Do you think earth's natural occurances are more the cause of global changes than our own polluting?

Question

I have heard that daily volcanic activity causes billions of times more pollution than years of our own pollution from cars and factories. I realize that the cities that have many factories and cars are the cause of the local pollution but it doesn't have as far-reaching effect as volcanic activity.

Answer 1

Yes and No. Depends on your time scale. Within the next 25 years (your/my lifetimes) the glaciers on Mt Kilimanjaro will melt away totally (for the first time in human existence). Within 30 years, the Arctic Icecap will have retreated to the point where (except for the coldest years) a permanent Northwest Passage will be open. Over the next 100 years sea levels are expected to rise 10 to 30 feet. In the long run (geographical time scales) a 10 - 30 foot increase in sea level is moot.

Unfortunately, in human terms a 10 - 30 foot rise in sea level will inundate most coastal cities around the world. (Ask a typical Maldivian whose island averages 8 feet above sea level if this matters.) (Austraila has already agreed to accept the Maldivian people in toto when their island submerges) Can society absorb this result and prosper, or will civilization collapse. If it collapses, and since we have burned most of the fossil fuels, and since fossil fuels are a necessity for the rise of civilizations, we the human race, in 1000 years just be scratching out a meager existence?

However, with respect to volcano activities:

Yes, volcanoes do contribute to "air pollution". However, they do not, on a daily basis, cause billions of times the pollution of cars and factories over many years. This is a mathematical impossibility.

Using CO2 only as an example, currently 5 billion tons of CO2 are release each year from the burning of fossil fuels (solely from cars, factories, and electrical plants).
We assume "years of" to be 5 at a minimum (since years is plural, and a couple = 2, and several = 3 to 4)
Volcanoes on a daily basis cause billions of times more pollution that cars and factories over a year. Heck, let’s just use 1 billion

Then the daily volcanic activity would be

5 years x 5 billion tons x 1,000,000,000 = 25 billion, billion tons of CO2/ day

25 billion, billion tons = 25,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons = 25 x 10^18 tons

Thus, by your statement, volcanoes produces 25 x 10^18 tons of CO2 every day.

There are only 635 billion tons (6.35 x 10^11) of CO2 in the atmosphere, therefore, either there is some undetected (and awesomely vast) CO2 sink involved (photosynthesis accounts for 76 billion tons on a yearly basis) or at least one of the assumptions must be wrong. Since our calculations produce CO2 concentration approximately 7 orders of magnitude greater than the observed CO2 concentration, the original assumption “daily volcanic activity causes billions of times more pollution than years of our own pollution from cars and factories” must also be wrong.

Answer 2

I'm not really sure why everyone is still debating whether global climate change is man-made or not.

Is it somehow better to be killed by a natural disaster than a man-made one?

Regardless of what is causing the changes, it's well past time we started preparing for the changes. Even if human pollution isn't the sole cause of the changes, I don't think anyone could possibly argue that human pollution is helping the matter. Instead of continuing as we are, and hoping we're not making things worse, maybe we should try to curtail our emissions of greenhouse gases? If not for the sake of global climate change, then perhaps just for general ecological health of the planet?

And even if we don't change our wasteful energy expending, gas emitting ways, we need to start thinking about what we're going to do when all those glaciers and ice caps melt. It's happened many, many times in the past, and it's gonna happen again. Perhaps very soon.

In the past, most people lived in mobile camps or at most small fishing villages, and could pack up and move inland when the melting glaciers flooded the coasts. Today, we have vast, populous cities sitting on those coasts. Look at what happened to New Orleans with one little storm. What's going to happen when New York, Rome, London, Tokyo, Rio, Los Angeles, Singapore and Hong Kong all disappear under 200 meters of water?

Will it really matter to those people whether it was SUVs or natural cycles that destroyed their homes?

Answer 3

I don't think so since volcanic activity has been about the same for thousands of years and temperature has been stable. The oceans absorb lots of carbon dioxide but humans are filling everything with pollution and temperature is rising well above historyc averages.

You may buy some energy efficient light bulbs. Light from common bulbs pollutes a lot! http://www.environmentaldefense.org/page.cfm?tagid=483&campaign=mts&source=blog_care2

Answer 4

The Earth during it's millions of years of existence has had Volcanoes, fires,earth quakes, etc and by using natural means managed to clean the air enough to sustain life. This was by the use of Hurricanes to cool the planet and by the Rain Forrest's and vegetation to provide oxygen and consume carbon from the atmosphere. So we ended up with a nice clean planet a good ozone layer and clean sea water.
Along comes man and his industry polluting the atmosphere, so we have acid rains, pumping out hydro carbons, chemicals etc to destroy the protective ozone layer. Then to top it all cutting down the only lungs this planet has, which took thousands of years to grow and balance, the Rain Forest, cut down so people can have paper or furniture or just to burn for farm land. this along with natural disasters Hey we are screwed...........

Answer 5

The volcanic activity causes actually no polution it is recycleing the gases obsorbed by water and diposited in rocks millions of years ago with out them we would all freeze because all the co2 would be obsorbed. And there's no dout that human activity causes global warming theres proof it's just that peolpe cal it biased.

Answer 6

This is a tough one to answer. While there are many natural causes for the changes we see, there is no doubt that we have added to it. So the ups and downs in temperature, storms, etc. are enhanced by effects of our factories, cars, etc.

Answer 7

If we were not around, the atmosphere would be more of a concentration of oxygen, a combustible. It would become an incredibly unstable atmosphere, and ignite, destroying any and all land animals, and create a vast smoke plume to bring us back into an ice age. Great theory, huh.

Answer 8

The Earth can hadle volcanic activity because it doesn't decimate the forests which clean it up. We do. If we destroy the natural clean up system, we end up causing more damage.

Answer 9

Our own polluting is something we can change. There is no question that we are helping to destroy our earth. Go see "An Inconvenient Truth" for the facts.

Answer 10

Does it really matter if we know the answer, but don't change our own behaviors?

notice the change in how we purchase our cars (50% of the oil comsumption in the US). Just like people eating too much, getting fat, and having high blood pressure and taking medication to cure it instead of just eating better and exercising. If you know what the problem is, but do not make changes to it, what does it matter to knwo what the problem is?

http://css.snre.umich.edu/css_doc/CSS01-07.pdf