The Icelandic Volcano Has Severely Affected The Economy

By Author: Italo Zanotti
Total Articles: 62
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One thing the Icelandic volcano named impossible taught us and we must be grateful: the fragility of the economy in the face of natural phenomena. Believed to have harnessed nature, but she is still the strongest. When you go to do the preliminary accounts of the effects of ash, the result is little short of appalling.
It does not help that the studies on volcanic eruptions are not very advanced and that scientists themselves do not know what to expect. As sulfur and arsenic as there are at present in the upper atmosphere, occupied by the cloud of Vajnmonajökull or accidents is called, is not known. It is known however that the 1816, because of another eruption, became known in Europe as "the year without summer", then a year of famine, and we know that other eruptions were followed by years of intense cold. The Ciseyocji-fayjökull is on the same road? We do not know. But we know enough to worry about.
The economic impact of the cloud will be felt more and more if the eruption will continue for a long time and if the dust emission will be high, although some reduction is expected due to the complete dissolution ...
... of the ice cap at the volcano. But even now so different from each other traders as importers of flowers and fruits of Africa, the high-tech companies, trade fairs and tourism are heavily affected by the blockade of air traffic. Economists have not yet revised economic forecasts for Europe, which is the region most affected by Earth's volcanic cloud. But if the ashes will remain in circulation for a long time, say for a few months, the only sector of tourism and transport subtracting Europe from two points of GDP growth, pushing the annual result by 1.5% to a value around zero.
"This would mean that many European countries have no growth," said Vanessa Rossi, an economist at Chatham House: "The recovery is literally strangled in the cradle." Tourism represents about 5% of world GDP and one third of its turnover is in Europe. Vanessa Rossi thinks that the closure of European airspace may cost 4 to 7 billion euros a week. If any consolation for now is a hypothesis, not a prediction, because there are no previous experience in the attempt.
The trade also would pay a high price. Although freight transport by air involving a fairly small part of total tonnage, it is the most valuable fraction of international trade. In value, goods are delivered by aircraft an unexpected 40% of the total. The ability to switch to road transport or avoid airports closed are quite limited.
In high technology sectors, where the organization is widespread JIT (Just-in-time), the blocking of air transport has already caused serious damage. Large carriers such as DHL, UPS and FedEx are in crisis due to the impossibility of achieving their main hubs operating in France and Germany. The effect of the blockade on the oil market is already striking. One of the most valuable fractions of oil is jet fuel, that fuel for large airliners. The application has failed to fall down just as, for climatic reasons, the demand for diesel and fuel oil. Result, the price of a barrel of crude, which had climbed up to $ 86 a barrel, slipping back up to 83. Impossible to quantify the effects are impossible to travel to figures such as managers, salespeople and technicians. Some meetings may be postponed for a week, but not two months, some sales can not be done by phone and care should be paid ten hours ago and next month. These are not short-run effects, but beginning to feel. The volcano Eyjafjallajökull teaches us what our life and our prosperity depend more on the natural world, rather than technology.
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