There are four non-toxic gases-of-life in Earth’s protective atmospheric blanket. None should be captured and buried. The most abundant is nitrogen -- 78%. If there was no nitrogen there would be no plant or animal protein and a very different world. Next most abundant is oxygen -- 21%. Without oxygen most of today’s animal life would die within minutes. Both nitrogen and oxygen can moderate climate by absorbing surface heat and transferring it aloft by convection. Then comes marvelous water, whose vapor comprises a variable 0.1 - 4% of the atmosphere, while liquid water fills the oceans, lakes and rivers that cover 70% of Earth’s surface and makes all clouds, snow, and ice. Water vapor is Earth’s most effective “Greenhouse gas”, except in the very dry air at the poles. Water and water vapor moderate the extremes of temperature on Earth, cooling the hot tropics by evaporation and convection and, by delaying the loss of surface heat, often...(Read Full Post)