We spend billions on supposedly averting a crisis predicted by lousy models but appear to ignore grotesque pollution of the oceans of which this is one example. Mercury and other nasties being another. But the list goes on and on.
Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice
21–30 of 52 posts
Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice
#22Maybe I'm missing an important detail about the lifecycle of arctic ice, but... If the arctic ice contains plastic particles... And the particles are man made... And man has only been making small plastic particles for roughly 100 years... That would mean that the arctic ice was, at some point in the recent 100 years, ordinary sea water polluted with small plastic particles. If this ice... was sea water in the recent…
Even when it had permanent areas, floating ice exists in equilibrium. If you add ice on the top, the bottom melts due to pressure.
Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice
#23What's terrifying to me is that the more our science moves forward, the more we're realizing that we've fucked up the Earth in ways we had no clue about. It's likely going to get worse and worse as time goes on, and it's reaching a scope where undoing the damage is more and more unlikely. It'll be interesting to read follow up studies about the impacts this has on the ecosystems. It's freaky how interconnected oceans…
We fucked up our own survival,and future generations will hate us for that. Earth will go on for billions of years after we are gone.
Not sure if you based it on this, but it's a very famous argument made by George Carlin [1]
Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice
#24What's terrifying to me is that the more our science moves forward, the more we're realizing that we've fucked up the Earth in ways we had no clue about. It's likely going to get worse and worse as time goes on, and it's reaching a scope where undoing the damage is more and more unlikely. It'll be interesting to read follow up studies about the impacts this has on the ecosystems. It's freaky how interconnected oceans…
The fucking up is still accelerating, with fracking and the rise of China with its effect on pollution and resource consumption just being two examples. What's so striking is the fact that despite being a generation that is blessed with having access to all the world's information we are still not enlightened, meaning we are still not able to strive for global optima rather than our own short-term benefit. One would…
There are 3 things our descendant would have a facepalm for. They could carrot the ice over the last thousand year and notice a short time when all the oil we dug up from underground would form a thick deposit all around the globe in various forms. They might even happen to know we had a different word for economy and ecology. Worse, it may reach their ears our most common way of expressing this concern was to like campaigns on facebook. We should build a big facepalm statue in memory for our children.
Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice
#25If there a trillions of plastic pieces in Arctic ice, then what about our oceans and rivers? Think of life with plastic bits in our water supply. How will life survive with plastic bits in water?
Think of life with plastic bits in our water supply.
Filters work really well to remove those, but most of the other life on Earth doesn't use filtered water... regardless, these plastic bits seem pretty inert.
Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice
#26What's terrifying to me is that the more our science moves forward, the more we're realizing that we've fucked up the Earth in ways we had no clue about. It's likely going to get worse and worse as time goes on, and it's reaching a scope where undoing the damage is more and more unlikely. It'll be interesting to read follow up studies about the impacts this has on the ecosystems. It's freaky how interconnected oceans…
We fucked up our own survival,and future generations will hate us for that. Earth will go on for billions of years after we are gone.
> Earth will go on for billions of years after we are gone.
I used to use this phrase too, but now I think there is a lot of overestimation in such understatements. It basically says that you are thinking in time scales much bigger than centuries: You think in billions of years.
Besides that I'm not sure anymore if this is really true from a factual point.
I mean - where are we after we burned all fossil and nuclear resources? This would be a very new situation for humanity but also for the rest of the living system on this planet. What happens with all the CO2, what happens with all the plutinium?
In a relatively short timespan of 2-3 years almost half the bees in my country died. Nobody saw that coming, nobody want/cant do something about it. Thinking that further, what would happen to our biosphere if pollination would stop working withing a short period of time? All living life is reciprocally developed in a long running evolutionary process.
So, I think this phrase is used a little too careless, we simply don't no how Earth react on fundamental changes that are happen quickly.
Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice
#27Maybe I'm missing an important detail about the lifecycle of arctic ice, but... If the arctic ice contains plastic particles... And the particles are man made... And man has only been making small plastic particles for roughly 100 years... That would mean that the arctic ice was, at some point in the recent 100 years, ordinary sea water polluted with small plastic particles. If this ice... was sea water in the recent…
Yes, you're missing an important detail about the lifecycle of arctic ice. Multi-year ice is about 6 years old. There's no 100 year old ice there. Every year it gets slushed, reaches a minimum around September and builds up again. The minima are dropping, btw. Both in extent as in volume.
There is no 100 year old ice out there"
Where are we getting the air samples to determine what CO2 levels from? I thought it was from bubbles trapped in ice that is 100+ years old.
Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, you're missing an important detail about the lifecycle of arctic ice. Multi-year ice is about 6 years old. There's no 100 year old ice there. Every year it gets slushed, reaches a minimum around September and builds up again. The minima are dropping, btw. Both in extent as in volume.
There is no 100 year old ice out there" Where are we getting the air samples to determine what CO2 levels from? I thought it was from bubbles trapped in ice that is 100+ years old.
The Antarctic, Greenland, other glaciers.
Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice
#29> Though the finding is surprising and worrying, the possible harm to marine life is so far unknown, the authors concluded.
Sentences like this is not science. It's FUD.
And as such I find the entire article dodgy. I can't see Arctic ice containing massive amounts or plastic compared to the oceans. Nor have I seen evidence that plastics in the oceans can cause any large scale harm anyway.
As compared to over fishing which we do know is causing harm. I don't really understand they people divert from real known issues to these end of the world style made up catastrophes.
Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice
#30> Though the finding is surprising and worrying, the possible harm to marine life is so far unknown, the authors concluded. Sentences like this is not science. It's FUD. And as such I find the entire article dodgy. I can't see Arctic ice containing massive amounts or plastic compared to the oceans. Nor have I seen evidence that plastics in the oceans can cause any large scale harm anyway. As compared to over fishing…
It isn't the large scale harm we are looking after. If we know such harm exists then it would be too late to step in.
Here is a documentary of what happen to the millions or even trillions of plastic flooding around the ocean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulkY7mOkdqs
Is this a small harm or big harm? What if an entire population on some distant island gets wiped out because of that? How would we know? Even for a small number of death, we are responsible to help clean up the ocean as much as possible, just as we are responsible for cleaning up all the space debris. Is it right that we just blow up a satellite and not worry about the orbital debris?
If it's not right, we don't do it, regardless of how small the harm is. If we overfishing, we ought to mark certain part of the ocean free from fishing.