Mount St. Helens is WA state's No. 1 air polluter

John Patrick Luethe writes "The Seattle Times has run an article on Mount St. Helens' recent massive pollution. The article claims that since the start of the recent volcanic activity starting in early October the volcano has pumped out between 50 and 250 tons of sulfur dioxide each day and has become the states largest polluter."

Comments

Volcanic emissions compared to human output

[FleaPlus]

Does anybody know overall how global volcanic emissions compare to human output?

Carbon Dioxide emissions

[caseih]

While the SO2 emissions are considered pollution, I was shocked at how high the daily man-made CO2 emissions were. The CO2 emissions wouldn't be such a big deal if they were coming from some organic source, but since they are being added to the carbon cycle, that's a lot of CO2 to absorb. And there's no end in sight. It is high time we started replacing our fossil fuels with organic fuels. At that point CO2 emissions become non-issues since there would be no net increase in the carbon levels of the enviroment. It's not the burning that is the problem (outside of NO2 and SO2 creation); it's the buring of fossil fuels that add CO2 that is the problem.

Re:Gaia Watch Out!

[StalinJoe]

Now, I'm no tree-hugger. I am not an eco-terrorist. I drive an SUV.

But isn't it a little disconcerting that it took an active spewing volcano over two months to get pingged for excessive emissions?

Day after day of spewing tons of pollutants, and it takes OVER TWO MONTHS to pass up the status-quo industrial polluters?

Hmmmmmm...