Eyjafjallajokull and climate change--Response to "The futility of man"

Knowing that I’m passionately concerned about climate change, a friend forwarded the following piece to me, something that apparently has been circulating on the internet. He added, “I don’t know if this is true, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.”

To respond to my friend, and because the piece contains many of the themes and distortions that seem to energize the anti-climate-change community, I wrote a detailed reply. You can read the commentary and my reply below:

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The futility of man

Didn't we ALL know this but were just afraid to say something.....

All of you out there across the globe who have fought so hard to tackle the hideous enemy of our planet, namely carbon emissions, you know ....that bogus god you worship of "Climate Change" or "global warming" ....well, I feel it is necessary to inform you of some bad news. It really does pain me to have to bring you this disappointing information.

Are you sitting down?

Okay, here's the bombshell. The current volcanic eruption going on in Iceland, since its first spewing of volcanic ash this past week, has, to this point, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past ten years to control CO2 emissions on our planet.

I know, I know.... (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 till 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, participating in "earth day" ...well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just the past four days.

The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in the past four days has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And, those hundreds of thousands of 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 jobs here, well I just know that seems worthwhile now.

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

But hey, grab a Coke, give the world a hug and have a nice day!

So true, and this has been going on thousands of years. Long, long, long before, combustion engines, or cattle herds were around to expel carbon dioxide. There is nothing new about climate change on Earth. It's been going on since the flood and it will be going on for years to come.

Man is not in control.
Only in arrogance... does he think he is.

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Response to "The futility of man"

Dear _____,

I don't know who initiated this email, but please send my reply back down the line of email recipients.

Whoever is the author has a point--a lot of CO2 was emitted by this volcano, according to the best scientific estimates about 150,000 metric tons per day. The author does not include this quantitative figure, although knowing the actual amount is important.

The volcano to compare Eyjafjallajokull with is Pinatubo which in 1991 pushed somewhere around 42 million metric tons of CO2 into the air. So scientists refer to Eyjafjallajokull as only a "cough" in comparison.

Averaged over time, volcanoes pump some 200,000 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year while human activities contribute almost 30 billion metric tons--according to the US Energy Information Agency--almost 700 times as much.

It’s important to note that the author of this post doesn't claim that Eyjafjallajokull dwarfed human emissions, only that it surpassed the very small amount we have been able to cut back those emissions.

The meager success so far of the climate community to cut worldwide greenhouse gas emissions is due in large part to lack of public support which is due in large part to unsubstantiated information such as is presented in this email. One almost has to laugh at such logic. It’s a tragic example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A couple of other points need to be made.

The eruption of Eyjafjallajokul will have some warming and some cooling effects, both of which scientists are able to estimate. The estimated amount of CO2 reductions that came from flights being grounded due to the ash is 2.8 million metric tons, and it will take Eyjafjallajokull quite some time to make up for that.

Mt. Pinatubo actually lowered global temperatures by about one degree Celsius for most of two years because of the sulfur it placed up to 20 miles in the atmosphere (sulfer dioxide reflects sunlight and has been proposed as a geoengineering "solution" to global warming--not my choice for a number of reasons). But Eyjafjallajokull did not release as much sulfur as high as Pinatubo, so it will probably not contribute significantly to global cooling, just as it probably will not contribute much to global warming.

Charles Keating started very accurate measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere in 1959 and those measurements have continued to this day. They show a zig-zag pattern that reflects spring and summer decreases in CO2 while plants in the northern hemisphere are breathing it in, and increases in fall and winter when they are producing CO2, mostly through decay.

But Keating's chart shows an inexorable rise in emissions over the past half century. Comparing natural and human emissions, measured atmospheric CO2 did not increase due to Pinatubo in 1991 as much as decreased during times of economic recession--sort of like the aircraft being grounded, but more globally.

So compared with Pinatubo (they call the geoengineering idea of shooting sulfur into the upper atmosphere the "Pinatubo Option") Eyjafjallajokull was very small, and smaller still compared to human emissions.

So if you can get past phrases like “hideous enemy,” "bogus god" and "evil beast" which are designed to play to your emotions, and the “group hug” comment which is meant to categorize everyone concerned about climate change as, I suppose, soft-headed, overly emotional ex-hippies, stop for a while and investigate whether this hyperbole is based in fact, or whether its purpose is to make us all feel better while we—and more importantly the corporations that really profit from it--continue to engage in activities that emit significant amounts of CO2 into our atmosphere.

Because if science (by that I mean all the science academies in countries that have them, and all the meterological associations in the world) are right and we do have a serious problem on our hands, it may just be time to pay attention. It’s worth noting that Insurance companies, investors, and militaries on both sides of the Atlantic are taking climate change very seriously because their business is managing risk and they will take some of the biggest initial hits.

The future scientists forecast, if we do not lower emissions very quickly, will not be a pleasant one for our kids or their kids, or even for us--so let's check the facts.

One argument that this piece uses, and that appears over and over in similar pieces, is that climate change is nothing new. “It’s been going on since the flood and it will be going on for years to come.”

The implication, which is hardly ever spelled out, is that since there has been natural climate change—something that we know about in great detail because of the work of thousands of scientists—there can’t be human-caused climate change. Or, even if there is human-caused climate change, it can’t be important compared to natural changes.

That’s like saying that since lightning causes fires, people don’t. Try convincing youl fire department, police department, or insurance company of that one.

I’ve also noticed that a lot of the anti-climate-change pieces, like this one, say that it is arrogant to think that mere humans can have a significant impact on nature or Mother Earth. “Man is not in control. Only in arrogance . . . does he think he is,” this piece says.

The themes of humility before God and the ultimate futility of human understanding and action run very deep in most religions. The awesome power of God or nature is something that most people—even probably most scientists--would agree on. So tossing it into discussions about climate change can seem pretty convincing.

The trick is that the 6.8 billion people alive today, multiplied by all the mining, agriculture, industry, heating, cooling, transportation, etc. that keep us alive and support our lifestyles obviously are having huge impacts on the Earth, impacts that are easily seen and measured in terms of land use, water use, deforestation, depletion of fisheries, loss of biodiversity, and climate change.

We’re not at all humble about our lifestyles and what it takes to support them. So it seems very self-serving to suddenly be humble about taking responsibility for their impacts on the Earth. It reminds me not at all of humble, God-fearing adults but of spoiled children who feel free to make any kind of mess knowing that Mommy or Daddy will clean up after them.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing about the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull to suggest that we're not making a mess or that God is going to clean it up for us.

If you want more facts regarding climate change, please do not hesitate to let me know. There are lots of excellent books and articles on the subject, and I’ll be happy to refer you to them.

Lou Miller

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