If globe is warming, blame Old Faithful

Yellowstone National Park is probably the biggest contributor to atmospheric carbon dioxide in the United States and among the largest "volcanic" emitters of carbon dioxide in the world, according to researchers from Pennsylvania State University.

A recent study presented to the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on December 23 by Cindy Werner and Pro Susan Brantley demonstrated that large quantities of carbon dioxide-the colorless, odorless "greenhouse" gas that allegedly contributes to global warming-are being emitted from the famous thermal fissures of Yellowstone National Park, of which Old Faithful is the most noted.

"We believe that geothermal systems are significant contributors to global estimates of carbon dioxide," said Werner. Last summer, Werner, a graduate student, along with Brantley, estimated that Yellowstone's "Mud Volcano" area alone releases about 176,300 tons of carbon dioxide each year. Extrapolating from those numbers, the researchers concluded that volcanoes, hot springs and "mud pots" throughout the park release about 44 million tons of COZ a year.

By contrast, a medium-sized power plant that burns fossil fuels is estimated to release 4.4 million tons of carbon dioxide yearly. Also, Werner and Brantley tentatively estimated that Yellowstone's emissions "would be equal to the carbon dioxide released from 10 to 20 coal-burning power plants."

The carbon emissions from Yellowstone, they report, represent over half of the United States' geothermal activity, and those from the mud volcanoes are "comparable" to Mt. Etna in Sicily, which spits out the largest concentrations of carbon dioxide "ever recorded worldwide at a volcanic system."

Scientists for years have known that greenhouse gases are mostly given off into the earth's atmosphere from natural sources, a fact that the Werner and Brantley study confirms. "It's true that when you're looking at human sources of carbon dioxide, you're really looking at a tiny sliver of the problem," Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute, told HUMAN EvENTS.

In fact, only about 2%-3% of greenhouse gases actually come from anthropogenic, or man-made, sources, such as smokestacks and power plants.

"The natural sources certainly far outweigh the human sources, which is something we know anyway," said Dr. Bonner Cohen, editor of EPA Watch. "Something in the neighborhood of 98% of all greenhouse gases are compliments of Mother Nature. This study is a superb example of where an environmental icon turns out to be a significant source of greenhouse gases."

The unratified global warming treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in December, calls for restricting man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the United States to 7% below 1990 levels. It says nothing about Old Faithful.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Jan 16, 1998
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