Gaia Is Pissed

April 14^th on the run up to Earth Day, Mother Gaia or maybe Mother Nature decided to show us who is boss by blowing the top off Iceland’s unpronounceable Mt. Eyjafjallajokull. It took the glacier sitting on top with it and sent a plume of volcanic gas and ash 5 to 7 miles high. As this cloud drifted over Western Europe, 100,000 flights got cancelled during a week causing massive disruption. (Note: I found several spellings for this volcano and one explanation. “Eyja = island, fjall = mountain and “joekull = glacier. Hereafter I will just call it Eyja)

Eyja last erupted in 1821 and that event lasted a year or two depending on which account you believe. It also erupted in 920 and 1612 and on each occasion within six months the adjacent Mt. Katla, the “witch volcano”, followed suit. Katla, topped by the Myrdalsjoekull glacier is reputed to be ten times larger than Eyja and last erupted in 1918. We can easily imagine what kind of mess would result if Katla decides to blow.

Iceland is home to hundreds of volcanoes and they go off whenever Mother Nature decides to give us a lesson in humility.

In 1783 Iceland’s huge Laki volcano erupted and the cloud of ash blanketed the globe causing massive crop failures and famine worldwide during a “year without summer” and an exceptionally harsh winter. This is climate change you can believe in.

History provides other examples of volcanoes dropping temperatures. Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines, for example, is said to have dropped global temperatures by 1 degree F. Mt. Tambora in Indonesia went off in 1815 killing tens of thousands in the initial blast. More importantly, it caused what has been called “volcanic winter” and resulted in the worst famine in the 19^th century in North American as well as Europe. Clearly, we have much more to fear from global cooling than global warming. Warming alarmists worry global temperatures will rise by a couple of degrees by the turn of the next century, while one of these angry mountains can change temperatures in a few seconds. And we can’t do a damn thing about it. Nor can we do anything about some unnamed and unseen asteroid presently hurtling through space aimed at Kansas. If you want to worry about climate change, give that one some thought. Can’t happen? Well, it’s happened before.

One Muslim cleric seems to have found an explanation. Mr. Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi said in a recent statement that “women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society” cause earthquakes. Since earthquakes precede and seemingly trigger volcanic eruptions, it is safe to conclude that mini-skirts and skimpy tops cause volcanoes to erupt. This theory will be put to the test on Monday. Jen McCreight, a Purdue student, has organized a “Boobquake” event with 40,000 followers so far. They will be simultaneously exposing and shaking their boobs in an effort to induce an earthquake. If Katla chooses that day to explode, burkas may replace the bare midriff look overnight. God forbid.

Meanwhile, Harry Reid, a man not to be humbled by Mother Nature, plans to introduce the Cap and Trade legislation in the Senate on April 26^th. This notwithstanding the revelations of the “ClimateGate” scandal or the confession by Phil Jones, the former head of the Climate Research Unit and main author of the UN’s IPCC report, that “there has been no statistically significant warming in the past fifteen years.” 'Why worry about facts?' say the Democrats. Let’s ram this job busting, economy-destroying piece of legislation through instead while we still have our jobs in the Senate. Makes sense. Might as well take over as much of the US economy as possible before the voters toss them out.