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Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

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Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#41

Post by azinman2 »

cmarschner wrote: post #20
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…

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…

The paradox of too much information / choice. You become desensitized and thus as a populous just resort to self-preservation. That echoes from the sources of pollution all the way to the consumers. Either culture needs to change and make it a priority, or businesses need to be disrupted by better choices so the old guard can die.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#42

Post by Sami_Lehtinen »

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'm waiting to hear how interesting effects carbon nanotubes and Buckyballs will have on our environment. When all kind of products are going to contain those.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#43

Post by 001sky »

jimworm wrote: post #28
refurb wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Great point. Glaciers on land are diffrent. There are also some ancient/long-lived ice formations in the south pole (also land/locked). I believe these are more like frozen freshwater lakes than glaciers (mobile, compacted snow etc).

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#44

Post by omilu »

flavor8 wrote: post #14
arcticPeril wrote: post #13

Maybe 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 it melts, yes it refreezes. But more is melting each summer, and less is refreezing each winter. That's why there's excitement about opening of the northwest passage - shipping and oil drilling in the arctic that wasn't previously possible. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2014/05/Figure3.png http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/climate-chang... http://www.scien…

"That's why there's excitement about opening of the northwest passage - shipping and oil drilling in the arctic that wasn't previously possible."

That's a glass is half full way of looking at it!

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#45

Post by ars »

DanBC wrote: post #40
ars wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can't find it. My understanding is he posed the birds to show how how much garbage would be found in them.

I'm not saying birds don't have plastic in their stomach though, just not that much.

I can believe microplastics would kill tiny animals, but not larger ones. It doesn't belong in water either way.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#46

Post by Cass »

cwe wrote: post #36
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.

From a human habitability point of view, Mars is fucked worse than the worst thing we could possibly do to Earth (short of accidentally blowing it into an asteroid cloud.) It doesn't even have (enough) water or (the right kind of) atmosphere or gravity! It's a rock in space. Terraforming Mars, or any planet we can currently reach without faster-than-light flight, would require an immense leap in technology, including technologies we're currently not even studying. We'd have to build a whole new planet from basically scratch.

On the other hand, we could go quite a long way towards fixing the perfectly good planet we already live on with technologies we already have. Hell, I suspect we could get 90 % of the way there with a century of strict population control and putting the same effort into reducing pollution and emissions we currently put into developing more profitable technologies. We're mostly not dumping our waste in the oceans and the atmosphere because we have no other choice, but because it's cheap and convenient and because humanity as a whole has other priorities than the preservation of the planet.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#47

Post by jmpe »

refurb wrote: post #27
jmpe wrote: post #16

Earlier 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.

You misquoted me, please re-read it.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#48

Post by DanBC »

ars wrote: post #45
DanBC wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can't find it. My understanding is he posed the birds to show how how much garbage would be found in them. I'm not saying birds don't have plastic in their stomach though, just not that much. I can believe microplastics would kill tiny animals, but not larger ones. It doesn't belong in water either way.

I'm not sure what you're saying - did he add plastic? (That would destroy the credibility of the photographs) or did he take a bird corpse and pose the corpse but without adding any plastic? (That would be a stupid thing for him to do but is irrelevant to the plastic argument)

Birds can survive with some plastic, they swallow stuff for their gizzard anyway, but they mistake plastic for food and die from eating too much which prevents them eating enough food to get nutrition. I think this is accepted and not controversial.

Microplastics are eaten directly by many animals. As shown hy the links I provided some of those plastics migrate from the stomach to the bloodstream. The plastics are then part of the foodchain. The plastics absorb contaminants. So it's not just inert plastic, it is the PCBs and DDT and etc that the plastics contain that are problematic.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#49

Post by flavor8 »

omilu wrote: post #44
flavor8 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it melts, yes it refreezes. But more is melting each summer, and less is refreezing each winter. That's why there's excitement about opening of the northwest passage - shipping and oil drilling in the arctic that wasn't previously possible. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2014/05/Figure3.png http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/climate-chang... http://www.scien…

"That's why there's excitement about opening of the northwest passage - shipping and oil drilling in the arctic that wasn't previously possible." That's a glass is half full way of looking at it!

I was leaving the obvious unsaid; the shipping/resource-exploitation aspect isn't as well known. I guess we'll be finding out what happens when an oil spill gets caught up in arctic ice in the next decade or so.

Re: Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice

#50

Post by DougN7 »

With all of the concern for the environment, why aren't rich people of the world (home owners in the U.S. for example) covering their roofs with solar panels? To me, this is the best solution because we still get our comforts (computers, air conditioning), but decrease coal, gas and oil usage.

It's still expensive, but would be a good option if we figured all of the long term costs in.

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