Where’s the Water Vapor?
Where’s water vapor?
And the answer is not that the chart is containing only elemental gases like oxygen, nitrogen, some of the noble gases, because CO2 is not one of those. So, if CO2 is included, water vapor, just for the sake of consistency, should also be included, especially because, of all so-called “greenhouse gases,” water vapor is greater in both quantity and effect than all the other “greenhouse gases” combined.
Of course, the CO2-phobes will claim that a molecule of CO2 will absorb more IR radiation than a molecule of water vapor.
“And then what?” ought to be the next question.
Possible answers (note that I didn’t say answers that were possible):
1. The molecule of CO2 re-radiates the IR that it absorbed.
2. The molecule of CO2 never re-radiates the IR it absorbs.
And then what?
If 2, then the heat is sequestered, that molecule of CO2 can never again absorb more IR, and there is a net loss of atmospheric warmth.
If 1, then the energy is re-radiated and reabsorbed by any other gasses in the atmosphere, maybe another CO2 molecule, but probably not, given how few of them there are compared to molecules of water vapor. And since the total number of directions spaceward that any molecule of any gas will re-radiate absorbed energy exceeds the number of directions earthward, then there is always a net loss from the atmosphere.
And if water vapor can absorb that energy and retain it longer than oxygen or nitrogen, then the water vapor will absorb a relative amount of energy to a degree that depends on the total number of other gas molecules times their respective capacities to retain heat before reradiating it divided by the total number of water molecules multiplied by its relative capacity to retain heat.
One way of looking at it is to consider the average yearly income of the US population reporting an income minus millionaires and billionaires compared to average yearly income of those millionaires and billionaires.
Individual by individual, that of the first group is a fraction of that of the second group. But the aggregate of the first group exceeds that of the second group.
So what the CO2-phobes do is to compare individual molecules of gases in terms of capacity to absorb heat, find which ones are the highest, and, of those, which is the one most easily attributable to voluntary human activity which can then be targeted and taxed.
Then they describe its relatively greater capacity to absorb and re-radiate heat energy compared to all other atmospheric gases (almost never mentioning water vapor), say how many times more horribly bad it is than the others, say that human activity produces far more CO2 than any of the other gases they mentioned (skipping over the relative quantities of human-generated CO2 compared to all other sources—for exactly the same reason they don’t compare total the total heat capacity of all atmospheric water vapor to all atmospheric CO2, because either would gut-shoot the arguments they’re trying to erect on their fallacies of emphasis—and then claim human-generated CO2 poses as many-fold greater the danger to the planet as the heat absorption of a single molecule of CO2 is greater than a single molecule of other atmospheric gases.
But such is to be expected since, from the very beginning, the object of the UN studies with respect to changes in atmospheric temperature has been been focused entirely on identifying human causes. If that operation had been scientific, it would have focused on identifying all possible causes of changes in atmospheric temperature and then comparing their relative impacts.
But those in charge, especially those who create the policy recommendations for governments, focus only on things arising from human activity, of those, the ones over which they can most easily exert the greatest control AND, in doing so, acquire ever greater control over those activities.
Also not surprising because that was their objective from the very beginning. Atmospheric CO2 just happened to be the most easily gamed and made to appear to be a more or less external, objective threat.
They could have just started by saying that the ingenuity of humans in protecting themselves from the dangerous extremes of weather and seasons and deliberately being able to increase food supply, leading to increases in daily energy intake, increases in daily productive output, increases in health and longevity, and increases in population is the primary problem that must be curtailed for the betterment of society.
Oh, wait, anti-technology or technology not completely under the control of the state was part of Marxism from the earliest days, and before that, of the German socialists that were trying to maintain exclusive control over business activity.
Combine that with the French socialists who alleged they were trying to recover the original state of man which had been corrupted by the human institutions of the monarchy, the church, and business, and you have their modern lunatic amalgam.
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