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Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

usatoday.com

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Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#31

Post by DanBC »

aaron695 wrote: post #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…

http://ocean.si.edu/laysan-albatross-plastic-problem

How serious does something have to be before we do something about it?

Garbage patches in the oceans are real and affect a lot of wildlife. They might not be as severe as over dishing o bogus scientific whaling but they are still important.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#32

Post by DanBC »

userbinator wrote: post #25
orionblastar wrote: post #9

If 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.

Inert, yes. But they can fill the digestive system of some creatures who then cannot eat enough food to survive.

I'm not sure how relevnt it is here though. http://ocean.si.edu/laysan-albatross-plastic-problem

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#33

Post by steve19 »

aragot wrote: post #24
cmarschner wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Half the oil that enters the sea comes form natural sources. It is consumed by organisms able to metabolize hydrocarbons.

Source: http://www.whoi.edu/oilinocean/page.do?pid=51880

Thus, I don't think anyone would expect the world to be covered in oil.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#34

Post by ars »

DanBC wrote: post #32
userbinator wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Inert, yes. But they can fill the digestive system of some creatures who then cannot eat enough food to survive. I'm not sure how relevnt it is here though. http://ocean.si.edu/laysan-albatross-plastic-problem

You know those pictures are faked right? (Maybe it says that there, I didn't check.)

This microparticles would not have that affect anyway though.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#35

Post by zaroth »

barkingcat wrote: post #7
Natsu wrote: post #5

Not to mention the Great Pacific Garbage patch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

The article makes mention to the Pacific Garbage patch as a comparison "The concentration of plastic debris [estimated from core samples of arctic ice] is 1,000 times greater than that floating in the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

Wikipedia says GPGP has about 5kg of plastic suspended per square kilometer of ocean.

1 cubic meter of water is 1000 liters and 1000kgs. 1 square kilometer, and let's say all the plastic is within 1 meter of depth would be 1 million cubic meters of water, or 1billion kilograms.

So another way to think about it is dilute plastic molecules at about 5 parts per billion. The big assumption is 1 meter depth, because if it's actually concentrated more like within 1cm of depth then it's 500 ppb.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#36

Post by cwe »

GuiA wrote: post #4

What'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…

I've said it before, and most people just shrug it off, but our best chances for the long term survival of our species and planet are to get humans off the planet, whether Mars or asteroids or giant space cruise liners, and turn the earth into a wildlife preserve. Give the planet a much needed human-extinction event by leaving on our own.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#38

Post by mistermann »

toleavetheman wrote: post #18
camus2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you find some kind of solace in your (unfounded) assumption that the earth will outlive humanity?

> Do you find some kind of solace in your (unfounded) assumption that the earth will outlive humanity?

I'm struggling to come up with an even remotely likely scenario where that wouldn't be the case....getting sucked into a black hole would be one I suppose.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#39

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

ars wrote: post #34
DanBC wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inert, yes. But they can fill the digestive system of some creatures who then cannot eat enough food to survive. I'm not sure how relevnt it is here though. http://ocean.si.edu/laysan-albatross-plastic-problem

You know those pictures are faked right? (Maybe it says that there, I didn't check.) This microparticles would not have that affect anyway though.

Can you please provide a reference to prove fakery. I immediately suspected the photos looked setup, but am having trouble finding proof.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#40

Post by DanBC »

ars wrote: post #34
DanBC wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inert, yes. But they can fill the digestive system of some creatures who then cannot eat enough food to survive. I'm not sure how relevnt it is here though. http://ocean.si.edu/laysan-albatross-plastic-problem

You know those pictures are faked right? (Maybe it says that there, I didn't check.) This microparticles would not have that affect anyway though.

As far as I know the poctures are real. If you xan find any source that credibly shows he did anything but photograph carcasses then I'll accept the images are faked.

Here's a video where he claims to disect a corpse. Is this also faked?

http://www.midwayjourney.com/2010/07/10/midway-journey-ii-ju...

You say that these microplastics would not have this effect.

Here are some articles suggesting that microplastics may be killing fish and other wildlife: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/microplastic-pollu...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16709045

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