[Vision2020] Global Warming, methane, politics

[Ted Moffett]

Jim et. al.

I enjoyed your excellent points on comparing water vapor and CO2 impacts on
global warming to a scenario with Earth having virtually no atmosphere.

It is important to consider though that human releases of CO2 leading to
warming might increase water vapor levels in the atmosphere, so the science
indicates water vapor should not be removed as a consideration when
contemplating the future potential or present real world impacts of human
sourced global warming.  And of course the claims that CO2 has a very very
small impact on global warming that is dwarfed by the impacts of water vapor
I do not think is justified anyway by current climate science.

Thanks also for the links to the articles on potential or past global
warming impacts of methane.  Thought this is potentially a very serious
climate change problem that could be triggered by human sourced CO2 global
warming, while CO2 can stay in the atmosphere for 100 years or more, methane
quickly dissipates in 10-12 years, so its climate altering effects are not
as long term as CO2.

However, this comment below gave me pause.  If global warming is not human
caused, our options to stop it might be very limited, just as stopping a
large asteroid from hitting Earth would present limited options to prevent
the disaster, only options to adapt.

A large campaign is under way to mystify the science indicating that human
sourced global warming is a danger.  Rush Limbaugh calls it a "hoax"
regularly to his audience of millions.  I think making the case that human
sourced global warming is not a hoax, that the best science demonstrates it
is caused by human behaviors which can be changed to lessen the threat, is a
very important argument to make.  Every time someone insists taking radical
action to address human sourced global warming is questionable because we
don't know enough about what is really causing global warming, just helps
delay taking substantive action.

Thanks for your comments.

Ted Moffett


> Lastly, it really doesn't make any difference what causes global
> warming/fast climate change. The point is that it is happening and
> people will die. It may not be from warming; it might be from cold.
> But--We can mitigate. We can reduce the deaths and misery, but only if
> we work together as one world, which of course, we are. Intelligent
> mitigation with worldwide cooperation, that is the answer to global
> climate change.
>
>
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