Wouldn't this same logic apply to other sources of fixed CO2, such as fossil fuels? Those were once animals that eat things which came from "free" carbon too. In both cases, solid carbon is taken and converted into airborne carbon. The implication here is that the argument against releasing sequestered carbon theoretically applies to any source of carbon release, which would include humans breathing since from a technical perspective it is the same process.
This is true, and the temperature on earth hundreds of millions of years ago was also higher. The thing to be remembered about global warming is that it's not a threat to the earth itself, or even life on it, it's our societies that developed in a certain climactic period that will be damaged.
Another thing to remember is that animals eating plants and plants absorbing co2 is in equilibrium. So the net content of co2 in the atmosphere doesn't change. Changes of overall co2 content are driven by the capture of co2 in forms that don't get recycled, or the release of those deposits.
Technically the chemical reaction is the same, though the intermediate steps are different between metabolism and just burning it of course, but the problem for us is the raw totals of co2 concentration which is driven by burning large carbon deposits and not the natural carbon cycle.
The issue with saying that water vapor is a greenhouse gas is that it suggests people would be able to justify taxing or preventing other people's water usage in order to "save the environment".
Water vapor being a greenhouse gas does not automatically make it taxable. It also wouldn't make any impact on climate change since you can't tax the ocean to make it release less water vapor.
The underlying point I try to make about environmentalism is that you can't lead with just non-human technical jargon, telling people who exist at near a subsistence level not to over-fish while you fly around in a private jet or whatever other example of globalist hypocrisy and guilt tripping I might come up. Exist on the same level that you expect other people to exist at before you start talking about how cow farts harm the planet.
Sure, which is why most scientists aim to change the gut Flora of cows to produce less methane and aim to create technologies that allow people to live at our standard of living without the climate impact. Scientists =\= hard green activist hippies that want everyone to be vegan.
tl;dr do you eat beef? If you do, why do you get to lecture people about cow farts?
I don't actually, for other reasons. However I haven't lectures anyone that they shouldn't eat beef and neither do scientists. We simply have a fact that must be addressed somehow. Veganism is a little extreme, I would suggest either going with gut Flora or exploring the in vitro meat possibility.
My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.