Editing Wikipedia as Climate Action
It may sound odd, but the world’s favorite online encyclopedia—nicknamed the “last best place on the internet”—is one of our best hopes for radically changing how the public understands their place in climate mitigation.
Not many people in the US hear about climate change on a regular basis. Only 35% of US adults say they discuss it at least occasionally and just 33% read about it in the news once a week. When they do hear about it, it’s typically in school or in informal science centers like museums and aquariums, or (more rarely) from family and friends. And the broad strokes and doom-filled ways our culture tends to talk about it leave many feeling confused and dejected about where they fit into solutions.
Meanwhile, millions of people visit Wikipedia every day. And they trust it. The site hasn’t veered from its apolitical, democratic design in its 20+ years. The community of volunteer editors that keep it going have built effective systems for identifying and correcting misinformation, especially related to climate. And new research shows that Wikipedia content influences real-world behavior. Tourists are more likely to visit a city if it has a Wikipedia page. Court cases that have a page are more likely to be cited as precedents than ones without. And scientific sources linked in Wikipedia see a 94% boost in academic citations. What might these findings mean when applied to information about climate solutions?
Wikipedia is a neutral common ground for contextualizing the effects of climate change in peoples’ everyday lives and giving them hope and roadmaps for solutions. The site has a reach unlike that of any other public resource. And we have the tools to understand what climate-related topics get the most attention on Wikipedia. That’s where we, as science communicators, should focus our attention. We can reach millions. More on that in a minute.
How does this work?
So how do we make impactful changes to Wikipedia to better advance understanding of the latest climate science? First, let’s consider social science research about what climate information sinks in with public audiences and what doesn’t.
People resonate with climate solutions when they’re delivered in a way that connects to their lived experiences and local context. They want to be matched up with community-specific actions they can take today. So when media and science communicators treat climate change as a monolith topic, people wonder how it relates to them. Many struggle to explain the basics of climate science, let alone connect the dots. We need to do it for them. (More on that in my blog about Climate Communications Best Practices)
Millions are turning to Wikipedia to seek answers in its 6.6 million pages. Imagine if we were to embed climate solutions where people already are and contextualize them within peoples’ everyday questions. What if wiki rabbit holes led to climate action?
The beauty of wiki rabbit holes. Comic via xkcd
I work in the Wikipedia world, mostly updating content and inviting others to do so, and we’ve noticed some gaps in Wikipedia’s coverage of climate change and solutions. This has huge implications given the site gets 18 billion page views every month. Usually these gaps show up because new research or technology has just come out and pages need to be updated. But sometimes information is just missing altogether.
It’s difficult to know where to concentrate our efforts… It’s tempting to go to the overarching pages as a starting point, like the ones for climate change, mitigation, or effects. But these pages are well-maintained. And they don’t reach as many readers as you might think. There’s a detailed page on nature-based solutions, for example, but it doesn’t get a lot of views in the grand scheme of things—only about 60 readers per day (versus Beyoncé, who gets 17K). See how this traffic compares to other solutions-related pages that are seemingly more niche:
200 readers visit the page about green roofs every day. This specific climate solution improves local biodiversity and resilience in heat waves, and if implemented widely could reduce a gigaton of carbon emissions from the atmosphere in the next 30 years. The page does a great job describing the economic, environmental, and aesthetic benefits of green roofs, including how they act as carbon sinks.
1,300 readers visit the mangrove page every day, which, when protected and restored, make coastlines more resilient to climate change-fueled storms. However, the page only has one sentence explicitly linking mangrove restoration to climate change mitigation. This could be a good place to start when thinking about how to identify climate-related gaps in Wikipedia’s millions of pages.
Disclaimer… When we’re talking about embedding climate solutions into Wikipedia, it’s not all about pageviews. Wikipedia has guidelines about what information belongs where. As my brilliant friend and colleague Jami Mathewson likes to say, we wouldn’t make the hamburger page be 90% about the carbon emissions of the beef industry. That wouldn’t represent the majority of all knowledge about hamburgers. It would be giving “undue weight” to just one part of the larger picture.
There are plenty of opportunities to fill appropriate “knowledge gaps” in Wikipedia’s repository. Only 3,253 pages on Wikipedia are officially categorized as related to climate change. That doesn’t represent the breadth of the topic, surely. So there’s plenty of work to be done. What to prioritize, you ask?
The most impactful kind of Wikipedia page for newbies to update with the latest climate research hits three criteria, IMO:
Lots of people read it.
The topic is relevant to climate solutions (not just climate destruction).
Updating it would address a commonly held misconception about climate science.
When updating Wikipedia, I would consider the following question: What is the public already asking themselves and how can we lead them toward solution-based thinking that is relevant to their lives?
Public misconceptions we can correct through Wikipedia
To give you a sense of what this work can look like, I’ve listed some well-studied misconceptions below that the public holds about climate change. Then I’ve found where on Wikipedia there are opportunities to turn the tide. (Read more about these misconceptions in my blog about Climate Communications Best Practices).
“The clean energy transition means people will lose their jobs.”
This sentiment is particularly well-documented in US states and communities with a prominent coal industry. However, wind turbine technicians and solar panel installers are currently two of the fastest-growing job sectors in the country. With proper investment in retraining programs, coal industry skills can be transferable to renewable energy industries. Plus, clean energy workers typically earn more.
The coal Wikipedia page’s current section about employment
Now let’s look at Wikipedia’s page about coal. 45,000 readers visit every month. 1,800 readers every day. They can learn a lot about the chemical makeup of coal, the development of the coal industry, and even the transition away from coal into renewable energy sources. But what they won’t find is what a just transition looks like for coal workers.
What are those job alternatives? What are the paths that individuals might take to transfer their skills, start making more, and participate in solutions? Let’s tell them.
“The clean energy transition will mean we have to give things up.”
The perception that transitioning away from fossil fuels into renewables (or eating less beef or insert your climate solution here) will mean giving up modern amenities and will cost us more is widespread. Scientists and clean energy advocates have the challenge of illustrating that the future we’re fighting for will be better for everyone.
Take time-of-use energy plans, for example. They take pressure off the grid and reward individuals when they conserve. This is the sort of practical information people are googling when they get their power bill and have the opportunity to change it. Time of use information is important both for renewables integration and for grid management with increasing EV/heat pump adoption.
While there are existing Wikipedia pages related to energy pricing (dynamic pricing, peak demand, energy planning, and efficient energy use), there’s no standalone page for 'time-of-use’ plans. Filling this gap could help people understand how these plans work and why they’re useful for them and their energy system as a whole.
“Climate change won’t affect me. It will only affect people/animals/places in the future.”
Only 46% of US adults say they have personally experienced the effects of global warming. Many people think that our grandchildren will feel the negative impacts of climate change, not us. That’s not true. In addition to the many seen and unseen downstream consequences of climate change already underway, at the very least fossil fuel-related air pollution is giving us health problems.
On the flip side, if we act now, we can feel the positive impacts of climate solutions now. Countries investing in green infrastructure like bike lanes can save billions in public health costs while reducing emissions, for example. These kinds of solutions and others make our air cleaner and our future brighter, if only we advocate for ourselves on a wide scale.
The Wikipedia page about asthma doesn't mention how climate change will ramp up the environmental triggers of asthma. Considering much of the US public thinks the effects of climate change are far off in the future, this is an opportunity to convey more urgency. And this page gets viewed 1,200 times every day.
“Recycling is the most useful thing I can do for the planet.”
Most people, when they think about climate solutions, think of recycling first. But experts agree it’s not the most impactful solution for individuals to take part in. Everyone’s situation is unique and we don’t all have the ability to do the same things to reduce our personal emissions and that of our community. For some, we may pursue a plant-based diet or invest in a heat pump. Others might advocate for their school lunch program to start composting, or tell their landlord about the latest tax credits for making green improvements to the building.
When experts peruse Wikipedia in search of gaps, they might ask themselves questions about the latest climate technology in the news. These hot topic issues can lead to knowledge gaps on Wikipedia in need of filling. Does the induction stove page compare the new tech to gas stoves in terms of emissions at scale? Does the green building page mention residential buildings too? Might the compost page talk about how many emissions the activity avoids?
What Wikipedians have already achieved
I started an initiative at Wiki Education with Jami Mathewson to invite climate experts to fill these kinds of gaps on Wikipedia. We first began collaborating with physicists at the American Physical Society and expanded from there.
So far, we have reached more than 1 million readers on Wikipedia with updated climate information.
As part of the effort, we steered these experts towards pages that they were uniquely well suited to update given their area of expertise. Then our team equipped them with some know-how for the way Wikipedia operates behind-the-scenes. And they took it from there! I’m thrilled to report just some of the successes of this incredible group of climate-passionate people.
Demystifying new clean energy technology
A physicist overhauled the page about thin-film solar cells, which are used more and more for solar panels. 5,000 monthly readers can now understand how they work; their advantages over first-generation silicon solar cells (including being cheaper and safer to produce); and their potential role in meeting international renewable energy goals.️
In addition to this great contribution, a college student expanded the Wikipedia page about a key component in EV batteries.
Dispelling myths
Another person helped dispel the myth that global warming is due to natural causes (a myth that is more common than you might think!) by writing that volcanic emissions account for less than 1% of global CO2 emissions. They added this to the climate change Wikipedia page, which 1 million people read every year.
Documenting regional impacts
70% of Americans are alarmed, concerned, or cautious about climate change, but struggle to understand how it relates to their day-to-day. That’s why regional-specific Wikipedia pages like climate change in Illinois are so impactful. This page now explains the effects that Illinois residents might experience: more frequent flooding, harmful algae blooms on Lake Michigan, higher temperatures that will harm humans and agriculture, etc. The page also includes local mitigation efforts, like the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which invests in job retraining for workers impacted by the transition to renewables.
Putting faces to the work
Other folks in our initiative are helping illustrate possible climate careers by writing Wikipedia biographies, particularly about women. The biographies for Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Dr. Katharine Hayhoe are much more comprehensive thanks to others in our initiative. Kay Baxter, an advocate of regenerative agriculture, has a brand new biography now. Dr. Kate Marvel has a new photo. I wrote the biography for Jainey Bavishi even before she became deputy director of NOAA under the Biden administration. I also wrote one for Nemonte Nenquimo, an Indigenous activist who protected half a million acres of Indigenous Amazonian land. And I engaged in some on-wiki diplomacy to reinstate a previously deleted page for Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement.
Thousands of Wikipedia readers are being exposed to the contributions of these leaders and others like them, every day. Hopefully some will be inspired to pursue this kind of work or at least lift these voices up.
Want to do this?
What do you wish the public knew about a climate solution you’re passionate about? What's a common misconception you wish you could correct?
Adapted from Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s climate action Venn diagram
There are lots of ways to make a meaningful impact on Wikipedia. And they all look different. Heck, some highly respected editors spend most of their time correcting syntax errors! This is the work that keeps Wikipedia running. However. If you’re a climate scientist looking to make one meaningful difference for Wikipedia, rather than thousands and thousands of changes over time, this is the formula for you.
I highly recommend learning Wikipedia editing in community and from resources like Wiki Education, a group of Wikipedians that guide students and experts in learning the editing policies they’ll need to know to be successful. I helped write and code many of their online training modules, which you can also peruse on your own. Also check out this podcast episode from Alex Stinson of Wikimedia, all about correcting climate misinformation on Wikipedia at scale. And don’t miss Mike Munsell’s article in Canary Media about the many opportunities to fill solutions-related gaps.
When choosing an article to work on, consider the following:
Your unique expertise
Your desired audience: Where do they already go on Wikipedia? What’s important to them? What do they want to know?
Common misconceptions about your field that you explain to friends and family again and again (if your audience are non-experts)
It’s a team sport
The missions between the climate movement and Wikipedia are aligned: Collectively imagining and creating a better world. Wikipedia models what is possible: small contributions from people all over the world make something massive and influential.
“We underestimate the power of contribution—of acting within our own sphere of influence to tackle the piece of the problem that is right in front of us. In a few decades, if we look back from a place of relative comfort and safety, I think we will remember millions of people who saw the unprecedented danger and didn’t look away, who connected with their power and used it to lead change from the ground up.” — Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Image via @EarthAgora on Twitter. March 2019.
“What if your power in this fight lies not in what you can do as an individual but in your ability to be part of a collective? You can't solve the climate crisis alone, but it's even more true that we can't solve it without you. It's a team sport.” — Mary Annaïse Heglar
Image attributions: Ken Fields, Andrey Metelev, Dana Marin, Edward Howell, DOE, Alain Bonnardeaux, Pedro Lastra, Nicolas Doherty.
