms of 'apocalypse', but where the cited sources don't actually do so (or don't talk about how others use that kind of framing). Since a lot of that content is really quite good, but just seems misplaced, I'll put those parts which I remove here:

Water scarcity

Around 2% of the planet's water is fresh and approximately 70% of that is snow and ice, which turns into salt water as the Earth's temperatures increase, meaning that as glaciers melt many communities that rely on these sources for water will lose their supply. Climate change can also lead to heavier rainfall in some areas, leading to rapid movement of water to the oceans and reducing the capacity of people to use and store it. In other areas rainfall is reduced, and overall the world experiences more extreme floods and droughts as a result of climate change. Warmer air also results in higher rainfall and less snowfall and an increase in evaporation rates. Different regions will be affected to different degrees, but the IPCC predicts that around one billion people in dry areas of the world may face increasing water scarcity.

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jlevi (talk • contribs) 22:03, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Michael E. Mann and the hockey stick controversy

I just found this article.

• Mann, Michael E.; Hassol, Susan Joy; Toles, Tom (12 July 2017). "Opinion Doomsday scenarios are as harmful as climate change denial". Washington Post.

That led me to

• Michael E. Mann
• Attorney General of Virginia's climate science investigation

The Post article mentions

• Wallace-Wells, David (9 July 2017). "When Will the Planet Be Too Hot for Humans? Much, Much Sooner Than You Imagine". Intelligencer.

The Post article uses the term "climate doomism" and the NYMag article uses terms "uninhabitable", "horrifically inhospitable", and drops terms "apocalyptic" and "Mad Max".

I am not immediately sure how this fits in but it seems to be more literature on the same topic. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:46, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes. I think it's similar to Doomer#Criticism. Jlevi (talk) 23:57, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

First big statement with strong language

So far as I have been able to identify, this is the first consensus statement by a group of experts which clearly speaks of climate change causing certain and hopeless catastrophe.

• Atwoli, Lukoye; Baqui, Abdullah H; Benfield, Thomas; Bosurgi, Raffaella; Godlee, Fiona; Hancocks, Stephen; Horton, Richard; Laybourn-Langton, Laurie; Monteiro, Carlos Augusto; Norman, Ian; Patrick, Kirsten; Praities, Nigel; Olde Rikkert, Marcel G M; Rubin, Eric J; Sahni, Peush; Smith, Richard; Talley, Nicholas J; Turale, Sue; Vázquez, Damián (5 September 2021). "Call for emergency action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity, and protect health". BMJ: n1734. doi:10.1136/bmj.n1734.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:48, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Misleading, alarmist, and inconsistent with other Wikipedia articles

I'm no climate denialist—I'm well aware climate change is likely to lead to millions of needless deaths and widespread misery for millions more. But it's interesting to compare this article to the "Climate change" section on the Global catastrophe scenarios article. That section correctly points out that the scientific consensus—including all IPCC projections, even the ones classified as "unlikely"—are entirely compatible with survival of the human species. But this article has hardly any mention of that consensus; in fact, it attempts to undermine mainstream science by claiming that "Climate scientists may also downplay potentially disastrous scenarios in favor of more restrained predictions that are less likely to be rejected as alarmist or fatalist."

The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report lays out plenty of disastrous humanitarian consequences, but not once is the prospect of literal human extinction so much as considered. Wikipedia's article for Climate change likewise does not mention human extinction. Neither does our article for Effects of climate change (except for a vague reference to a widely criticized quote about an "existential threat"). Civilizational collapse (as opposed to human extinction) is a more plausible possibility, but even that is only predicted to occur in worst-case IPCC projections (e.g. RCP 8.5), but this fact isn't clear in this article, particularly in the lead. We can take low-probability catastrophic risks seriously without being alarmist or misleading.

Sources: IPCC FactCheck.org Vox The Atlantic The New York Times Climate Feedback 80,000 Hours Live Science —Will^(B) 02:34, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

@Will-B: I think the confusion here is over the term "apocalypse". You seem to be interpreting that word as "human extinction", when I think the cited sources using that word mean "unrecoverable dystopia". I support clarifying. I also recognize that many people practicing climate change denial focus on the point that human extinction is unlikely, so the lack of clarity that you identify is an active talking point in the public narratives. This is an "apocalypse" of permanent loss of an environment which is supportive to life, and that means mass extinction of most plants and animals and greatly increased difficulty for human life. I do not know which source concisely expresses this. Bluerasberry (talk) 13:22, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal with climate crisis

See discussion about a merger proposal with climate crisis at the talk page of climate crisis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climate_crisis#Merger_proposal EMsmile (talk) 08:33, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Update: this proposal has been withdrawn. EMsmile (talk) 10:28, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Merger of climate endgame to here

The article climate endgame has now been merged to here. Discussions about this, and further work, are available here at the WikiProject Climate Change talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climate_change#Climate_apocalypse_and_climate_endgame_articles EMsmile (talk) 10:28, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Merger proposal into climate change and civilizational collapse

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

4:1 vote in support of the proposal.InformationToKnowledge (talk) 07:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

---

Just recently, @CommonKnowledgeCreator chose to place "Climate change and society" sidebar across dozens of climate change articles. This decision has already been controversial on the WikiProject and may yet be reversed soon.

One of the immediate outcomes, however, is that this article, which has never been part of the main climate change template, is suddenly the very first link our readers see within the sidebar. This is a prime position, and one which I believe this article is not ready for, and has never been ready for, as its structure had always been deeply, perhaps even fatally flawed. Hence, this forced me to act and finally create climate change and civilizational collapse as an article and a proposed merger destination. The destination article not as expansive as it could have been, but it is detailed enough, and what it does have is key context that is sadly lacking in this article.

I have discussed my reasons for why this merge should happen in an earlier, now-archived discussion on the WikiProject. Here's a recap:

1) To most people, this current article's title appears very similar to climate crisis. The intended difference, that the other article is about terminology in media specifically, and this article is about the real world (or "the real world"), is far from obvious at first glance. The other title is far more specific in this regard.

2) As climate crisis itself notes, the only time when "climate apocalypse" is used in any WP:RS, it is as a synonym to "climate crisis" and comparable language. The way this article actually uses its own title is essentially a repeated example of WP:SYNTH. For instance, the lead acknowledges the weakness of its own case with this WP:WEASEL wording, severe risks up to the level of what may described as "climate apocalypse"., before proceeding to cite an article which never uses that particular wording and would befit far better as an example of climate crisis terminology.

3) This article may be relatively large in size (33 kB, 5310 words), yet most of this size is due to poorly incorporating content that is already covered in several other articles (mainly effects of climate change, climate crisis and climate change in popular culture), and generally much better. In particular, the way this article uses popular culture references is extremely odd.

4) The content which IS more-or-less original tends to be very poorly cited (one of the first references used in the article is a YouTube video!) and highly misleading. A section like "Atmosphere" is quite large, yet ] relies on two mid-2000s articles that have been fringe-adjacent even then, with no look at how the opinion had changed by now. "Potential attempts to revert a started apocalypse" is WP:SYNTH of extremely disparate references, which somehow treats random columnists, an old article about RCPs and reams of studies on stratospheric aerosol injection as one and the same - not to mention the very WP:SYNTH assumption SAI's proponents and other scientists even agree to that whole framing of their efforts!

5) Last but not least: this article, as written, simply presents an enormously skewed picture of the state of climate science. It repeatedly violates WP:FRINGE by placing unreviewed briefs from think tanks with dubious credentials, or even outright opinions from layman figures like Franzen (a columnist), King Charles and the Pope over the IPCC and the other mainstream scientists - when it even acknowledges that those opinions exist in the first place. Climate change and civilizational collapse centers the current scientific consensus first, and then begins to explore alternate opinions, where they exist, and while also noting the pushback they have often received from WP:RS, which this article is entirely lacking in.

These reasons are why I would want this article to be merged ASAP. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:37, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

No comment on the merge, but while fixing a no target error at the article you've created to merge this into, I noticed you copied text from articles without attribution. Could you add the attribution details per WP:COPYWITHIN?. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:03, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

It appears that the error was formed due to an excerpt I used including a short ref in it? I wasn't aware this could happen (in my experience, similar issues with refs from excerpts have always been resolved by bots on their own), and I'll keep it in mind.

I am generally aware of WP:COPYWITHIN, but could you clarify the specifics here? There's the excerpt: to my knowledge, those are not covered by the policy since they are considered transclusion? Then, I did take some content from this article (it wouldn't be much of a merge if there was zero overlap, would it?), often modifying it before inclusion. My intention was to complete the attribution of content from this article once the merge happens, since the destination article will likely experience further changes between then and now, possibly including other content from here which would need to be attributed again. Are these the only examples, or was there anything else I might be missing? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:38, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Ah no my mistake, I missed that the text was transcluded. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:51, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

No opinion/Comment – Just recently, @CommonKnowledgeCreator chose to place "Climate change and society" sidebar across dozens of climate change articles. This decision has already been controversial on the WikiProject and may yet be reversed soon. One of the immediate outcomes, however, is that this article, which has never been part of the main climate change template, is suddenly the very first link our readers see within the sidebar. This is a prime position, and one which I believe this article is not ready for, and has never been ready for, as its structure had always been deeply, perhaps even fatally flawed. Hence, this forced me to act and finally create climate change and civilizational collapse as an article and a proposed merger destination. I have replied in the previous discussion. I think your characterization of the state of that discussion and the consequences of my expansion of the Climate change and society sidebar are a little exaggerated. I have no opinion whether or not the Climate apocalypse article should be merged with the Climate change and civilizational collapse article, but I would say that if it is THAT big of a deal we can change the template. One of the wonderful things about Wikipedia is that, like an unfinished puzzle, it is never complete and thus can always be changed. :) -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 17:08, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

• Merge Because "Climate change and civilizational collapse" is a much better title. Incidentally more info on historical examples would be interesting and presumably will become available in time as researchers publish Chidgk1 (talk) 17:56, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose I created the climate apocalypse article. Here is why it should be kept -

1. There are enough sources using the specific term "climate apocalypse" to pass WP:N and establish the need for a Wikipedia article by that name. I explained this in Talk:Climate_apocalypse#About_this_page, and although later editors may have added other sources using other terms, in the original published version I found 50+ sources almost all of which use the term apocalypse and the rest of which talk in nothing short of apocalyptic terms.
2. Climate change and civilizational collapse is a distinct topic. Many articles in Category:Dissolutions of empires and Category:Societal collapse are "civilizational collapses", but not all of them are apocalyptic scenarios.
3. The 50+ sources using the term "climate apocalypse" mostly avoid talking about civilization collapse. Typically the collapse of all civilization is a big problem, but in the apocalypse as described by the sources in the original published version, more discussed issues include collapse of life of earth and the impossibility of re-establishing civilization.

Wikipedia articles reflect the sources. I get that there is an editorial desire to write a narrative of the effects of climate change. My opinion about the sources using the term "climate apocalypse" is that they all are strangely written, and consequently, that makes for a strangely written Wikipedia article. Nevertheless, we should reflect the sources and how they present the topic. We have sources on this topic and many related topics, and they can all co-exist. I think we should default to accepting the names as writers use them, so long as we have enough sources to establish WP:N for each. I would support purging this article of sources which do not talk about apocalypse, and that may include 50-100 of the sources currently here. Bluerasberry (talk) 19:45, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Support merge Editors won't know what belongs in one article vs the other, and readers won't know which article to visit either. Maintenance is also a serious issue with climate change articles as the field is still developing and these articles in particular are going to be prone towards hyperbolic claims. Having one article that is kept current and decent quality is far better than two articles of poor quality. Efbrazil (talk) 20:27, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Support. I also support this proposal by InformationToKnowledge, as I think it is well thought through and argued. To alleviate the concerns of User:Bluerasberry about the term climate apocalypse, I wonder if a compromise solution would be to create an article called climate apocalypse (term) and then keep it very narrow, just to explain how the term is used in the literature or media. Or perhaps "climate apocalypse" could redirect to a section within climate crisis which would then explain who uses the term and why. It might fit into this section: Climate crisis#Related terminology. And then the article Climate change and civilizational collapse would be a new article (with lots of content moved from the current climate apocalypse article. EMsmile (talk) 20:50, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Mild suport merge. On general principle, these two concepts seem indistinguishable, or, at worst, ...collapse is a subset of ...apocalypse. Aside: contrary to OP, neither term is a "synonym" for Climate crisis, which is a statement about current conditions. —RCraig09 (talk)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I agree with your merger and I think consensus has been reached, more or less, but just for future reference, it's better (within the Wikipedia context) to avoid using voting results as an argument or reason. See here for further info: WP:NOTVOTE. EMsmile (talk) 07:30, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Before anyone executes a merge, can someone say what they have in mind? Is the proposal for another article to have a subsection titled "climate apocalypse", or what? Would content here which is apocalypse-specific be deleted, like are references and facts going to go away, or will unique content here be kept?

I find the convo above kind of weird with some odd assumptions. "Climate apocalypse" is a popular article, and usually merges go from unpopular articles to popular articles, not the opposite. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:05, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Okay, by special:permalink/1179608154 it seems that one option is to just delete everything here, redirect to Climate change and civilizational collapse, and have no discussed plan to move any content from here to anywhere else in particular. Is there anything more to this proposal? Is this the idea to consider? Bluerasberry (talk) 17:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree, I was also baffled this morning when I saw the entire content of climate apocalypse gone, puff... to where? Perhaps it's been moved to somewhere but I couldn't find it. I had expected it to show up within Climate change and civilizational collapse but perhaps I misunderstood what the plan was. In any case, deleting all the content would be wrong. I assume that InformationToKnowledge was/is still busy performing the move/merge process (?). Confusing. EMsmile (talk) 17:32, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

@William M. Connolley and InformationToKnowledge: Hey, lots of ways that this could go down. Can we talk it through? Bluerasberry (talk) 20:41, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

It's completely wrong to say things like "everything was deleted". First and foremost, everything remains available a click away in the edit history - that is, a click away from being integrated into wherever it may still be useful. Moreover, the new article had already integrated the most useful parts of this one when it was created. You don't need to look at it all that closely to spot that. Four images are shared, and by my count, 15 references from here are used in the new article. That is about a quarter of the new article and 10% of this one. The other 90% of the references, and the content associated with them, seem to fall into one of two groups.

1) References which either outright come from the excerpts of other articles (and thus aren't really even this page's content in the first place) or from sections that in practice do little more but restate some of the effects of climate change, typically in a (much) less reliable and more sensationalized manner. Those sections typically have a rather tenuous connection to the scope of the article, which borders on WP:SYNTH.

2) References which are really dubious and/or WP:FRINGE / WP:UNDUE. I.e. Do we really need to cite some blog called "Climate Healers"? Or some priest at Religion News Service?! Or the opinion pieces from Huffington Post and Jacobin telling us how they just now Fury Road is going to be so accurate and real? (Even though it couldn't even be filmed in the actual Australian desert, because it famously bloomed at the time?)

I do not see why this should come as a surprise. I am not sure how one can read my stated reasons for pursuing a merge, particularly 3) and 5), and not see how the points about excessive WP:FRINGE and "most of this size is due to poorly incorporating content that is already covered in several other articles" imply anything other than a significant reduction in size at the end of the merge.

Nevertheless, if anyone present here still wants to merge something from here into the new article, you can! I would simply like to see actual reasoning offered for why whichever paragraphs you want to re-add actually belong in the new article. Now that the scope has been much better defined (which all but one of us agreed was a good thing), this might be harder than you would expect.

References

InformationToKnowledge (talk) 09:14, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I have to say, I am with User:Bluerasberry on this one, at least on a procedural level (even though I did support the merge): you cannot possible call it a "merge" when the entire content of climate apocalypse is deleted from the views of our readers (the fact that it's available in the edit history is irrelevant). A proper merge would be to either first delete (in incremental steps!!) what needs to be deleted at climate apocalypse, then move the remainder to article XXX. Or (and I find this easier): to first move the entire content of climate apocalypse to article XXX and then incrementally delete, condense, remove duplication and so forth. What you have done at this stage amounts to WP:AfD and not a merge. EMsmile (talk) 11:09, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

"at this stage", I have done little, since the page move was then reverted by Bluerasberry, and a second move by @William M. Connolley had been reverted as well, and we are back to square one. I suppose that if I reverted it again, WP:3RR would have been in my corner, but I would rather establish consensus, so for now, the page looks exactly as it did a week ago.

It seems like the discussion is veering into pure procedure at this point: can we please refocus on the content itself? I find it strange that there's simultaneously a concern for readers not viewing the content, yet also the suggestion that it would somehow be superior if it were to be struck entirely and not hidden. There's also the whole matter that the article as it was apparently intended by its creator, Bluerasberry, was actually really similar in size to the new article: see the permalink already demonstrated above. In any case, the two articles are still fundamentally similar enough in their aims, that even if this one were deleted, a redirect would have to be recreated anyway, and I would rather not see such unnecessary extra steps.

Instead, can we actually discuss article structure, reliability, what there should and should not be, etc.? I have seen the expressed desire to "talk it through", but I have not see any specific arguments regarding specific elements of the article. I think we can at the very least conclude from the vote that the status quo of this article is untenable, both because of the title and issues with reliability, as expressed by me and others; "hyperbolic claims" in the words of @Efbrazil I do not think this discussion should be delayed any longer.

I would particularly like to know more about your position. You say that the right way would have been to " first delete (in incremental steps!!) what needs to be deleted...Or...to first move the entire content...and then incrementally delete, condense, remove duplication and so forth." Sure, if that's the ideal, I can do that, still. But if we are to avoid endless edit warring, there needs to be an agreement on "what needs to be deleted" before that happens, and it doesn't seem to be here? A week ago, you have expressed preference for seeing "lots of content moved from the current climate apocalypse article": which content did you have in mind, as opposed to what you think could be "deleted in incremental steps"? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 10:55, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

OK, I wasn't planning to get involved in content but I have spent maybe an hour now on doing those "incremental steps" that I had recommended, mostly deleting, sometimes moving stuff and each time explaining in the edit summary why something was deleted. I will stop here but it's nowhere near completed. All that stuff on the "effects of climate change" probably has to be deleted eventually (for now I've replace some sections with excerpts) as it's generally simplistic, poorly sourced and covered much better at effects of climate change. But I will stop for now so that it's easier for others to catch up and follow, and possibly disagree. Perhaps someone else can continue with these incremental editing steps. EMsmile (talk) 18:26, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I knew that once you had taken a closer look at this article, you would agree about the merits (or rather, the lack thereof) of much of its content!

By now, it seems like your series of edits ended up removing some ~1400 words from the article altogether, and it is now at ~3900 words as opposed to the earlier 5300. I'll just briefly comment on the remaining sections.

Etymology and usage - the first paragraph already corresponds to the first paragraph of 2000s subsection of Modern discussion in Climate change and civilizational collapse. The second paragraph appears completely superfluous. The fourth advances a statement which is rather arguable and relies on just two references, one of which is unreliable, and the other one has a broken URL. The third paragraph might be worth carrying over, however.

Climate endgame - there is already a corresponding section with the same title. The last sentence about earlier uses of that term might be interesting, though perhaps it could fit climate crisis better.

Apocalyptic impacts of climate change and ecological breakdown - that large, simplistic section which you are already open to "deleting eventually". I agree, though for a slightly different reason: by listing those effects under the heading title "Apocalyptic impacts", we are immediately making an editorial judgement that all of these subsections are not simply effects of climate change, but are an outright evidence of an upcoming apocalypse. I do not think we are in a position to make such a judgement without extensive use of reliable sources also making that connection. Considering that 40% of the AR6 authors say that they not experience any climate anxiety, and only 16% say that their decisions on having children have been affected by what they know (see the archived version of reference 53 on the civilizational collapse page) I think it's safe to say that they do not consider these impacts to be "apocalyptic". Hence, the entire section is hyperbolic at best, and misleading at worst.

Climate collapse - both subsections are rather misleading. The first one relies on a simplistic reading on a single 2018 paper, which has by now been effectively superceded by the 2022 paper we cite extensively at tipping points in the climate system. The second again relies on the same two dubious references as the fourth paragraph of "Etymology and usage". One of those references is already discussed, briefly, in the civilizational collapse article as well. The other one may be worth including if we can find a working URL, but since it appears to be another non-peer reviewed think tank report, I don't think it should be used as extensively as it is used here.

Predictions - "The 2050 scenario" is the aforementioned unreliable report already present in the new article. The Age of Consequences is probably worth being discussed in some fashion, but again, a report which had undergone unclear level of review and which is 16 years of age shouldn't be particularly prominent. (update: has been moved out, see below) EMsmile (talk) 12:37, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Famous figures - Schellnhuber's statements are already discussed in the new article, and at a greater depth than in here. Statements from the other figures (Sir David Attenborough, Jørgen Randers, King Charles, Pope Francis, António Guterres, Frank Bainimarama) are of rather uncertain relevance to the subject.

Narratives of climate change - both subsections are potentially interesting, but at least some rewriting appears necessary. This information may also be more helpful over at media coverage of climate change, though perhaps it can be used on both. Same goes for In popular culture.

In all, this is the way I see it. I hope this helps us decide on what sort of edits could be done next, and on the remaining necessary steps for this article. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 15:26, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

I want to comment, but I need a few more days to re-read and digest. I hope there is no urgent hurry; I am here and will reply. Bluerasberry (talk) 19:41, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Sure, happy to hang back a bit and give you time to digest, Bluerasberry. I think I generally agree with the analysis of InformationToKnowledge. I noticed the lack of quality the most while looking at the section "Apocalyptic impacts of climate change and ecological breakdown"; this is all covered much better now at effects of climate change. I assume the article climate apocalypse was written mostly before the good article effects of climate change became available.

I don't understand what you, InformationToKnowledge, mean with "the entire section is hyperbolic at best". Oh wait, I put it into Google and got my answer: "If someone is hyperbolic, they tend to exaggerate things as being way bigger deals than they really are."

A lot of the content of this article was added in 2020 by this user: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Ebenwilliams (let me ping them in case they are still around: User:Ebenwilliams).

In general, like I said somewhere above, this article might have worked if it had restricted itself to the term "climate apocalypse" (similar to climate crisis) but not if it's trying to explain those effects of climate change that would lead to an actual apocalypse.

User:RCraig09 What's your opinion: Is there anything in this article (about the term) that might be relevant and could be moved to climate crisis, perhaps in the section on Climate crisis#Related terminology?

Interestingly, this is how the article started out in September 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Climate_apocalypse&oldid=914679691 it said: The Climate Change Apocalypse is the apocalypse due to climate change sometime around the year 2050. The scientific consensus on climate change reports that this apocalypse is certain to happen without the immediate, massive, global cooperation of most people on earth. Political consensus is that the cooperation to prevent the apocalypse will not happen. (no references given) hmmmm.... I looked over some of the article's development in 2019 and 2020... I didn't see a single reference to IPCC reports in the earlier versions... So I think this article has been rather flawed for quite a while. EMsmile (talk) 21:39, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

These are thoughts for discussion. This is all negotiable

• Keep something at "climate apocalypse" I acknowledge the problems with the content but there is something valuable about this particular term. Pageviews reports that "climate apocalypse" and "climate crisis" get the same amount of traffic and editors, with "apocalypse" getting slightly more. If there were a merge, then the content of "crisis" could just go into "apocalypse", with crisis being the redirect. I think there is space for both topics and many more. Usually total merges happen when one article gets much more traffic than the other, or has much more content than the other. Both of these articles are top 10% of Wikipedia in terms of engagement metrics, and I do not want to see apocalypse go without more examination like an WP:AfD.
• I agree that there is a lot of bad content and big flaws here I think we are all in agreement that much of the content here is better covered elsewhere or just not up to quality standards. It is easy to find content which needs to go.
• There are lots of potential valid scopes for this article I am open to all of the content being removed, replaced, and rewritten here if we can guide this article with a more narrow focus. Possible directions based on some of the sources I see include catastrophe which does not include civilization, social reactions to the catastrophe, celebrity and leader positions, institutional positions, media representation, and defeatist planning. I do not think Wikipedia has articles covering these. I agree that this article should have a unique focus; I disagree that the major facets of climate change and apocalypse are already covered by other existing articles.
• Re-think the citations being dismissed InformationToKnowledge challenged this source in the discussion above, and EMsmile removed it.
  • Reese, Thomas (10 August 2021). "The climate apocalypse is real, and it is coming". Religion News Service.

The links in the citation show that this source is a major Catholic news agency and this article is from a notable priest. The Catholic church rallies agreement from hundreds of millions of people, and Wikipedia is the place for sorting such position statements from thought leaders in multinational communities. Mainstream Jesuit journalism is not WP:FRINGE. There are some other challenged sources which I think have a place in Wikipedia; just slow down a bit and let's plan a bit more.

Bluerasberry (talk) 15:59, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Regarding that sentence about what the priest Thomas Reese said, this is the sentence that I had removed Following the August 2021 publishing of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Catholic Priest Thomas J. Reese advocated for the church leadership to speak in favor of strong action to prevent climate apocalypse.. I still think this is unlikely to be WP:DUE; there are probably thousands of examples of people using the term climate apocalypse in the media. I am really not sure which criteria you would use to single out certain ones but not others. A more suitable "home" for it might be this article: Religion and environmentalism. EMsmile (talk) 08:14, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I would be OK with keeping "something" (short, succinct) at climate apocalypse: we could narrow it right down to just a discussion of the term, not of the thing. Similar to the article climate crisis. (the term climate emergency actually fits for either one, doesn't it? Currently it's part of climate crisis).

Today, I have done more work on the section "Apocalyptic impacts of climate change", basically replacing all the outdated content with excerpts (sometimes moving content to other articles). There are still two more sections to replace with excerpts: "Shutdown of ocean currents" and "War". I have run out of time for today, maybe someone else wants to continue with those two. The section "Apocalyptic impacts of climate change" should only list those effects of climate change that have the potential to become apocalyptic. For that reason, I have removed the sub-heading on climate change and infectious diseases as there is no apocalyptic potential there, as far as I can see.

Looking at all the evidence thus far, I don't think there is ground for an "apocalyptic scenario" but life on Earth will just become progressively less pleasant, starting with people in poverty and certain regions. This is sad enough! I think this should come out in the section on "Apocalyptic impacts of climate change", which I think it does now, through those excerpts. EMsmile (talk) 09:39, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

But...doesn't this then remove the main reason to keep these impacts distinct from effects of climate change? I thought you were opposed to duplicating things? You say, "should only list those effects of climate change that have the potential to become apocalyptic", but once again, where are the WP:RS explicitly connecting any of those impacts to an apocalypse? If none can be found, isn't it veering into WP:OR and WP:SYNTH to single-handedly decide at what point an effect becomes "apocalyptic"?

I am also not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of having two articles dedicated to nuanced differences between what are ultimately intentionally blunt and un-nuanced terms. When you said "there are probably thousands of examples of people using the term climate apocalypse in the media", I was a little skeptical, since ironically, most references for this article do not use the term. When the article was first created, in September 2019, it appeared to be in response to that non-reviewed "The 2050 scenario" specifically, which doesn't use the term, exactly (though it certainly does warn of collapse, which is why it's mentioned in my article). Searching for it did bring up lots of articles...but there are some major caveats.

1) Articles which use the term practically interchangeably with "crisis", contrary to the whole argumentation of @RCraig09: i.e. Apocalypse Becomes the New Normal, where the subheading is "We’re already in the early stages of climate crisis." Similarly, Newsletter: A climate apocalypse now or The Climate Apocalypse Is Now, and It’s Happening to You again use it in exactly the sense RCraig believes only climate crisis is used. I can't quite tell because of Boston Globe's paywall, but Welcome to the Climate Apocalypse. (It will get worse.) also seems to refer to the current situation primarily. How to Survive a Climate Apocalypse only uses the term in the headline, and otherwise talks about extinction risk from climate change and the Holocene extinction. Further, Apocalypse When? Global Warming’s Endless Scroll is subheaded with "...But the climate crisis is outpacing our emotional capacity to describe it." - although, it does go into somewhat interesting discussion that may be difficult to integrate into our other articles. All of these are from WP:RS

1.5) Articles where "apocalypse" is used in a purely religious sense, one that is largely equivalent to the meaning of "crisis", rather than the bright line RCraig09 draws. Examples include The climate apocalypse is also a religious crisis has the subheading, "Extrapolations’ Dorothy Fortenberry on God, Laudato si’, and the climate crisis", or Climate change is really Apocalypse Now, which also uses "apocalypse" purely to mean "revelation", and delves deep into the religious comparisons.

2) Articles which use the term critically, as an example of what the (typically, though not exclusively, right-wing) authors consider to be unjustified hyperbole. I.e. 50 years of predictions that the climate apocalypse is nigh (not really RS, but currently the top search result in at least some search engines), or The Incredible Story Of How Climate Change Became Apocalyptic or The Climate Change Apocalypse Problem or Biden of the Climate Apocalypse or We're All Gonna Die: Climate Change Apocalypse by 2050

Is all of that enough to sustain an article on its own? I doubt it. I am beginning to think that considering what the sources which actually use the term show, the solution we discussed at the start of the year - just merging to climate crisis - might once again end up as the best one? That is, a merge to a sub-section going something like "a range of writers have used the term "climate apocalypse". Some have used it interchangeably with climate crisis. Others consider the Greek origins of the word... and the religious dimensions. Some conservative writers dismiss climate change mitigation proposals by describing them as warnings of an overblown apocalypse." Perhaps there would be a "See also" leading to climate change and civilizational collapse somewhere in that section as well. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:58, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Finally, I understand that Bluerasberry is attached to this article, but the claim "I disagree that the major facets of climate change and apocalypse are already covered by other existing articles." appears wrong. Let's go through the examples offered.

"catastrophe which does not include civilization" - meaning...what exactly? If it is about the natural world, we have extinction risk from climate change and (more broadly) Holocene extinction. If it is about the impacts which affect humans and are (somehow) both catastrophic but do not threaten humans...all in all, that's just effects of climate change?

"social reactions to the catastrophe" - psychological impact of climate change?

"celebrity and leader positions" - for political leaders, there's History of climate change policy and politics. For religious, there's Religion and environmentalism. I am not sure if there's anything about celebrities, but if there isn't, that's simply a reason to create a new article, not to repurpose this one into a list of celebrities statements.

"media representation" - media coverage of climate change. Really outdated article, but it's certainly there?

"institutional positions" - see above.

"defeatist planning" - Doomer?

So, I once again see no reason to retain anything here. The only exception might be to do the same sort of a disambig as what climate change and agriculture now has: a page directing one to either climate crisis or climate change and civilizational collapse, depending on whether they were more interested in how the term has been used, or the underlying risks inherent in the term. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:58, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Be aware of the use of the term apocalypse for hyperbolic click-baiting (not its traditional literal definition). Also, be aware that some references are simply making a play on the title of the 1979 movie, Apocalypse Now. Actually, these creative, non-literal usages serve to contrast the possible future (apocalypse) from the present (crisis), by ~poetically insinuating that the future is the present. — 14:51, 18 October 2023 (UTC) The New York Times describes "Apocalypse When? Global Warming’s Endless Scroll ... But the climate crisis is outpacing our emotional capacity to describe it." (emphasis added). —RCraig09 (talk) 14:58, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I've just incorporated content from this New York Times article to describe the use of climate apocalypse to characterize the current climate crisis—to distinguish the two terms. That edit should ensure the two terms aren't confused. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:59, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I really don't like how this seems to violate WP:EDITORIAL: maybe not in letter, since the policy paragraph is hyper-focused on language choices, but certainly in spirit ("Wikipedia does not try to steer the reader to a particular interpretation or conclusion"). If "hyperbolic click-baiting" is the most prominent usage of the term, which it certainly appears to be, then we have a responsibility to note as such. I see no reason why one NYT op-ed should be elevated over another NYT op-ed, let alone a group of them, simply because the way it's written appeals to one Wikipedia editor more.

At the end of the day, we are dealing with neologisms: widespread usage of "climate crisis" is only about 4-5 years old. Yet, we are trying to treat them as if their meaning is already widely agreed upon and is now already set in stone, which seems absurd. I had to check WP:NEO, and it has a requirement of 3+ independent WP:RS which describe the term, and do not just mention it. Are we sure that what we have so far (both in the article, where nearly all of the references do not even mention the term specifically, let alone describe it, and in the sources listed above) actually fulfils these criteria? If not, then this article has to go, and we have to finally complete the merge that we voted for two weeks ago. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 10:23, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Very interesting. I wasn't fully aware of WP:NEO and it does seem to indicate that the article would have to go if we don't have reliable sources which describe the term, and do not just mention it. I wonder if it's an option to set it up a bit similar to climate action, i.e. a bit like a glorified disambiguation page. Any content pieces that could find a home in any of our other articles could be moved to there. I think (hope) that the work of incremental deletions and moving that I have been doing lately has been useful. The article size is now down to 14 kB (2155 words) "readable prose size" (compared to 33 kB at the beginning of the month). EMsmile (talk) 10:37, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, it certainly helps. I am not sure if RCraig09 would necessarily appreciate you excerpting the crisis article, since it arguably goes against his point about maintaining the distinction between the two, but if we are merging/reducing this article to the minimum soon enough anyway, it probably doesn't matter much.

I would say that a lot of the remaining, non-excerpt sections are still heavily flawed (i.e. everything under "Predictions"). To expand on my earlier critiques:

Hothouse Earth - devotes a whole paragraph to a single paper, interpreting it in a way which way not be in line with mainstream scientific opinion. See Hothouse Earth: here’s what the science actually does – and doesn’t – say or 2°C is not known to be a "point of no return", as Jonathan Franzen claims. For what it's worth, that paper is most certainly covered in tipping points in the climate system, and I'm not sure if we need any more coverage of it. (Update: I've moved this section to the talk page of tipping points in the climate system now. EMsmile (talk) 09:02, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Point of collapse - all the references are obscure think tanks, rather than fully reliable sources. This sentence - "Although runaway climate change may be triggered at 2°C or even lower" - contradicts the scientific consensus at runaway greenhouse effect. (Update: I've taken this section out now, it's preserved below on this talk page in case someone knows a better home for this text or wants to rework it. EMsmile (talk) 09:02, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

The Age of Consequences - I finally checked out that report from 2007, and the current section on it is an outright inaccurate summary of what it said - i.e. this sentence "describes both a "severe" and a "catastrophic" scenario in which global warming rise reaches 1.6°C (2.88°F) above pre-industrial levels by 2040 and 5.6°C (10.08°F) by 2100 respectively" misstates that the "severe scenario" was actually 2.6°C, and it misstates both figures as being above preindustrial levels, rather than the 1990 levels (see pages 44-45 of the report.) More to the point, all of those forecasts are far outside the current scientific consensus. I still would like to mention this report in the civilizational collapse article, but I'm unsure on the best procedure. Should I edit it in place here until it gets to a more acceptable stage, then merge it, or merge it first, and then edit it into shape?

Update: I've now moved this to the talk page of the civilizational collapse article. EMsmile (talk) 12:37, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

"The 2050 scenario" - already discussed as unreliable both on the talk page and in the civilizational collapse article.

Update: I've now removed this. EMsmile (talk) 12:37, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Social critique of literature and Contemporary narratives - the first sentence has almost nothing to do with at least the publicly available text of reference 84, which appears more connected to psychology of climate change denial. Notably, there is nothing in the abstract about "an accurate end of the world prediction" or "a smaller problem than it actually is": that simply appears to be Bluerasberry's WP:SYNTH. The other sentences in those two sections are also very loosely connected to their references. (See for yourself!) I think some of those would be more at home in History of climate change policy and politics?

Once those sections are dealt with, and if WP:NEO is failed, we would probably be ready to either merge the article, or minimize it down to an equivalent of climate change and agriculture or climate action. Thoughts? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:59, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

References

Distinction from Climate crisis

(Responding solely to the question of the relation of this C.Apocalypse article to Climate crisis and not the many other issues:) Definitely there is a huge distinction between a crisis and an apocalypse. A crisis is serious but can be resolved; with an apocalypse, the worst has happened and it's too late to do anything about it. A second distinction is between a thing itself and the name/description/characterization of the thing. Most articles are about the thing itself, but Climate crisis almost unique since it is about the name/description/characterization. On 23 January I moved climate apocalypse to the "See also" section of Climate crisis, so that climate crisis wouldn't be confused on equal terms with climate apocalypse. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:08, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

I think climate apocalypse as a term would deserve a spot in your bullet point list of "related terminology" at climate crisis. After all, you have many terms in there which are very very similar to apocalypse, such as climate catastrophe, climate breakdown, climate chaos, ecological breakdown, climate calamity, climate havoc, climate breaking point. I think climate apocalypse, as a term used in the media, would fit well into that listing. You could actually re-order that list from "mild" to "severe/catastrophic" - might be interesting. EMsmile (talk) 16:42, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Apocalypse is stronger than all the other listed terms, as it usually describes the end of the world, or at least of human civilization—not just a ~really serious problem that can possibly be solved. Though my 18 January 2023 edit broadened the section to be "Related terminology" (to avoid the implication that climate crisis is alarmist or hysterical), the remaining issue here is still the distinction between the subject and the name of the subject. Separately, it would be endlessly subjective—and improper on Wikipedia—for editors to try to order the terms by their subjectively perceived severity. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:22, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

True, the "exact" ordering would be a bit difficult but a rough ordering would easily be possible, and helpful for the reader. And I still see no valid reason not to include climate apocalypse in the list. It would fit well and is pretty much the same as things like chaos, breakdown, havoc, breaking point. I am not an expert on English language though. Let's see if anyone else has an opinion on this. EMsmile (talk) 17:30, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Ranking is a microscopic issue, and endlessly subjective, and is an intrusion of subjective, personal, trivial, editorial perceptions into Wikipedia content. No, an ordered list would not be "helpful" even if it "might be interesting" to you. Separately, as already explained, apocalypse is not "pretty much the same" as other listed items; it's included in the /* See also */ section to avoid the implication that a crisis (we've survived many) is on the same level as an apocalypse (which we haven't experienced). —RCraig09 (talk) 18:00, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia's article apocalypse (bolding added by me): "Apocalypse" has come to be used popularly as a synonym for catastrophe, but the Greek word apokálypsis, from which it is derived, means a revelation.. So based on that, my suggestion that climate apocalypse could be added to the long list of "related terms" in the climate crisis article is not that far fetched! How is a catastrophe fundamentally different from terms like "chaos, breakdown, havoc, breaking point" (which you do have in your list)?

I doubt that any of the people who use the term climate apocalypse mean to use apocalypse in its original meaning which is - according to the Wikipedia article - Apocalypse (from Ancient Greek ἀποκάλυψις (apokálupsis) 'revelation, disclosure') is a literary genre in which a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary..

Anyhow, let's not waste our time arguing over one additional line in a bullet point list of 16 examples in an article that gets only 150 pageviews per day. - I know you feel very strongly about the article climate crisis, having written 78% of it. - Maybe others have an opinion; let's give them time to react. EMsmile (talk) 21:36, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

@RCraig09: Perhaps it would be a good idea to make this distinction explicit in the article's text? Something like:

Notably, the term "crisis" does not foreclose the possibility of addressing and recovering from said crisis. This makes it distinct from the terms like climate apocalypse or climate endgame, which have also been used by certain public figures. The second position is not considered mainstream...", etc.

In fact, I would say several other terms currently listed there could also be grouped with apocalypse in that regard. I don't know about you, but when I see phrases like "ecological breakdown", or "global meltdown, Scorched Earth, The Great Collapse, and Earthshattering" (???) or "global boiling" (currently given a prominent quote box), my mind doesn't exactly leap to "this can be solved". It really doesn't help that "global boiling" invokes the scepter of runaway greenhouse effect, even though it is thankfully not considered to be a plausible outcome. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 08:42, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

User:InformationToKnowledge, your proposed text is an example of WP:SYNTHESIS and unsourced editorial interpretation. If there were a reliable source that said exactly what you describe, it might be reasonable to include it in Climate crisis. Without specific sourcing, keeping Climate apocalypse in the /* See also */ section gives it as much mention as it deserves. Also, your reference to the "position... not considered mainstream" deals with the subject, and not the term for the subject, which is the topic of the Climate crisis article. Separately, the other terms you listed at 08:42 are not literal; they're hyperbole or dramatizations of a crisis; in contrast, Apocalypse, taken literally, is qualitatively different from crisis, as I've noted several times above. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:07, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps explaining which terms are hyperbole and why would be a good idea, then? We are already repeatedly told that we must not expect all of our readers to understand "post-graduate" words; we really should not expect them to fully understand hyperbole either. Further, is it really possible (or even desirable) to explain the difference between terms without noting the difference about the subjects of those terms?

As for "a reliable source that said exactly what you describe", you may consider looking at the references provided in the first paragraph of "Scientific consensus and controversy" in Climate change and civilizational collapse. In particular, I cite a notable poll done by Nature, according to which 88% of the interviewed IPCC authors consider that the world is in a climate crisis, yet 39% feel no anxiety about it. This might be enough to support the entire statement: if not, it certainly supports that apocalypse/endgame is not a major opinion, and we would only need a reliable source stating that the crisis can be overcome/recovered from (should be easy, since nearly every example of proper writing about the low-emission scenarios says something like that.) InformationToKnowledge (talk) 15:26, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

The entire point is that we do not need to be "explaining which terms are hyperbole and why". The Nature polling is not anywhere near specific enough to support your 08:42 proposed text, and, one more time, characterizes the subject itself (climate change) and not the term climate crisis. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:41, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I've just incorporated content from this New York Times article to describe the use of climate apocalypse to characterize the current climate crisis—to distinguish the two terms. That edit should ensure the two terms aren't confused. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:59, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Removed content from the section "Social critique of literature"

I've taken out this content from the section "Social critique of literature" because it's not about climate apocalypse as such. Reads more like an essay. Maybe it fits in some other article.

++++++++++

People in various cultures at various times have told stories about climate change. Among all cultures and times which tell these stories, patterns in the stories which include questioning: whether humans caused the change, the relationship between short-term local experiences and longer term global records, people of common cultures producing images of climate change which align with others in their culture but not with those outside their culture, designating certain classes of institutions like laboratories as being reliable sources of information, and the modification of reliable reports to create a more desirable narrative of how the information ought to lead to a particular community changing their behavior. Discussion of climate change is unusual for having attracted unusually diverse participation of communities which strongly present their own view. Those communities include citizens engaged in public participation, academic sectors, any non-academic professional sector asserting knowledge, participants in popular culture, advocates for Indigenous peoples, anyone negotiating the powers of the current and/or dominant economic and political systems, those practicing a religion, and anyone responding to public opinion. Sources of information about climate change tell various categories of stories, including personal experiences, community experiences, scientific models, economic forecasts, and prophecies of apocalypse. EMsmile (talk) 16:11, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 16:11, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I would say that this seems more at home in media coverage of climate change? Though, it would certainly have to be condensed and/or rewritten. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:08, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Removed text about warnings by well known people

I have removed this text about warnings by well known people as it's not about the term climate apocalypse. We could perhaps move this to a more suitable article that lists such warnings but which one?:

++++++++

Famous figures:

In his 2019 BBC documentary Climate Change – The Facts, Sir David Attenborough warns that dramatic action needed to be taken against climate change within the next decade to avoid irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of human societies. In a 2019 Channel 4 interview with Jon Snow, Attenborough states that the worst outcome of climate change that could be experienced within the next seventy years would be civil unrest and mass migration on a great scale. He predicts that humans will continue to find enough food, but that their diets will be forced to change.

Pope Francis has stated that climate change threatens the future of the human family and that we must take action to protect future generations and the world's poorest who will suffer the most from humanity's actions. He has also stated that our choice of energy has the potential to destroy our civilization and that this must be avoided. EMsmile (talk) 10:49, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 10:49, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Seems like it could be split between Media coverage of climate change (Sir David Attenborough is most certainly part of the media, after all) and Religion and environmentalism (in fact, it might already be there?), respectively? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:11, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello EMsmile. I see Blueraspery, a very veteran and skilled editor, has requested that folk slow down before deleting and merging content away. He also suggested that if a merge needs to take place, we should consider merging from the new article to the long standing one. A view I'd tend to agree with. Sadly, much as ITK is obviously a gifted and high energy editor, their view on the scientific concensus as it relates to civilisational collaspe is innacurate, even bordering on not even wrong territory. FWIW, I'd tend to see these removals as unwarranted. FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:02, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I have already slowed down and it's fine, I can slow down further. If it helps, I can stay away from edits for the next week or so? But can you please be more specific about which removals you see as unwarranted and why. (I try to work in incremental steps so that it's easy to react to specific edits)

Furthermore, if you have concerns about the Climate change and civilizational collapse article, please put them there on the talk page. That would be helpful, thanks.

And I think the WP:NEO policy that was mentioned above very much applies. We need sources that discuss the term, not sources that mention the term. Also, do you agree with the hatnote that I placed on the article? Pretty much the same hatnote as at climate crisis, i.e. we are talking about the term here and not about the thing (I agree with RCraig09 on this point). EMsmile (talk) 13:13, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

P.S. Are you saying you would agree with a merge in principle but that the final name of the merged article should be climate apocalypse, not Climate change and civilizational collapse? Why? Just because climate apocalypse was already created 4 years ago? Or because its title is more WP:COMMONNAME? EMsmile (talk) 13:17, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

That's very kind EMsmile. But I'd never suggest a quality editor like yourself pause edits for as long as a week. But maybe as there's some difference of opinion here, there could be a pause of a couple of days between each further section removal? Just to give folk a chance to respond before removals become a fait accompli.

Yes I'd agree if the merged article was climate apocalypse, though of course whatever is decided isn't really up to me to agree or disagree with, I just wanted to express an opinion. One of the reasons I don't like these removals is part of the justification seems to hinge on ITK's incorrect seeming view on the the risks of civilisation collapse.

The thrust of the new article seems to be that scientists dont' consider a climate change civilisational collaspe a significant risk - which sadly is a gross misreading of mainstream scientific opinion. To clarify, there have been many alarmist reports exagerating the risk - and ITK's work to ensure the mainstream rebutals are centered over such fringe content is most commendable. Yet on the other hand, hundreds of scientific papers have warned of the likelyhood of civilisational collaspe if global warming is allowed to exceeed 3, 4 or 5°C. I do mean likelyhood, not just risk. I've not seen a single dissenting opinion on the likelyhood of collaspse at 5°C , and only a tiny few at 4°C. (There are abundant rebutals to warnings that predict we're on track for 5°C warming by a specifci date like 2100, but that's a different matter.)

Editor RCraig's excellent quote on the 'climate crisis is outpacing our emotional capacity' is key to understanding coverage of this topic.As per this review paper civilisational collapse warnings were particualy common in the scientific literautre for six years or so after Hansen's 1988 congressional testimony. But from 1996 such warnings largely stopped being published until 2006, not as the risk of civilisational collaspse at high levels of warming was in any way discredited, but as a preception formned that such warning might be counter productive, and due to emotional reasons. As per one of ITK's own sources "the consequences of a 4C warmer world are so terrifying that most scientists would rather not contemplate them"

But these days, politically aware scientists and other credible authorities are increasingly starting to see realistic warnings of the collaspse threat as helpful to the cause of marhsalling support for climate mitigation , just as 20th century warnings on the threat of nuclear winter etc helped raise political will to limit nuclear proliferationl. Here's such a warning from just a few weeks ago by the very mainstream veteran climate scientist Michael Mann. Mann's been one of the most prominent scientists in combating alrmist reports and doomism. He knows that such reports not only cause unneccessary psychological distress, they risk encouraging fascism and undermine efforts to marshall political support for effective mitigation.

1.5C is already really bad but 3C is potentially civilisation-ending bad ... if we can keep warming below 1.5C then we can preserve this fragile moment. But if we go beyond 3C, it’s likely we can’t. n between is where we’re rolling the dice (my emphases on likely. [Source https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/30/human-civilisation-climate-scientist-prof-michael-mann] )

It's also be worth adding that assessing the risk of a civilisatoinal collaspe isnt really in the domain of climate scientists. Sure , the climate scientist is best placed to estimate the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events etc at any given level of warming. But such events & other adverse climate related changes would not on their own end an advanced civilisation. It's generally understood that past civilisations have collaspsed due to a combination of stressors and crises overwhelming their capacity to adapt, in some cases the collaspe has been credited as resulting from emotional challenges such as a widespread loss of confidence. As noted inSocietal collapse , is a cross -disciplinary topic for specialists of history, anthropology, sociology, political science, cliodynamics and study of complex systems. This is why the view of someone like Mann is worth highlighting. As was noted on Climate change & politics back in 2021, Mann has a "better practical understanding of politics than most academic political scientists and more than any editor other than the Colonel himself" This is a specific reason why I'd not agree with removing the views of folk like His Holy Father Pope Francis. He's responsible for the spirtual health of over 1 billion people, a role that very much gives him insight into hard to quantify areas like civilisation level morale, much more so than most climate scientists. And contary to the statement a few section above, the view of António Guterres, who used to be a professor on systems theory & has unrivaled knowledge of the global political situation, is of central relevance here. I'm not sure I have the energy to furher express concerns with the new article on its talk page - they'd be very extensive if I was to do a thorough job. I only decided to pop up here as it was distressing to see remarks on a talk page once again discrediting the good secretary general. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:21, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello, FeydHuxtable. I knew that someone would bring up this kind of an objection sooner or later, and it's great to have an opportunity to clarify my reasoning in a discussin with an editor as eloquent as yourself! These are what I consider to be the key points:

• The thrust of the new article seems to be that scientists dont' consider a climate change civilisational collaspe a significant risk - which sadly is a gross misreading of mainstream scientific opinion - "mainstream scientific opinion" on climate change is represented by the IPCC reports: most recently by the AR6. Can you point me to at least one passage in any part of the AR6 which explicitly mentions civilizational collapse or anything which can be reasonably considered synonymous to that? If you cannot, then the article cannot assert that this position is part of the mainstream scientific opinion. It can point out that there are scientists who disagree and accuse the IPCC of conservatism in this regard (as in fact, the new article does now), but it cannot confuse their position with that of the scientific mainstream.
• I've not seen a single dissenting opinion on the likelyhood of collaspse at 5°C - At one point, tipping points in the climate system used to cite an article which concluded that 6°C would reduce the global GDP by some 6.4%. It has been removed from there for now (see the talk page), even though ultimately, the same arguments used against it at the time can be applied to a large bulk of mainstream research. As the new article points out, no IPCC scenario involves a mass decline of the global population in the foreseaable future - and nor do any of them involve steep reversals of global GDP growth, for that matter. (You are welcome to search for evidence to the contrary in the reports.) That includes SSP5-8.5, a scenario where, depending on climate sensitivity, 5°C is either already reached around 2100, or is clearly on its way. We may disagree with this, but we have to reflect the science as it is currently written.
• Yet on the other hand, hundreds of scientific papers have warned of the likelyhood of civilisational collaspe if global warming is allowed to exceeed 3, 4 or 5°C. - if there have been "hundreds", then it should be easy to cite a dozen or two - preferably those which haven't already been brought up in either article or talk page. In this case, I am doubtful: after all, the entire underlying premise of "climate endgame" is that its position is not mainstream, and that it's doing something almost nobody else had done up until now.
• As per this review paper civilisational collapse warnings were particualy common in the scientific literautre for six years or so after Hansen's 1988 congressional testimony. - this appears to be a misreading of the paper's text. I would like to quote its methods.

The title of each identified paper was read, followed by the abstract of each paper, assessed as possibly eligible. If a score was still unclear, the full text was obtained and searched for words and phrases that suggested a broader interpretation of the indirect effects of climate change, such as “population displacement”, “migration”, “conflict”, “war”, “famine”, and “food insecurity”.

Eligible papers were scored as one if they exclusively concerned an effect other than conflict, migration, population displacement or large-scale undernutrition or famine. They also needed to exclude statements (even if introductory) such as “climate change has been recognized as the greatest risk to health in the 21st century”.

Papers were scored as two if they either mentioned such an effect and/or contained statements recognizing the potentially enormous scale of the health impacts from climate change. A synonym for this understanding was the phrase eroding “life support mechanisms”.

Papers were scored as three if they included a more detailed explanation or assertion of the future (or current) existence and importance of conflict, migration or famine, perhaps suggesting an interaction among them. A score of three was more likely if they also warned of the general severity of climate change. The score was also influenced by the tone of the language, and the space devoted to these issues (see Appendix for further details).

So, even what that paper defined as the category with the most pronounced warnings stops well short of actually asserting that any of those impacts would lead to collapse. When that paper does explicitly use that term (notably, it never uses the term "apocalypse", which is a further argument against keeping this article), it is mainly to self-cite the author's own older papers. It should also be noted that this paper was published at an MDPI journal, rather than one of the top journals, which only underscores the currently-fringe nature of the subject.

• As per one of ITK's own sources "the consequences of a 4C warmer world are so terrifying that most scientists would rather not contemplate them" - this particular source is cited specifically to provide the perspective of Jonah Rockström in his own words. The quote you have taken is not attributed to Rockström or any other scientist and appears to have come from The Guardian's author - the same author who had managed to drastically mangle a quote, turning "eight billion" to "a billion", and failing to correct it for six months. This is evidence against placing much stock in any of that author's assertions. Further, it is contradicted by other evidence: the fact that the scenarios associated with the 4C warmer world, RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5 are in fact very widely used, with some of the new article's references suggesting that they are actually used (and therefore contemplated) more widely than any other scenario.
• As noted inSocietal collapse , is a cross -disciplinary topic for specialists of history, anthropology, sociology, political science, cliodynamics and study of complex systems. - Certainly. And so far, none of their opinions appear to have been deemed important enough to have been featured in the IPCC reports. For now, the latter are what we have to take as the baseline, with the rest discussed in addition to that.
• This is why the view of someone like Mann is worth highlighting. - I have no issue with including Michael Mann's views in the other article. You are welcome to do so, if I do not get around to it first. So long as it is made clear that, for now, those views appear distinct from the IPCC consensus. It must be noted that even in the discussion you linked, the conclusion was: "his opinions need to be really clearly attributed as opinions (per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV) not the conclusions of an expert observer whose evaluations are conclusive."

InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:24, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Happy to be of service ITK. I'm glad we already agree in part, and while not convinced by all your points, I am by some. For brevity, I'll focus on what seems the central point, how much weight we ought to put on IPCC & specifically AR6, regarding the collapse risk. I agree with giving prominence to your sentences on AR6 2100 population projections. And as you know, in AR6 those ~ 7-16 billion projections hold true even for RCP8.5 . Yet I'd be uneasy about any suggestion AR6 expresses a consensus that there's little risk of civilisational collapse at high warming, and especially if were locked into such 'science as currently written' until IPCC update their views:

1) AR7 isn't expected until 2030. There's nothing worse than trying to fight yesterday's battle today. Much of AR6 was written in 2021, and the world has already moved on. Let's take Mann as an example. I've read every page of his 2021 book The New Climate War . Back then he was every bit as sceptical on the civilisational collapse risk as yourself; the book has a whole chapter rubbishing the idea along with other forms of doomerism. Back in 2021 it was much easier for politically engaged folk to believe that climate optimism was the best strategy. There was much talk of 'build back better' after the pandemic, with a green transition thought to be easily compatible with growth and millions of new high tech jobs. Sadly things haven't turned out like that, 2023 especially has not been a great year for fossil fuel phase out or net zero. The recent Mann source is a great example of the switch from climate optimism to climate realism.

2) IPPC sources are of course undeniably at the peak of the WP:RS hierarchy for expressing scientific consensus on Climate Science. But as we seem to at least partly agree , the topic of civilisational collapse is more in the domain of Collapsology. Being an expert on physical science topics like radiative forcing doesn't provide much insight into the more soft / social science areas needed to have an informed opinion on the likelihood of a civilisational collapse. Granted, IPPC have become quite transdisciplinary , esp. with AR6, but I'd still be of the view that collapse is outside their core expertise.

3) AR6 WGIII Chpt 3 seems to be the key section on which youre basing your view of IPPC consensus? It includes the statement that Nearly all scenarios assessed here do not account for climate impacts on growth So in my view it's going beyond what the sources say to use Chpt3 as any sort of expression of consensus on the civilisational collapse risk. IPPC are saying their year 2100 scenarios give little consideration even to how global warming will effect economic growth, let alone how it will impact civilisational stability.

Granted, climate change editors may not agree with points 1) & 2). And 3) is a matter of interpretation. But I'd hope care is taken not to present credible warnings of the risks associated with high GW as contrary to scientific consensus, unless editors have carefully checked their understanding of said consensus really is reflected in the best available WP:RS. Folk like Mann are warning of the risk of collapse precisely as he see's that as the best way to marshal support for the sort of mitigation effort that will prevent such a collapse. You very likely already know this, but a civilisational collapse is a double nightmare from a progressive perspective. Everything we've achieved these last 70 years could be reversed. To quote myself from Talk: Insect decline back in 2019: You know King, I'm starting to think you might be too good natured to comprehend the wider context here. There are titanic wills and intellects seeking to promote Denialism. Not as they believe it to be true, they agree with the mainstream science. Rather, they long for the cataclysm to occur. This is not in the main as they want to see billions die. They are chiefly motivated by hate for progressive achievements, which they correctly see as largely irreversible as long as our current civilisation endures. They want to return to a world where CIS hetro males can dominate everyone else. They tire of acting out their fantasies on their private islands. They wish to see their vision writ large across the face of the planet. Hence they desire to wipe the slate clean, by bringing about the catastrophic collapse of our civilisation. The fact this will cause billions of deaths is just an incidental detail to them. They'll be alright Jack, with their decades of supplies on their private Islands and prepper silos.

All this said, I'm grateful there's been no doubling down on any arguments against the good secretary general. And that youre happy with things like the Mann source being included. For this reason I'm going to take a break from the topic of Civilisational collapse for at least a year, so you won't have further argument from me. TBH, I'm not sure myself where to draw the balance between discrediting doomerism while giving due weight to the more credible warnings. FWIW, IMO there is a reasonable chance of civiliation surviving & even recovering from 4°C warming, it depends on how AI & climate engineering options play out - sadly I'm not aware of any WP:RS discssing this.. Anyways, considering the importance of this topic, I hope plenty of time will be taken to reach a solid consensus with veteran editors like RCraig & Blueraspberry. FeydHuxtable (talk) 22:56, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for another detailed comment. I'll certainly be taking it into account the next time I get around to properly modifying the new article.

For now, I would just like to note that Mann's views appear to be more complex (or perhaps inconsistent, depending on one's perspective) than what you seem to describe. I don't think the argument "Mann was a "climate optimist in 2021, but became a "climate realist" after seeing 2022/2023" necessarily holds: after all, the sub-section of effects of climate change devoted to this subject cites this LiveScience article from August 2021 where Mann already says practically the same thing he did in the 2023 interview you found:

According to Mann, a global temperature increase of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) or more could lead to a collapse of our societal infrastructure and massive unrest and conflict, which, in turn, could lead to a future that resembles some Hollywood dystopian films.

Yet, that same article quotes Luke Kemp, who went on to become the lead author of "Climate endgame" in 2022 - the same "Climate endgame" which is given a prominent spot in both the old and the new article, and which Mann was undeniably quite scathing about. It seems that Mann's views alone may require a more in-depth look in the article. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 14:09, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

This has been a fascinating exchange of arguments and facts, thank you very much to FeydHuxtable and I2K, I learned a lot by following your conversation!! A wonderful example of collaborative editing on Wikipedia. I wonder how it will all look when we come back to this 5 years from now... EMsmile (talk) 20:07, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Reach agreement on the hatnote?

My plan was to not edit the article for a few days (I agree with the request to "slow down") but just now I went back in to modify the hatnote (sorry). I think it would be useful if we could reach agreement on the hatnote because it essentially defines the scope of the article. I am now suggesting this as a hatnote: This article is about the term or expression, "Climate apocalypse". For substantive discussion of how climate change could lead to civilizational collapse, see Climate change and civilizational collapse. For use of this, or similar terms, in the media, see Media coverage of climate change. (compare with a similar hatenote at climate crisis). Thoughts? EMsmile (talk) 21:51, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Probably 95% of this article is about a climate apocalypse itself, and not about the "term or expression". The lead and hatnote should reflect this fact. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:12, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

It was like that two weeks but is no longer the case (after having removed a lot of the outdated content that was in a section on "apocalyptic effects" which is now dealt with through excerpts from other articles), and neither should it be, in my opinion. The content about the climate apocalypse itself, i.e. the scientific discussion about it, is at Climate change and civilizational collapse. Hence the two articles need to be either merged completely, or this one should be refocused to be only about the term. Just like climate crisis is about the term not about the thing. Why should it be different for this term/topic? Are people expecting that we also set up separate Wikipedia articles for all the other terms like that get thrown around, like climate collapse, climate breakdown, climate armageddon. These terms are all in use nowadays, often in the media, for click-bait purposes... In my opinion, Climate change and civilizational collapse is the "proper term" for this thing. EMsmile (talk) 22:26, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I see the current redirects to this page include:

• Climate breakdown
• Climate Apocalypse
• Climate change apocalypse
• Apocalyptic climate change
• Climate collapse
• Existential risk from climate change
• Existential risk from global warming
• Climate endgame EMsmile (talk) 22:29, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Interestingly, the current redirects to climate crisis are (should the catastrophic terms not redirect to climate apocalypse rather?):

• Global climate crisis
• Catastrophic climate change
• Catastrophic global warming
• Climate catastrophe
• Covering Climate Now EMsmile (talk) 22:31, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

That all makes sense to me EMsmile. If your hatnote is accepted then I'd guess the merge might no longer be needed as all remaining material ITK objects to could be trimmned from this article. (Perhaps with some minor additions to reflect that some of the more alarming uses of the term is not supported by mainstream science.) But RCraig09 & especially article creator Blueraspberry should ideally agree before such a change is settled on, as it does seem quite a major re-purposing of the article. FeydHuxtable (talk) 22:37, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

— The /* Impacts */ and /* Predictions */ sections are solidly over half the article text—and are clearly not directed to the term. The /* Etymology... */ section and, to a lesser extent, the /* Narratives... */ section, are arguably directed to the term, but they're relatively small sections that are somewhat rambling and WP:SYNthetic mini-essays. Transcluding from Climate crisis—which is a qualitatively distinct term from Apocalypse as traditionally defined—does not give valid weight to discussion about the term Climate Apocalypse; without context, the transclusion is misleading fluff. Redirects are a red herring.

— If an entire article is to be directed to a term such as Climate Apocalypse, it should probably be more generically or functionally named, along the lines of "Terms describing the end of human civilization brought about by contemporary climate change". The path to, and characteristics of, the apocalypse would excluded from such a "Terms..." article, except possibly in a section like the /* Scientific basis */ section in Climate crisis (a section I think is already too long). I say generically/functionally because there does not seem to be a single, unique, widely-accepted-by-reliable-sources term for the Climate Apocalypse concept (many are emotional hyperbole), in the same way that Climate crisis and Climate emergency (declaration) have become widely used by reliable sources.

— The hatnote issue is the tail wagging the dog. The raison d'être for this entire article should be clear in everyone's mind before proceeding. Since the concept is conjectural at this point in history, I don't see much value in pursuing it in an encyclopedia article, except possibly to apply references that compare the term(s) to reality. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:29, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I am fully in agreement with this, and have nothing to add. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:54, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Cull down the section "Impacts of climate change in connection with apocalyptic scenarios"?

My suggestion is to cull down the section "Impacts of climate change in connection with apocalyptic scenarios" by removing all the excerpts and stopping below the bullet point list, so it would just be a quick overview of possible impacts/issues and would point readers to the relevant sub-articles for more info. Are people in agreement with this? (I see this as a small incremental improvement for the readers while we figure out and agree on the overall scope, as per the discussion above) EMsmile (talk) 07:32, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I mean, I think most of us agree on the scope already (i.e. "I don't see much value in pursuing it in an encyclopedia article" immediately above this post), and we are seemingly waiting on further input from the one or two users who disagree. They would probably object to culling this section as well, so I'm not sure if it makes sense to do this before they had the chance to offer their input. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 13:02, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Way forward

Do I sense agreement forming, subject to pending inputs by User:Bluerasberry, which would be: The main new topic will be climate change and civilizational collapse. The current climate apocalypse article will be re-focused to be just about the term (along the lines of the current hatnote). But after that, I see three options:

Option 1: The current article would be renamed to climate apocalypse (term) or perhaps Terms describing the end of human civilization brought about by contemporary climate change (as per suggestion by RCraig09); perhaps too long, shorter version could be Terms for complete break-down due to climate change. But perhaps that is not logical, given that climate crisis is just called that and not terms describing the current struggle with effects of climate change (?) And we don't often have "terms" in the title of a Wikipedia article, right?

Option 2: Another option would be to simply redirect climate apocalypse to climate change and civilizational collapse (after finding homes for remaining content that is worth keeping). This is similar to how the original merger was carried out, except that we kept/moved some good paragraphs now.

Option 3: And the third option: A short article about climate apocalypse remains in the end which looks similar to the one on climate action, namely:

Climate apocalypse (and similar terms) is a term used in popular media and some academic studies. The content that it entails, or the reasons for using it, are explained here (note: could add an explanatory sentence for each):

• Climate change and civilizational collapse
• Media coverage of climate change
• Extinction risk from climate change
• Climate change scenarios
• Collapsology

Are these the three options on the table and who prefers which one? I think I am leaning towards Option 2 or 3, with a slight preference for Option 3. EMsmile (talk) 20:33, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4, as option 2 with the targets reversed. Delete all text at "climate apocalypse", copy all of climate change and civilizational collapse to here. Readers get the good content, and we keep the structure in place of the high traffic coming here. Bluerasberry (talk) 21:20, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

You are saying the final, merged, article should be called climate apocalypse? Why? The traffic argument I don't understand because if climate apocalypse was simply redirected to climate change and civilizational collapse then the traffic/pageviews would remain the same, as would all internal wikilinks. By the way, the pageviews are not particularly high, currently about 150 pageviews per day. Those of climate change and civilizational collapse are lower of course but the article is basically brand new and does not have many wikilinks pointing to it yet. EMsmile (talk) 21:39, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Climate apocalypse (and similar terms) is a term used in popular media and some academic studies. The content that it entails, or the reasons for using it, are explained here (note: could add an explanatory sentence for each):

• Climate change and civilizational collapse
• Media coverage of climate change
• Extinction risk from climate change
• Climate change scenarios
• Collapsology

Are these the three options on the table and who prefers which one? I think I am leaning towards Option 2 or 3, with a slight preference for Option 3. EMsmile (talk) 20:33, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4, as option 2 with the targets reversed. Delete all text at "climate apocalypse", copy all of climate change and civilizational collapse to here. Readers get the good content, and we keep the structure in place of the high traffic coming here. Bluerasberry (talk) 21:20, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

You are saying the final, merged, article should be called climate apocalypse? Why? The traffic argument I don't understand because if climate apocalypse was simply redirected to climate change and civilizational collapse then the traffic/pageviews would remain the same, as would all internal wikilinks. By the way, the pageviews are not particularly high, currently about 150 pageviews per day. Those of climate change and civilizational collapse are lower of course but the article is basically brand new and does not have many wikilinks pointing to it yet. EMsmile (talk) 21:39, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

• Since there is apparently no single best term for this ~doomsday etc. concept, if you want a "term"-related article, the best one could hope for is Option 1, with Terms describing the end of human civilization caused by contemporary climate change, which would include a reliably sourced list of similar terms and the notable person or organization who used them, and a /* Critiques */ section including discussion of how such terms relate to climate alarmism. Dispose of >90% of current content as it's not focused on the term! (We shouldn't use Climate apocalypse in the title, as it does not stand above all other characterizations in the same way that Climate crisis is used widely by reliable sources.) Option 2 could provide a good place for the term-related content—if there weren't enough content to form an article here. I strongly oppose Option 3 as it's merely a disjointed list of vaguely related concepts that's more appropriate for a /* See also */ section, but not as the main focus of an article. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:58, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Are you really suggesting a long article title such as this?: Terms describing the end of human civilization caused by contemporary climate change. I can't imagine this fitting in with Wikipedia article title policy.

Either way, I think we can in the meantime continue with removing content from this article that is not about the term but about the thing. There seems to be consensus on that. EMsmile (talk) 08:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Can't we simply add the material which deals with term to the existing page dedicated to all terms - that is, to Glossary of climate change? Granted, that page needs quite a lot of updating as well, but then we can have a description similar to the one that page currently has for runaway greenhouse effect:A somewhat ill-defined term associated with the idea of large irreversible temperature rises. Something like "An ill-defined term used either to express concern about the extreme consequences of climate change, or to ironically mock those concerns when expressing opposition to climate change mitigation."

At that point, we would obviously go ahead with option 2, and "climate apocalypse" link in the glossary would redirect to climate change and civilizational collapse. It seems like Bluerasberry has no opposition to the content of the new article either, and since pageviews would remain the same after the merge, it appears that there is no longer any ground for substantive opposition to the merge. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 08:41, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

So I've done another quick round of moving things around. What is remaining now on the page could in my opinion remain here. I would even be OK with leaving the article title as it is. Or making it climate apocalypse (term). What we do need to do is to examine the incoming links and probably change most of them to point to climate change and civilizational collapse. Once we have done this, the traffic to climate change and civilizational collapse will likely rise over time and the traffic to climate apocalypse will go down.

One thing that I do find interesting here is whether the usage of the term climate apocalypse is useful to trigger climate action amongst the general public or is rather a deterrent. I've called that section now "Usage of the term versus climate action". EMsmile (talk) 08:54, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, User:InformationToKnowledge, I wrote my last comment in parallel to you writing yours. But I think my proposal is better? (I've never paid attention to Glossary of climate change in the past.) EMsmile (talk) 08:56, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

You have certainly placed a lot of effort into cleaning up this article! I agree that it now actually looks usable as is, without further renaming or the like. However, I don't know if RCraig09 would be fine with the current structure and the way it excerpts climate crisis. There are also still several fundamental hurdles.

1) We are still yet to ascertain if it can actually pass WP:NEO. If it can't, any further discussion about keeping this article in any form is moot.

2) Some of the remaining writing still has only a dubious connection with the references. I.e. please compare references 1,2 and 3 with the sentence in the lead which cites them. And please, check all of the references cited in the section you have now renamed "Usage of the term versus climate action" and compare them to that section's text. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 09:32, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I've addressed some of your concerns by moving things out of the lead, or deleting them. However, I think we should think about this article as being about the term plus similar terms. I've adjusted the lead and the hatnote accordingly. From that perspective, it doesn't matter if the cited ref does say exactly "climate apocalypse" or not, as long as it uses a similar term such as collapse, break-down, catastrophe etc. Right? From that perspective, I think your concern regarding WP:NEO is addressed. EMsmile (talk) 14:47, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

The most interesting section now (which could be improved in future) is this one "Impacts of using this term (or similar terms)". Or, I guess one could argue that this should be, or is already, covered at media coverage of climate change? There is this section there: Media coverage of climate change#Alarmism EMsmile (talk) 14:49, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Again: There is still much in this article that does not pertain to the term per se. Again: in the absence of one single term that describes this extreme scenario, the title of a term-specific article should not involve a single term like "climate apocalypse"; my proposed title's length relates to a WP:TITLE formal matter and not to the substance. Again: to excerpt from Climate crisis is misleading fluff, since climate crisis and climate apocalypse are qualitatively different concepts, not equivalent. New: the /* In fiction */ section has zero (0) references. If you were to start a proper term-related article from scratch, it would probably be 10-15% as long as what we see now. Right now, it is grossly off-subject and radically disjointed. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:45, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I am finding your repeated use of the word "again" quite condescending. Sorry if we are not all as smart as you are and haven't grasped Wikipedia writing as well as you have. We are all just trying to do our best. It doesn't make for a good atmosphere to be belittled like that. Yes, it's all very tiring but that's just sometimes how it works out! I've made some of the changes you have requested and shrunk it down further. Again, I personally think the title climate apocalypse could stay, but I don't mind if someone else wants to make a case for changing it. With regards to the lack of refs in the "in fiction" section, yes that is a flaw. There is actually similar content at climate fiction so I have copied some examples that talk about a climate catastrophe/apocalypse across. I think it's useful but if someone thinks the whole section should go (or be replaced with an excerpt from climate fiction, go ahead.

I think I'll take a break from this article now. Happy for someone else to continue! EMsmile (talk) 20:11, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I used the word "again" because I was repeating something I had already written, or even earlier repeated, apparently making negligible impression. It has nothing to do with "smart" or "writing". —RCraig09 (talk) 20:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I think I am going to remove the merger tags for now as I think the two articles are now OK to co-exist side by side (one for the content, one for the usage of this, or similar, terms). If someone wants to start / spear-head a discussion on changing the title of climate apocalypse to something else, please go ahead. @User:Bluerasberry what are remaining to-dos from your perspective? I had replied to you above on 20 October explaining why I disagree with the proposal that "the final, merged, article should be called climate apocalypse". And I've just corrected some of the incoming wikilinks as well so that most of them now point to climate change and civilizational collapse rather than to climate apocalypse. EMsmile (talk) 08:24, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Removed content from the "predictions" section

I've removed this textblock based on the comment by User I2K above who had said: "all the references are obscure think tanks, rather than fully reliable sources. This sentence - "Although runaway climate change may be triggered at 2°C or even lower" - contradicts the scientific consensus at runaway greenhouse effect."

++++++++

Point of collapse: Even in mid-range scenarios of around 3°C above pre-industrial levels, extreme weather events, large-scale loss of agricultural land and freshwater sources, and collapsing ecosystems could lead to widespread suffering and instability and over a billion people who currently live in major coastal cities would need to be relocated due to sea-level rise. One report published by the Global Challenges Foundation wrote that the potential destruction of high-end scenarios are beyond their capacity to model, but that there is a high likelihood of human civilization coming to an end. The report states that we are currently in a position where we can reduce the risk of civilization collapse due to climate change, and possibly avoid it.

Although runaway climate change may be triggered at 2°C or even lower, societal collapse in different regions may not happen until later, although there is no consensus as to when this may happen. Some scientists and institutions such as the World Bank have argued that it is uncertain whether adaptation to a 4°C world is possible, and that such an increase in temperature is incompatible with an organised global community. EMsmile (talk) 08:49, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 08:49, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

2nd Merger proposal into climate change and civilizational collapse

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I propose this merge because the title "Climate change and civilizational collapse" is a much more accurate description of what we are talking about in these articles. The previous merge discussion was too long for me to read because there was a load more discussion after it was formally closed. Please could everyone state their arguments succinctly here thanks. Chidgk1 (talk) 17:48, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

A summary of my argument: I think a merger is no longer necessary as I think the two articles are now OK to co-exist side by side (one for the content, one for the usage of this, or similar, terms). EMsmile (talk) 09:53, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Copied below the argument that was put forward by Bluerasberry on 28 Oct: EMsmile (talk) 09:29, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Let's look at reader engagement metrics "Climate apocalypse" is more popular than both "climate crisis" and "climate change and civilizational collapse" together. It would be reasonable to merge all three under the name "climate apocalypse", if we establish that they all have the same content scope. I want to sync with you on traffic and audience expectations, because I believe "climate apocalypse" is in a unique high traffic position, and you see something else, so here are reports:

I already shared this, but again, see the Pageviews Analysis comparing apocalypse, crisis, and civ collapse. Crisis and apocalypse are both quite popular, probably top 15% of Wikipedia; civ collapse is not on the chart now. I think it is a safe interpretation of these reports to say that apocalypse is well connected to doom-related articles, and civ collapse has no evidence of being findable.

Check the Wikinav reports for

• climate apocalypse
• climate crisis
• climate change and civilizational collapse - no data, too new

Here is my interpretation of the wikinav reports:

1. The new "civ collapse" article is new and has no data. In general, articles with intersectional titles (climate change AND civ collapse) are necessarily an addendum to some other article, and almost never high traffic.
2. "Climate crisis" and "Climate apocalypse" are nearly the same scope and could be merged. We could also keep them separate.
3. If we did a merge, the center of attention is "climate apocalypse", so that is the title to keep. Its content could be replaced, but that is the title to keep. Here is the data
4. apocalypse has significantly more incoming traffic than crisis
5. apocalypse gets more off-wiki traffic. Off wiki, it is the better name
6. If you check the wiki links, there is a trend that people looking at "end of the world" topics come to apocalypse, and they leave "apocalypse" to go to other end of the world topics
7. The wikilinks for crisis are mostly people coming from and going to general info about climate change, although the next top destination is "climate apocalypse"
8. people navigate from crisis to apocalypse, but not from apocalypse to crisis. My takeaway is that this audience for both of these articles want to access the most extreme positions, and are not coming here for non-extreme general climate info.

Finally Page Stats

• crisis
• apocalypse

I see this -

1. Crisis has 112 editors in the last 15 years. Apocalypse had 98 editors in the last 4. Apocalypse attracts more editors.
2. Crisis has 628 edits, again over 15 years. Apocalypse has 548 edits. Apocalypse is getting more engagement.

My interpretation of all of this is that if there is to be a merge, then merging into "climate apocalypse" is the first choice because that is where readers and editors are engaging most. In general, redirects do not also carry over external traffic, and the readers are accessing this content through Google, and through search for apocalyptic terms.

I do not expect anyone's agreement with all of my conclusions, but at least, I would like people to recognize that the apocalypse article is at least on par with the crisis article by the tools we have to measure. Thoughts? Bluerasberry (talk) 18:49, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi Bluerasberry, thanks for your detailed analysis. I think, though, that you put too much emphasis on pageviews. This is flawed in my opinion for two reasons: the article on civilizational collapse is so new that it hasn't had time to amass many page views. Also, the article had hardly any incoming wikilinks until recently. I changed that last week so I think this will make it become more visible and will make the "climate apocalypse" article less visible over time. Overall, I am just not sure if pageviews is the number 1 criterion to use here. (even the main article on climate change is not getting as many pageviews as one would expect and the general trend for many Wikipedia articles is a gradual decline; reasons for this have been discussed elsewhere, e.g. Google results in info boxes that take content from Wikipedia but don't lead to a click through).

I do agree with this concern of yours "In general, articles with intersectional titles (climate change AND civ collapse) are necessarily an addendum to some other article, and almost never high traffic." I've also noticed in the past that those "and" articles have low pageviews. Perhaps we can think of a better title for this article? Maybe Civilizational collapse from climate change? This marks is clear as a sub-article to climate change.

Regarding climate crisis and climate apocalypse, the do seem somewhat distinct concepts (as RCraig09 has argued on many occasions), although I know that I2K has tried to convince RCraig09 otherwise in the past. I can see both sides of the argument and have no strong views myself; I could live with either solution. If they were merged then a term that covers both would have to be found. This could be "climate emergency" which is perhaps a bit stronger than "climate crisis" but less strong than "climate apocalypse". But there is no way this proposal would get approval by RCraig09, I can tell you that. :-) EMsmile (talk) 09:52, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

I would like to note that Bluerasberry's pageviews-based analysis is flawed even on its own merits, because that first comparison link omits all data from the past two weeks. Once that is taken into account, you'll see that the "apocalypse" and "civilizational collapse" articles have already drawn nearly level with each other, and it is now the "crisis" article which is in the lead. This alone contradicts many of the subsequent arguments - as well as EMsmile's suggestion that "Climate change and civilizational collapse" would inherently result in low views. Already, it has reached the level of pageviews comparable to effects of climate change on the water cycle and effects of climate change on oceans (and greater than collapsology, for that matter) in spite of existing for less than a month.

However, it's important to realize that we are all working on an encyclopedia, so all of the above is a bit of a sideshow. There's a term for making decisions about how to present information primarily on the basis of pageviews. Of course, that term is clickbait. Entirely disregarding very real concerns about the accuracy and appropriateness of a title, such as WP:NEO, on the basis that it currently seems to attract more attention than the alternatives, does not seem to be the kind of decision our readers would want or expect an encyclopedia to make. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:15, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Hey, I am ready to talk through Pageviews anytime, especially by voice or video. If it would help I can demo with screenshare on video but I need a couple of weeks because I am organizing parts of https://wikiconference.org/wiki/2023/Main_Page

Pageviews do matter a lot to me. There is good content all over the Internet, but Wikipedia is special to me because it actually is super popular. We are way more popular than IPCC (the most trusted global source), for example.

I am not particular about what content remains at "climate apocalypse", but because it passes WP:N and because it is a popular topic by pageviews and the other quantitative metrics shown, I would like the article to remain in some form. I would agree to any narrowing or restriction of scope, including complete rewrite. I would be convinced of the need to get rid of it entirely if it failed WP:AFD, which I think is unlikely, or if longer term Pageviews Analysis demonstrated that the family of new related articles to which pieces of apocalypse were just merged began to surpass traffic and popularity of apocalypse.

I agree that "climate apocalypse" is WP:NEO but so are all these other climate change concepts. Wikipedia's compilation of this content is quite different from any expert organization's preparation of this. The bar for inclusion as I see it in Wikipedia is passing WP:N, having enough content to justify a stand alone article, having original content which would sooner be deleted than migrated to other articles, and having enough traffic to demonstrate comparable popularity to similar articles. Apocalypse is there, and there is also room for the other related concepts. Bluerasberry (talk) 23:33, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Copied from above as per request by Chidgk1 who said we should repeat the main points here: EMsmile (talk) 09:32, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Why, though? I am still in favour of a merge - a merge that nearly all of us voted for, after all. In fact, I wonder what the opinions of those of us who voted three weeks ago, but didn't take part in the subsequent discussions would be.

I just don't understand why there's a pressing need to have two separate articles about terminology. If anything, the other article is still compact enough that the worthwhile elements of this article can just be merged to subsection and it would remain of a reasonable size. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:10, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Brought down to its bare bones, there is relatively little to say about the term climate apocalypse itself. It could, and probably should, be subsumed under sections in other articles (example: Media_coverage_of_climate_change#Alarmism). It's especially misleading to give climate apocalypse its own article and describe it substantively while adding digressions to broader concepts—when climate apocalypse is still an extreme hypothesis. If this separate article about the term remains, its title should be broadened to cover what's actually in this article; or, conversely, the content here should be radically deleted to fit its present title. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:51, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

I would also be fine with the suggestions put forth here above by I2K and RCraig09. Overall, I don't really mind one way or another. But I am totally against making "climate apocalypse" the main article, i.e. also for content. In my opinion, it could remain as a tiny article about the term, but I would also be fine if it was subsumed (redirected) to e.g. Media_coverage_of_climate_change#Alarmism. So I disagree with the proposal by BlueRasberry. There is no scientific evidence that climate change is leading to civilizational collapse within the foreseeable future. A different title than climate change and civilizational collapse might be useful, e.g. civilizational collapse from climate change. EMsmile (talk) 10:02, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, if nearly all of us agree that this should be merged either into climate change and civilizational collapse or into media coverage of climate change, who intends to actually go through with either of those options, and when?

I also think that "civilizational collapse from climate change" would be a good alternate title to use as a redirect, but I am not sure if it makes for a good primary title. The only other example of such a title I can think of is extinction risk from climate change, and that page is hardly topping the pageview charts itself. (Not to mention being in a different situation in the first place, since it adopts an actual title of a peer-reviewed study.) If we are to get into subtler differences, that option reads less descriptive and more predictive than the other title, which is probably not what we should be going for. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:38, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Regarding "Well, if nearly all of us agree that this should be merged either into ..." the issue here is that we have to consider WP:NOVOTE, and also because User:BlueRasberry has such a high standing as a knowledgeable Wikipedia editor with 55 thousand edits, it would be preferable to find consensus with him rather than overrule him. That's also what User:FeydHuxtable was getting at and which is why they stepped in. Hmmmmm.... EMsmile (talk) 22:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi User:Chidgk1, you had asked for a summary of the discussion so far which was provided. So, where do we stand with everything now? To merge or not to merge? Leave the climate apocalypse in its current state, or give it a new title? We seem to be "stuck" again, or still. (thank you to everyone who has provided arguments above; I tend to agree with InformationToKnowledge's opinion) EMsmile (talk) 10:18, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I am still frequently wrong for sure - no rank with me. Some compromises which I could offer are send to WP:AFD for total elimination, any change of content / scope / narrowing to the existing content so as not to be overly broad (like restricting it to case uses of explicit terms like apocalypse or end of the world), or being really clear in the lead about the distinctions between apocalype, civ collapse, eco collapse, etc so that readers can find the particular extreme scenario that they want. Bluerasberry (talk) 23:33, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

I have requested a close at Wikipedia:Closure_requests#Talk:Climate_apocalypse#2nd_Merger_proposal_into_climate_change_and_civilizational_collapse. I will merge or not merge depending on that Chidgk1 (talk) 14:01, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

I think it will be rather difficult for an uninvolved editor to close this. They'll probably say "no consensus" because Bluerasberry is arguing so strongly against a merge. Really, amongst the people from WikiProject Climate Change we should be able to find consensus. Perhaps we should follow the suggestion of Bluerasberry and take it to WP:AFD? EMsmile (talk) 12:10, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

It's certainly taking a while: even the request appears to be idle for nearly three weeks. I noticed you pinged some editors who do not really participate much in the WikiProject for Talk:Global warming controversy. Do you think they could be helpful here as well? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:12, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, some additional pings might help although I have no specific suggestion whom to try. It's sometimes surprising who shows up "out of nowhere". I'd say the more the merrier and some fresh eyes and brain cells might help to resolve this deadlock. EMsmile (talk) 11:21, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, we are now about 10 days away from the end of this year. With no action at CR for over a month, do you think it might be more helpful to use the WP:DRN process for any chance of resolving this before 2024? It seems like they respond fairly quickly over there, but the downside is that it seems like every involved editor needs to make a statement, and I'm not sure how long that would take for Bluerasberry considering his somewhat sporadic engagement on this talk page.

Pinging @Chidgk1 as the one who had originally brought up the Closure request as well. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 15:43, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I am too busy making mince pies to do or think anything about this sorry Chidgk1 (talk) 05:08, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

No objection if you or anyone else wants to do anything Chidgk1 (talk) 06:18, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I am not sure about WP:DRN, I've never used that. Perhaps a reminder on that page where Chidgk1 asked for a closure would be good? Overall, I am not too fussed though: for me the page climate apocalypse could stay as it is now because it's now clearly only about the term, not about the concept. It's early days with the pageviews but you can see a drop in the pageviews for climate apocalypse now which is good & expected, see here. - So personally, I don't think a merger is necessary but I wouldn't vehemently oppose it either. EMsmile (talk) 23:35, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Relationship with article on collapsology

By the way, should we pay a bit more attention to the article on Collapsology? Is it a suitable parent article? EMsmile (talk) 10:02, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that should be considered a parent article. It seems to me more like societal collapse is the parent and both "collapsology" and "climate change and civilizational collapse" are its children. Collapsology in particular seems to refer to a self-given name used by a relatively small group of academics - one which does not seem to include a fair number of the people cited on the civilizational collapse article. I.e. Michael Mann would definitely disagree vehemently with such a moniker or getting included in an article named as such. The "climate endgame" researchers may well agree with getting called "collapsologists", but I doubt we can make that decision without seeing themselves or someone else state it in WP:RS.

Having said that, it's true that we should ultimately pay more attention to that article - simply because it appears to have many of the same issues with notability, reliability (whole paragraphs unreferenced or with the most dubious references) and scope which had consistently plagued the current article. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:27, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Cleanup

Okay, merge or not, I am reading this article and some of this stuff isn't too great. Here is an example of what I mean:

Political conversations about climate apocalypse (or similar terms) tend to describe how preventing it in the future would bring zero value for today, therefore the value of doing something today is zero.

Like, what? "Conversations tend to describe"? I can't even tell who this is supposed to be attributed to. Are we, the encyclopedia, saying that the value of doing something today is zero? Or are we saying that "conversations" are saying that? Whose conversations? This is cited to a primary source so it's somewhat sus to me that we should even be saying that (just repeating their claims?). jp×g🗯️ 11:02, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. I've boldly removed that paragraph as it doesn't fit the new scope of this article which is about the term and its usage, not about speculative content about what humanity is doing or not doing and why not. EMsmile (talk) 14:30, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@JPxG I am not sure how closely you have looked at this talk page and article's history, but the article used to have far, far more issues of this kind only a few months earlier. Now, there is an ongoing, still-unresolved discussion a few posts up as to whether this article should be kept more-or-less as is, and be very narrowly focused on how this phrase is used in language, or if there are not enough reliable sources to support even that scope, and it should simply be merged to one of the better articles on the subject. I doubt it's possible to discuss this article's "cleanup" without acknowledging this reality first. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 14:31, 29 December 2023 (UTC)