Climate Change

Viscount Simon Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Simon (Lab)]

My Lords, I will raise a matter which is slightly wide of today’s debate but none the less very relevant to the future of our world.

Yellowstone Park’s volcano is a massive cauldron which contains several tens of thousands of kilometres of magmatic material. The chances of an explosion are currently thought to be around 1:730,000, but a sudden weakening of the geological layers could trigger a sudden depressurisation event, with the entire system exploding into the atmosphere. The most explosive eruption would produce about 2,500 times the amount of volcanic material resulting in the 1980 destruction of Mount St Helens.

Such an explosion would project ash and lava up to about 16 miles high, which would then be transported around the atmosphere with horrendous effects on our climate, food and drink et cetera, resulting in years of significant cooling. Another immense eruption would cost the lives of so many people that, while it would not be the end of civilisation, it would change the world for the worse.