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The infographic above explains why the volcanic ash cloud spewing from Iceland might not be such a bad thing: grounding 2/3 of the air traffic in Europe also eliminates 2/3 of the daily amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from those jet engines, which is an enormous amount. Added up over the last few days, we’re already talking about well over a million tons already, with at least a couple more days of cancellations to go. Philosopher and writer Alain de Botton imagines a post-airline world in this thoughtful BBC essay.
An old friend from high school who lives in Stavanger, Norway posted this picture on Facebook showing the ash depositing on her patio. It reminds me of how we got some of the ash from Mount Saint Helens after the big 1980 eruption all the way in Maine. I don’t recall the same sort of issue with air travel back then, but maybe it’s because it was just a single big explosion instead of an ongoing eruption, so the cloud dissipated faster.
As usual, Alan Taylor at The Big Picture has rounded up the best of the newswire photos of the volcano so far. I particularly like this one because the molten lava peeking out from underneath its crust is so malevolent-looking:
And here’s an amusing little video of various BBC presenters and reporters trying to pronounce the name of the volcano, Eyjafjallajökull:
You have to give the Beeb credit for even trying. The local newsmonkeys have all opted to say “the volcano in Iceland”.
