Talk:UN Report: Earth ecosystem in peril

I renamed this article because the previous headline was anthropomorphizing Earth and could be seen as POV. -- Davodd | Talk 16:04, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Old top
Someone give this person, Simeon, a basic primer in journalistic courtesy. DON'T MESS WITH OR 'EDIT' SOMEONE'S WORK until it posts. --Alan J. Franklin 04:23, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * First of all - this is a wonderful start to a very intresting story. Second, by helping, Simeon did nothing wrong. Blue links on the front page in Developing stories are fair game to editing by all, as is the wiki way. If you do not want anyone to "MESS" with your work, try adding the tag to the top of your story to let others know it is still being worked on and not ready for prime time. Otherwise a wikinewsie is likely to take the story over, finish it and move it to Latest news. Additionally, you may want to write new stories in a /Sandbox off your User Page to keep others from helping in the collaborative was Simeon was rightfully doing. -- Davodd | Talk  05:06, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Alan - fine, but if you don't tell people when it will be posted or that its being worked on, and it looks like wild assertions, then I think what I did is OK, I didn't make much change, just toned down the lead a little by crediting it to someone with authority, not just 'some wikinews guy' - Simeon 05:03, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

dodgey source => led to inaccurate facts, distorted POV
The following source



makes an assertion which I can't find factual casis for, and which I think is what caused the initial story to be fairly alarmist: being that 60% of resources are at critical already.

I am tempted to remove this source from the story sources list, but unsure how to flag that it is dodgey other than this note.

Any ideas/comments? Simeon 07:54, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * It does not say "60% of resources". It says "60% of ecosystems". Dan100 (Talk) 09:38, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Slap me. It actually says "ecosystem services" (a phrasing I've never heard of), which I guess is the same as a 'resource' Dan100 (Talk) 09:40, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I paraphrased. Point is, the report doesn't say what the Editorial says. :\ Simeon 01:50, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Found a second article which mentions similar figure, created a section Sources providing unjustified claims about the report for identifying these articles until the issue can be resolved satisfactorily, emailed the second source, The Guardian, email reproduced below:

 Dear Editor,

I am writing to clarify what seems to me to be an inaccuracy in a recent article from your paper. It's the headline: Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up'

--- clipping ---

Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up' Tim Radford, science editor Wednesday March 30, 2005 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1447863,00.html

The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure.

--- end clipping ---

Nowhere in the report do I find the headline of your article justified.

I am curious, where did you get the '2/3 used up' figure from? I have seen similar claims that the report says this (Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial Board, "Our Living Planet: Prescription for change", http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/218147_earthed.asp, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 30, 2005), but in fact in the report, I couldn't find this mentioned.

The report says, as is mentioned in the body of your article, that 2/3 are *being degraded*. It also mentions a lot of figures about specific cases, which indicate significant levels of existing degredation. But nowhere do I find an overall assessment of the percentage of world's resources irreversibly 'used up'.

This is important to me, not only as a resident here on earth, but because we have covered the article for Wikinews en.wikinews.org and the article was subject to some contention.

Simeon Scott (contact details were provided in actual email)



Needs cite
With half of the urban populations of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean suffering from several diseases associated with these problems, the death toll is reaching 1.7 million people a year.
 * Checked - OK Dan100 (Talk) 09:36, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Entire species of mammals, birds and amphibians are disappearing from the planet at nearly 1,000 times the natural rate, according to the study.
 * Checked - OK Dan100 (Talk) 09:36, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Coastal waters and oxygen-dead rivers result from overuse of nitrogen fertilizers which try to pull every possible sprout from overused and otherwise dead soil.
 * Nitrogen fertilizers are mentioned but it does not say "which try to pull every possible sprout from overused and otherwise dead soil". I feel that is opinion. Dan100 (Talk) 09:36, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is called “nutrient loading” and will lead to continuing and unstoppable biodiversity loss.
 * This is not in the source text - nutrient loading is not said to be "unstoppable". Dan100 (Talk) 09:36, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Climate change is part of the deadly cycle.
 * This is not stated in the source text. Dan100 (Talk)

-- Davodd | Talk

The cite is the source of the article, the Millenium report. Try reading it if you have the time. Remember to do this in the future to save others the needless aggravation of responding to these flags. Additionally, several of the newspaper citations have commented on the same thing. Unless you can show me that the article does not contain the information in my carefully researched piece, I am removing your flag. I will cite for vandalism anyone who doesn't read the cites in the future. --Alan J. Franklin 05:04, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Again, thank you for volunteering to write here. In order to ease your frustrations, I do reccommend you start using the tag at the beginning of your articles when you start them. Also, please remember that in Wikinews, you do not own your work once you hit that submit button - it becomes public domain. ;-) Second, since Wikinews is collaborative, it is open for all to edit. Thirdly, in following of our NPOV mandate, every opinion or assertion needs to be cited individually to its source - in every paragraph. Or, it will likely be removed by a fellow editor as supposed POV of the wiki reporter (which is not allowed under NPOV). -- Davodd | Talk  05:14, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Removing dispute tag
Please do not remove dispute tags until there is some consensus to do so. - Amgine 05:10, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I do think it's fair for an editor to remove the 'sources' tag when they have checked sources. However, in this case, the problems highlighted here on the talk page hadn't actually been fixed. Dan100 (Talk) 09:50, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Typo
editprotected "Millenium" => "Millennium" Van der Hoorn (talk) 15:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * ✅ ♪Tempo di Valse ♪ 15:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)