Thar She Blows

Mt. St. Helens is erupting; looks smallish and containable (and neato!) so far.

Comments

[s.a.m.]

Can't see anything from Seattle yet. But I did put my tin foil hat on.

[joesmama]

Bush did it.

[WangDangDoodleAllDay]

Hey Ashcroft - I'm getting high and watching Mt. St. Helens blow up...come get me, slut!

[Rick Barton]

Interesting Friday factoid:

The 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption emitted more particulate pollution than has been emitted by all of humankind's industrial activity.

[Matt Welch]

Rick -- And man, those particulates made for good fertilizer! My grandparennts lived in NE Portland at the time, and the vegetables in their garden swole up to Japanese horror-film proportions the next harvest. I remember eating a single carrot for lunch, and not even being able to finish it.

[RDF]

In Portland, I saw a plume of steam above the mountain for about 10 minutes. Started to get hazy after that. Pretty exciting, though

[Andrew Lynch]

So, Rick, why doesn't Mt. St. Helens get blamed for global warming? ;D

[Not Rick]

Andrew,

So, Rick, why doesn't Mt. St. Helens get blamed for global warming?

Because Mt St Helens is not an SUV model, duh!

[Asscrop]

"Hey Ashcroft - I'm getting high and watching Mt. St. Helens blow up...come get me, slut!"

Since, by purchasing pot, you have supported terrorists we've subpoenaed all of Reaon's subscription records. We are comming for you.

[J]

Another interesting Friday factoid: A volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815 created (in large part) the 1816 "Year Without a Summer" in the Northern Hemisphere, with multiple summer blizzards in New England, thick ice on many Canadian and New England lakes in July and August, and average temperatures something like 5-10 degrees below normal, with periods _much_ colder than that.
I learned about it at the global warming exhibit at the National Academy of Science museum in DC. They learned me up real good. The lesson is that nature hates us and will kill us any chance she gets.

[Rick Barton]

It's just so hard to use a natural phenomena as a pretext to control human activity.

Not Rick, why use a negation of my name for your screen name when you appear to agree with me? Just wondering.

[Daniel Geffen]

And the swing states continue to get hit by natural disasters, proving...what, exactly?

While you ponder this question, you can read the shocking(ly boring) truth about who this St. Helens actually was here.

[Gary Gunnels]

I remember sitting on my roof and watching her blow back in 1980. I also remember the piles and piles of ash pushed up everywhere, and how it ruined the paint on cars (it scratched the hell out of it). Then there was cleaning out the gutters and wearing a facemask everywhere.

[Jason Bourne]

In some ways you are comparing apples and oranges when you compare the particulates spewed out by a volcano and CO2.

[kwais]

Doesn't more CO2 happen by natural causes than man made?

I read something to that effect in another Reason thread.

[Psuedo]

"So, Rick, why doesn't Mt. St. Helens get blamed for global warming?"

Because environmentalism is a dualistic cult. If nature does it, it is good. If humans do it it is bad.

Nevermind that environazis are always the first to remind us that humans are part of nature.

[J]

"So, Rick, why doesn't Mt. St. Helens get blamed for global warming?"
"Because environmentalism is a dualistic cult. If nature does it, it is good. If humans do it it is bad."

...or it might have something to do with the point JB was making - a lot of what is released by volcanoes has no greenhouse effect, and in fact volcanic eruptions often have a short-term cooling effect (see my 4:30 PM post about the "Year Without A Summer"). There's a difference between particulate matter (as in "The 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption emitted more particulate pollution than has been emitted by all of humankind's industrial activity") and greenhouse gas.

And, believe it or not, the fact that volcanoes release some greenhouse gasses is completely consistent with the claim that human-caused global warming is occurring.

Nevermind how silly and overly broad statements like "If nature does it, it is good. If humans do it it is bad" are when referring to environmentalism. (Unless your definition of environmentalism is the belief that "if nature does it, it is good. If humans do it it is bad," in which case, nevermind how silly that definition is.)

[dave]

Its a good thing we didn't sign Kyoto because we would certainly have to plug St. Helens...

[Curtis]

Matt, tell me more about that garden. How about the tomatoes and cukes?

[s.m. koppelman]

"Containable"? Like with a giant cork?

[tsiroth]

The question I've always had is why, if beaver dams and bee hives are part of nature, why aren't condos?

[Psuedo]

J,

allow me to clarify my position. I'm all for enviromental measure that are rationally thought out and serve to protect the well being of humans.

I was commenting on the worship of nature as a sort of abstract modern god that seems to permeate most environmental thought.

I want to save the environment for me and those I care about, not for the vague concept of biodiversity. A view such as my own encompasses several shades of gray as to how much protection is enough or too much. I feel most voices of the environmental movement
see it as way too black-and-white, and would like to see some more moderation injected into that debate, hence my use of the term environazis.

'Kay?

[Dick Chenney]

She wanted us to think differently, but this, coupled with the hurricanes in Florida, drive home a clear truth; Mother Nature is an Islamo-fascist in league with Osama Bin-Laden. As far as I'm concerned, this constitutes a terrorist attack of this highest order. Which is why I'm canceling the election and immediately going forward with plans to clear-cut the Arctic National Reserve in order to drill out the sweet, black planet-juice underneath, as well as teach her a lesson. And anyone who disagrees with this is obviously either an appeaser or in league with those terrorists in the Sierra Club.

[Andrew Lynch]

tsiroth,

Which brand of idiot argues that condos aren't a part of nature? That's just specious philosophy. Hell, non-recyclable materials are a part of nature, if we're defining nature as all that can and does occur. It's not possible for something that comes from nature not to be a part of it, however it's shaped along the way.

[Stevo]

Interesting point: "a lot of what is released by volcanoes has no greenhouse effect, and in fact volcanic eruptions often have a short-term cooling effect"

Aha! See? Just when all this talk about melting glaciers cranks up the fear about global warming, Gaia uncorks Mt. St. Helens to save us all!

[tsiroth]

Andrew: Sorry, I live in a college town. You could drown in the specious philosophy. Anymore, my knee starts jerking violently whenever I encounter the word "environment." Is there such a thing as intellectual post traumatic stress syndrome?

[Jason Bourne]

Ok, let's get some background things settled:

No one in the scientific community calls it "global cooling" or "global warming." Its called "climate change" - this in part due to the fact that cooling or warming could occur depending on where you live (that is IF anthropogenic climate change is underway).

Second, we do appear to be experiencing an overall increase in avg. temperature globally (though again, that pattern is not uniform, we wouldn't expect that it would be). There apparently has been a one degree uptick in the last hundred years. However, there are some problems with the nature of that uptick that need to be addressed:

* Has the noticeable increase in solar activity spawned this uptick or part of it?

* Why is the uptick bi-furcated? That is, why did we experience a cooling period (essentially the inter-war years plus a few years on either side of that period) during the middle of it, when industrial pollutants like CO2 were increasingly rapidly?

* If anthropogenic climate change is occuring (because I assure you that the non-anthropogenic variety is occuring) how does it compare to the "natural" changes we would experience anyway?

* Could we not simply be experiencing an uptick because we are moving out of the so-called "little ice age?"

[Rick Barton]

Jason Bourne:

No one in the scientific community calls it "global cooling" or "global warming."

What? Sure they do:

GLOBAL WARMING SCIENCE & POLICY: Progress 2003-2004 Sinyan Shen, Global Warming International Center, USA

http://www.globalwarming.net/default.asp

Now, when some in the scientific community take up advocacy for political action concerning the global warming issue they do, from time to time, become alarmingly unscientific and even anti-scientific. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) researcher Steven Schneider and global warming action promoter actually said that, "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36643