Volcano Closes Air Space

Even before British airspace was closed down Newcastle University released a press release saying that the volcanic eruption in Iceland had the potential to seriously disrupt air travel. This yesterday I did not know, while out the first that I realised was the absence of aircraft. Sitting below the flight path of Newcastle airport, hearing nothing but natural sounds raised worries in my mind. I had visions of something akin to September eleventh, so I was greatly relieved to discover that there had been no disaster and that actions were taken to avoid any loss of life.

While I do feel for the people caught up in the situation, not able to complete a journey or even start a holiday, it really is not the end of the world. Although to hear some of the people who have not been able to take a holiday, they seem to want to blame someone. Equally, there appear to be others that blame over caution. Would they feel the same way if several aircraft had crashed?

But while so far the volcano has just caused some inconvenience, it shows how fragile our economic systems are. For as well as passenger travel, there will also be no air freight into north-western Europe. While this will stop some of the fresh produce appearing on the supermarket shelves, it will effect all imported manufactured items such as pharmaceuticals that are regularly air freighted.

It has long been a bone of contention for me is the way that multinational companies export jobs and move manufacturing to cheaper locations. This to has also been something that I have long cautioned about, as simply the weak link was always having the ability to air freighted goods across the world. While if we run out of green beans or prawns will not be the end of the world, shortages of life saving drugs will.

The experts all say that the effects of this volcano will impact air travel for at least six months, and may even last two or three years. While there are other means of transporting vital goods, had we retained manufacturing capacity in Britain, or even Europe, the effects would be far less. We will learn to adapt to this new situation, and the grounding of all these aircraft will dramatical reduce the CO2 pollution from Europe. Also the gasses from the volcano will reduce the greenhouse effect of the man made carbon dioxide.

Perhaps we will learn lessons from this, but I doubt it.