Re: Global Warming - I love that it's finally getting attention

Ctyankee is correct in this regard:  It is an oft-repeated quote of statisticians that "correlation does not mean causation".  That being said, water vapor levels in the atmosphere have not dramatically increased.  CO₂ has.  So ctyankee's assertion of H₂O being the leading GHG is a bit of a red herring -- it is a true statement in and of itself, but it is a distractor.  It is also significantly more difficult to control atmostpheric H₂O levels than CO₂. As the earth warms, you'll get more water vapor in the air, increasing clouding and reflecting sunlight away, cooling the earth causing it to percipitate (rain) back down, reducing the cloud layers.  The problem is there is no such 'cycle' for CO₂ released from the underground carbon pool (oil, coal).  See Venus (as in the planet) for a reminder of the synergistic effects of CO₂ and H₂O run amuck.

While ctyankee is all for cleaning up pollution, the failure to recognize CO₂ as a major post-Industrial age pollutant is disconcerting: his desire to clean other pollutants out of the air without removing CO₂ will actually increase global warming, as the pollutants in the air reflect sunlight in a process known as global dimming, as shown in the 3 days after 911, where the decrease in airplane contrails resulted in a spike in temperatures bringing them inline with the global pan evaporation rate predictions (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/).  Essentially smog has kept global warming in check.  Wry humor.

As for the question of whether CO₂ is a pollutant, see research done at the University of Illinois regarding the effects of high CO₂ levels (year 2030 estimates) on food crop production http://www.news.uiuc.edu/scitips/03/0730crop.html

If you recall your basic buffer solution chem labs, you'll appreciate just how rapidly things can change:  In a buffered solution, the PH remains constant when you add an acid or a base to it, and you can usually add quite a bit until just-one-more-drop causes the PH to change completely.  This is similar to the situation with CO₂ -- currently there are various buffering pools, the ocean being a major one.  Curiously (and by that I mean frightening), the ocean's ability to hold CO₂ dimenishes as the ocean warms, so once the water temperature rises, it will start releasing more of its captured CO_2. Eek.

So in this case, 'the avalanche' hasn't started yet, and the pebbles (as in, one-more-drop in the buffered solution chemistry example) do in-fact have a voice, and can indeed make a difference.  Ctyankee does in fact recognize this, as if he can connect with the right individual 'pebbles' atop the right corporate ladders he can get his commitment to 1000 units/month.  Individuals and the connections between them are highly important -- ask Obama.

Whether you believe CO₂ rates are responsible for global warming or not, the mere fact alone that research indicates that it will severly impact our ability to grow food crops should be scary enough to forge an all-out effort to sequester it.  Since it effects the photosynthesis ability of leaves, this will also impact other plants in our environment, something ctyankee supports saving.

With respect to CO₂ management, a sequestering coal plant (such as Futuregen - http://www.futuregenalliance.org/) coupled with co-firing with 50% biomass such as Miscanthus will have a better net impact on atmospheric CO₂ levels than "solar energy on a massive scale", as the biomass would extract the CO₂ while growing, and the coal plant would inject it back into the ground (sequestering), offsetting the continuing release of CO₂ by non-sequestering coal plants.

While most folks are all for increasing 'free' electricity generated by the sun (and wind is indirect solar power), it won't happen overnight.  There needs to be an interim step, like what is happening with hybrid cars -> plug-in hybrids -> full-blown EV's.  Convincing existing coal fired plants to convert/upgrade to be able to co-fire biomass is a relatively easily achieveable upgrade that would have an immediate impact on CO₂ released from the underground storage pool, even for non-sequestering plants.

Not that I discourage working for the implementation of direct solar plants, it's just that it is not the 'magic solution'.  It will take many different power technologies, some lobbying big business/government, and others making impacts at the grassroots level.  My rationale for a multi-faceted approach, see what happened to Futuregen w/r/t big business/government 'committing' and then at the last second backing out.