If there are three or four volcanoes erupting in a year, that’s a lot of work for the Earth’s atmosphere to regulate. It doesn’t need us making the matter worse. You see, every time a volcanoe or two erupts, the level of gases in the atmosphere changes and it can have an effect on the growth of plants, and on the life in an entire region by changing the composition of rainfall—thus affecting everything depending on that water.

Now, if we’re adding pollutants to the atmosphere, we’re keeping it working closer to the threshhold level where the self-regulation process begins to break down and it can’t handle everything, which would have disastrous consequences for all life. Thus, each volcanic eruption has a more severe impact on the environment that it normally would without the pollution caused by modern civilization.

If I have a forest of 500 acres that I depend on for my living, and lightning strikes and burns half of it down. That’s bad, but maybe I can still eek out a living. If I’ve already slashed and burned the other half, however, it means the end of my way of life as I’ve known it.

That’s the risk we are taking with the way we live in the modern world. As to colonizing Iraq with illegal aliens, that’s an interesting conecept, but then of course, the U.N. would never go for something like that.

Thanks for your comments.

Climatic change is a natural thing. The world became markedly cooler about a thousand years ago. Remember reading about the viking Greenland colony? People have always bemoaned man-made world catastrophes; nuke winter, over population, ozone depletion, and now global warming. If a severe volcano eruption can alter global temperatures and dump more aerial pollutants than the last 50 years of industrialization; Im not too concerned. What I wonder is if the global warming we’re seeing isnt just a return to balmier days?

Liberals seem to come in two types; the naive and the power hungry both of which believe in benevolent dictatorship, and moral relativism. If philosophy is the search for truth, then gun control is the search for power.

Could America colonize Iraq with the illegal aliens flooding this country? They would get the work they’re looking for In the oil fields and the tax payers would get a return on their money in the form of very cheap oil. Over time we might even create an ally who would have no choice but stick by us. In my opinion the East has always suffered dictators whether bad or good. The concept of personal freedom such as conceived by the Spartans, Romans, or Anglo-saxons (to mention a few) is specific to the Western cultures. To try to teach it to the Iraqis is as silly as teaching pigs to sing.

Your articles on tools are informative and entertaining, thanks. e.o.m.