Volcanic activity is, by far, the single greatest NATURAL source of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.

The current rate of volcanic CO2 emissions is around 300 million tons per year.

300 million = 300 x 10⁶ =
0.3 x 10⁹

The current rate of human CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels is around 40 BILLION tons per year.

40 x 10⁹ ÷ 0.3 x 10⁹ = 133

Human CO2 emissions are about 133 times GREATER than those from the greatest natural CO2 source, volcanic activity.

Human emissions weren't always this high. They've been growing for around 200 years, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. This is why we have global warming today. Due to our burning of fossil fuels, the average temperature over Earth's surface has risen about 1.1°C (1.9°F).

With the rise in temperature there has been a huge rise in climate-related disasters. Since 1980, the ANNUAL cost of all fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, and heat waves in the USA has risen from around $50 billion to nearly $500 billion. That's a ten-fold increase in only 40 years, to a cost of almost half a trillion dollars EVERY YEAR. And the number and severity of adverse climate events is expected to continue to rise as long as we keep dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The one federal agency with the power to regulate CO2 emissions is (was) the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In 2009, the EPA classified CO2 as a pollutant, which meant that they were on track to force the fossil fuel, energy, and transportation industries to finally rein in their emissions.

Then, in 2016, Donald Trump ascended to the White House. During his disasterous presidency, Trump did what he could to appease his billionaire industrialist buddies. First, he partially de-funded the EPA. At the time, federal law prohibited him from closing the agency down, or firing its scientists. So instead he moved the EPA's headquarters half way across the country, hoping that much of the staff would quit.

In 2024 the "conservative" supermajority on the Supreme Court overturned longstanding precedent set in the 1984, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council case. The Court stripped the authority of agencie experts to interpret regulatory laws. Instead, the Court gave that authority to non-expert judges.

And Project 2025, Trump's game plan for an authoritarian takeover of the federal bureaucracy, lays out in exquisite detail how a future Trump administration would fire all experienced and knowledgeable civil servants and replace them with political hacks and yes men.

For instance, Trump would shutter the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (aka NOAA, the agency that runs the National Weather Service). Project 2025 claims that NOAA is a main driver “of the climate change alarm industry” and should be “broken up.” In other words, Trump would shut down the federal agency best equipped to understand the growing climate emergency.

Why don't we take all fire alarms off of our buildings, while we're at it? Might as well get rid of fire departments too. 🧯(sarcasm)

Remember in 2019, when Trump took a Sharpie to a National Weather Service map, and mislead millions of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama residents as to the projected path of Hurricane Dorian? (See the Wikipedia link below for a refresher on Sharpiegate.) That's the kind of reckless incompetence we can expect from another Trump administration. Only this time it would be institutionalized reckless incompetence.

During a recent fund-raiser at Mar-a-lago, Trump promised to relieve the regulatory burden on the fossil fuel industry if they would provide him with a billion-dollar donation to his campaign. He would let the fat cats drill in sensitive habitats, and burn baby burn.

Trump also promised the assembled oil and gas executives that he would, as part of the quid pro quo, slash Biden administration investments in green energy and clean vehicles.

Trump sold us out, big time.

So it couldn't be clearer: if Trump gets back in, our goose is cooked. 🦢 🥵

[epa.gov]

[forbes.com]

[politico.com]

[ncei.noaa.gov]

[en.m.wikipedia.org]