Jump to content

Talk:July–August 2022 United States floods

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 64.25.27.224 (talk) at 18:31, 30 December 2022 (→August 12 Las Vegas flash floods: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

RfC about mentioning of climate change

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is overwhelming support in favor of including statements regarding how climate change makes floods like the subject of the article more likely. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Non nobis solum. 18:01, 11 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]


Some sources say climate change makes floods like these more likely. Should that information be included in this article? --LordPeterII (talk) 15:26, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose for now: I do not know what sources are being referred to, but since climate change is a controversial topic in today’s world, I would say we should only add information about it if it comes from an academic paper. I can probably guess some of these sources come from RS media meteorologists, however, anyone can get a meteorology or hydrology degree in 3-4 years and say “Climate change is real/not real” and people might/would believe them as they are degreed. Academic papers on the other hand come from people who spent time to research, collect data, and had it published in a peer reviewed journal. So, unless an academic paper says climate change is or is not responsible for these floods, we should not mention it. Elijahandskip (talk) 15:41, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Elijahandskip: I just wanted to say that your oppose vote is the only one I actually find convincing at this point. Not that I am swayed by it to change my vote; but it does actually read like you thought about the topic and question, and came to a conclusion that wasn't pre-formed by your worldview. Thank you for that; we need more people who can argue in this way, neutral and objective. --LordPeterII (talk) 16:43, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note to closer: Since the above opinion is unambiguously based on expressing climate change skepticism, which is well-established to be a WP:FRINGE perspective, it should be excluded when evaluating consensus, as should any that are essentially based on it. "Climate change may not be real" is a clear WP:PROFRINGE perspective and therefore not a policy-based argument. --Aquillion (talk) 18:51, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well someone is dumb. My exact quote was “…anyone can get a meteorology or hydrology degree in 3-4 years and say “Climate change is real/not real” and people might/would believe them as they are degreed so I really do not appreciate being taken out of context especially since I provided both sides. POV-push much to try to get a very well written reason out of consideration, even with another editor (who !voted the opposite of my view) even saying it made good logical sense. Elijahandskip (talk) 14:29, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, who is dumb? Is it you? You're claiming that there are two sides here, but I see no sources which indicate that there are. jps (talk) 16:47, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Academia is getting pretty clear on the flood modeling, so long as there's the papers and reliable reporting to back this up I don't see why we should exclude such context solely because people's personal/political beliefs disagree. Semen talks about sex, it's relevant information there and relevant here.
Basedeunie042 (talk) 18:48, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think the discussion won’t be whether to include or not, but whether we can include it right now or not. The floods were happening a month ago, so an academic paper talking about climate change related to the specific floods in this probably do not exist at the moment. I could be wrong on that though (so if someone has a link to a paper, please link it in the RfC). Your comment and my comment earlier seem to be close to the same that academic papers is needed for it. I can easily say it will be added in the future (probably 2-3 months from now), but a month (less than a month for the later floods) after the floods, I highly doubt any published papers exist on the topic. Elijahandskip (talk) 19:31, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There are published papers on floods (in general) being more likely w/Climate Change but there probably aren't any yet on these specific floodplains at this specific time. So probably the salient question is which is the minimum for this article.
Basedeunie042 (talk) 18:18, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Basedeunie042: I just wanted to say that I disagree: "Semen talks about sex, it's relevant information there and relevant here" – I think we don't need to include information about "sex" in this article about a flood. We need to include "climate change". --LordPeterII (talk) 16:10, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies, I didn't mean that literally! I'm more saying that relevant information should be displayed (pretty much) no matter what if it's pertinent. Climate change is (probably) pertinent here but most likely wouldn't be in the Semen article.
Basedeunie042 (talk) 18:16, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Basedeunie042: I know ^^ But I couldn't resist replying thus, since your post could be misread; 'twas only a joke :P --LordPeterII (talk) 20:12, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There's a source directly linking climate change to these floods? I haven't found anything besides news articles. If you or anyone else has sources, can someone link them here? Elijahandskip (talk) 02:31, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Let me clarify; I'm saying climate change has led to more disastrous floods in general and not just linking this specific flood to climate change. ChessEric (talk · contribs) 05:04, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@ChessEric: It is definitely not a proven fact. Only opinion and misleading statements. United States Man (talk) 02:58, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I must disagree with you. I've seen articles on this so I know it is not an opinion. ChessEric (talk · contribs) 05:02, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And I'm not aware of any guideline that requires an academic paper explicitly written about a specific event. There are more general papers, which link flood risks to climate change for the entire US (see e.g. this paper in Nature), just not specifically for this one flood in July–August 2022. But I'd argue that if all floods are thought to be made more likely by climate change, and we have several university professors (of related fields!) who connect it to this flood also, it does seem likely that the event discussed in this article is some "special case" where a fresh academic paper is required. I'm not even against including opposing views, but I frankly couldn't find any (if you find any, we need to add them, too!). Disallowing the inclusion of climate change as (one of several!) causes does not seem to follow any logic to me, it would just be withholding information because we deem that "all these experts get it wrong".
I'm also not trying to argue per WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but a large number of existing recent flood articles (that aren't stubs) include mentions of climate change, including 2022 Pakistan floods, 2021–2022 Malaysian floods and 2021 European floods. Thus, there doesn't seem to be consensus for withholding such (attributed) information. Ofc this RfC is about the article at hand; but I find it surprising that, as noticed by Blythwood, while all the recent California wildfires (2022, 2021, 2020) mention climate change, none of the US flood events do (although sources exist, too!). Given the multiple reliable sources above who discuss the summer 2022 US floods, plus the general "US floods linked to climate change" paper, I do not see why in this case, we should not add it. --LordPeterII (talk) 13:56, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: I just wanted to point out one of the people I stated above were "experts" is in fact J. Marshall Shepherd, former president of THE American Meteorological Society. If the president of that society is not considered an expert, then I'd like to know who is. Controversial topic or not, we don't censor. --LordPeterII (talk) 14:01, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not that I don't understand what you mean, it is a controversial topic, and we're not trying to tell the "truth" here (WP:NOTTRUTH is still a good essay); but could we not also include opposite views? Even Fox News reported that Biden linked it. In general, if something is controversial, we try to describe the controversy in a balanced way (WP:NPOV), we don't simply censor it away and pretend there's no controversy. We also rarely have events that don't include a sort of "reaction", "consequences" or "causes" section. @Markbassett would you really propose that events are treated as a completely uncommented timeline? "This happened, in that order, noone knows why, no one said anything about it, and we can't say if it had any long-term effect." (A little exaggerated, but I hope you get what I mean.) At least that's how I understand "a simple factual history of specific events organized by the date each occurred"; I might have misinterpreted it.
And I am really confused seeing this described as "off topic". How so? Which topic does it belong to then? Causes for the assassination of Caesar maybe? o.O --LordPeterII (talk) 16:34, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Would like to point out two things: One, Fox News is in the process of being deprecated in the realm of politics/science (RS Noticeboard RfC) and two, Biden is not a degreed meteorologist. I don’t think that article from Fox News provides anything to this conversation. The sources linked in your initial support !vote do provide discussion, but not that. Elijahandskip (talk) 16:39, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Another good point by you, Elijahandskip, can't really disagree with that. I just meant to use this example to illustrate that there might be opposing views on the matter, which we could also feature to balance it out. While I knew that Fox News was biased (but then almost any newspaper is), I didn't know it was being deprecated. Huh. Unfortunately, this is a bad example then (and yeah not sure why they only cited Biden, not some other expert. There surely must be those with opposing views). If someone could find such a news, from a source that's usable, please post it here. It would help the discussion, I think. --LordPeterII (talk) 16:51, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Fox News might not be deprecated. From the RFC it appears to be downgraded to generally unreliable, which is different from total deprecation (but then again, RFC closures have surprised me.) Please stop discussing what you think an RFC closed is, it borderline violates WP:CRYSTAL. 134.6.57.27 (talk) 17:58, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
User:LordPeterII - the article is "July–August 2022 United States floods" -- which is very narrow and specifically bound to the time July-August 2022 and the floods in the United States. I can see including the aftermath from those, but bringing in generic comments of wider topics (let alone politics and who to include seen above) just makes the advisory WP:OFFTOPIC seem correct where it says: "The most readable articles contain no irrelevant (nor only loosely relevant) information." Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:40, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Markbassett: I admit my reply was a bit snarky. I am trying to see it your way now, and it is a possibility, yes. However, I feel it is a worse article if left without context (climate change is just one of the possible causes, the most controversial one; there's also e.g. the topography which isn't mentioned, either, despite being a much more obvious and immediate reason). I do not see it as politics at all, citing senior professors in a number of different sources; but I guess since I don't live in the US, my judgement in that regard is more "international". --LordPeterII (talk) 12:00, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
User:LordPeterII - no worries. It seems just a transition to a topic other than the very specified one, for just a generic blurb. Coverage might have also gone into historical comparisons or preparedness issues or topology info that could be at least specific to the location, but even there it’s getting further from being about the specific flooding. People have a natural tendency to do (or mis-do) causation logic, be it correlation or recency effect or confirmation bias, but I think that adding generics has strayed too far. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:45, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral to weak oppose for now, strongly support when academic paper is released per Elijahandskip. Academic papers aren’t politicized, news sources can be. 134.6.57.27 (talk) 17:53, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, as we have no reliable studies to cite at this time that tie climate change to these particular floods. —ADavidB 18:27, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support (as the editor who originally added this material). We have very good sourcing concurring that experts believe that global warming is likely to have made the floods more likely or more damaging. We have sourcing from The Courier-Journal, one of the most prestigious news organizations based in Kentucky (this link), the Washington Post, ABC News and a variety of other sources that long term consensus agrees are reliable. We have on-the-record quotes to that effect from Janey Camp, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Vanderbilt University, Jonathan Overpeck, who is a professor of climate science at the University of Michigan, Marshall Shepherd, professor and director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia, Drew Shindell, professor of earth sciences at Duke University, Scott Denning, Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. To make sure there was no mistake, I looked up Twitter feeds of some of these academics where available to check if any felt they had been misquoted or misrepresented in the articles that quote them. None did. These news articles don't simply link everything blindly to climate change-for example the Courier-Journal article explicitly notes research that violent tornadoes don't seem to have been getting more frequent, whereas intense rainfall is getting more common.
    I'm sad that this has become an RfC. As I said further up in the talk thread, I have huge respect for United States Man, who has done a ton of work expanding this article, and I'd hoped that we could have worked out some text that we could have consensus on by discussion. But for me this comes down to the question of what our readers deserve from us-our readers deserve to have the right information they need to understand the world around them. If we leave information out of the article, that does them a disservice. Blythwood (talk) 11:53, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Blythwood, you just brought up a good point, but also I would like to point something out. It appears every single one of those sources are from a RS Media news article, that cite a quote from a professor/meteorologist. Based on that logic, any professor could also say the statement that “Climate change is not responsible for these floods”, and we would have to take them up on their word. No data/research/evidence is shown in those statements. In my “Oppose for now” !vote, I pointed out that no data/research/evidence is the main problem with adding anything about climate change at the present time. I don’t disagree that this topic will easily be acceptable for the article in the future, but at the present time, there is no evidence/data (aka an academic paper or organization which did the research and data) that directly links or directly disproves climate change as being a reason/not a reason for the floods. All we got are statements not backed by the data/evidence. Let’s wait until something about it is published in an academic paper (which normally takes a few months) then reassess the discussion. Elijahandskip (talk) 18:36, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I can see that line of argument...but here's the thing. We do not have sources from credible experts saying that climate change was not likely to have contributed to the flooding. We have specific information and links to research quoted, especially in the Courier-Journal, which cites specific data for increasing extreme rainfall, specific to Hazard, one of the worst-hit towns. If editors have specific concerns about the sources or experts I'm mentioning, we can discuss that on a case-by-case basis on the talk page. But when you have piles of sourcing agreeing that global warming did contribute to the floods, and as a counter...basically nothing, how is that an argument for leaving the expert consensus out? Blythwood (talk) 20:02, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support although there should be detail on how specific or not the academics are, and it should also be mentioned if a formal Extreme event attribution has not been done. That way future editors will be reminded to check and add more specific studies later. Or indeed amend later to say if it was found not to be due to global warming. Chidgk1 (talk) 18:10, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Chidgk1: Thank you for linking that article and bringing up this important point! I think such a formal attribution would indeed be neccessary if we wanted to state the climate change connection in WP:WIKIVOICE as a "fact". I believe that's not necessary simply for having attributed statements. Anyway, I think that a lack of formal attribution is what many of the "Oppose" votes are about, so it's good to know what the term is for that.
As I understand, that's also the reason why you changed your vote @ChessEric? You are right then about a lack of attribution in this case; but I'd like to point out this much conflicting opinions are not present here: We have only sources where experts claim it is related, and none (!) who say the opposite. I've actually been desperately searching for dissenting views; but couldn't find any. If you could find some, that'd unironically be great! We could have a more blanced section in the article. --LordPeterII (talk) 21:14, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@LordPeterII: If you found a source for this event great! I changed my vote because I wanted a source for this event in particular; if you found a source for this event, then I will definitely change my vote back to support. ChessEric (talk · contribs) 01:22, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@ChessEric: Ah, I think you misunderstood me: I meant to say that I had only found sources which do link this (event in particular) to climate change, but none who questions the link. In your new vote above, you said: They're appears to be a lot of conflicting opinions on this topic in general. Some say yes, others say no, and additional people say it is inconclusive. I meant to point out this is not the case. We simply don't have conflicting opinions in this case! If a source were to be found where someone disagrees, that would mean we could include it in the article, so as to better preserve NPOV. I would like that. But again: While there has been no formal attribution, also no one has disagreed and got published by a reliable source. –LordPickleII (talk) 08:35, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@LordPeterII: I think I misworded that then. I was looking for sources for this event. I personally believe that climate change is what's causing this increase in catastrophic flooding events. However, the sources I was looking at for THIS SPECIFIC EVENT conflicted with each other albeit it was between mostly news sources. Again, I just wanted a definite source to THIS SPECIFIC EVENT before I changed back to support. If you've found that source, I would be happy to change back to support because it would go along with my idea anyway. ChessEric (talk · contribs) 20:24, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@ChessEric: Hmm, okay but what news were you looking at then? I listed some in my vote post above, and all of these agree (on this event at least). Can you give a link to a newspaper article that doesn't? –LordPickleII (talk) 20:36, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It was just a bunch of random sources after a Google search to be totally honest. I didn't really have a lot of time to look through them, so I don't remember which ones they were. ChessEric (talk · contribs) 20:45, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support mentioning climate change. Mind the gap between "mentioning" and "claiming that it's absolutely proven to be the cause". Another way to understand my vote is "Oppose excluding any and all mention of climate change from this article". Multiple sources discuss possible causes of these floods, saying things like "Experts warn weather like extreme flooding and heat waves are some of the most immediate and noticeable impacts of climate change." This article should give a fair and comprehensive summary of all of the (non-tiny-minority) ideas that sources discuss, including climate change. It would be silly to exclude all mention of possible risk factors or causes, and it would be silly to mention all of them except climate change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support discussing this in some form, since the sourcing seems to be extensive and high-quality. Also, I strenuously disagree with the assertions above that climate change is controversial or exceptional - among high-quality sources (which is what we care about) it is completely uncontroversial. Arguing that we should downplay something because of lower-quality sources or what random readers might think is essentially a form of WP:FALSEBALANCE. I want to single out Elijahandskip's rationale in particular as being a low-quality argument to the point where it is flatly not grounded in policy, and strongly urge the closer to disregard it or any arguments that cite it on that basis - we are flatly not permitted to simply decide for ourselves, based on our gut feelings or whatever blogs we read, that something is "controversial." This is an extremely well-established principle, and it is extremely well-established that climate change skepticism is a WP:FRINGE perspective, so arguments, like Elijahandskip's, that are based on that perspective or which give it credence are not acceptable. EDIT: Since I feel that this RFC began with a !vote overtly arguing a WP:FRINGE perspective, I have placed a (neutrally-worded / bare-template) notification on WP:FRINGEN. --Aquillion (talk) 18:45, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My dude, I am legit not saying climate change ain't real. In fact, if you actually bothered to fully read my statements, I said, "I don’t disagree that this topic will easily be acceptable for the article in the future, but at the present time, there is no evidence/data...that directly links or directly disproves climate change as being a reason/not a reason for the floods. For one, do not take my words out of context and two I am legit shocked that you are accusing me of basing this "on our gut feelings or whatever blogs we read." If you can find a single, source that is not only an expert or experts quoted statements that directly says, through research/data that "climate change caused/attributed to these floods" or "climate change did not cause/attribute to these floods", then that can be mentioned. Right now, this would be the exact same as if I myself got a meteorology degree (I don't have one but in college for one right now) and said "Climate change caused these floods" or "climate change did not cause these floods", then that would be enough evidence for Wikipedia to cite as a source. That alone sounds super silly as I might/might not have done research that normally takes weeks to months to do, but you would not know or ever see that research and just have to take my word on it. Based on that logic, could Wikipedia not cite any former US President's statements for the Politics article, as one could easily say they would be an expert politician or even one of the most powerful politicians of that time. Obviously not, but the same logic is being applied here. My exact statement said to wait, not to never post. Elijahandskip (talk) 00:50, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Your statement was to "wait" on the basis of quotes like "climate change did not cause/attribute to these floods" which are quotes that are not at issue. Instead, you removed perfectly sourced quotes to experts at the height of reliability that were couched in exactly the way a reliable quote would be couched. "Wait" is not an appropriate response when reliably sourced material is being kept out of the article to support some sort of bizarre editorial philosophy. jps (talk) 01:11, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Elijahandskip: Seeing it explained in detail like this, I need to point out that your reasoning is flawed: We are explicitly allowed by policy to include attributed statements. We actually have several templates (e.g. Template:Attribution needed and Template:Who) that deal with cases where such attribution hasn't been done appropriately. Your counter-example is Politics, which is a general topic, and thus a more appropriate comparsion would be to Extreme weather, the overview article over all sorts of similar floods and events. The exact reasoning you applied for Politics applies there, and it would not be appropriate to merely have a statement by e.g. J. Marshall Shepherd there. But in the subsection, Extreme weather#Climate change, we have exactly these scientific studies that you want; they are required there. However, the same requirement does not follow if you compare a specific political event, something that is roughly comparable with July–August 2022 United States floods – let's say the Thaddeus McCotter 2012 presidential campaign: Here we don't have only scientific literature as in Politics, but many statements like e.g. this: President George W. Bush referred to him as "that rock and roll dude." This example might not be perfect, but I hope my point gets across: We don't need rigorous scientific studies to include statements in most articles. --LordPeterII (talk) 21:50, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject the premise of the RfC. I see plenty of reliable sources which mention the fact that climate change increases the severity of flooding (among other extreme weather events) in direct relation to many of the events described in this article. Some are quoted in the responses to this very RfC. Having a blanket prohibition against including such content is an absurd editorial approach. If someone includes well-sourced content that connects climate change to these events, there is no reason for us to exclude such content. That some people find the ongoing global disaster of climate change "controversial" is not a reason to exclude such content. Arguing that we need to wait for attribution studies to be published in academic journals is also absurd. Many of the sources are interviewing acknowledged experts on these subjects. As long as the content does not go beyond the sources that we have on the subject, Wikipedia is well within its remit to include such content. There is no need for a Request for Comment to handle this when the question is so broad as this. If this had been properly formatted, it would have been on a specific edit request, for example. jps (talk) 20:38, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Making note: This user later stated that “my side won”, which does show some WP:BIAS as they believe this is a majority vote instead of consensus and agreement between editors. I am not saying their !vote is invalid, but saying the editor who made the comment may not understand the point or idea of the RfC. EDIT: Based on the comment below attempting to discredit my reply, I do believe their response should be invalid as they (1) do not even agree this is about adding climate change to the article and (2) have been told by myself and another editor that their edits are being disruptive. Aka, this editor has a strong opinion bias that is preventing them from making an accurate decision for this RfC (which again, they do not even say is about climate change/global warming…their own admission). Elijahandskip (talk) 16:49, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Making note, above user was banned from politics pages for promoting anti-Biden propaganda. This is consistent, interestingly, with his WP:ADVOCACY in working to eliminate mention of climate change in this article. jps (talk) 16:57, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@ජපස: I'm sorry you disagree with the RfC, but I invite you to participate nevertheless. It was my initiative, as one of the proponents of an inclusion, in order to bring other people into a discussion that didn't resolve into consensus. I share your view that this is an obvious case for inclusion, and that waiting on a specific scientific paper is far too high a hurdle; but let's please keep this civil and get this RfC through. I would much rather have a clear consensus, potentially as a precedent, than an aborted RfC that involved into a WP:NPA discussion. Just vote "Strong Support" instead ;)
As a side note, @Elijahandskip your reply above is malformed. I am unsure what exactly you wanted to strike, so I'll leave repairing it to you.
--LordPeterII (talk) 20:08, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I do not blame you, LordPeterII, for the RfC or the way this happened, but I think what happened was that you were railroaded in an unfortunate fashion. Your edit should not have been reverted and there is no sense in drawing out this discussion. WP:AGF is not a suicide pact. Your approach is well-cited, obviously based in the best research Wikipedia would ask for, and represents the finest that we would ask for in editing. There was no need for a broad-based RfC like this, but it did not escape my notice that there is a group of editors here who seem intent on railroading a kind of approach that would exclude your work. We now have this group arguing that the RfC needs to remain open for 30 days even as I think it is obvious what needs to be done. What's the point of continuing in this fashion? The consensus is clear: statements that talk about climate change and global warming should not be excluded from the article. jps (talk) 20:55, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You are getting very argumentative and aggressively involved here randomly. Are you trying to accomplish some agenda? You seem to be very hostile toward myself and Elijahandskip over a seemingly minor disagreement on a Wikipedia issue. United States Man (talk) 21:41, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely have an agenda. It's one that opposes the somewhat unfortunate misperception that the effects of climate change are somehow "controversial" or "biased" or "political" to include in articles where we have sources that say such things are directly related to the subject of the article. That's my agenda. What I see from you are a number of claims that the sources being discussed are biased. That definitely raises alarm bells for me. jps (talk) 21:54, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If the topic isn't political, why is it a frequent point of contention in politics? The true agenda is that you show up to randomly push your side of the political agenda and any pushback from anyone already here was met with edit warring and argument from you. As this is off topic, it will be my last comment. United States Man (talk) 22:04, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The body politic, as it were, can and does discuss all manner of things that are not strictly political. Anything can be made political. The question at issue here is whether statements by experts who say that severe weather events like these particular floods are made more severe and more likely by climate change are political statements. They are manifestly not. This is much the same way that a biologist who says that "Humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor" is not making a political statement in spite of some religious folk thinking that this fact is incorrect and even engaging in political debate over whether or not such facts can be discussed, taught, or explained as facts. jps (talk) 22:08, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@jps: I should note that I am not the author of the original content that was removed, that was Blythwood. I only stumbled upon the article (idk how anymore, random Wikipedia stroll), and agreed with the need for a discussion after Blythwood's edit was removed (was bordering on an edit war), which ended in a stalemate because there were so few participants. Back then, I saw three options: "Overrule" United States Man and start an all-out edit war, secretly WP:CANVASS people to aid in the discussion, or start a RfC which would hopefully result in a support. I opted for the latter, because the other options would have led nowhere. I must say I was concerned about the number of initial "oppose" votes, angry even, because they were based on really bad reasons. But I intended to see this through, and if needed, start yet another RfC to discuss whether we actually "need scientific papers for everything", or if we "can't have attributed statements about controversial topics" (if you even deem them controversial). An RfC would not have been needed, yes, if only you and I had been present in the beginning, or at least several more editors. But even with an obvious expected result, the RfC was the only way for me (at least the only one I saw) to draw attention to this topic, and to get consensus on such trivial a thing. This RfC doesn't have to stay open for 30 days, but it needs to stay open until a consensus has formed, now that it was started. With the recent influx of Support votes, and the remaining poor quality of oppose reasons (it's not a vote after all, and demanding something that is not supported by policy is not a strong point to make), I don't think this will need 30 days. But please, don't interrupt the process – I know you mean well, and I appreciate it, but I don't believe it is going to help. --LordPeterII (talk) 22:13, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) My last comment on this specific topic (because I want to get back to creating my larger list articles and draft articles and don't want to be in any further discussions for a while) is the statement "If ongoing events are any indication, the question of human-induced climate change is likely to remain open for the foreseeable future." That was an exact phrase taken from an academically published paper in 2018 titled To Err is Human: Pondering the Undoing of Human-Induced Climate Change, which is where they discuss the 4 possible mentalities toward the topic. You asked for a reason why myself and other editors do not fully align our mentality toward yours on this topic, so I give you a paper that would explain why we do not agree with you. We match one of the other 4 possible mentalities than you do. Everyone matches one of those 4 mentalities. Good paper to read, as it isn't about whether human-induced climate change is real or not, but rather how the 4 different mentalities toward it came about and what they are. Elijahandskip (talk) 22:17, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Scientific consensus is not determined by one sentence in one paper, let alone one sentence in one paper that is not even about the subject at hand. Scientific consensus is determined by the totality of evidence. There is a reason our article Cherrypicking gives examples where climate change deniers use that invalid method. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:51, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Obviously Support per ample sources provided by LordPeterII and Blythwood. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 13:48, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. We have enough reliable sources making the connection and zero reliable sources saying there is no connection. This should be a no-brainer. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:47, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, because Wikipedia bases content on what sources say. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:59, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Sources say so, so we should too. --Jayron32 15:02, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with sources that make the direct link that the severity and prevalence of these floods are believed to be a result of climate change. I find it odd that this article about multiple otherwise independent flooding events would exist in the first place, if not to discuss the highly notable proposed root cause linking them. While sources will only get stronger over time, let's not make perfect the enemy of good. This is not some fringe explanation, we should apply WP:VNT. Bakkster Man (talk) 15:55, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Scientific American is what does it for me. Yes, climate change increases the risks of floods in general, and news sources mention this after describing these particular floods, but I'm generally very skeptical of non-specialist media reporting on science. Unless the news source can concretely claim "This is an instance where a flood may not have occurred or had the same severity had the climate not warmed 1.2 °C", it's not relevant enough. However, the Scientific American source does analyze how and why climate change may have affected these particular floods. Current scientific insight into the cause of the floods is clearly important information for the article. — Bilorv (talk) 19:40, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'll leave this open for a few days longer, but it seems the favour is very clearly in favour of inclusion. Unless that changes again, I will request a closure before a full 30 days have passed. –LordPickleII (talk) 18:34, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Clarification: By "leave open" I ofc meant to let discussion go on without doing anything else. As I am involved, I cannot close the RfC myself, I will only request it to be. –LordPickleII (talk) 18:36, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The information has already been on the page for literally several days. Just let it go and put it to rest lol. United States Man (talk) 23:36, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I will request closure now. –LordPickleII (talk) 07:39, 9 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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.

Update needed

Can someone update the article because per https://www.accuweather.com/en/severe-weather/death-toll-from-historic-eastern-kentucky-flooding-rises-to-40/1246754 the Kentucky floods caused 40 deaths 47.16.96.33 (talk) 21:01, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like this update has been made. —ADavidB 06:15, 15 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

August 12 Las Vegas flash floods

We should probably add them to the article, especially because 2 people were killed. 64.25.27.224 (talk) 18:31, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Talk:July–August_2022_United_States_floods&oldid=1130546070"