The claim
The claim is circulating on social media that an eruption of Mount Etna would release as much CO₂ in 12 hours as all of humanity since its existence.
Our conclusion
That's wrong. Annual CO2 emissions from human activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation are 40 to 100 times higher than all CO2 emissions from all of Earth's volcanoes combined.
“And Etna is currently blowing more CO₂ into the air in 12 hours than humanity has produced since the beginning of history...” is claimed in a sharepic on Facebook:

Another post, which includes a video , makes a similar claim: "Today, in a 12-hour period, Mount Etna spewed more CO₂ into the atmosphere than all human activity since humans first crawled out of the swamp!"
Aside from the fact that this video is already two years old ( see here ), the claim is simply false.
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Comparison of CO₂ emissions Etna vs. humans
As the most active volcano in Europe, Etna emits up to 25 million CO₂ per year, as studies show ( HERE , HERE and HERE ).
However, as the Global Carbon Project explains in a calculation for 2022 (PDF) , 36.6 billion tons of CO₂ will be released into the atmosphere through the combustion of gas, oil and coal as well as land use.
Humanity therefore takes first place in this comparison.
Cathy Clerbaux , a professor at the Free University of Brussels, told DPA that even all of the volcanoes on our planet emit less CO₂ than is produced by human activity: “Humans’ annual carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, forests and so on are 40- up to 100 times greater than all volcanic emissions.”
This direct comparison refers to an identical period of time.
NASA also makes similar statements: “Human activities produce around 100 times as much CO₂ every year as volcanic eruptions on Earth.”
Other analyzes have examined how much CO₂ humanity has released since 1850 - the beginning of industrialization in many countries. The result: around 2.5 trillion tons. If you compare Etna's annual emissions (25 million tons) to this, the claim circulating on social media becomes even more curious. Etna would need a million years to produce this amount of CO₂.
We already researched a similar statement in 2019. You can find our article about it HERE .
Conclusion

Through the burning of fossil fuels and industrial processes, humanity emits a significantly larger amount of CO₂ every year than Etna. If you break down this finding, which has been proven by studies, to a volcanic eruption, it is obvious that the difference is even greater.
So the claim on social media is false.
Source:
DPA
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Note: This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication
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