My Two Favorite Questions for Global Warmists

From Paul Jacobson:

So, I find myself sitting around a patio table next Independence Day sipping on the perfect mimosa with some friends and a couple of folks I haven’t met before. One of the new acquaintances brings up the subject of “climate change.” I know from the term used that this one is probably a sorta believer but not a hard-core, unshakable advocate; were that so, he would have used the latest, hippest, most with-it name-change term “climate disruption.” Now it’s time for my Favorite Global Warmism Question #1:

Did you know that there’s no such thing as a greenhouse gas?

The conversation around the table stops dead in its tracks. Everybody’s looking quizzically at each other. No one is looking at me. After a few seconds, a dear friend of many years says, “C’mon, Flyoverpen, you must be kidding. Everybody knows greenhouse gasses exist.” I cross my arms, put on a smug pursed-lip smile and repeat, “Nope, there’s no such thing as a greenhouse gas.”

I then proceed to explain that the word “greenhouse” in that term is a misnomer. In a real-world earthbound greenhouse — we all know what they look like even though there aren’t many in existence anymore — the sun’s short-wave infrared light penetrates through the glass roof, warming up what’s inside the greenhouse: air, plants, soil, etc.

As the things inside the greenhouse absorb the short-wave infrared, they convert it into heat — long-wave infrared. This long-wave infrared, instead of readily penetrating glass on the way out, is partially blocked; greenhouse glass is said to be opaque to long-wave infrared. Inside heat can escape from a greenhouse more readily if the temperature between inside and outside air increases. However, the mechanism — convection — by which the greenhouse cools under such circumstances is altogether different from what the sun does to heat up the greenhouse.

And, of course, if that bratty neighbor kid pitches a rock at the greenhouse roof and breaks a glass pane, warm air escapes, by air convection, in a hurry. In other words, a real greenhouse does its job primarily by suppressing convection.

Read more: American Thinker