The most iconic aspect of a volcanic eruption is the massive plume of smog that emits from its crater. Many greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are included in this chaotic haze that can sometimes trigger dazzling lightning storms. Not surprisingly, this has an outsized impact on our climate. However, while it's true that volcanoes contribute to climate change, that does not mean that our current climate change crisis — you know, the one that is driving a sixth mass extinction and shattering temperature records — is being caused by volcanoes alone. Indeed, experts strongly pin our out-of-control greenhouse gas problem on humans.
However, climate change deniers have spent years arguing the opposite, that human-caused climate change is, in fact, nothing more than the product of volcanic activity. In 2015, then-presidential candidate Mike Huckabee claimed that a single volcano puts out as much climate-altering gases as humans do in a century. In 2016, the climate scientist article aggregator RealClimate published a post comprehensively debunking the "volcanoes are to blame" denier myth. In 2020 a tweet went viral that falsely claimed the eruption of Mt. Merapi "spewed more CO2 than every car driven in history." By 2023, an underwater volcano near Tonga was being widely blamed as the supposed bad guy in any climate change.
