Water vapor is one of the most important elements of the climate system. A greenhouse gas, like carbon dioxide, it represents around 80 percent of total greenhouse gas mass in the atmosphere and 90 percent of greenhouse gas volume.
Water vapor and clouds account for 66 to 85 percent of the greenhouse effect, compared to a range of 9 to 26 percent for CO2. So why all the attention on carbon dioxide and its ilk? Is water vapor the real culprit causing global warming?
You might want to think about adding another journalist’s blog to your internet “favorites” or RSS feed-reader.
Veteran Wall Street Journal reporters Jeffrey Ball and Keith Johnson this week launched “Environmental Capital“. Most of the reporting is to be done by Johnson, with Ball editing and also contributing copy.
When the Environmental Protection Agency rejected California’s request for authority to set its own regulations to limit greenhouse gases from vehicles in late December, it was predictably big news there and in 16 other states that had indicated a desire to opt into California’s rules, as the Clean Air Act allows.
When it comes to covering the climate issue in the campaign for president, politicians and the nation’s news and editorial pages just can’t commit.
The environment, and that includes global warming, is an issue that politicians like to date but don’t want to marry.
That’s how Cliff Zukin, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, describes the kind of attention the 21st century’s greatest environmental challenge has received this election season. And the nation’s reporters, editorial writers, op-ed columnists, TV talk show hosts, and pundits haven’t pushed very hard to keep the relationship going.
“Global temperatures have not increased since 1998.”
That point has been a common argument among climate skeptic communities in the blogosphere for the past few years. It gained prominence recently in an article in the New Statesman by David Whitehouse, a journalist and former BBC science correspondent.
Why blog?
It’s a question I ask myself often – usually around 5:50 p.m., when I can see I’m blowing deadline. Again.
At least for this Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter, blogging means doing everything that needed doing to “feed the beast” of daily print deadlines when P-I colleague Lisa Stiffler and I launched “Dateline Earth” in late 2005. Only now, we have our own little mini-beast, kept in a usually-quiet corner of the P-I‘s website.
From Cup Holders and Pick Up to … Lots More
Reporting on the auto industry, cars and trucks, used to mostly involve lots of detailed analysis of horsepower, pick up, handling, looks, and safety. The beat is broader and more complex now. Over the past few years, the issues and scope of coverage have expanded as the public’s interest in green cars has – excuse the pun – clearly accelerated.
