*shrug*
Strictly speaking, every physical change is an energy change. I’m not particularly interested in expressing these changes in units of Watts or Joules or degrees of temperature.
Indeed, those units are fairly difficult to work with at the level of policy, of evaluating the big picture questions, for anyone except an engineer, and engineers are typically overwhelmed by such technical detail so much they often miss big pictures.
I remember an engineer trying to explain once why he missed that his calculations indicated the SUV he was responsible for the design of would have triple the average rollover casualty rate of vehicles in its class. He said, when forced to acknowledge, it never occured to him the unit of measure of his calculation was a proxy for “dead babies”.
To show CO2 levels affect climate, I could use an engineering approach, sure.
Others have.
If you’re truly ignorant of the work done on absorbtivity and energy balance calculations and truly doubt the validity of multidecadal comparisons, nothing I say now will dislodge that entrenched refusal to see.
As to questions of policy, I’m satisfied CO2 levels are rising (aren’t you?), temperatures are rising (aren’t you?), the effects on weather of higher temperatures are happening (aren’t you?), and the complete logical chain from prime mover to effect has been demonstrated by reliable evidence (aren’t you?), that contrary claims of benefit are overblown and unreliable and not really pertinent (aren’t you?), and the Uncertainty is both small enough and asymmetrical in the direction of harms enough (aren’t you?), by enough to state current American policy is just plain in error (aren’t you?).
Knowing is fine. Doing something is what matters.