You say:

The CO2 we've added to the atmosphere will be absorbed into the oceans eventually.
— Tate

And then contradict that statement with:

As the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the amount of dissolved CO2 in the oceans will increase. It's Henry's Law.
— Tate — boethius

That's not a contradiction.

I knew at the age of 4. So that's 1982 for you. It was mainstream knowledge in Europe dus to the Club of Rome's report in 1972.

I doubt it. In the 1970s it wasn't clear if the climate was cooling or warming. The effect of the Milankovitch cycle wasn't discovered until the mid 1970s. — Tate

The potential heating effect of certain gases such as CO2 was well established in the lab by the end of the 19th century.

The fact that CO2 concentration were steadily growing in the atmosphere was first demonstrated in the 60 by the works of Charles Keeling and others. The first decent model dates from the 1960's as well, and it correctly predicted a rise in global mean temperature.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. John­son’s Science Advisory Committee asked Roger Revelle and Keeling, then serving on the committee’s Environmen­tal Pollution Panel, to write a section of a report -- titled Restoring the Quality of Our Environment -- on atmospheric CO2, or the “invisible pol­lutant,” as the report identified it. Here is a quote from the summary:

« Through his worldwide industrial civilization, Man is unwittingly conducting a vast geophysical experiment. Within a few generations he is burning the fossil fuels that slowly accumulated in the earth over the past 500 million years. The CO2 produced by this combustion is being injected into the atmosphere; about half of it remains there. The estimated recoverable reserves of fossil fuels are sufficient to produce nearly a 200 % increase in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere. By the year 2000 the increase in atmospheric CO2 will be close to 25 %. This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate, and will almost certainly cause significant changes in the temperature and other properties of the stratosphere ».

That's not a contradiction. — Tate

"As the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the amount of dissolved CO2 in the oceans will increase" means that both are increasing reaching an equilibrium: an equilibrium in which CO2 concentrations are higher both in the atmosphere and in the ocean when we burn carbon.

Therefore, in direct contradiction with the statement "CO2 we've added to the atmosphere will be absorbed into the oceans eventually."

Some of the CO2 we've added to the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans, but it is through mostly weathering where CO2 is removed from the carbon cycle, and as this occurs and atmospheric CO2 decreases, then CO2 will also then be released from the oceans back into the atmosphere to maintain the balance.

Difficult to get a more direct contradiction.

However, worse, ocean absorbing CO2 is not a "good sink" that helps, but leads to mass ocean death due to ocean acidification. It is a terrifying problem that the oceans absorb a good part of the CO2 we release in the atmosphere, the extreme other end of the spectrum to "oceans will deal with it, nothing to see here".

In short, oceans will not absorb all the CO2 we've released somehow magically solving our problem, and of the CO2 we release that enters the ocean it is in no way a good thing but entirely a bad thing if one cares about other species (and our own).

means that both are increasing reaching an equilibrium: — boethius

Sedimentation captures CO2.

The potential heating effect of certain gases such as CO2 was well established in the lab by the end of the 19th century. — Olivier5

Sure. We were talking about climate change, not the greenhouse effect in general.

It wasn't clear until the 1980s that the climate was warming. I'm not sure why you would argue otherwise.

In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first predicted that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. In 1938, Guy Callendar connected carbon dioxide increases in Earth's atmosphere to global warming.

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

Scientists first began to worry about climate change toward the end of the 1950s, Spencer Weart, a historian and retired director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics in College Park, Maryland, told Live Science in an email. "It was just a possibility for the 21st century which seemed very far away, but seen as a danger that should be prepared for."

The scientific community began to unite for action on climate change in the 1980s, and the warnings have only escalated since.

https://www.livescience.com/humans-first-warned-about-climate-change.


So everyone is right. Put it on your tombstones for no one to read.

The environmental movement has been going on a pretty long time spinning the same plans around and around; it is, broadly speaking, become closer to a ritualised mea culpa artistic expression, precisely to avoid effective actions — boethius

This is so true. I don't know what kind of timescale you had in mind, but I think this has been true for some time. I was involved with the road protest movement in England in the 90s and it was (on reflection) exactly as you describe. No one really talked about the solutions to excessive car use, which would have involved a discussion about the break up of communities, increasing social isolation, the erosion of self-esteem, urban growth policy, taxation (public services provision)...etc. The question of which diggers we ought to stand in front of seems almost completely unrelated to stopping the pressure to build more roads. It wasn't that no one considered those other matter problems, but no one had any solutions to them.

Seemed like it was doing good at the time though.

Put it on your tombstones for no one to read. — unenlightened

"In all situations, be melodramatic as hell"

--the unenlightened family motto celebrated by his descendants living in Greenland

Sedimentation captures CO2. — Tate

So? So does my potted cacti. What matters is the relative rates.

It wasn't clear until the 1980s that the climate was warming. I'm not sure why you would argue otherwise. — Tate

I am not arguing otherwise.

I don't know what kind of timescale you had in mind, but I think this has been true for some time. I was involved with the road protest movement in England in the 90s and it was (on reflection) exactly as you describe. — Isaac

Honestly not sure how far back this pattern goes, as there's a selection bias of small victories and momentum in order to support the myth of progress which easily (especially in the good times) pervades everything.

No one really talked about the solutions to excessive car use, which would have involved a discussion about the break up of communities, increasing social isolation, the erosion of self-esteem, urban growth policy, taxation (public services provision)...etc. — Isaac

Yes, it really all comes down to cars, suburban sprawl and city planning around cars, and most importantly car culture, which I would argue is the ontological basis of Western individualism and consumerism (I am not of this world because I am in a car).

Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing? So small a thing!

I am not arguing otherwise — Olivier5

I see. You just meant that climatology was taught in French high schools in the 1970s. That's odd, but ok.

Our chemistry and physics teacher described the different heat retention capacity of different gazes, and then explained that there was a big issue related to that and currently debated in climatology, that the CO2 content in the atmosphere was rising since the industrial revolution, and this would theoretically lead to what she called "global warming" in the future.

That was in 1980. It was the first time I heard about what we would later learn to call "climate change", I guess because "global warming" sounds too scary... Hysterical, right?

Then in the 90's there was all the discussion about the Kyoto protocol. Al Gore, in 2006, broke the news to Americans only, or to the few who believed him, anyway.... The rest of the world was well aware a decade before at the very least.

https://apple.news/Agflj-RlpQOyvlqh5rcvVyQ

More sickening news.

Al Gore, in 2006, broke the news to Americans only, — Olivier5

Global warming was a common theme in science fiction in the 1980s. The 1982 movie Blade Runner was typical. So no, the news wasn't broken to Americans by Al Gore. He was just unusually successful in raising alarm.

The climate doesn't really care. — Tate

Is there any point to that statement of the obvious?

Sickening indeed! What will it take to halt business as usual, or even slow it down?

No, people don’t know what they ought to do to help, because they think it’s a hoax. — Xtrix

I think a huge part of the issue is that people want governments to solve the problem as long as it doesn't inconvenience them or impact their accustomed lifestyles. Any governments that propose measures such as taxes, restrictions on international travel, restrictions on fuel and power usage and so on, will not be voted in come next election. Maybe democracies are inadequate to solve the problem because there are too many competing interests. But then autocracies are generally corrupt.

Is there any point to that statement of the obvious? — Janus

Just that "per capita" doesn't mean much.

Why did the recycling movement in the 90s succeed where action on climate change fails? Was it a much different government administration and publicization strategy, less dilution of memes via internet? Was society simply more organized and leadership competent?

It's much more relevant than per country.

Relevant to what?

Relevant to assessing degree of responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions, what do you think?

Relevant to assessing degree of responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions, what do you think? — Janus

Oh. No, it's not relevant to that. CO2 footprint is relative to wealth. Few are poor by choice

You're making my argument for me. The wealthy generally produce more emissions than the poor, and since they are wealthy and live the extravagant lives they do by choice, that makes them all the more responsible.

Global warming was a common theme in science fiction in the 1980s. The 1982 movie Blade Runner was typical. So no, the news wasn't broken to Americans by Al Gore. He was just unusually successful in raising alarm. — Tate

Given how polarized US politics was becoming at the time, I'm starting to wonder if Gore being the face of climate change activism in the country made Americans LESS likely to address it. Not that that was his fault, of course (more society's), but we all know how politics ruins literally everything.

You're making my argument for me. The wealthy generally produce more emissions than the poor, and since they are wealthy and live the extravagant lives they do by choice, that makes them all the more responsible. — Janus

Whatever.

Given how polarized US politics was becoming at the time, I'm starting to wonder if Gore being the face of climate change activism in the country made Americans LESS likely to address it. Not that was his fault, of course (more society's), but we all know how politics ruins literally everything. — Mr Bee

Could be. I hadn't thought of that.

Given how polarized US politics was becoming at the time, I'm starting to wonder if Gore being the face of climate change activism in the country made Americans LESS likely to address it. Not that that was his fault . . . — Mr Bee

With his fleet of SUVs and flying all over the world? How could that be?

Global warming was a common theme in science fiction in the 1980s. — Tate

Sci-fi, huh? Strange to rely on movies to get exposed to a leading scientific problem... You guys don't study science in the classroom much, apparently. That would explain your surprise.

So no, the news wasn't broken to Americans by Al Gore. He was just unusually successful in raising alarm. — Tate

I was just responding to your original claim that before Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, almost nobody knew about CC.