Globalization and the Iceland Volcano [Republished Post]

We have been talking a lot about globalization in this course and sometimes disruptions to globalization are the things that remind us how much the world has been globalized. This week's Iceland volcano was one such event. Flights from cities throughout Europe have been canceled. Here is an article and a map on the story. While this story covers the business effects. Its affects have also been felt in the US and even in our department. The Boston Marathon, scheduled for Monday, was to have about 600 European runners compete, and many of them will be unlikely to get to this side of the pond now. Our own history department had a conference scheduled this weekend and several of the speakers were coming over from the UK and couldn't make it. It is humbling to imagine what this could mean if the volcano were to continue to erupt over a long period of time, such as year, which was the time over which the volcano erupted last.