Global Warming to Blame for Icelandic Volcanic Eruption

So says Alan Weisman, the author of the best-selling book, The World Without Us — which, considering the tone of his latest piece on CNN.com, seems to be more of a wish than a prediction.

I'll hand it to Weisman. He's a talented writer. His prose is somewhat of a joy to read. Yet "somewhat" is a necessary qualifier because the content of what he writes is so screwy. After some throat-clearing about how Iceland is not only a strikingly beautiful place, but was an enlightened cradle of democracy more than a thousand years ago, Weisman laments that the blessed country is now among the first victims of where democracy blossomed into Earth's enemy. That enemy would be the United States, and Eyjafjallajökull is the instrument of Gaia's wrath. Behold! (And, yes. I know Ron Lau posted this excerpt this morning, but please indulge me nonetheless.)

Both Iceland and the United States exalt democracy as a social achievement worthy of lasting an eternity. Yet the latter's unprecedented strength has derived not just from enlightened government, but from the release of its own hot clouds: exhaust from its vast industries, fleets and mechanized agriculture.

As we have learned, these gases form an invisible barrier that, like a greenhouse's glass ceiling, keeps reflected heat of the sun from escaping our atmosphere. The denser that gaseous barrier grows, the hotter things get and the faster glaciers melt.

As they flow off the land, we are warned, seas rise. Yet something else is lately worrying geologists: the likelihood that the Earth's crust, relieved of so much formidable weight of ice borne for many thousands of years, has begun to stretch and rebound.

As it does, a volcano awakens in Iceland (with another, larger and adjacent to still-erupting Eyjafjallajokull, threatening to detonate next). The Earth shudders in Haiti. Then Chile. Then western China. Mexicali-Calexico. The Solomon Islands. Spain. New Guinea. And those are just the big ones, 6+ on the Richter scale, and just in 2010. And it's only April.

It's looking like this may be a long decade. And if we don't pull carbon out of the way we energize our lives soon, a small clump of our not-too-distant surviving descendants may find themselves, as Gaia scientist James Lovelock has direly predicted, like the first Icelanders: gathered on some near-barren hunk of rock near one of the still-habitable poles, trying yet anew to eke out a plan for human civilization.

And you thought "The Day After Tomorrow" was just a wildly absurd disaster-flick. No sir. We're doomed, I tell ya. DOOOOOOMED!

Of course, a volcano once before devastated Iceland — much worse than what Eyjafjallajoekull has wrought this month. That was when Loki erupted, killing half of Iceland's livestock and leading to the death of one-quarter of the people due to famine. Don't remember that amazing and destructive event? That's understandable, since it was pretty big news way back in 1783.

I imagine that if Weisman was around then, he might have blamed it on all the horse and cow flatulence of Europe causing a glass ceiling on the planet that quickly melted Iceland's glaciers. Makes about as much sense as his current thesis.