How to contribute climate change information to Wikipedia - A guide for researchers, practitioners and communicators
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Download document 1 Why Wikipedia is an important tool to communicate climate change information
‘Climate emergency’ was identified as the phrase of the year in 2019 by the Oxford English Dictionary. By the end of the year, 19 countries and numerous local government authorities across the world had declared a climate emergency. The year 2019 also saw an increase in prominence of citizen environmental activist movements such as Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future. There is now more need than ever for climate change knowledge to be communicated beyond the academic audience.
Wikipedia is a key channel to enable sharing of climate change information between the scientific and policy communities, as well as the general public. Wikipedia entries provide encyclopedia-style, concise overviews of topics, including controversies and their evolution over time, and sources of further information. They are therefore particularly useful as a first port of call for anyone seeking information about a topic, which makes it even more important that they are accurate and succinct.
Policymakers, practitioners and, increasingly, concerned citizens and the youth are demanding access to climate change information. Wikipedia is freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection – unlike academic journal articles, which are often hidden behind a paywall. In addition, the platform’s style guidelines seek to ensure not only the use of neutral language in developing encyclopedia-style entries, but also diversity in terms of both editors and contributions.