When I was a kid I was sort of a science geek. I read a lot of books and vacuumed up knowledge and facts. I didn't memorize baseball statistics like the "normal" kids did, I memorized scientific records. Since I was raised near Boston where we frequently had sweltering Summer heat-waves of 90 to 95, with no air-conditioning, one of the fascinating historic events was:

1816, The Year Without A Summer. New England had frost and snow and crop failures and starvation in July. The weird weather also hit Northern Europe and even China. Wikipedia has an article about it. As it turns out, the weather was the result of the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambura in Indonesia. Wikipedia, of course, has an article. Note that the judges awarded Tambura a "7" for technical merit in simulating the effects of a "nuclear winter" many years before anyone knew what the term meant.

Another famous Indonesian Volcano is Krakatoa. It has been active periodically throughout early recorded history, but its most famous eruption was a series of violent blasts on August 26–27, 1883 which were witnessed by European explorers. The judges awarded Krakatoa a "6" for artistic merit for the way it re-arranged the local topography and population. Krakatoa's "yield" was about 200 megatons of TNT which is 13,000 times the size of the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

While the nice folks at the U.S. Geological Survey weren't looking, I stole this map from them to illustrate my story. I can't help it - "acquiring" information used to be my job.

Anyway, if you know nothing about Pangaea and Plate Tectonics, go see Wikipedia again.

The map shows the volcanoes on Indonesia that have been active since 1900. I have highlighted Tambora, Krakatao, and Sinaburg (the unlabeled highlight at the Northwest tip of the island) - it's not labeled because it last went off in 1600. On the other hand, Krakatao, which blew big-time in 1883 has had frequent minor rumbles since then and is a restricted area because it could blow anytime now.

Now that you know about plate tectonics, you can see that Indonesia is located directly on the junction of two plates. It is where the Indo-Australian Plate dives under the Eurasian Plate.

So what was the point of this page? Well, like I said up front, I used to be a science geek and I like collecting facts and information. But just think about all the volcanoes on the Pacific rim and in Iceland and places like that, spewing tons of grit and sulphur and all kinds of dirt and crap into the air.

And then think of Ms Lisa Jackson, the head nanny at the Environmental Protective Administration (EPA) who wants me to stop exhaling CO2 and stop using lead bullets and stop driving a gasoline-fueled automobile and whatever else.

Why doesn't she just stand up like a man and ban plate tectonics and volcanoes. That'll make the earth a happy place for all of us.