Will Iceland pay carbon tax?

zielarz

Iceland volcano has emitted greenhouse gases into atmosphere. I'm surprised nobody from the government has commented on this issue because 2 things should happen now:
1. They should pay carbon tax on that. Why only honest people of Ireland must pay it?
2. They should also pay compensation to the airlines whose profits have fallen as a result of that.

RichardAnd

This is a joke yes?

Victor

I'm wondering which would produce more CO2, one volcano or thousands of aircraft.

Cookie_Monster

firstly its natural, it hardly Icelands fault is it? :rolleyes:

secondly ash will block sunlight cooling the whole of Europe for a while, especially if it makes its way into the upper atmosphere.

ei.sdraob

Volcanoes also release sulphur
if released high enough that causes a cooling effect

which is interesting from environmental economics point of view


this NY Times best-seller here has a chapter devoted to this phenomena
to summarize a volcano erupted in early 90s, lowering global temperature by 2 degrees C, via release of ash and sulphur high into atmosphere

the book proceeds to an interesting analysis where Global Warming can be reversed with 4 small pipes suspended of balloons up to 10 miles high, that pump small amounts of sulphur high up, for a cost of about 1million dollars a year you can cool the planet by few degrees

well worth a read

MaceFace

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Volcanoes also release sulphur
if released high enough that causes a cooling effect

which is interesting from environmental economics point of view


this NY Times best-seller here has a chapter devoted to this phenomena
to summarize a volcano erupted in early 90s, lowering global temperature by 2 degrees C, via release of ash and sulphur high into atmosphere

the book proceeds to an interesting analysis where Global Warming can be reversed with 4 small pipes suspended of balloons up to 10 miles high, that pump small amounts of sulphur high up, for a cost of about 1million dollars a year you can cool the planet by few degrees

well worth a read

Huh? Is this because it blocks out the suns rays?
How would it affect crops and cattle?

TheInquisitor

Victor wrote: »

I'm wondering which would produce more CO2, one volcano or thousands of aircraft.

I assume your joking but if not its DEFINITELY one volcano!

Scofflaw

TheInquisitor wrote: »

I assume your joking but if not its DEFINITELY one volcano!

Not even slightly in the right ballpark! The total emissions from volcanoes worldwide are about 0.3Gt annually - 300 Mt (source: British Geological Survey). Global direct emissions from the air industry are twice that - about 660 Mt (source: IATA).

That's for all volcanoes worldwide. Iceland isn't even a big eruption. In fact, if you do the calculations, Iceland's volcano is probably net emissions negative:

1. air industry emissions in the EU are estimated as being about 5-12% of the EU's GHG emissions, which gives a figure of about 388 Mt annually - roughly right given that the EU accounts for somewhat more than half of all global air traffic

2. that means the daily emissions of EU air traffic is somewhat greater than all the world's volcanoes (1.06 Mt EU air industry vs 0.82 for all the world's volcanoes)

3. Iceland's eruption isn't all the world's volcanoes - obviously - or probably even a significant fraction of them

4. but it has grounded most EU flights for a couple of days

Therefore, the Iceland eruption is probably emissions negative by something like a megatonne of emissions daily.

But, yes, the suggestion in the OP cannot possibly be serious anyway - carbon emissions from natural sources are not part of the anthropogenic emissions problem - by definition.

cordially,
Scofflaw

zielarz

This is not a joke. I'm paying carbon tax as everybody else in this country and I'm just wondering why Iceland has some kind of a special privileges in this regard.
Volcano is located on their territory, surely they could have done something. At least minimise the amount of gases emited. I haven't heard that they've tried that. You can't just pollute half of the Europe with some sh** and expect that everything is ok. I can't legally burn a tyre in fireplace but they can do something like this??? Why greens are not protesting???

ei.sdraob

MaceFace wrote: »

Huh? Is this because it blocks out the suns rays?
How would it affect crops and cattle?

sulphur (high enough) blocks out some of the rays

anyways too long to explain....

... so here's the part from chapter 5 discussing the volcano (whole book is well worth reading as its very interesting)

see pages 92 to 104 of chapter 5 linked below
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B1Fz-JJAA3vaYWM3ZTJjNjktNjk0Yi00ZTNlLWFkNzAtYjE1MTg3OTgzMWY2&hl=en

read for yourself

taram

zielarz wrote: »

This is not a joke. I'm paying carbon tax as everybody else in this country and I'm just wondering why Iceland has some kind of a special privileges in this regard.
Volcano is located on their territory, surely they could have done something. At least minimise the amount of gases emited. I haven't heard that they've tried that. You can't just pollute half of the Europe with some sh** and expect that everything is ok. I can't legally burn a tyre in fireplace but they can do something like this??? Why greens are not protesting???

Well in the Kyoto Protocol it was ratified they could increase their greenhouse gases by 10%. http://unfccc.int/cop3/fccc/info/indust.htm

How exactly are they going to mimise the gases released? Anyway, I'd prefer some standard C02 going into the atmosophere, not smelly dioxin releasing tyres.

Scofflaw

zielarz wrote: »

This is not a joke. I'm paying carbon tax as everybody else in this country and I'm just wondering why Iceland has some kind of a special privileges in this regard.
Volcano is located on their territory, surely they could have done something. At least minimise the amount of gases emited. I haven't heard that they've tried that. You can't just pollute half of the Europe with some sh** and expect that everything is ok. I can't legally burn a tyre in fireplace but they can do something like this??? Why greens are not protesting???

Right, that's quite enough. That's simply too stupid for words, which makes this either a troll thread or a waste of electrons.

moderately,
Scofflaw