Volcanic Reaction

I have been working backwards through the old "Naked Scientist" podcast. This morning, on the way to work, I was listening to an episode (I think from November of 2005) that was talking about volcanoes.

They have a section called "Kitchen Science" where, usually with the help of elementary or middle school students, they do an experiment that you can do with materials found at home in the kitchen. This week's experiment was to inflate a balloon to about the size of your fist, bury it in a pile of flour with the knot sticking out just below the surface, and to reach in with a pair of scissors and snip the knot off of the balloon. I thought at first it would pop the balloon, but if a balloon isn't filled to the straining point, puncturing it causes it to leak out, not pop. You can try this at home to see what happens, but they caution not to actually do it in the kitchen if you don't like flour all over everything. They did it in the garage (which the Brits pronounce to rhyme with carriage).

Going off subject here - they have another experiment that I'm dying to try where you get a shallow saucer of milk and drip some food coloring carefully on the surface at various points around the saucer. Then you put a drop of liquid soap (the Brits call it "washing up liquid"). It's supposed to be really cool looking.

In the more serious part of the show, they interviewed a vulcanologist (who do NOT study Spock on Star Trek) explained had an excellent point about volcanoes and global warming. In one of Rush Limbaugh's books, he makes the point that volcanoes do much more damage to the environment than humans do. This is an attempt to dispel concerns about Global Warming, the logic of which has always escaped me. It seems to be saying that since we can't match the harm that volcanoes do to the environment that we should just have at it. That's kind of like pointing to the mass murderer and justifying killing a few people yourself because you'll never match his extent. It's like saying, "Why can't I shoot my neighbor? Hitler killed 6 million Jews?"

Well, it turns out that volcanoes only emit about 1% of the CO2 that humans do on a yearly basis. They tend to emit much more SO2, about 10% of what humans do. That's on a normal year, no mega-eruptions. For the large eruptions, the effect of the S02 dominates, and it turns out that S02 reflects heat back into space and actually has a global cooling effect. The scientist concluded by saying that without volcanic activity, human efforts that warm the globe would have been even more severe.

This goes to show that if you want to make a scientific argument, you should consult a scientist, not a right-wing talk show host with an Oxycontin habit that doesn't check his facts. I shouldn't say he doesn't check his facts, he doesn't use facts. He just makes up information, and when called on it, he responds that he's just for entertainment. If he's just for entertainment, then why do so many people repeat his rants as if they are based in reality?

So next time someone throws that silly argument at you around the dinner table or while sitting around the pub, you can tell them that Rush Limbaugh doesn't know the difference between a volcano and another orifice that erupts noxious gas.