Man vs the Volcano

I have heard climate change skeptics refer to a vague statistic that volcanoes emit more greenhouse gasses than humans. The implication being that we humans can't possibly compete with Mother Nature, so we might as well not try. Well, with the recent eruption of Eyjafjallajokull (try saying that one three times fast), I figured it was an opportune time to check the validity of this information. It turns out that the volcano spews out about 150,000 tons per day, whereas "aviation in 32 European nations emitted 510,000 tonnes a day of CO2 in 2007." That's almost four volcanoes of this size that have to erupt in order to meet the amount of emissions spewed by European aviation alone. In fact, it turns out that, on average, all of the volcanoes in the WORLD only release about 274,000 tons of CO2 per day. I think this myth is debunked.

Actually, here is an article that directly addresses the myth: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-volcanoes-affect-w

And here are my sources for the recent eruption and blah blah blah...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iFlK7AFMG1W1EKOCEcsMnheg0oow
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE63J0MV.htm

Trail of Payne Results

I got the results back from the Trail of Payne 10K:

#68 out of 310 with a time of 51 minutes.

Not bad for my first time. Now I am looking forward to the next run. I need to get that time down to 43 minutes or less.

Health Care Experiences

So it happens that my immune system decided to take a little vacation, leaving me with the company of my old friend chicken pox. Unfortunately, like myself, chicken pox has grown up and is now shingles. And shingles, it happens, brought a friend: meningitis. Now I am in the hospital at Naval Air Station - Jacksonville, enjoying the benefits of being on government-run health care. I am scheduled to get out by next weekend (April 11th), which I hope is true because I don't want to be here so long that the government death panel decides I am too expensive to keep alive. I also don't want to be under the care of the disgruntled doctors here for too long. It's clear by their happy and approachable demeanor that they hate working under such tyrannical regulation and for such suppressed government wages, and I for one have no intention of subjecting myself to their dissatisfaction for any longer than necessary. And have I mentioned the conditions here? Government always screws things up and I am sure that a private, for-profit, hospital probably wouldn't be caught providing such a dreadful window-view room, with a private bathroom, excellent lighting, a flat-screen TV, movies on-demand, and linens changed every other day (or every day, if requested).

Well I do seem to recall that a couple of friends have had some of their own personal experiences with private insurances, private hospitals, and government health insurance with private hospitals, so perhaps it would be interesting to do a little comparing and contrasting. Of course, any such comparison would be very amateurish, since we are not going to be able to do much in the way of cost analysis. But it might still prove to be interesting. Does anyone know people who have experienced the Canadian or British health care systems? That could be a valuable addition too.

Ok, there you have your primer. I'll be sure to write something a little more comprehensive when I get out and my experience is complete.