I beleive is all propiganda to make money off the us citzens for insurance and for al gore and to make him and other evirmental wackos more richer thats why he had a live earth concert to make himself more richer it is nothing but cash to them.

I've never seen flood insurance commercials, but, if anything, those are ordinary people simply trying to take advantage of the situation-- I doubt the government is behind THAT.

I, personally, have a different take on global warming. I believe it is very real, becoming increasingly threatening, and that our government isn't doing half as much as it could to be helping the situation.

SD, I both agree and disagree with you. All the evidence I've seen indicates that there IS a natural cycle of warming and cooling that the planet goes through. It's actually quite interesting. However, I DO believe that human beings have, both now and in the past, caused changes in how fast the cycle progresses.

." At least 20 volcanoes will probably be erupting as you read these words (Italy's Stromboli, for example, has been erupting for more than a thousand years); roughly 60 erupted each year through the 1990s; 154 in the full decade 1990-1999; about 550 have had historically documented eruptions; about 1300 (and perhaps more than 1500) have erupted in the Holocene (past 10,000 years); and some estimates of young seafloor volcanoes exceed a million. Because dormant intervals between

Volcanic pollution : impacts on atmosphere, ecosystems and health

Besides human activities, volcanoes also introduce significant quantities of potentially harmful chemical compounds into the environment, mainly in the forms of gases and particles. As exemplified by volcanic events of massive proportions, the impacts can be profound and global. Such eruptions are capable of injecting millions of tonnes of sulphur dioxide gas into the stratosphere (more than ten miles above us) within short periods of time. There, the sulphur dioxide is oxidised to form a cloud of sulphuric acid droplets (or aerosols), which work to alter interactions between the atmosphere and sun, and so affect the Earth’s climate.
Less violent eruptions that are mainly restricted to the troposphere (the lowest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere) are much less likely to alter global climate. However, their regional environmental effects can be equally severe. One of the greatest environmental disasters of the last 250 years was triggered by an Icelandic fissure eruption. Over 8 months in 1783-4, enormous emissions of sulphur dioxide, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride were disgorged and a volcanic pollutant cloud formed over the island. The cloud, often referred to as a dry acid fog, also fumigated many parts of Europe, causing damage to vegetation and public health problems. In Iceland alone, an estimated 10,000 people died, due mainly to a famine that took hold after the country’s food and drinking water supplies were contaminated by fluorine.
Poisonous gases also are released continuously or semi-continuously into the environment by non-erupting volcanoes. For example, Mount Etna in Sicily emits 3,000 tons of sulphur dioxide on an average day, which is equivalent to the UK’s total industrial emissions. Up to 10,000 tons of sulphur dioxide can be released during episodes of intense activity. Non-eruptive plumes can disrupt ecosystems, cause crop failures and adversely affect public health around areas in the immediate vicinity of a volcano. In Nicaragua, emissions from the Masaya volcano have completely destroyed coffee plantations that once thrived in the fertile volcanic soil. Only the occasional ruined building, slowly corroding away by the action of volcanic acid gases and rain, now punctuates the desolated landscape. Yet, most of the local population has no choice but to stay put and wait for the volcano to shut off.
The effects, or potential effects, of active volcanoes on the environment and on public health is an important issue, given the large number of communities, including megacities, that exist and keep growing around and upon active and dormant volcanoes. One estimate is that around half a billion people live within 100 km of an historically active volcano, mostly in densely populated cities.
At York, we are adopting a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the atmospheric, environmental and health hazards posed by volcanic activity. In particular, we are studying how gas and particles evolve in volcanic plumes, how different types of soils respond to volcanic acid inputs and how tropical vegetation is affected by volcanic gases. The long-term goal is to identify best practice in volcanic pollution risk assessment and management.
Weblinks:
See the US Geological Survey site for information on various volcanic topics, including worldwide activity, monitoring and hazards: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/
The Michigan Technological University Volcano website has sections on volcanic products, volcanoes and climate change, volcanic hazards mitigation, Central American volcanoes and remote sensing: http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/vc_web/overview/o_sc_volcano_climate.html
The International Volcanic Health Hazard Network gathers information on a diverse range of scientific disciplines such as volcanology, epidemiology, toxicology, public health and physical chemistry to try and determine the health effects of volcanic emissions: http://eis.bris.ac.uk/~glcjh/ivhhn/index.html
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Page last updated 12 August 2006 | Environment Department, University of York.
Problems or Queries about this site? e-mail Dave Hay: drh3@york.ac.uk

Thanks for that info Vetamur.
That was enlightening for me.
I wonder how much effect, deforrestation is having on the rising CO2?