In the southwest Pacific Ocean, the Hunga Tonga volcano erupted on Saturday.

This ordinarily wouldn’t be a big news story because the same volcano erupted in 2009, 2014 and has been rumbling since December of last year. But Saturday’s eruption was far more powerful than those previously observed, and it triggered both a tsunami and a noise that were experienced thousands of miles away.

I like volcanoes. They give humans a healthy dose of humility. The power of a single major eruption, and the way it can impact the entire planet, reminds us there are forces at work on Earth that far exc...