If ever there was a strawman. He says: "Planes emit CO2 - but they emit almost completely clean CO2 (note that bar global warming, CO2 isn’t considered harmful). Volcanoes blast tons and tons of all kinds of nasty and not so nasty stuff into the air. Some of the ash contains nutrients that will fertilize soil, other will, as mentioned, cause acid rain. It’s much more complex than CO2."
Well... no, the question raised is clearly about CO2 and nothing but CO2. How much do volcanic ash clouds affect the planet's albedo? How much precious fossil fuel do the planes collectively consume? Not relevant.
This author says, "they emit almost completely clean CO2 (note that bar global warming, CO2 isn’t considered harmful)" ... To my ears, that's a major understatement ("bar global warming"). I'm almost inclined to think it's more partisan than the original post, to be so dismissive of climate change.
But beyond that, the point that seems most incongruous is the suggestion that because volcanos emit a more explicitly toxic gas (S02) that we shouldn't have an awareness of our own emissions and their effect on the environment. By comparing it to a volcano's emissions, I am simply impressed by the scale.
I think you really have to read into this to derive a moral/political statement. Nobody is trying to hide the effects of S02.
I don't think it's intentionally partisan, I think it's simply under thought (like, at this point, the vast majority of IIB's stuff). It's not that you don't get a comparison, it's that the comparison doesn't really mean anything. When you are comparing these numbers you want to understand the impact they have, not just the numbers themselves. As the OP said, it's simply misleading to portray this relationship as meaningful: it's not.
The only value of these numbers, as you have said, is to have an awareness of their relative effect on the environment. That's not what's being presented here.
As far as I know high quantities of SO2 shield earth from sun rays causing cooling on global scale. I've recently heard about volcano eruption about hundred years ago (maybe two hundred I'm not sure) that caused ground-frost in July next year severely harming crops and causing hunger that led to many thousand deaths in US and all over the world.
So if you are afraid of global warming you should welcome every volcano eruption with joy as its SO2 emission counter-effects influence of many millions of tons of CO2.
Not sure about the joy bit since large SO2 emissions have a catastrophic effect on agriculture as you noted, but do not have effects lasting more than a few years. CO2 lasts a good bit longer than that.
From what I have seen so far "Information is Beautiful" would more accurately be called "How to lie with cute infographics".
I don't think they intentionally lie, but their infographics are often misleading at best, and give people a false sense of understanding and knowledge.
Well... no, the question raised is clearly about CO2 and nothing but CO2. How much do volcanic ash clouds affect the planet's albedo? How much precious fossil fuel do the planes collectively consume? Not relevant.