Iceland Volcano and World Travel

[e_moon60]

The ash cloud from the Iceland volcano has revealed the weakness and instability of international air travel--and the governments that both support and regulate it

Comments

[beccastareyes]

It's a bit like any evacuation order. You might never know when you need to evacuate for a fire, say, or a tornado. But you have detailed instructions with contingency plans in case it happens. I mean, most of the buildings I lived in, and usually ones I worked in, I knew how to exit for a fire, and knew where to go in the case of tornadoes*.

Heck, airlines do all that prep for emergency landings.

* Totally an artifact of growing up in the Midwest. Tornado drills were not as common as fire drills, but we did practice them in school.

[wcg]

As Dwight Eisenhower once said, "Plans are useless, but planning is essential." But then you and I have military backgrounds, and understand the need for this kind of contingency planning.

[e_moon60]

Yup. And I also had the engineer "accidents don't happen; they're caused" mother. Contingency planning was active in my childhood (though I certainly didn't appreciate it until later!)

[made_of_paradox]

I'm walking around with outlines of various contingency plans in my head, ready to be fleshed out & deployed if needed.

The tornado plan one has been used once. (And we found flaws in it during its execution, and we need to do some prep to fix those.) The mother-in-law-dying plan has not been deployed, but we thought it might have to be one weekend. (I'm glad it wasn't necessary.) I have the number for the appropriate local funeral home in my phone anyway, on the basis that when we need it, one of the last things we'll want to be doing is looking for it. (MiL lives in another state, but will be buried here.)

[maryrobinette]

As much as anything I'm concerned because the last time Eyjafjallajökull went off, it erupted for over a year. A larger concern, which is getting very little play, is that whenever Eyjafjallajökull goes off, Katla, its bigger sister erupts too. On the one hand, it could keep air traffic shut down. On the other, it could solve the global warming problem.

[e_moon60]

Yup--Iceland is just one big teakettle with a cork on the spout and corks in other fissures here and there. We can certainly expect (the geologists expect) that that when the heat breaks through in one place, it will break through in another

[amm_me]

Was at a very good presentation Thursday on climate, global mineral cycles, etc -- very even-handed factual presentation. Graph of atmospheric CO2 based an actual measurements from dated glacial ice layers over the last half-million or so years was shown. Periodic natural cycles, yes. Interesting asymetrical spikes -- up sharply, down more gradually, and repeat. All about the same magnitude. Then comes the last couple centuries of the industrial age. Almost vertical spike of similar magnitude added ON TOP of the natural spike to make it twice the magnitude. Let's see if ASCII will let me show it

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/ \/ \/ \/

So, yes, by actual measured data, not modeling, there are natural spikes in atmospheric greenhouse gases. Only, human behavior has made the current spike twice as high (so far) as any previous one in half a million years.

(if the graphic gets messed up by spacing, it's supposed to look like a three-humped inchworm with its head held up in the air)

[e_moon60]

It's hard to do ASCII drawings, but that worked.

[lingster1]

You're right, of course. For some reason, officials who should know better rarely use this kind of common sense. We live on a volcanically active planet and should be prepared to deal with the consequences at any moment. Alas, we seem constantly doomed to play an ineffective game of catchup.

[bibliofilen]

Travelling by airplane (or worse yet importing stuff this way) isn't sustainable anyway. If this keeps upp for two weeks airlines will start to go into bankruptcy and disappear. I hope this leeds to better investments in the railway network over Europe - especially coordinating the different systems. Loads of people are also talking about international carepools. It is all very interesting.

[e_moon60]

Passenger liners again, maybe? I don't know the relative fuel costs of moving people/weight by sea v. by air, but as recently as my middle-childhood there were still scheduled passenger ships across the Atlantic.

[timill]

There still are.

But 3000 passengers taking 7 days for a crossing does not compare well with an A380 taking 800 passengers in half a day.

What does surprise me is that the RMS QM2 cost only 3 times as much as an A380.

[bibliofilen]

I've actually looked at that but it costs about $3000 for a one way ticket from Europe to the US. So I guess I'll just stay here or perhaps go to China with the Transsibirian or something.