Evil Troll or Kettle

I wrote a post the other day about the possible El Hierro eruption on the Canary Islands but for some unknown reason it got deleted. I think that this unknown reason might been that I changed the language to Finnish and couldn't understand anything, I'm now back to English (UK) so we should be fine. As it wasn't a very good post and went widely off topic, by the end it was more about a surprise birthday party where I dressed up as a lobster, I didn't care that it was lost so you will never hear my views on El Hierro. But anyway there is a now another potential eruption. I don't know what it says that that I am now writing about potential eruptions as opposed to actual ones; that I am so well tuned into the world of volcanoes I can predict eruptions, that there are a lot of potential eruptions now, that they have been featured on The Guardian website (which in itself could mean a whole host of things). The eruption that is now thought to be imminent has actually been in the magma for a while now, since the eruption of Eyjafjallajoekull last year. People may remember that one of the main fears about the Eyja eruption was that an even bigger even more powerful eruption would take place afterwards, from the volcano Katla. The sudden interest in Katla is due to the fact that earthquakes have been detected in the area and the volcano tends to erupt twice a century and hasn't done so since 1918. The volcano is either named after a kettle or an evil troll and I really don't know what I'd prefer to be true (it could make a really good Arcade Fire song though, maybe I'll pitch it to them).

The 1918 eruption lasted about a month, blocked off sunlight which killed crops and melted ice caps which flooded farms. All people seem concerned about now is even more flight disruptions, I know that when Eyja erupted and people missed flights it was awful as people lost money, couldn't see friends etc but it's not that bad compared to say death or something. I suppose we are so certain that in the Western world our lives can't be properly affected by volcanoes, that we are so advanced, that we will be able to cope. But I think it could be worse as it could have a knock on effect causing homelessness and loss of crops which is assuming that this eruption will be around the same strength but it could be greater which will obviously have much larger effects. I know there are strategies in place in Iceland so the villagers are likely to be fine as this volcano is well monitored and that this eruption probably won't cause the end of life in Europe, I just feel we are being a bit complacent if flights are our main worry. Volcanoes and nature are a lot more powerful than we realise and with all our scientific advances we are still unable to control nature.

The next issue of Volcano Club is slightly delayed due to bad editing on my part, so I would like to take this opportunity to tell my editor that I read this post carefully thrice but apologies for any mistakes (I think that this is probably a bad way to communicate with my mother)