[dexwiz]

It’s all about electrochemical potential. Adding or removing electrons from the outer shell of an atom involves a fair amount of energy, either being released or stored. Depending on the atom, they either want their shell filled or emptied. Noble gases have the same number of protons as a filled shell, so they are very stable. Why electron shells exist is a whole other matter.

Water is kind of like ash. Technically full combustion of any hydrocarbon outputs CO2 and Water. Since water isn’t a greenhouse gas it’s not mentioned when discussing combustion usually.

[ljf]

(boring not pick, water is not a green house gas as sea level, but in the upper atmosphere water vapour most certainly does help to trap heat in the system - https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/steamy-relatio...

This is one of the reasons why methane leaks are so impactful - not only is methane a terrible green house gas, when it decays in the upper atmosphere, it decays into water vapour and CO2)

[aeonik]

Water absolutely is a green house gas, and the most significant one at that.

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/steamy-relatio...