Odd Thought of the Day: What if greenhouse gasses are neither the only nor even the primary cause of global warming? Within the past 100 or so years, we humans have started generating a lot of heat. Burning coal, natural gas, petroleum, etc. to generate motion and electricity. All those moving parts turn motion energy into heat energy by friction as well as their combustion. What do we do with the excess heat? Dump it in the air. Car brakes are air cooled and we have radiators to shed the heat our engines create.

Also, think about refrigeration. It works by moving heat out of where you want it. Your refrigerator transports heat from the inside of the box and dumps it in the room. Air conditioners move heat from inside your house and dump it outside. Same with air conditioners in cars. Since you can’t create nor destroy energy, all that heat energy has to pile up somewhere. Normally, the earth sheds it off into space and stuff. If you compound the problem by also creating a lot of greenhouse gases at the same time, we’re hurting. Think about that next time you have a Coke with ice!