41–50 of 166 posts
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Agreed, it seemed a trivial quantity for such a large animal.
It's a very good point and I'm glad the parent raised it. But wouldn't you find it distressing if teenagers were regularly found with a teaspoon full of plastic in their stomachs?
We need to get our heads out of our asses. I don't want to be that guy but... we either need to radically change the way we live or 90% of us just need to immediately cease to exist although I'm sure the remaining 750 million people would still find ways to sabotage our planet. 'SHTF' fiction and science fiction often turns to a pandemic wiping out large chunks of the population... that would be bad for you, for me,…
Earth Strike is one such very recent phenomenon that has organized that directly addresses failures of capitalism that is and has caused environmental collapse. They have direct demands (unlike Occupy that had none). They have direct action days already organized (January 15, 2019 ; April 27, 2019 ; August 1, 2019 ; September 27, 2019).
The group already has international interest and collaboration. Noam Chomsky has also given his blessing ( https://mobile.twitter.com/FleshTurtle/status/10620656342158... ).
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what are you saying...? that whatever toxicity of ingesting plastic is proportional across all living things by weight?
Generally we measure how lethal something is by using an LD 50 that looks at mass of chemical per mass of body. There are exceptions to this, but as a first assumption it seems reasonable.
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Feels like such a helpless situation. Is there anything to be done in the US to help with these rivers?
Polluting the planet for everyone should be the main reason for punitive international measures (sanctions, etc)
Who is then responsible?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, it seemed a trivial quantity for such a large animal.
It's a very good point and I'm glad the parent raised it. But wouldn't you find it distressing if teenagers were regularly found with a teaspoon full of plastic in their stomachs?
Over the past few months I have been trying to figure out a solution for environmental issues in developing countries (like India where I'm from). Conclusion is, because of the democracy, the change is not possible from inside, some external force has to be there. Here governments take decision for the short term because they have to please the common (& uneducated) men for the next election. Hence the agenda of envi…
I guess to even get to this point we need to rewrite laws on lobbying to get special interests out of politics. Why stop there, might as well get campaign funding an overhaul to eliminate conflict of interest. Put in short term limits that do away with politics as a career choice and pass laws that promote it as civic duty.
To add to the recipe, make representatives directly accountable to votes against public majority with the ability for the people to kick them out of the office through expedited voting where a majority can remove a representative within a 48 hour time window. While we are at it, start imposing prison time for corporate crimes and start enforcing it. Add transparency to all political conversation online and offline for any member of the public to review. Face to face meetings are to be accompanied by a third party for documentation.
Creeped out? Yeah... so I think we need a total overhaul of values, economy, social systems, work policies and many laws to get to a point where we can do some good. Of course it al starts with education which is cut short by insufficient funding by said politicians.
Ok, it’s hopeless and we’re doomed.
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While I understand the comparison you're trying to make, I'm not sure weight is the best estimation here. A whale can be heavier without being larger . While the whale may weigh 1000x more, it appears to be only around 10x as big (sperm whales are 40 feet long, and somewhat wider than humans). If you take a look at the picture in the article, and analyze what it had ingested: "115 drinking cups, four plastic bottles,…
Shouldn't we compare by volume, not length?
93% of plastic polluting the world's oceans comes from 10 rivers. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plas... Yangtze - East China Sea (Asia) Indus - Arabian Sea (Asia) Yellow River - Yellow Sea (Asia) Hai He - Yellow Sea (Asia) Nile - Mediterranean (Africa) Ganges - Bay of Bengal (Asia) Pearl River - South China Sea (Asia) Amur - Sea of Okhotsk (Asia) Niger - Gulf of Guinea (Africa) Mekong - Sout…
This elicits an emotional response from my acquaintances, but this gets to the main objection I have about feel-good measures like banning plastic straws. I understand the "everything helps" argument, but not when people and the media pour their energy and emotions into statistically meaningless measures then move on. I've been hearing the same concerns my entire life, yet things keep getting worse in statistically m…
93% of plastic polluting the world's oceans comes from 10 rivers. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plas... Yangtze - East China Sea (Asia) Indus - Arabian Sea (Asia) Yellow River - Yellow Sea (Asia) Hai He - Yellow Sea (Asia) Nile - Mediterranean (Africa) Ganges - Bay of Bengal (Asia) Pearl River - South China Sea (Asia) Amur - Sea of Okhotsk (Asia) Niger - Gulf of Guinea (Africa) Mekong - Sout…
82% of people who quote statistics get them wrong. From your article: > A recent study estimates that more than a quarter of all that waste could be pouring in from just 10 rivers, eight of them in Asia. The 93% stat relates to just rivers as a source of plastic pollution. > rivers collectively dump anywhere from 0.47 million to 2.75 million metric tons of plastic into the seas every year, depending on the data used…
https://www.wsj.com/articles/which-countries-create-the-most...
https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-polluting...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, it seemed a trivial quantity for such a large animal.
It's a very good point and I'm glad the parent raised it. But wouldn't you find it distressing if teenagers were regularly found with a teaspoon full of plastic in their stomachs?