Listen for the Lie

A really smart person reminded me the other day to "Listen for the Lie". He explained that the "the lie" is really the intentional ommission of an important fact or something that really can't be said openly.

Sensing that I understood his point but really didn't take him seriously or at least appear thoughtful about his profound impartation, he asked me, "What is the largest greenhouse gas on earth"? I quickly replied "CO2". To which he said, "Do some research, find the lie".

So I did and quite easily at both the US Government Environmental Information Site, EPA websites and FEDSTATS, you can see that the largest and most dangerous greenhouse gas from a global warming perspective is water vapor. However, since water vapor is not man made the graphs conveniently leave this data out of their analysis.

You can see that if you eliminate Water Vapor from the chart on the left, the CO2 column will become absolutely huge. That is why everyone is so careful to say "MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING" so you can eliminate any discussion of water vapor.



Here are two quotes from the EPA Study entitled: "GREENHOUSE GASES AND GLOBAL WARMING POTENTIAL VALUES"

Greenhouse Gases
Although the Earth’s atmosphere consists mainly of oxygen and nitrogen, neither plays a significant role in enhancing the greenhouse effect because both are essentially transparent to terrestrial radiation. The greenhouse effect is primarily a function of the concentration of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other trace gases in the atmosphere that absorb the terrestrial radiation leaving the surface of the Earth.

Water Vapor (H2O)
Overall, the most abundant and dominant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapor. Water vapor is neither long-lived nor well mixed in the atmosphere. In addition, atmospheric water can exist in several physical states including gaseous, liquid, and solid. Human activities are not believed to directly affect the average global concentration of water vapor.



Kind of interesting, isn't it?