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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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I feel like I must exist in a very different bubble to you cause I rarely hear about water vapor feedback. The only catastrophic feedback mechanisms I hear about are the clathrate gun and permafrost gas releases. I'm skeptical of both, especially clathrate gun, but thats besides the point.

I feel like I must exist in a very different bubble to you cause I rarely hear about water vapor feedback

Well global warming is a culture war issue. So yeah, it sounds like you might be in the bubble created by mainstream sources which tend to follow the progressive/leftist/woke party line.

Greenhouse gases exist. It's easy to verify that certain gases absorb wavelengths of light that would normally reflect off the earth and go back into space. Absorbing this light causes the gas to heat up. We've been pumping greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, into the atmosphere. Therefore the planet will heat up.

This is what I would call "motte" global warming. It's very defensible, but the problem (for climate activists) is that if you do the math, it results only in modest global warming, not the catastrophic scenarios described by climate activists. For that, you need "bailey" global warming: The idea that warming due to CO2 will be strongly amplified by means of water vapor feedback. Which gets you the scary scenarios, but isn't supported by the evidence.

Unsurprisingly, climate activists would like to blur the distinction between motte global warming and bailey global warming -- so that they can pivot back and forth depending on what's most convenient.