Poor, Edmund W wrote:
It's basically Singer's POV vs. Connolley's POV. Lots of environmentalsts side with Connolley, and lots of others side with Singer.
This sounds just like creationists working to bolster their position by saying it's just one POV against another. It is a sneaky tactic; once you've gotten people to admit the discredited theory might just possibly conceivably be valid in some alternate universe, then jump on it and demand equal time.
Many of the environmentalists try to bolster their argument by saying that "the consensus of scientists" agrees with them. But I don't think Wikipedia ought to support the claim that such a "consensus" exists.
Now if someone did a survey, and 95% of scientists agreed on a point, we could arguably call that a "consensus" (as we have done on evolution: 95% of all scientists (not just biologist) surveyed support Darwin's theory, and well over 99% of biologists.
Another sneaky tactic; it's unlikely anyone will survey scientists about global warning, so you can safely say "we have to be open-minded until then". The scientific consensus is normally defined by the peer review and publication process, so that's all that's necessary. If there are no peer-reviewed articles anywhere, that's a sure sign of crackpot theory.
Although the global warming hypothesis is controversial, many of the specific processes are completely straightforward and no longer a matter of scientific dispute. It would be very harmful to Wikipedia's credibility if solid theories were to be called into question in the name of NPOV, just because they are used as supporting arguments for theories that are controversial. What if data about animal evolution unequivocally supports the global warming hypothesis, are we going to back off and say "well, it may be a consensus, but the scientific community has been wrong before, we need to go put creationism mentions in every evolution-related article".
Stan
Stan