I promise to get off the global warming kick and talk about something else soon, but I did think of climate change again last night while watching television. I was watching a program on the History Channel about volcanoes; the program discussed how much a huge eruption can have an effect on the climate. I had no idea that back in 1816 there was a volcanic eruption that resulted in huge climate effects, such as frost in Connecticut in July. At that time, the world relied on the telegraph system for global communication, so there were actual accounts transmitted that way of the impact of this eruption across the globe. I hear the argument fairly frequently from those who don't buy the global warming from human-activity concept, that volcanoes release tons of stuff into the air and therefore, past climate changes were natural. The argument goes that any future deviations in "normal" climate activity would be simply natural, as well. Yet, what I kept thinking as I watched this show was how incredible it is that we are consciously causing an effect on the planet by our greenhouse gas emissions that previously could only be achieved by a natural phenomenon like a volcano. There are still numerous active volcanoes across the earth and accordingly, I wonder, will climate change be caused by human activity or by another natural eruption, like those that have occurred in the past? It is frightening to me that we are able to rival a force like a volcano in this manner. It also concerns me that many don't believe that our constant and tremendous greenhouse gas emissions could lead to the same kind of climate change that one sudden volcanic eruption could cause. It's certainly hard to compare the gradual to the sudden forms of climate change, yet I think it's very dangerous for us to deflect the evidence of global warming from human conduct by saying that we can't duplicate a climate changing effect formerly found only in nature.