Back in March, a little-known volcano snugly situated under Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull glacier erupted, resulting in the evacuation of hundreds of local townspeople from the region. This event received little media attention until less than a month later, the same volcano erupted a second time, emitting huge, billowing plumes of ash and smoke into the atmosphere. Authorities evacuated the local population again, and now, as a massive smoke cloud drifts southeast across central Europe, as hundreds of international flights are inconveniently cancelled, and as the world takes a renewed interest in how volcanic eruptions influence the earth’s geography, climate, and inhabitants, I can’t help but wonder...
Considering how there’s been a smoldering volcano gearing up to spew liquid hot magma out from underneath the glacier’s surface, why again did Iceland’s Reykjavik City Environmental Department blame the glacier’s melting on man-made global warming, predicting their glaciers would “completely disappear” within the next 200 years unless the country reduced its greenhouse emissions by 70 percent?
What about the President of Iceland, who constantly lobbied against former President Bush to visit Iceland in person to see the melting firsthand – when will he issue an official apology for blaming the melting of his country’s sixth largest glacier on America’s refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty?
Moreover, I'd really like to know, how in the world do you pronounce "Eykafkallajökull"? (Even with the audio pronunciation, I’m still baffled.)
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