I think it’s interesting that for all of the news reports about disruptions in air travel due to the Icelandic volcano, I haven’t seen many (any) articles talking about the environmental impact of the volcano’s eruption. You’d think that with all the concern about global warming, and the approach of Earth Day, we’d've been just as worried about the effects of a volcano constantly spewing God-only-knows how many greenhouse gases (more than many countries spew in a year, I’d bet) into the atmosphere every hour as we would be about the effects of ash clouds on plane engines, right? I guess not, but if so, that’s a bit stupid of us, don’t ya think?
I mean, shouldn’t Al Gore be on Eyjafjallajokull’s case like he is on ours? We’re talking about a repeat-offender, remember. Back in the 1820s, an eruption of the volcano at Eyjafjallajokull lasted for over a year. At this point, it doesn’t seem as if this eruption will last as long, but even so…why is Al giving this volcano the benefit of the doubt? It has already damaged the environment in the past…a year-long eruption, people! And thousands of lives were lost in Britain due to that aforementioned incident. We’re just gonna give a pass for that?
We should at least be calling on Iceland to immediately cease and desist from pumping all these toxins into the atmosphere, shouldn’t we? But then again, this begs the question…should Iceland be held accountable for the actions of one volcano on its soil? Well, let’s see…maybe not. Maybe this volcano has done us all a favor, and just in time for Earth Day. How so? I think it goes without saying that everyone’s “carbon footprint” calculations are useless at the moment, since there’s no way we’ll *ever* be able to match Eyjafjallajokull’s output.
So in that sense, there’s one less thing to worry about. Of course, if we see a global temperature spike in the next few months, or even the next year, we’ll know who to blame. Or maybe…who to credit? After all, if humanity can pin even some blame for climate change on Eyjafjallajokull, that’s a BIG weight off our shoulders. Maybe we should buy Iceland a present?
Ah, but then…then we have to figure Al Gore into the equation. And Mr. Gore isn’t as likely to let us off the hook as he is Eyjafjallajokull. Which means that over the course of the next year, global temperatures might rise because of Iceland’s volcano, but we can’t expect Al Gore to acknowledge it. All of humanity will, in effect, remain “the Jews,” the easy scapegoat for the planet’s environmental ills. Heck, we may end up hearing more about the beneficial environmental effects stemming from a days-long airline industry shutdown than we do about the adverse environmental effects due to a days-long volcanic eruption in Iceland.
So I say, let’s hold Iceland and/or Eyjafjallajokull accountable while we can…but that’s just me.
Happy Earth Day.
