IIRC correctly we damaged the ozone layer far more than nature did. Thankfully it's now "repairing" itself. As for acid rain - any damage caused it temporary - global warming may well be permanent and could extinguish life on this planet.

Stop listening to the government. The eruption is inconvenient for a lot of people and whilst it might be beneficial to some people living under flight paths and near airports, it's definitely not single-handedly saving the planet.

Actually I'm going by what scientists and BBC documentaries are reporting. Apparently the increase in CO2 - regardless of whether it warms the planet - could increase the acidity of the oceans, which will make it difficult for a lot of life in the oceans to survive as it will wipe out the coral. If global temperatures continue to increase the polar regions will melt which might shut off the ocean currents, which will cause the water to stagnate, leading to the death of fish etc as no oxygen reaches the bottom of the oceans, and the decay of these fish etc (in the absence of oxygen) will cause the production of hydrogen sulphide, which will not only wipe out life in the oceans it will eventually wipe out everything on the land too (as the poisonous gas escapes from the oceans).

^^ One of many factors that all interact.

Because they're all totally independent, of course.

Not all scientists agree, they never do. You're misled to believe that they do.

We live on a floating ball of rock sitting right by a nuclear reactor, the climate will change irrespective of us.

The question is will we change with it or waste our time beleiving that we can bail out a sinking ship with a paper bucket? Pissing in the boat won't help but it's still going to sink, perhaps we should look at putting on some armbands instead?

No I agree. Though with peak oil a serious problem in the decades ahead it does give us a foretaste of the future. What if its sister volcano erupts that could shut the skies down for months or even a year or two. Yes there will be acid rain but the impact on travel will be immense. This could be a huge blessing in disguise in that it gives us an incentive to invest in better ground transport.

I get the feeling that they pretty much know that this is going to go on for quite some time but are handing out the no fly extensions bit by bit so as to try and limit the chaos.

On a lighter note, Dan Snow of the BBC has launched a raid on Calais using speedboats to bring people back from France BBC clicky

Good lad.

Finally, some sense. How do we know what's going on with the thing? I'm not a volcanologist and I've not been to Iceland. For all we know this could go on for months. Would they tell us? Of course not.

As for the environment, if you think this will prompt people to invest in alternatives to air travel - think again. And besides, everyone needs to stop being so obsessed by how much CO2 everything makes. People want and need to travel between countries quickly and efficiently. At present a plane is usually the best way to do that. Until someone builds a maglev monorail across every ocean that's likely to remain the case.

AFAIK propeller shaft engines are much more able to cope with the situation, primarily as they tend to fly lower anyways, perhaps we could actually use cargo planes to bring people back in the meantime? I'm no expert on that though.

Smaller aircraft can also fly (McCoy flew up fo the Scottish National on Saturday), as too helicopters (when permitted by the relevant authority). It would be possible to make exceptions.

I think it bizarre that the air ambulances were grounded whereas the RNLI and Police copters were not as they have different governing authorities, helicopters do not fly high enough to be effected.

We could fashion together some forms of transport to start moving those stranded, that would maybe something.

Good to see that Dunkirk spirit.

Only the broken ones

(You mean affected)

If only it was 2 months earlier. I could have been stuck in Tenerife...

Further ban on Scots air travel

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8627978.stm

Shouldn't this be permanent?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/trave ... onths.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/new ... 47854.html

Well it looks like peoples travel plans are going to get screwed. My parents will be stuck in Spain for the duration.


Fish and chips then?