The goal of this blog is to create a list of super facts. Important facts that are true with very high certainty and yet surprising, misunderstood, or disputed by many. This blog aims to be challenging, educational, and fun, without it being clickbait. I determine veracity using evidence, data from reputable sources and longstanding scientific consensus. Prepare to be challenged (I am). Intentionally seek the truth not confirmation of your belief.
Today is the second time I participate in Linda Hill’s streams of consciousness. To read about the rules and participate click here, or here. To read my previous entry (prompt was pre) click here. Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday April 4 is “hide”. Use it way you’d like. The first rule is: there should be minimal planning and no editing except typos. First thing that came to my mind was reindeer hide. Notice that this is not a super fact post, but just a general informational / factual post. In addition, to writing about my experiences with reindeer hides I also downloaded a few pictures from Wikipedia.
2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley!
Reindeer Hide Memories
I grew up northern Sweden where there are a lot of reindeer and reindeer hides. When we drove around on the north Swedish countryside, we often saw reindeer at the side of the road. Sometimes there were flocks of reindeer blocking the road. Unlike many other animals reindeer tends to be a little bit stupid about traffic and quite often they walked right in front of the cars. The risk for collision was quite high.
Distribution of Rangifer tarandus (Caribou/Reindeer) Red – Reindeer (orange: introduced populations) Green – Caribou. TBjornstad 11:46, 31 October 2006 (UTC), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Image is from this Wikipedia page.
A related interesting fact is that the in northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and parts of Russia there is an Aboriginal people referred to as Sami. They are / were traditionally a nomadic people who followed and herded the reindeer. Reindeer hide is a very important item for the Samis, and used for clothing, footwear, tents, drums and musical instruments, rugs and bedding. Reindeer hide is also an important cultural item for us “regular” north Swedes. When I was a kid, we used reindeer hide for bedding, decoration, wall ornaments, and for cover when sitting outside on the snow or the ice.
My kids here in Texas also have some experience with reindeer hides. When they were little, we visited the ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi in northern Sweden. The ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi is the original and largest ice hotel in the world. The beds in the ice hotel are made of ice and covered by reindeer hide to make it warm and soft. We also took a dog sled tour, and the sled was covered by reindeer hide for comfort. Below are some photos of us on a dogsled with reindeer hide and photos of ice beds with reindeer hide, including our room. I got these photos from my personal and very old family website.
We are going on a dogsled tour. The ice theater is in the background, and you can see part of the ice hotel on the right. Notice the reindeer hide on the sled.On the left is a kåta, a movable Sami structure (indigenous arctic Scandinavian people). Kåtas were traditionally made with reindeer hide.My dad Stig and his girlfriend Ulla came with us on the trip. Notice the reindeer hide on the ice bed.We are going to bed in our room. I think it was my wife Claudia who took the photo. Notice the reindeer hide on the ice bed.Another room with a snowy wall decoration. Notice the reindeer hide on the ice bed.Some of the rooms were really beautiful. Notice the reindeer hide on the bed.Some of the rooms had beautiful ice art. Notice the reindeer hide on the bed.You had to pay more for a big room. You paid the price of Hilton and got the comfort of camping in winter. Notice the reindeer hide on the bed.More ice art. Notice the reindeer hide on the bed.
Super fact 92 : College tuition and fees increased by 207% between 1997 and 2022, which corresponds to a tripling. Since 2022 it has continued to increase. Adjusted for inflation this corresponds to a 60% increase, more than any other major economic sector.
Students are sucked into a hole with money for college tuition. Shutterstock Asset id: 335014478 by alphaspirit.it.Data source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2026). OurWorldInData.org/technological-change. Note: Some services such as medical care are not adjusted for quality, some treatments have decreased in price rather than increased. To visit the original page for this graph click here or on the picture.
To read about the graph above in greater detail click here. To read more about the increase in college tuition click here, here, here, or here. To calculate the inflation for different periods of time click here (the inflation calculator).
It should be noted in the graphs above that Televisions have decreased in price by 98%, which seems implausible. However, it is not an April 1st joke. It is not April 1st in Texas yet (where I live). The reason for the large decline in price of Televisions is that quality is taken into account. 20 years ago, you could not easily buy the kind of TVs you can today and if you did you would cost you an enormous amount of money. You get a lot more for a few hundred bucks than you did 20 years ago.
This is a superfact because it is true, shocking, and important to how we live.
An example of heavy spending on amenities is college sports. I studied at a university called Uppsala University, which is a very large University founded in 1477. It is considered one of the world’s top Universities (top 50). However, they do not have any competitive teams associated with the University itself. In 1987 I was sent as an exchange student (electrical engineering) to Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve University has some competitive teams associated with the University but only a small college football stadium.
However, I quickly came to realize that many American universities have huge college football and baseball stadiums. This is an added expense that you rarely encounter in the rest of the world. Universities are for studies and for learning. Sports teams, whether it is soccer, or American football is a separate issue.
BLOOMINGTON, US – Aug 04, 2025: Side-angle drone view of Indiana University Memorial Stadium with field, stands, and cityscape on a clear summer day. . – Shutterstock Asset id: 2700467103
I came across a very interesting post about the science history of greenhouse effect: “The Greenhouse Effect: From Early Chemistry to the Keeling Curve” by Craigavad miscellany a science blog written by a retired academic. It is a very educational and interesting post related to this topic. Please take a look.
From Scripps institute. Keep two things in mind. First the warming from CO2 is delayed and may result in positive feedback that can manifest decades and centuries later. Secondly, human civilization developed during a period of stable climate. That CO2 levels and temperatures were higher millions of years ago is not much comfort.
Superfact 91: Without greenhouse gases, the Earth’s average surface temperature would drop from the current 15 Celsius (59 Fahrenheit) to approximately -18 Celsius (0 Fahrenheit), which is an average temperature drop of 33 degrees Celsius. If you removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere but let the other greenhouse gases stay the drop would be 30 degrees Celsius. In both cases most of the planet would freeze. This is referred to as snowball Earth.
Shutterstock Asset id: 2750019199 by Shutterstock AI
Our planet is much warmer than it otherwise would be because of greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is the most important of the greenhouse gases. We are rapidly warming the atmosphere with our carbon dioxide emissions as explained by these articles from NASA and NOAA. If we did the opposite and removed CO2 from the atmosphere we would be cooling the atmosphere. As mentioned, if we removed all greenhouse gases from the atmosphere the planet’s average temperature would drop by 33 degrees Celsius and this NASA article claims it would take 50 years to reach that temperature.
If we removed only carbon dioxide and let all the other greenhouse gases remain, we would get an almost as big temperature drop of 30 degrees Celsius according to the calculations done by this article. Some of you may know that water vapor provides a larger portion of the warming than CO2. In fact, 75% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor and clouds. This seems contradictory. However, when the atmosphere cools, the water vapor will rain out of the atmosphere unlike CO2. Basically, water vapor will adjust to the temperature whilst CO2 is forcing the temperature. It is crucial to understand this difference. That is why CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas. In summary, we need just the right amount of CO2 for a healthy climate.
I consider this a super fact because it is true, it is an important fact, and I believe it is a surprising fact to many, especially those who doubt carbon dioxide’s importance to the global warming we are experiencing. I called it global warming but whether you call it global warming, climate change, or climate disruption, we are talking about the same thing.
Snowball Earth
Shutterstock Asset id: 2749007159 by Shutterstock AI
Scientists believe there have been at least two major “Snowball Earth” events between 720 and 635 million years ago where ice and snow covered nearly the entire planet. These snowball earth events were triggered by natural events, likely a plunge in sunlight, followed by a plunge in carbon dioxide not entering the atmosphere, and amplified by sunlight reflecting back into space. All three effects made Earth cooler. The recent ice ages were likely caused primarily by earth’s orbital cycles. Climate changed in the past due to natural phenomena, but that does not mean that the current very rapid warming (rapid geologically speaking) is natural.
If you want to understand why we can be so sure that it is our CO2 emissions that is causing the current global warming, not the sun, not volcanoes, not orbital cycles, and not another natural process, please check out the list of evidence in the second part of this post “Global Warming is Happening and is Caused by us”.
Hothouse Venus
Image taken by the NASA MESSENGER as it approached Venus on June 5, 2007. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. The image is taken from this Wikipedia article.
The opposite of snowball Earth is hot Venus. Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system due to an extreme runaway greenhouse effect. Surface temperatures are averaging around 465 degrees Celsius (870 degrees Fahrenheit). The thick atmosphere of Venus is composed primarily of carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid. This causes a greenhouse effect that traps heat.
Despite the fact that Mercury is much closer to the sun (58 million kilometers versus 108 million kilometers) and receives nearly four times as much sunlight per unit area than Venus, Mercury is on average much cooler. The reason is that Mercury’s atmosphere is thin and without a greenhouse effect.
The YouTube video below from NASA explains the greenhouse effect on Venus. It is just one minute long.
Grant from “Grant at Tame Your Book” have written an excellent and well researched post about the dark side of Artificial Intelligence. It has nearly a hundred references and it is very professionally written. It is called Don’t Confuse AI with a Benign Tool. With this post I just wanted to highlight this important post. Please check it out.
Super Facts 