It's a mistake to describe climate change to the public in terms of temperature increases.
Because all the layman does is think to himself, "so what"? I can handle 1.5 degrees increase...it'll be nice in the winter...(p.s. what the heck is a "Celsius"?).
What needs to be explained is the total amount of energy we are adding to the ecosystem. Neil de Grasse Tyson is pretty good at explaining it but we need more of this.

Millions, Billions, Trillions… their eyes glaze over.

Kilo, Mega, Giga … nope!

James Hansen had an excellent illustration (in my opinion) with his “climate dice.” Up until 1980, you had a die with two blue sides, two white sides, and two red sides. The white sides represented "normal" Summers, the blue sides represented Summers which were cooler than "normal" and the red sides represented Summers which were warmer than "normal." There were essentially even odds for all 3.

By 1990, one of the “blue” sides had turned “red” (half the time, a Summer was warmer than normal, a third of the time is was normal, and one time in six, it was cooler than normal.) There would still be normal Summers, and even Summers which were cooler than normal, but the odds had changed.

Simple, right? Easily understood! (So why didn’t people react? They chose not to understand.)


In 2010-2020, the normal Summers and the cooler than normal Summers represented less than one face of the die. 4 sides of the die were now red, and the 6th side of the die was now a very dark red (for a Summer which was much hotter than “normal.”)

Read more: The Climate Dice are Loaded. Now, a New Frontier?