Volcano tests globalized world

Opinion: April 23, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Dallas Morning News: For a while there, the world seemed so small, so easy to navigate. For some, cheap fares and plenty of flights meant a weekend trip to London or Paris was no big deal. A Texas microchip maker or Colombian rose exporter could fill overnight orders from European customers, thanks to a super-efficient global air cargo network.

Maybe we took such convenience for granted. That was before Mother Nature reminded us how easily a single volcano can ruin your whole day.

Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano has been belching enormous quantities of ash into the sky since last week, bringing air traffic to a standstill across Europe. At least 100,000 flights had been canceled. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown dispatched the Royal Navy on Monday to three European ports to repatriate stranded Britons.

The airline industry alone is hemorrhaging an estimated $200 million a day. The effects are particularly hard for American Airlines, which canceled 60 European flights Sunday and is scrambling to rebook or refund passengers scheduled to fly into 11 European cities directly affected by the ash plume. There’s no way of calculating how extensive the economic fallout will be, nor can air-dependent businesses make long-term revisions of operations.

A wake-up call

The Iceland eruption is one small reminder of the awesome effect nature can have on our globalized world. It’s worth noting that another volcanic eruption in Iceland, in 1783, lasted eight months and sent a huge cloud of toxic smoke across Europe that killed 10,000 people and altered global climate patterns.

An old margarine commercial in the 1970s used to warn us nightly, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” But perhaps we’ve just been fooling ourselves. We tend not to appreciate how tenuous our grip is on this planet’s phenomenal natural forces. Like children, we prefer to ignore them as we run fast and play hard. Like any good mother, nature has its way of reminding us to slow down.