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Climate Change: Volcanos vs Humans

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By
Joseph Dunnigan

This past October-November, Connecticut’s Hawthorne fire was reported to have burned 127 acres. By the 22nd of November, over 200 fires were reported in the state. It appeared as if the world was on fire. And for the northeastern United States it very much was.

Luckily, the flames were put out. And on November 26th, the state-wide burn ban was lifted.

Still, a concern lingered. With unprecedented brush fires, historic droughts, and severe floods just months prior, the world, or at least Connecticut, seemed to be experiencing a shift in its climate. Some would say a change.

“Climate Change, not again!”

The idea has been presented over and over again. A dead horse hasn’t been beaten as much as the subject of climate change has. Still, there is a need to discuss it. Or at least point out that while there are believers there are non-believers as well. And that in this article, all are welcome. In fact, it is the non-believers whom this article hopes to address from this point on.

Don’t believe in Climate Change?

Excellent.

There is an idea that has been stated that climate change is no more than an Earth process, as natural as humans breathing air or fish swimming the seas.

It is true that the Earth undergoes changes. About 600 million years ago, the Earth was believed to have been almost completely frozen over. It was a time dubbed by scientists,  as “Snowball Earth.”[i] What is interesting is that while we currently demonize climate change and those pesky greenhouse gas emissions, it was during the Snowball Earth period that greenhouse gases saved the planet.

Volcanoes erupted, spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Scientists point out that because much of the Earth was covered in ice, the normal processes that would reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were interrupted. Thus, the Earth was freed from its icy prison.

This process was not instant. The “Snowball Earth” episode took millions of years from the point of ice covering the planet to the point when the world was freed.

There is a point to the argument that climate changes are a natural event. However, the idea should be taken with a grain of salt.

 The Rate of Change Matters:

It is generally believed that the Earth is undergoing another climate change. During this one, the rate at which the climate is changing is an issue.

According to an article published by Oregon State University’s Media Relations Manager, Michelle Klampe, “today’s rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide increase is 10 times faster than at any other point in the past 50,000 years.”

The United Nations agrees that the rate of CO2 is greater now. On the UN’s Climate Action Fast Facts page of their website it states, “Global surface temperature has increased faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the last 2000 years.”

Finally, a 2023 press release from the World Meteorological Organization points to the fact that “for about 10,000 years before the start of the industrial era, atmospheric carbon dioxide remained almost constant …Since then, CO2 has increased by nearly 50% … primarily due to the combustion of fossil fuels, deforestation, and changes in land-use.”

While it could be said that the climate has changed before, the prominent issue remains; the rate of that change. To ignore this would be like ignoring the difference between crossing a street and crossing a highway. The cars tend to be slower in the street but try to cross the highway and the speed at which the cars are going will give a hard lesson to that pedestrian. The same goes for the climate. A change in climate over millennia is a lot different than one that has occurred over centuries and even decades.  

Volcanos vs Humans

The source of climate change is also of concern. As Hoffman and Schrag hypothesized, during the “Snowball Earth” period, carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by volcanic activity helped to free the planet from its icy shell. As then, volcanic activity still occurs.

According to the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program, “41 volcanoes were in continuing eruption status as of 17 October 2024.”[ii] This begs the question, “Is it volcanoes or humans who are to be blamed for the sudden increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide?”

In 2011, Terrence M. Gerlach was a USGS scientist studying volcanoes and their gases. He wrote in a 2011 article that, “present- day volcanoes emit relatively modest amounts of CO2, about as much annually as states like Florida, Michigan, and Ohio.”

This idea was corroborated by a 2023 study that found that human greenhouse gas emissions account for about 55% of total global emissions, while volcanic emissions account for about 1-3%. Furthermore, that same study stated that natural greenhouse gas contributions are self-regulated by Earth systems and that the addition of greenhouse gases from human causes create added stress.

Big Oil and Climate Change

Human activities have been blamed as the cause of current climate change for quite a while. In fact, it appears that even oil companies have known that the burning of fossil fuels increases greenhouse gas emissions. A 2019 article in the journal of Energy Research & Social Science stated that oil companies knew about climate change since the 1950s. That same article adds that while the companies were aware of their product’s role in climate change, they also funded its denial. These ideas have also been reported by numerous news outlets. The notion has been compared to the years when denial of the detrimental effects tobacco products had been promoted. It appears while the science of climate change has been known since the 1950s the lessons learned by the falsehoods of “Big Tobacco” may not have.  

A Change is Gonna Come

More than half a billion years ago, volcanoes came to the rescue and saved the planet. Now, they are sometimes demonized as if they are to blame for the current state or rather current change to the climate. That would not be fair to those ancient heroes of our planet.

Today, the rise in greenhouse gas emissions cannot be placed on a single natural system such as volcanoes. Naturally, the earth tends to find its balance. But that balance gets interrupted when human contributions are factored into the equation. Attributed to the greenhouse gases we produce which increase the rate of change. It also gets messy when the same industry that may have known about the rate of climate change was possibly also a contributor to its denial. Perhaps, like the flames that spread across the northeast in November, the denial of climate change may one day be put out. Wouldn’t that be a nice change of pace?

Hoffman PF and Schrag DP. 2000. Snowball Earth. Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/snowball-earth/.

Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, Global Volcanism Program. Retrieved from: https://volcano.si.edu/gvp_currenteruptions.cfm.