We want to highlight two things in this post:
- Mike has published an essay in Aeon about the threat from hidden volcanoes, among other aspects, it's got some volcano science, history, climate, pandemics and storytelling in it, so something for everyone I hope! It highlights the global scale of this risk, its underappreciation in terms of governance, monitoring and funding.
- If you get to the end of the Aeon article, you'll see Lara Mani and I (both volcanologists) have launched the first of its kind charity to mitigate volcanic risk, called the Global Volcano Risk Alliance. We're fully registered with the UK's charity commission (and HMRC - i.e. tax exempt) as of earlier this year, and open to donations and consultancy.
Aeon article
Here’s a taster of the article:
Volcanoes are often imagined through icons like Yellowstone or Vesuvius, yet the real danger may lie in places that appear deceptively quiet. In 1982, the little-known El Chichón volcano in southern Mexico erupted after centuries of dormancy, killing thousands and displacing tens of thousands more. But the impact didn't stop there, its climatic effects would be felt on the other side of the world, which had a role in the triggering of the infamous 1983-85 Ethiopian famine.
“It's not as rare as you might think - Around 75 per cent of eruptions with an explosivity of VEI 5 (like El Chichón) were preceded by at least a century of silence. That percentage is even higher – 90 per cent – for volcanoes ranked VEI 6, which are 10 times more powerful. And in volcanic regions like the Pacific islands, South America and Indonesia, we can expect explosivity every seven to 10 years from a volcano with no previously recorded eruption.”
In the essay, I trace how our understanding of volcanoes has evolved—from gods and myths, to plate tectonics, to their role in global climate shocks. I argue that, despite scientific progress, volcanology remains chronically underfunded and unevenly distributed.
Learnings from history tell us how catastrophic volcanically-induced climate shocks can be:
“It was the start of a period called the Late Antique Little Ice Age, a period of climate chaos that has been associated with rising and falling civilisations, pandemics, human migration and political turmoil. This period was triggered by not one but a cluster of at least two closely spaced large eruptions, one of which originated from the northern hemisphere (in 536) and the other from the tropics (in 540). In a period that some historians deemed to be ‘the worst time to be alive’, the eruptions severely cooled the northern hemisphere by an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius, with some regions experiencing far cooler temperatures. Snow fell in the summer in China, and there were reports of crop failure across multiple regions including Ireland, Scandinavia, Mesopotamia and Asia, resulting in widespread famine. Perhaps the Byzantine historian Procopius described it best: ‘For the Sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the Moon, during this whole year,’ but the climatic chaos may have been the least of their problems….”
Volcanic risk has received almost no philanthropic and little policy attention compared to nuclear war, asteroid impacts —even though according to a recent CEARCH report it dominates the expected burden of these climate catastrophes.
This is why we’ve launched the Global Volcano Risk Alliance: to shift attention, resources, and preparedness toward overlooked threats.
Why we started this charity
We have over 30 years combined experience of working in volcanic hazards and risk. But in the last few years, we began to realise how neglected volcanic risk is compared to other global catastrophic threats of a similar or even lesser scale. Advances in our field highlighted both the probability and severity of volcanically-induced climate shocks — including a 1 in 6 chance of a catastrophic shock this century, with climate change expected to amplify the effects by 60% in a warmer world.
This realisation drove us to act. In 2022, we published an article in Nature to highlight the neglected nature of the risk and as a call to action for policymakers. The piece was extensively covered in global media, but more significantly, it increased interest and motivation from our own community of volcanologists and risk researchers, who were highly motivated to work towards volcanic risk reduction. In the process, we realised that despite the strong motivation for coordinated action, no infrastructure existed to help deliver it. Our solution was to form a new organisation, Global Volcano Risk Alliance.
Over the past year or so, we’ve focused on establishing a sustainable organisation through which we can deliver high-impact projects and interventions to increase global resilience to volcanic eruptions. We have:
- Established an experienced team of advisors and trustees to support the charity's operations and to identify high-impact projects and interventions.
- Raised over £92,000 in direct and in-kind funding support.
- Published a policy brief on global volcanic risk which was featured in the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s 2025 ‘Global Assessment Report’.
- Delivered a successful pilot education programme in northern Indonesia, engaging schools and communities directly at risk from multi-hazard volcanic environments.
- Built a strong global network of policymakers, scientists, and humanitarian actors, engaging directly with the UN and national governments.
- Taken part in structured training programmes, including the UKRI ARC Accelerator, and through charity cultivator ‘Centre for Global Equality’.
- And much more!
We are now a registered CIO with the UK’s Charity Commission and fully operational — ready to expand our impact through policy advocacy, international coordination, and on-the-ground education projects. Our initial work has shown us that impact in this neglected area is tractable, and we are quickly building the momentum and credibility to make real change. We are now seeking to grow our efforts to meet the scale of the challenge.
Plans and 2026 Budget
We’re looking to connect with potential donors, collaborators, and advisors interested in cost-effective work on global catastrophic risk.
We're fundraising £85,400 to support:
- Core team & operations – part-time co-founder salary and running costs (£23,300)
- UN Global Missions Brief on Volcanic Risk – a high-level policy event in Geneva (£11,000)
- Indonesian schools preparedness programme – Strengthening Youth Preparedness and Science Education in Indonesia’s High-Risk Communities (£35,000) (based on successful pilot - see video here)
- Scenario exercises & policy reports – with international agencies, humanitarian orgs, and governments (£1,100+)
- Bolivia Volcanic Risk Scoping Mission: Building Regional Capacity for Monitoring and Preparedness. An assessment of volcanic monitoring, preparedness, including testing public information messaging for different sectors (£15,000 - £3,000 already attained via travel grant).
You can donate via online donation platform here. Or get in touch directly – I live in Oxford and sometimes work from Trajan House (I’ll also be in New York in early November -breifly). Lara is based between Cambridge and France, and our Science Advisory Committee and Governing Board are pretty global too!
What we're doing
GVRA works on global volcanic risk reduction through a multi-pronged approach:
- Policy Advocacy: Running global scenario exercises, working with governments on disaster policy, and publishing briefings to inform international institutions. (Some work already here)
- Impact Partnerships: Collaborating with researchers, universities, and multilateral orgs to translate science into preparedness strategies.
- Sector Preparedness: Engaging industries like insurance, shipping, aviation, and tourism sectors to build resilience to ash disruption, trade shocks, and stranded assets.
- Education & Outreach: Piloting school safety programmes in Indonesia, and producing public engagement tools (e.g. our ‘lava dome exhibition’).
How you can help
This is crazy!! I just read your Nature article last month!! This charity is so exciting to me!!
Let me ask two really simple questions (hopefully not too simple):
1) If you had to choose just one thing, what is the single most important thing that would help volcanologists predict when/if a catastrophic volcanic eruption is going to occur?
2) If volcanologists knew a catastrophic eruption was likely, what is the most promising idea — even if speculative or unlikely to work — for how to prevent or reduce an eruption? (E.g. siphoning off the magma to use for geothermal energy??)
Mitigating risk from large volcanic eruptions seems important, tractable, and neglected, so I wish you the best of luck!!
Ah thanks for the kind comments Yarrow and good questions.
Here's a paper that considers 64 different interventions. We thought the most promising was piling soil on top of a supervolcano to make eruption less likely.