This is true of all greenhouse gasses. All the greenhouse gas calculations for all gasses include effects of water vapor.
I've only had a chance to skim this thread but it seems like all of the same bugaboos about global warming have been brought up. Lack of consensus regarding the science, how much is caused by man, damage to the economy and so on... Without going through all of these have they have been addressed in this thread and ad nauseum previously I will again state what I and many others have said previously. While there is still much unknown regarding global warming the inescabable fact is that we are conducting a very large scale experiment on Earth's atmosphere. An experiment that most models show has eventually having negative affects on the future of human civilization. In short we're taking a big gamble on our future where the odds don't look good. No doubt any major change does cause short term pain but when considering the options of what could potentially be very bad they short term pain might be very well worth it. In addition to that given all of the problems we continue to face with fossil fuel based economy there are tangible benefits to switching to renewable and non-carbon based energy even without global warming.
Yeah - everyone here understands that and I don't think that's what we're debating. Long-term switchover to alternative energy is clear. What isn't clear is this: Have we crossed a "point of no return" - that is, no matter what we do, there's going to be some serious impact that we can't avoid - that it's going to get a lot worse then better no matter what so why cause additional human misery by killing the economy.....or can we make a difference in the short term by enacting policy. But how deep does that policy have to go? Cut emissions by how much? HOw much conservation, how much economic sacrafice - which industries? Who? These are the tough questions - and no one has the faintest clue. It's one thing to just throw out numbers and yell Kyoto Kyoto - but Kyoto isn't going to solve the problem. In fact, it could do more harm than good by lulling people to believe that's all that needs to be done. This is why I am against it - beyond the fact that it's not practicle. I think conservation has to begin as a volunatary movement first - that is, advocated and backed by the government. It should be taught in schools, and the government needs to bring greater awareness on how people can live more green lifestyles. That alone is the first step. The second is committing more to nuclear for the next few decades until other sources of energy have been developed. I don't think the first step should be forced standards - perhaps tax incentives are the right approach - that's something Republicans and Dems can rally behind. And again, people need to take into consideration that the science is not exact - and that benefits won't be seen for maybe 20 years. That kind of education had to take place or people will go anti-enviromental as soon as they don't see it make a difference.
i think we all agree that regardless of a case for global warming, people should be environmentally friendly, as ron burgundy would say, "i wanna be friends with it". of course that means conservation and overall less pollution. But i think that it would be prudent that any major changes need to be evaluated on many different levels, e.g less emissions doesnt necessarily mean more environmentally friendly.
At the very least, there's health and aesthetic benefits to less emissions from fossil fuels. Some cities have banned smoking in public places for the same reason. The scale of the public commons is much larger in this case.
