Talk:Anthropogenic hazard

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"Man-made" is sexist[edit]

Move to List of human-made hazards[edit]

Shouldn't this be human-made hazards? JCDenton2052 (talk) 20:51, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[Oppose]. Hm. That's not really the common nomenclature for it, as it's "man" being used in the sense of "the human race", not man as in a singular male (like in "mailman"). But I'm of mixed feelings on it. - Vianello (talk) 20:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
[Oppose]. Wikipedia topics should reflect the most common usage, rather than the prejudices of its editors. Tedickey (talk) 21:39, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Gender-neutral language is not a prejudice. JCDenton2052 (talk) 21:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fine. You have a lot of work to do, eliminating words from the language. Bye. Tedickey (talk) 22:18, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
[Oppose]. No one actually thinks so much on these words. Articles are meant for proper use and almost every reader will ignore the sense of "man" as a male and would surely avoid two way meanings about such a minor topic. RedRafflesia (talk) 11:45, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, it is. And just from the standpoint of wikipedia, it would be a WP:POINTY and non-WP:NPOV way to ignore WP:ENGLISH WP:COMMONNAME. — LlywelynII 00:39, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
[Support]. Hiya - thanks for all the hard work on the article. I'd like to suggest moving it to Human-made hazard due to Manual of Style#Gender-neutral language: "Use gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision". All the best, Fifth Fish Finger (talk) 23:39, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
[Oppose]. Let's not. That's not gender-neutral language, it's contrived, invented language, and sounds bizarre. Hertz1888 (talk) 07:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
[Oppose]. Per above. Besides, ignoring their POINTy, POVy ways and disregard for the standard English definition of man-made, surely such enlightened folk as 5thFish & JC realize men have induced most of these disasters. (Although I am quite curious what their list of "womyn"-induced disasters would consist of...) — LlywelynII 00:39, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Move back to List of man-made disasters[edit]

The latest edit, renaming to "Anthropogenic hazard" appears to be another example of editor's WP:OR TEDickey (talk) 12:20, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It may be technically correct bit it is certainly not the most common usage. I think the current title is really misguided. Veriss (talk) 01:01, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
[See: WP:Article Titles#Common names] Veriss (talk) made on 02:16, 24 October 2010 (UTC) [Removed long repaste of entire section. - LlywelynII][reply]
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Anthropogenic hazardMan-made disasters — Here are some examples of which organizations use the term "man-made", "man made" and "anthropogenic" disasters

  • United Nations: Search for man-made resulted in 1,200 articles including press releases, consensus papers, articles for the general public, etc. Anthropogenic resulted in 1,030 documents nearly all of a scientific nature. Not common usage. Much like the term 'water' compared to 'H2O'.
  • US FBI: man-made=10 and "man made"=11 documents vs anthropogenic=1
  • UK Parliament: man-made=653, "man made"=383,739 vs anthropogenic=1
  • Google (US): man-made=530,000,000, "man made"=13,600,000 vs anthropogenic=20,800,000
  • Yahoo! (US): man-made=1,480,000,000, "man made"=1,850,000,000 vs 362,000

(was curious about the Australian numbers so visited some more Australian sites)

  • Australian Department of Defense: 243/225/3
  • Australian Department of Justice: 0/0/0
  • Australian Parliament: 6,358/6,358/1,855
  • Google (AU) with: "man-made disaster"=329,000 and "man made disaster"=329,000 vs 307,000
  • Google (US) with: "man-made disaster"=1,090,000 and "man made disaster"=1,090,000 vs 2,170
  • Google (UK) with: "man-made disaster"=1,120,000 and "man made disaster"=1,110,000 vs 214,000
  • Google (CA) with: "man-made disaster"=14,000,000 and "man made disaster"=1,110,000 vs 2,160

I think it is safe to assume that "man-made disaster" is the most common word used by both by experts in the field and by the general public.

I would like to propose that we rename this article to "man-made disasters" with redirects from "man made disasters" and "anthropogenic disasters".

Regards, Veriss (talk) 02:23, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Having come on this article via 'recent changes' and having not immediately understood the title, I'm inclined to agree that it needs revising. As for whether renaming it 'man-made disasters' is sexist, I'd suggest that it may very well be the male of the species that is responsible for the majority of such cock-ups incidents. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:41, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fighting sexism by negatively stereotyping men seems a little counter productive. —what a crazy random happenstance 01:32, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After three days without much discussion I asked an uninvolved admin for guidance. The discussion for rename to the common usage is now open for community-wide comment. Veriss (talk) 22:46, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move to List of human-made disasters[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Jafeluv (talk) 02:13, 2 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]


– Per Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Naming, "While neutral terms are generally preferable, this must be balanced against clarity". I do not think substituting "human-made" for "man-made" compromises clarity, even though the latter is more commonly used. InverseHypercube 01:40, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- Everyone knows that "man-made" means "made by human beings". Let's not take this politically correct thing too far. It's awkward, and no one else uses it. --Uncle Ed (talk) 01:51, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

adding prohibition of drugs to the list?[edit]

Milton Friedman estimated that there are 10,000 GUN deaths per year that are attributable to the prohibition of drugs in the United States alone.

I don't know of any solid statistic but the amount of deaths directly attributed to the prohibition of drugs, in criminal violence, drug money seeking, the spread of AIDS, increased overdose rates, reduced unbiased education, prison violence caused by and committed upon previously nonviolent detainees has got to be in the millions.

The number of dead must dwarf many other horrible genocides or disasters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.204.135.61 (talk) 01:16, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Financial Disaster[edit]

You have forgotten financial disasters such as the 2009 event.74.15.95.152 (talk) 14:18, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article needs more flooding[edit]

See 1642 Kaifeng flood and 1938 Yellow River flood for just two of the ways that "burst the dikes" needs to be on this list. Another example would be Dutch tactics during their war of independence against Habsburg Spain, but not sure on the death count there. — LlywelynII 00:39, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not to mention the flooding of New Orleans after Katrina. David Simon and Harry Shearer have done work on this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.235.12.126 (talk) 23:07, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article title[edit]

The title of this article Anthropogenic hazard does not reflect its contents. The contents are all about disasters. Whilst hazards can lead to disasters, it is much more common that hazards lead to accidents and mostly small or minor accidents at that. I am concious that there seems to have been a discussion above in which it was agreed to move the article to Man-made Disasters. So why do we have this article remaining here under its current name. Anybody care to explain ?  Velella  Velella Talk   22:49, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It was moved from Man-made Disasters, for the usual reasons (none worth mentioning in polite company) TEDickey (talk) 23:19, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh....... So misapplied political correctness triumphs over meaning and sense. (Sigh).  Velella  Velella Talk   08:53, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's not what happened... take a closer look. It was unilaterally moved to its current title, then there was an RFC with consensus to move it BACK again. Then there was a failed attempt with consensus against to move it to "human made". So it was moved back to the current title again without discussion, after consensus had been against it. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:F12B:A561:F1F1:405D (talk) 01:35, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
note we have a similar problem with the articles on natural hazard and natural disaster which also overlap. This needs tidying up. EMsmile (talk) 22:00, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Poverty Suggestion[edit]

I purpose that Poverty (in a global sense) should be listed as a man-made disaster. There are many theories of why poverty continues to be a persistent social issue, however the economic neglect of people is a result of a combination of factors, not entirely of an individual's choice, or even within their financial control to change their own circumstances. Social equality and mobility are a answer, but poverty as a norm is an anthropogenic hazard as poverty and desperation has consequences to the life chances and health of innocent people, and contributes to the levels of certain crimes (it must also be said that there are many rich criminals too). — RW Marloe (talk) 00:20, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Genocide[edit]

Seems like a pretty obvious omission. Is there a reason it's not on here? -Rainbowofpeace (talk) 19:10, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 15 January 2022[edit]

Bhopal gas tragedy Bhopal had tragedy is one of the biggest process industry disaster in the world . It occurred on 2&3 December 1984 . Shalet.sss (talk) 12:26, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY INCIDENT Shalet.sss (talk) 12:27, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:50, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is climate change an anthropogenic hazard?[edit]

I think climate change could be included as an anthropogenic hazard. It fits the definition in the first sentence of the lead: "Anthropogenic hazards are hazards caused by human action or inaction". Currently, climate change has a sub-heading in the article on natural hazard where it says "Climate change can increase or decrease weather hazards, and also directly endanger property due to sea level rise and biological organisms due to habitat destruction." EMsmile (talk) 22:02, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am still wondering about this. Is climate change an anthropogenic hazard? It does amplify many of the "natural hazards" and as such it's included with some detail in the natural disaster article. Pinging User:Richarit. EMsmile (talk) 13:56, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:38, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This needs updated[edit]

The war in Afghanistan is over ArizonacardinalsFan (talk) 02:56, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done. EMsmile (talk) 08:57, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

multiple issues with this article.[edit]

Terrorism as an anthropological hazard is listed twice with different descriptions both times,the page for paragraph on riot does not give a link towards the wiki article on riots but instead is given in the the civil disorder paragraph. I suggest one of the terrorism paragraphs be deleted and the better one kept, and that the civil disobedience and riot paragraphs be merged. 92.236.211.53 (talk) 13:48, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed. I didn't merge the civil disobedience and riot sections but I did make the latter a subsection of the former. CWenger (^@) 14:15, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Gj 92.236.211.53 (talk) 17:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merge into hazard[edit]

I propose to merge this article into hazard. There is not enough unique content here to warrant a stand-alone article. And there is a lot of overlap with hazard which cannot be avoided when it's two articles instead of one. EMsmile (talk) 12:48, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've started to delete content that didn't actually focus on the concept of hazards but was about incidents and disasters, thereby digressing into other areas. To be continued. EMsmile (talk) 21:59, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree completely. This article has been in trouble from the start. ASRASR (talk) 20:17, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You mention the article's history. I had a look: the first substantial version was created in 2007, see here. At the time, the article was called Man-made disasters. This explains a few things, e.g. the focus on bridge collapse disasters and alike. Later in 2007, the article's name was changed to Man-made hazards, later moved to anthropogenic hazard. In 2010 it was again moved from Anthropogenic hazard to Man-made disasters. And again moved in 2012: from List of man-made disasters to Anthropogenic hazard, with the justification: "This page does not describe disasters (specific events) but hazards (types of potential event)" by User:Beland. Wow, that's quite a lot of page moves! Pinging a few people in case they'd like to comment on this proposed merger of Anthropogenic hazard into hazard: User:Beland, User:Tedickey, User:Velella, User:CWenger.
Note for comparison that last year, the article natural hazard was merged into natural disaster because it was just easier to deal with both topics in one article, rather than artificially split it in two (even though we acknowledge that they are not the same). EMsmile (talk) 22:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I found it interesting that the IPCC AR6 WGI report talks a lot about hazards (in the context of climate change) but does not once mention anthropogenic hazard once. I think the term is a theoretical construct and overlaps too much with all the other types of hazards, so that a separate article is not warranted and helps nobody. EMsmile (talk) 22:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree on the merger. Anthropogenic hazard is defined here by UNDRR: https://www.preventionweb.net/terminology/hazard Richarit (talk) 14:42, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I'll also use the ref that you provided in the hazard article. - I'll wait a few more days and if there are no objections by early next week then I'll carry out the merger. EMsmile (talk) 11:08, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've carried out the merger now. EMsmile (talk) 09:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]