Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic' • Hacker News Board

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#131

Post by temperfidelis2x » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

patagonia wrote: post #100

whatok wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-...

I’m not disagreeing about the source of the plastic. I’m suggesting that talking about the source of the plastic without also discussing issues such as western oil and chemical companies operating in the regions this plastic is generated ignores fundamental issues such as the undermining of regulatory regimes by these same companies to keep costs down. CO2 has a similar story. India didn’t wake up and come up with th…

The problem is generally not that we are producing plastic. The problem is that some people just throw it away when it's broken / old / what ever, essentially dumping it to the flowing water to get rid of it. This behaviour and attitude towards nature is something that I as a westerner just can't understand and I won't accept any blame-shifting games here.

Poverty is also a very bad excuse to dump plastic in nature. I have been poor as f*ck and the thought of dumping garbage around hasn't even once crossed my mind. Urgent action (like severe fines and even jail-time and such for dumping plastic, but also positive reinforcement) is something the developing countries need.

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#132

Post by hsdistefa » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #82

asdkhadsj wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say all of this as a thought experiment. But: > Sad thing is, the vast majority of people are oblivious or flat out don't care. I mean, if we're making mental jumps to wiping out billions of people - I'd argue that, does it even matter? Ie, in your example human life largely doesn't matter. Human survival maybe, but clearly not billions of lives. I'm not saying this negatively either, just acknowledging what topic…

> Regardless, I struggle to be emotionally invested in a situation where I decide 6 billion people die. 6 billion people will die. Heck, 7.5 billion will die. Everyone dies. The question is not when, but how, and how do they live their lives. I think we should pursue a solution not of genocide, but one of mass sterilization. We should choose about 100 million people from all over the Earth that will represent the gen…

Only on HN can you find a thread discussing the merits of eugenics. These are not new ideas, in fact they were popular among 19th century intellectuals until those ideas culminated into some of the worst atrocities in recent human history in Nazi Germany.

There is no such thing as a "non morally horrendous solution," giving the power to decide who should procreate and who shouldn't to a single group or "algorithm" violates one of the most basic freedoms that we as humans have.

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#133

Post by smileysteve » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 7:44 PM UTC

omegaworks wrote: post #118

nurzo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not that the government hasn't built any toilets, the problem is that some people don't build toilets on their own. I have two toilets at home, I haven't waited for the government to build them for me.

You likely have a functioning sewer system and fresh water taps to your home. Americans always underestimate the amount of effort and wealth it takes for the infrastructure that maintains their normalcy.

> You likely have a functioning sewer system a

Functioning septic systems are also not paid for by the government and a large portion of the non urban U.S. still uses them. A much smaller portion of the non urban U.S. is still on well water. Perhaps most importantly, federal and state governments don't pay sewer and water systems in most cases.

(Though Hookworm is resurfacing because people don't realize that they have to invest in their septic systems)

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#134

Post by goldfeld » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 7:52 PM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #105

ryanmercer wrote: post #2

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,…

It's not gonna happen, most people still don't grasp the stakes at play nor how they are contributing in the worst ways possible. On one side you have sometimes a bit too righteous vegans getting their third child, going "I'm saving the planet by teaching my children the right way to live!" On the other side, you have nationalist sentiments going "I need to get as many children as possible or else our ancestry is dyi…

If someone is determined to be an example of sustainable living, having extra kids might be productive, even very much so, as it helps the signal-to-noise ratio of good values spread faster in the population; think of it as a multiplier. The actual weight of having more people is a rounding error compared to all the extra people who on top of it have questionable ethics and morals all around (most people including or especially westerners. Sure, poor people in developing countries are hopeless, but people from rich countries have more leverage used to exploit others.)

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#135

Post by hnphillipj » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

ankitml wrote: post #71

johnydepp wrote: post #24

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…

Here in Canada, the provincial government of Ontario is dismantling the environmental protection apparatus piece by piece in the name of democracy and pleasing some section of people. We do have a lot more education, so there has to be something else. I think it is all about what is the general population (or some section of it values more). Right now environment is not at the top because something else is.

I've only heard of them scrapping carbon cap + trade and fighting against carbon tax. If they've also dismantled regulations regarding more acute, pressing types of pollution I'd like to know.

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#136

Post by carapace » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 8:06 PM UTC

A lot of doom and gloom here. I feel ya but I want to point out we have the necessary solutions to save ourselves if we just notice and apply them. For example, olivine just might "cure" atmospheric CO2. [1]

The primary things to look to are: Bucky Fuller's "Design Science Revolution"; applied ecology (aka Permaculture); and Neurolinguistic Programming to help us get over our BS.

[1] https://climitigation.org/category/olivine/

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#137

Post by jacobolus » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 8:09 PM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #127

johnydepp wrote: post #24

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…

> 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 environment doesn't get much attention. That's why have poor plastic management. No, it's pretty much like this in the US too. It's very difficult to get legislation that takes >2 years to start paying off to pass at the federal level. If it takes > 2 years for const…

For example, in the USA the Democratic Party’s passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 (which took a few years to show its effects) was initially so unpopular vs. a barrage of negative propaganda and an opposition that rallied against it for political gain that the backlash knocked the party out of power in the House of Representatives for the next 8 years.

And that’s for something (healthcare) with very clear and direct effect on people’s lives, where the remedy was a centrist approach first proposed by Republicans.

Taking larger-scale action against an even longer-term threat where the only visible benefit is “see we prevented calamity” and where some of the richest multinational corporations’ short-term future is directly threatened will be much harder still.

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#138

Post by Balgair » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 8:34 PM UTC

johnydepp wrote: post #24

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…

> Educating people about these issues will take decades (& it will be too late). Only way forward could be if some constant external pressure is put on their governments using agreements/accords (like Paris Agreement) and some system is setup which will monitor issues like plastic management and carbon-emission. If countries are not following some standard they should be penalized.

The history of CFCs[0] is a very good sketch as to how these issues play out. Granted, there were very good and cheap-ish alternatives to CFCs. Still, using CFCs as a guideline indicates that real action is about 10-20 years away (~2030 to 2040). Going to Wikipedia and putting in the year 2040[1], we see that large parts of the EU will have banned petrol burning cars by that year and that space based solar power should be coming online.

So, yay!? These things take time, but don't be discouraged. We are making progress and I feel that we will do it 'in time'. We need to work hard and be vocal to try to accelerate these timelines, of course, but have faith in your fellow man's intelligence and labor (please ignore that whole Daylight Savings Time insanity, though).

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon#History

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2040

EDIT: I figured I should include a link to the year 2030 as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2030

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#139

Post by taobility » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 8:38 PM UTC

admn2 wrote: post #29

ericdykstra wrote: post #22

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…

Feels like such a helpless situation. Is there anything to be done in the US to help with these rivers?

One thing it should be done in US is the super market shouldn't provide the plastic bag for free, and also shouldn't overwrap the staff when checkout out.

Re: Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'

#140

Post by mrtrombone » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 8:39 PM UTC

I recently came back from Padang, Sumatra, was really impacted by the level of pollution and did quite a bit of research.

- It is too simplistic to just say it's all about education. Yes it needs work however there is just not the infrastructure to manage the level of rubbish. Jakarta has a giant landfill that receives 9000 tonnes of rubbish a day. It had a landslide in 2005 that killed 143 people [1]. Indonesia are working with Sweden around waste to energy technologies but it seems locked up with other environmental concerns. This would be a great area for R&D spend - making efficient / environmentally sound waste to energy systems that are cost effective (and robust enough) for this part of the world [2].

- So much of the rubbish I saw was from single serve items, particularly snacks and toiletries. Reducing plastic bags would help but I think it's not focussed on the primary issue. I think pressure on companies like Procter & Gamble, Nestle, Unilever etc to move towards biodegradable single serve packaging would go a long way - perhaps pragmatically this is a much better place for governments to provide subsidies??

- As can be seen with the Sulawesi earthquake other countries cannot just show up and expect Indonesia to welcome them with open arms. It has to very much be a partnership not a 'we know best' colonial spirit - Perhaps an effective thing for universities to do is increase scholarships in these key areas for Indonesian students.

[1] https://geoenvironmental-disasters.springeropen.com/articles...

[2] https://www.infrastructureasiaonline.com/strategic-partnersh...