Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Climate engineering

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

The result was keep. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:00, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Climate engineering

Climate engineering (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Term has no proper modern definition so the article is too confusing and contradicts Carbon dioxide removal. Content should be split between Solar geoengineering and Carbon dioxide removal. "Climate engineering" should redirect to Solar geoengineering. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:16, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Environment-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 15:27, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 15:28, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Engineering-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 15:29, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Climate engineering has a clear definition as given in the first sentence of the article: the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth's climate system. While the source for that is from 2009, it is still in current use.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} Climate engineering/geoengineering is a far wider field than just solar geoengineering. Any contradiction can be handled by normal discussion and editing, not deletion. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:54, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

StarryGrandma Can you expand on your claim that "Climate engineering/geoengineering is a far wider field than just solar geoengineering" - what else please? Thanks for finding all those refs and the term may well have had a meaning in the past, but I should have explained that what I meant by "modern" is the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. The first part of that was published early this year and "Climate engineering" is not defined in the glossary. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:06, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Chidgk1, are you saying that since the IPCC Report didn't use the words "climate engineering" that the field has ceased to exist and the article should be removed? Wikipedia also has articles about things that used to exist. However, take a look at the program here of the Climate Engineering in Context conference held in October 2021. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:17, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

StarryGrandma As the concensus here is to keep this discussion can be closed I think. Thanks for that recent link - so their definition at https://www.ce-conference.org/what-climate-engineering includes CDR. So as SailingInABathTub implies I guess we will have to tell the readers early on in the article that some definitions incude CDR and some don't. And we will have to make clear as best we can which arguments for or against "Climate engineering" include CDR and which don't. Perhaps this can best be done by putting the arguments which don't include CDR only in the "solar geoengineering" article. Unfortunately it is going to be difficult to disentangle the arguments I suspect. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:31, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, independently notable of its subtypes and clearly passes WP:GNG based on the sources in the article. Any confusion within the article can be resolved through editing. SailingInABathTub (talk) 22:57, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep but...I suggest a few changes to reflect the decline in the term's use: (1) shorten the article to include only content that applies to both solar geoengineering and large-scale carbon dioxide removal (i.e. politics and ethics would be removed, maybe more); (2) rename it to "Geoengineering (climate)", as that is now much more common than "climate engineering," and have the latter redirect to the formerand (3) phrase the opening sentence to something like "Geoengineering (or climate engineering) is the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth's climate system, sometimes referring collectively to solar geoengineering and large-scale carbon dioxide removal." TERSEYES (talk) 14:55, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Even if the term is no longer in use (which is not the case), there is plenty of material (much of it already in the article) on which an article describing its historical use could be based. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:35, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect or rewrite I agree with Chidgk1 that many of the highest-quality sources on climate change have stopped using the term. Not only have they stopped using it, they've commented that grouping carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management into one concept makes no sense whatsoever, as I explained in my comments at the Climate change FAR The current article fails NPOV by promoting the point of view that large-scale CDR and solar radiation management are types of the same thing and have similar risks, whereas the majority point of view among scientists is that these are different things with very different risks. We would be better off deleting this article than having the current one. The best outcome would be to rewrite the article to center the majority scientific point of view and to contrast it with uses of the term that perpetuate popular misconceptions. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:16, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any WP:RS for this? SailingInABathTub (talk) 09:16, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The NASEM consensus report says, "methods that create or enhance carbon sinks are best considered as part of the toolkit for net CO2 emissions reductions, although they are sometimes misleadingly classified with solar radiation management as “geo-engineering."^[1] The IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C glossary says, "Because of this separation [between two meanings of the term], the term ‘geoengineering’ is not used in this report."[1] page 549 Chidgk1 (talk) 13:19, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

SailingInABathTub, there is also this 2021 source from the journal Global Policy, which concludes, "‘geoengineering’ or ‘climate engineering’ should be dropped in pertinent international fora in favor of separate consideration of SRM and CDR." Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:56, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Acknowledging that the previous definitions of the term are currently considered confusing by the IPCC, and that this fact should be prominent in the article. There are still climate engineering conferences,[2], papers,[3] reliable newspaper articles,[4] and books[5] being published that retain the older definitions - despite them being considered confusing by the IPCC. So in order to maintain a WP:NPOV we need to still cover how these sources define climate engineering and geoengineering in this article. SailingInABathTub (talk) 10:11, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Where would a study like geoengineering the Indian Ocean be discussed? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:12, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Nowhere on Wikipedia until secondary sources cover the idea. When there are secondary sources on it, it could be covered, due weight permitting, under whatever umbrella concept the secondary sources put it in. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:27, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Switching to keep as the article was improved quite a bit on December 3. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:42, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: If the term "climate engineering" would redirect to solar geoengineering in future, then would we somehow briefly explain how the term is/was colloquially used? So far it says in the first sentence: "Solar geoengineering, or solar radiation modification (SRM) is a proposed type of climate engineering in which etc." EMsmile (talk) 13:52, 4 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• keep as a super-subject of solar geoeng. For example, https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2021/12/new-report-assesses-the-feasibility-cost-and-potential-impacts-of-ocean-based-carbon-dioxide-removal-approaches-recommends-u-s-research-program William M. Connolley (talk) 15:23, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per above comments. Heartmusic678 (talk) 15:10, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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