The Grindavik Volcano Won’t Spew More Carbon Than Humanity
Eruptions do inject planet-warming gases into the atmosphere, but our addiction to fossil fuels is more than 100 times as polluting.
The volcano in Grindavik, Iceland, is exhibiting signs of erupting again.
Photographer: Jeremie Richard/AFP/Getty Images
The simmering volcano in Grindavik, Iceland, will wreak a lot of havoc when it erupts, possibly in a matter of hours. It’s already triggering thousands of earthquakes. It could roil European aviation, as an Icelandic volcano did in 2010. It could swallow a fishing village that 3,600 people call home. It has closed down the Blue Lagoon thermal spa, spoiling countless honeymoons.
What this festering magma pimple will not do is spew more carbon dioxide into the air than all of humanity. It would almost not be worth typing that sentence except that social media is once again filling up with such claims, as it almost always does when volcanoes make news (I won’t link to any of the nonsense).