It is hard to remember, but even holding CO2 output at the current level insures continued climate change. A paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by Dr. John Sterman, reminds us that even advanced college students and educated adults hold the wrong mental model of greenhouse gas process. In a piece at NYT he argues we tend to think that CO2=temperature, but a better model is a clogged bathtub drain.

If the faucet is solar energy, and the drain is infrared re-radiation, CO2 and other greenhouse gases are the clogged drain. So even adding zero new CO2, which no one considers possible in the short term, we would continue to see the drain be slow, and average temperatures would continue to rise.

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