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When a lay person, including me, sees those studies, even though they are convincing to me, psychologically, there is an after taste of "its complicated" which I believe explains why some people fall in the deny pool.

Ive realized by experiencing this summer in France, which feels like the hottest conditions Ive ever lived in (and Ive lived in Thailand and Morocco) that things are actually dead simple. We've landed on the moon, we've invented vaccines and smartphones; now picture how dead simple this is for us to predict the consequences of injecting CO2 in a test tube.




People fall in the "deny" pool because of a longrunning PR campaign by the oil industry which leverages the "its complicated".

You can train people "its complicated, so trust the experts" or to "its complicated, don't trust the experts"

See some of these ads from big oil:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/18/the-forg...


> there is an after taste of "its complicated"

Can I ask what is it that gives you this taste? What I see in the article is a graph, showing temperature clearly going up towards the end of the graph. I don't find this complicated to interpret.

But I agree with you that some people may find it complicated. I'd like to understand that better, because I'm having trouble putting my head in a space where seeing a temperature graph is complicated. Trying to understand the other perspective, but maybe you can explain what it is that gives you this distaste when you see a graph.

For example, if not a temperature graph, what way could this data be presented that would not leave an "after taste"? I'm trying to think of a simpler way.. to me this graph says, basically "before: straight line, now: going up." I can't think of a simpler way to state it that would be "less complicated" than that.


I'd like to understand that better, because I'm having trouble putting my head in a space where seeing a temperature graph is complicated. Trying to understand the other perspective

For the average Joe, a big explanation gives the impression you dont know.

The point I was making was we could explain it with one simple sentence and simple drawing: pour CO2 in a test tube, its hotter inside. "We've measured it".

That should be what people see because that gives the impression its sure. Short means "it's sure". Long means "you dont know". For most people; even at the top of a company.


It's been obvious to me since I spent the summer of 1976 in France, and I was an 11 year old kid.


33,4°C in Paris the 25 of june 1976

Around the 25 of june 2022 near Bordeaux at 23:30 (you read it well, 11:30pm), it was 36°C.

The closest Ive experienced was in Las Vegas Nevada, which is in the middle of what qualifies as a desert.


It was my understanding that at the test-tube-scale we aren't able to demonstrate CO2 increasing the heat. Is this correct?


You can see them even at that scale. The original experiments by Tyndall that demonstrated the effect were in a tube [1] currently on display at the Royal Institution.

[1] https://www.rigb.org/sites/default/files/styles/original/pub...


Incorrect. This is a fundamental property of the molecule CO2. CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. In the atmosphere this property of CO2 prevents infrared radiation from radiating back out into space.

> While transparent to visible light, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, absorbing and emitting infrared radiation ... Absorption of infrared light at the vibrational frequencies of atmospheric CO2 traps energy near the surface, warming the surface and the lower atmosphere. Less energy reaches the upper atmosphere, which is therefore cooler because of this absorption.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#In_Earth's_atmo...

Or if you would rather Futurama explain it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cjx4gJFME0


No, you can replicate the effect easily in a high school classroom.

https://youtu.be/kwtt51gvaJQ

It’s literally that easy to demonstrate.




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