Iceland's volcano and our efforts to be GREEN

[RD]

For all of you out there in America and across the globe who have fought so hard to tackle the hideous enemy of our planet, namely carbon emissions, that bogus god you worship named "Climate Change" or "Global Warming",  there is some really bad news that will be very painful for you to process. But here it is anyway.

Are you sitting down?

Okay, here's the bombshell. The current volcanic eruption going on in Iceland, since it first started spewing volcanic ash a few weeks ago, has, to this point, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet.  Not only that, this single act of nature has added emissions to the earth estimated to be 42 times more than can be corrected by the extreme human regulations proposed for annual reductions.

I know, I know.... (have a group hug)...it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up til midnight to finish your kid's "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, going on vacation to a city park instead of Yosemite, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your $1 light bulbs with $10 light bulbs ...well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just the past few weeks.

The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in the past week has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon.  And, those hundreds of thousands of American jobs you helped move to Asia with expensive emissions demands on businesses... you know, the ones that are creating even more emissions than when they were creating American jobs, well that must seem really worthwhile now.

I'm so sorry. And I do wish that there was some kind of a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the brush fire season across the western U.S.A. will start in about two months and those fires will negate your efforts to reduce carbon emissions in our world for the next two years.

So, grab a Coke, give the world a hug, and have a nice fricken day!


* I do not have any scientific proof to back this up, nor can i vouch for the validity of the statements made in this email, but boy it does intrigue me *

[bull]

I heard somewhere that volcanoes that erupt nearer to the Earth's poles don't do nearly as much damage as those closer to the equator. I don't have a scientific source of proof for that either.

[Ponch ®]

For all of you out there in America and across the globe who have fought so hard to tackle the hideous enemy of our planet, namely carbon emissions, that bogus god you worship named "Climate Change" or "Global Warming",  there is some really bad news that will be very painful for you to process. But here it is anyway.

Are you sitting down?

Okay, here's the bombshell. The current volcanic eruption going on in Iceland, since it first started spewing volcanic ash a few weeks ago, has, to this point, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet.  Not only that, this single act of nature has added emissions to the earth estimated to be 42 times more than can be corrected by the extreme human regulations proposed for annual reductions.

I know, I know.... (have a group hug)...it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up til midnight to finish your kid's "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, going on vacation to a city park instead of Yosemite, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your $1 light bulbs with $10 light bulbs ...well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just the past few weeks.

The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in the past week has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon.  And, those hundreds of thousands of American jobs you helped move to Asia with expensive emissions demands on businesses... you know, the ones that are creating even more emissions than when they were creating American jobs, well that must seem really worthwhile now.

I'm so sorry. And I do wish that there was some kind of a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the brush fire season across the western U.S.A. will start in about two months and those fires will negate your efforts to reduce carbon emissions in our world for the next two years.

So, grab a Coke, give the world a hug, and have a nice fricken day!


* I do not have any scientific proof to back this up, nor can i vouch for the validity of the statements made in this email, but boy it does intrigue me *

If you got it in "one of those e-mails", odds are there's no scientific proof to back it up.

[RD]

Comparison of CO2 emissions from volcanoes vs. human activities.
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1991). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 27 billion tonnes per year (30 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 2006) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2, through 2003.]. Human activities release more than 130 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of more than 8,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 3.3 million tonnes/year)! (Gerlach et. al., 2002)

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php

[derailed]

Comparison of CO2 emissions from volcanoes vs. human activities.
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1991). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 27 billion tonnes per year (30 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 2006) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2, through 2003.]. Human activities release more than 130 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of more than 8,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 3.3 million tonnes/year)! (Gerlach et. al., 2002)

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php

I would say thats a very credible source.

[daves68]

SO with all of the volcanoes that have been erupting during the history of earth, the planet should have been totally destroyed a million years ago. Yet, my car emissions have the ability to singlehandedly kill off everyone. Check your perspective chip guys.

[bull]

I would say thats a very credible source.

It is credible but it argues the opposite opinion of the first post. One is in millions and the other is in billions. However, what they fail to mention is anything about the cumulative effect of volcanoes vs. human-generated CO2 since I would imagine volcanoes had been erupting for a long, long time before the industial age of man began.

[RD]

another good article regarding volcanoes vs. human CO2 production:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/apr/21/iceland-volcano-climate-sceptics

[AKcharger]

I heard George Bush Set off the Volcano

[bull]

I heard George Bush Set off the Volcano

Yes. And Al Gore told God to leave the sun shut off for an extra couple months this spring to slow global warming.

[Mike DC]

Yes. And Al Gore told God to leave the sun shut off for an extra couple months this spring to slow global warming.

Didn't he just buy a whole chain of suntanning salons not too long ago?

[derailed]

Hey, none of this really matters because according to a certain group of people the "end times" are coming. 

[derailed]

Anyway you look at it, these are some cool pics

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html

[Tilar]

Trying to stop climate change or anything nature does is like taking a whiz in the ocean. You'll never see the effects of your efforts.

I heard George Bush Set off the Volcano

That's alright, I'm sure the annointed one can fix it with an executive order. 

[RD]

Anyway you look at it, these are some cool pics

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html

great pictures, thanks for the link

[Silver R/T]

I wonder how Obama will deal with this issue?

[RD]

seriously, why does this thread have to be distracted from the fact of just a stupid, yet somewhat curious, email.

no political undertones please.

[Tilar]

Because climate change/global warming and carbon taxes are nothing more than a political agenda brought on by the party that happens to be currently in charge and anytime these subjects are brought up it will turn into an obamafest.

[chargerboy69]

Yes. And Al Gore told God to leave the sun shut off for an extra couple months this spring to slow global warming.

Didn't he just buy a whole chain of suntanning salons not too long ago?

Not sure but it looks like Tipper will get half.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-20006650-10391698.html

[AKcharger]

Because climate change/global warming and carbon taxes are nothing more than a political agenda brought on by the party that happens to be currently in charge and anytime these subjects are brought up it will turn into an obamafest.

Have to agree...climate change and politics are one inthe same 

[tricky lugnuts]

RANT: That is a funny email, and quite possibly true.

But even if that volcano didn't overshadow B.S. attempts at carbon dioxide reductions (Oh my god, how can you not, like, drive a Prius!) all the forest fires out west and the death of the Gulf of Mexico marshlands this summer should help . . . Yeah, maybe we'll survive all those things too and further prove "liberals" concerned about the "environment" are just a bunch of retards, pardon the politically incorrect term!

And keep in mind, to fuel Internet celebration, and prolong the airline industry's troubles with flights in Europe, the last time those volcanoes erupted, they erupted for something like 10 years.

There's no doubt volcanoes can ruin your day - like, falling debris, lava and mudslides, years without a summer, meters of ash deposits hundreds of miles away, ash choking out the sun and poisoning the rain.

Though they may have eclipsed efforts at being GREEN, these Iceland volcanoes have been small potatoes so far. What we need to really dump some carbon dioxide, yes it's carbon dioxide that's the greenhouse gas, not carbon, is another Krakatoa, another Yellowstone eruption. We need the kind of eruption the world hasn't seen in a few million years. Something to blanket two-thirds of a major continent in ash. If we survive that, we'll really be able to call those environmentalists stupid - plus, all that ash in the atmosphere would go a long way to really cooling things back down.  

But - pokes at ineffectual "cap and trade" schemes and MPG mandates aside - it sounds like the guy who sent you this email has a real hard-on for trying to dismiss the notion of climate change, and trying to diminish anybody's attempt, whether personal or governmental, to reduce the size, scope or toxicity of their footprint on the only known habitable planet in the universe. Kudos to him for that.  

Maybe he works for a diversifying oil company or a clean-coal company? Maybe he's a nihilist who can't see any downside to having vast portions of his planet become inhabitable. Maybe he has a cynical sense of humor. I don't know. But I can't help but laugh - or cringe in horror - at people who try to say with 100% certainty that global warming, or worse, climate change, isn't real.

Granted, there may be no political solution to climate change. I sure doubt that even if there is the U.S. Congress has the combined mental power (435 idiots are no better than one idiot) to even come close to realizing it. There may not even be sufficient capacity in the human brain to understand the synergy of separate Earth sciences that together prompt climate change, as it unfolds over millions and millions of years.

But a quick look around here in the Midwest tells the tale of massive ice sheets, say, one mile thick ice sheets over Minneapolis, for example, covering much of the landscape just a few thousand years ago. Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, Lake Huron, Lake Superior, Lake Michigan - they're modern day runoff refilling puddles left over from glaciers. Which suggests to me that there is quite a bit of natural variability to Earth's climate - and some of that is likely to be at least spurred by volcanic activity.

And yes, each one of those uncontrollable volcanoes, harbingers of doom, tools of Satan, whatever you want to call them, likely eclipse my Dodge Charger's lifetime of emissions. Plant a tree. Or better yet, don't cut one down. Good luck.

For god's sake people, there were once massive dinosaurs roaming Earth, wooly mammoths in Ohio, palm trees dropping coconuts at the freaking north and south poles, tropical seas over Ohio and Indiana. And all of that before there was 750 million people on Earth. Now we're pushing seven billion people, so the numbers have changed a bit. But most likely, in the grand scheme of things, human beings will not mean shit.

Thanks to the volcanoes for keeping things real, at least on a geological time frame. I just farted to try and do my part.  

[RD]

Because climate change/global warming and carbon taxes are nothing more than a political agenda brought on by the party that happens to be currently in charge and anytime these subjects are brought up it will turn into an obamafest.

i think everyone just wants to point the finger of blame to the side they hate the most and the easiest way to do that is to name politicians to try and get a rise out of people that oppose their views.

but that is just me.

[Tilar]

Because climate change/global warming and carbon taxes are nothing more than a political agenda brought on by the party that happens to be currently in charge and anytime these subjects are brought up it will turn into an obamafest.

i think everyone just wants to point the finger of blame to the side they hate the most and the easiest way to do that is to name politicians to try and get a rise out of people that oppose their views.

but that is just me.

Maybe so but the indisputable fact is Al gore started this and he is without doubt a member of the party that is currently (although not for long) in charge of the current mess.

[RD]

agreed, but let us focus on the issue of global warming vs climate change rather than al gore vs the world.

[Tilar]

Isn't that all one in the same? 

[RD]

Isn't that all one in the same? 

not from my viewpoint, mr. gore (though a proponent) does not constitute the entire global warming community in my opinion.

[tricky lugnuts]

Mr. Gore, in my unprofessional opinion, is a shill.

He may have won a Nobel Prize for An Inconvenient Truth, which I admit to having read and owned, but from my perspective he alone did more to polarize the politics and public perception of climate change and global warming than any professional paleoclimatologist or oil or coal industry shill working anywhere in the world.

The same thing would happen in any circumstance when a polarizing figure like Gore takes a decided stand on one far side of the debate and starts calling for things like carbon taxes and "mandatory" alternative energy quotas, if that even makes any sense.

It's a nuanced stand, but I see discussions of "climate change" and "global warming" as two separate discussions, or rather two separate ways of looking at or thinking about the same thing, with climate change being the "bigger picture" sort of view.

Global warming proponents argue the climate is changing, true. But they end their conversation at their belief that Earth's climate is currently warming and go on as if Earth will never stop warming.

Whether you like them or hate them (global warming proponents), I would say recent average global temperatures and temperatures recorded at various "hotspots" around Earth bear out that Earth's climate has in fact been warming, and is warming: regardless of whether we're doomed or not, whether it's attributable to human causes or not, or whether it's a trend that will continue for any considerable period of time or not.

Theories of climate change, which I would argue are rather obvious given the geological record of Earth and fairly apolitical knowledge about various ice ages and such, simply insist that Earth's climate changes over periods of time: however fast, however slow, however warm or cold, for whatever reason.

Given Earth's natural range of climactic variability, recent warming could be nothing more than a blip between ice ages. Or it could be a sign of much warmer things to come. The geologic record bears this out.

When it comes to ascertaining what man can be blamed for (such as the United Nations IPCC has tried to do) is where the whole thing becomes corrupted, because, frankly, from my perspective, no one knows. Not a single geologist or climatologist or government bureaucrat knows.

The beauty of this whole debate is the reality that our species is living in the midst of an untried Earth sciences experiment: how many people can Earth support, how many resources can man extract and devour and at what consequence. It's like the Gulf of Mexico today: how many gallons of oil can the ocean absorb and at what cost to marine life?

Earth is not a static environment. Actions have consequences. Change happens. The question is how quick is Earth systems are to change, and how capable are we of changing them. Man, all this change! I should write speeches for Obama! Sorry, had to go there!

[Mike DC]

  
IMHO Al Gore is still running for president.  He has never stopped since he lost in 2000.

Next time he intends for it to be much more of a slam dunk so he's taking much longer to set it up.