[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 115, Issue 18... Carbon footprints on Wikipedia.

Wed Oct 9 09:48:23 UTC 2013

Tim Starling says:

<quote>
I don't really understand where you are coming from with this. Your
own website <http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/> cites
plenty of official, reliable sources which you could presumably cite
when you write about these topics. On your blog, you complain about
Wikipedians getting annoyed when you cite yourself as a secondary
source, which seems fair enough -- why not just cite the primary
sources directly?
</quote>

My main points is that the increasing dependance of Wikipedia on peer review puts the power over knowledge in the hands of people, academics and governments, that have motives related to their careers and may include commercial and political interests. Take [the carbon footprint of beef] as an example.

Beef has a very large carbon footprint between 14 and 37 times it's own weight of carbon dioxide equivalent. (hunt through my <http://nobeef.org.uk> as well as <http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/> for details).

But one of the best sources (not the only one) was the Work of Adrian Williams from Cranfield University. I ran his model for getting the carbon footprint of beef using a Global Warming Potential (GWP) for methane using a 20 year rather than a 100 year timescale. Some scientists are now pointing out that the 100 year timescale is now unrealistic but it is the "conventional wisdom". The effect of choosing 20 years rather than 100 years is to increase the carbon footprint of beef. Additionally work by Shindell et. al. suggests methane's effect should by uprated for other reasons.

The work of Adrian Mitchell that I used was in a report to the UK Department of Food and Rural Affairs. I find it now hard to find. I think that is because it is politically inconvenient.  The point about this work, as far as this discussion is concerned, is that it was not peer reviewed but a report to a government department. In my view it is clearly an important piece of work but I fear it would be rejected because it was not peer reviewed. See the moderator's comment mentioned in my BrusselsBlog piece "I can see only one reason for citing a non-peer reviewed article: ego-spam." (That wasn't actually directed at me.) 

I have just noticed that almost a year ago a prospective entry was put in the talk section of Wilipedia's [beef] article. It suggests a new section [Environmental impacts of beef] and has important information in it. This has not made its way into the main article. It should have despite any reservations. To only include absolutely polished information just gives and advantage to those with the resources to polish and possibly dubious motives.

There is important information that should be on Wikipedia that is missing. I'm pleased to say that my shortened section on the Beddington Zero Energy Development [BedZED] hasn't yet been removed. It says "Embodied Carbon: Large. 67.5 tonnes CO2e for a 100 square metre flat." (OK. Perhaps I should have dug out the non-peer reviewed reference that gives this figure which was done by one of the project sponsors.)

If it stays perhaps I will add a section to [Beef], following the note in the talk section. "The carbon footprint of beef: Very large. Between 12 and 35kg of CO2e are produced for every 1 kg of beef consumed" 

What do you think?

Geoff Beacon

P.S. But articles [The carbon footprint of ...] would be wonderful.

P.S.S. I'm a bit disappointed by use of the term "Wikipedians". Does that exclude me?

----- Extracts from Original message -----
From: wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org
To: wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 115, Issue 18
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 06:14:01 +0000

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 20:49:50 +0100
From: Geoff Beacon <geoffbeacon at sent.com>
To: wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Carbon footprints on Wikipedia.
Message-ID:
	<1381261790.28748.31588489.3191054F at webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain

An authoritative and easy to used resource giving of the effect or our everyday activities is essential if voters are to know enough to influence politics.

I cant find any entries on Wikipedia to match this. To some extent I blame Wikipedia's over emphasis on peer review and official sources. The [Carbon footprint] entry is probably counter-productive as it implies that the quoted sources are more reliable than they are. I fear some of these sources are incorrect, hide their proprietary information or are influenced by politics (i.e. government departments).

What I would like to see are lots of entries on Wikipedia like:

[the carbon footprint of beef]
[the carbon footprint of air travel]
[the carbon footprint of a new house]

& etc.

Wikipedia is the right place for such information to be presented.

See more of my criticism here: http://www.brusselsblog.co.uk/is-wikipedia-too-credentialist/

Geoff Beacon

P.S. I do make a modest monthly contribution to the Wikimedia foundation.

-- 
  Geoff Beacon
  geoffbeacon at sent.com

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 13:04:57 +1100
From: Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org>
To: wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Carbon footprints on Wikipedia.
Message-ID: <l32dk1$2hh$1 at ger.gmane.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

On 09/10/13 06:49, Geoff Beacon wrote:
> An authoritative and easy to used resource giving of the effect or
> our everyday activities is essential if voters are to know enough
> to influence politics.
> 
> I cant find any entries on Wikipedia to match this. To some extent
> I blame Wikipedia's over emphasis on peer review and official
> sources. The [Carbon footprint] entry is probably
> counter-productive as it implies that the quoted sources are more
> reliable than they are. I fear some of these sources are incorrect,
> hide their proprietary information or are influenced by politics
> (i.e. government departments).
> 
> What I would like to see are lots of entries on Wikipedia like:
> 
> [the carbon footprint of beef] [the carbon footprint of air
> travel] [the carbon footprint of a new house]
> 
> & etc.

I don't really understand where you are coming from with this. Your
own website <http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/> cites
plenty of official, reliable sources which you could presumably cite
when you write about these topics. On your blog, you complain about
Wikipedians getting annoyed when you cite yourself as a secondary
source, which seems fair enough -- why not just cite the primary
sources directly?

-- Tim Starling

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End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 115, Issue 18
********************************************

-- 
  Geoff Beacon
  geoffbeacon at sent.com