In article pqKee.51025$r53.9421@attbi_s21, Jay Honeck wrote:
Volcanoes contribute about 110 million tons of CO2 per year, whereas other
sources ("other" means mailny man made) contribute about 10 billion
tons/year.

Have you got a source for that information? I don't have the figures in
front of me, but I believe your "volcano output" figure is not factoring in
major eruptions that alone can (and often do) put out an incredible amount
of emissions.

'I'm feeling lucky' on Google brings the following reference.

From the University of North Dakota:
http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/Gases/man.html

Which is actually beside the point. Are emissions bad, regardless of
source? Sure. Are they worth laying awake at night, worrying?
Only if you live a very sheltered life.

As for laying awake worrying, that does no one any good - you need a
good night's sleep to think straight enough to develop fixes. Besides,
no one where I live has a sheltered life, this island is a forbidding
windswept place in the winter! [0]

In any case, it's a problem that cannot be ignored. It's not just that
burning fossil fuels is adding CO2 to the atmosphere, it's:

* fossil fuels are not infinite, and indeed although there may be enough
to outlast everyone alive today, the *cheap* oil is rather more
limited. Our current lifestyles don't just depend on oil, they depend
on oil that is very cheap.
* we are having to depend on hostile nations for energy supply
* the damage will not be reversable, at least not in our lifetimes.

so it's prudent to try and find ways to conserve the fossil fuels we
have and try and figure out how to make better use of sustainable fuels
to ensure that our way of life has a future in the long term. In the
short term, this is probably going to require a serious re-evaluation of
nuclear energy, and in the long term, replacements for oil. (One of the
things that a shortage of cheap oil would bring is the market forces to
increase research into viable alternatives, at the moment oil is still too
cheap for the market to deem it worthwhile).

If we just bury our heads and carry on regardless, ignoring not just the
possibility of man-caused climate change, but all the other things
listed above, sooner or later it WILL turn around and bite us. It's
nothing to do with being a 'tree hugging commie', it's to do with
ensuring that our values of freedom, apple pie and light aircraft
can still be enjoyed in 200 years time.

[0] yes, I'm just being flippant, but if man-made climate change
increases the frequency of the winter storms, it's going to suck. It's
not unusual to have at least one hurricane force storm in the winter
here, and I don't relish the thought of more. Those nights you DO lie
awake worrying, it's difficult to sleep when a house made with three
foot thick stone walls is groaning and vibrating, and you can hear your
neighbour's roof slates bouncing off your roof)

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"