Alas, a Blog

Humans are everywhere on this planet. We have cities on six continents and outposts on a seventh. We live from the frozen depths of Antarctica and Siberia to the damp, sticky tropics to the middle the desert — and everywhere in between.

On our long march of global conquest, we have bent nature to our will. We have learned to cultivate the land, to plant seeds and harvest crops, so that we are not dependent on finding berries and tubers and fruit. We have learned to breed animals together for specific traits, so our farm animals are docile and full of lean muscle, so that we are not dependent on hunting for meat. Through our actions, both intentional and inadvertent, we have caused the deaths of millions of species, and many more are threatened by anthropogenic climate change. Truly, humankind is a force to be reckoned with on this small, blue planet.

But while humans stand alone among animals in our ability to shape the planet, the planet itself is far more powerful than we can imagine. Bad weather can destroy crops, no matter how painstakingly tended. Cities that were built over centuries fall in hours before the onslaught of earthquakes, or flood, or hurricanes. Tsunamis can scour the lowlands of entire continents. When nature turns on us, we can only react, and hope.

There is an island located just south of the Arctic Circle, at the junction of the North American and Eurasian continental plates, atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. 320,000 people call this land home. They have historically made their living through fishing, though in the past few years they made the mistake of trying their hand at banking, right before the recent global banking crisis.

The island — Iceland — is where it is because lava is slowly bubbling up from the rift between the Eurasian and North American plates, slowly but surely building up the land with new rock. Because the island is volcanic, there are occasionally large eruptions. One of the biggest occurred in 1783, when the volcano Laki rumbled to life, spewing ash high into the stratosphere. The effects in Iceland were catastrophic — 50 percent of livestock died from a combination of fluoride poisoning and starvation, leading to a famine that killed 25 percent of the population.

But the effects of the eruption were not limited to Iceland. The ash cloud covered Europe, triggering storms and wreaking havoc, causing the “sand-summer” in England. This was followed by a bitterly cold winter in 1784, one whose effects were seen as far away as North America, where the Mississippi River froze at the Port of New Orleans. Weather patterns over the next several years were unpredictable, causing hardship in France that may have helped to precipitate the French Revolution.

Benjamin Franklin, then the United States Ambassador to France, gave his observations in a 1784 lecture:

During several of the summer months of the year 1783, when the effect of the sun’s rays to heat the earth in these northern regions should have been greater, there existed a constant fog over all Europe, and a great part of North America. This fog was of a permanent nature; it was dry, and the rays of the sun seemed to have little effect towards dissipating it, as they easily do a moist fog, arising from water. They were indeed rendered so faint in passing through it, that when collected in the focus of a burning glass they would scarce kindle brown paper. Of course, their summer effect in heating the Earth was exceedingly diminished. Hence the surface was early frozen. Hence the first snows remained on it unmelted, and received continual additions. Hence the air was more chilled, and the winds more severely cold. Hence perhaps the winter of 1783-4 was more severe than any that had happened for many years.

Yesterday, in Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull erupted for the second time this spring. It is not the largest volcano in Iceland, but it is already causing havoc; in Europe, air traffic has been severely disrupted, costing airlines roughly $200 million per day in lost revenue. But so far, that’s the worst of it.

So far.

But Eyjafjallajökull has erupted three previous times in the past 1100 years. And each time — in 920, 1612, and 1821 — it was followed by an eruption of Katla, a larger volcano which is capable of spewing out far more ash, lava, and devastation. A repeat of 1783-84 is by no means assured if that happens — but it cannot be ruled out, and the consequences to a world economy just beginning to recover from a deep recession could be catastrophic.

If Katla blows, the effects could be more far-reaching and more destructive than the mere inconvenience we’ve seen so far. Of course, there is nothing we can do about it; we can only monitor the volcanoes, and react to the fallout. We are the most powerful of the animals. But the most powerful animal is but a nit on the surface of the globe.