Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

sundaypost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 49 posts

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#11

Post by tehwebguy »

myshpa wrote: post #9
alophawen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing we as individuals can do about it. Global industry pollution should have been internationally controlled decades ago if we would have had any chance of ducking this. Many has screamed about this for years, recently Greta. 2 years of covid pandemic gave the earth some breathing-room but seems in hindsight only to have slowed down the end date by about 6 months, according to recent graphs. The decision…

Stop. Please stop it. Defeatism won't help us. In fact, it's a new strategy of oil/plastic/meat/dairy producers, to stop people from changing status quo. We as individuals can do plenty. We can change our eating and spending habits (cocacola & burger anyone?), we can demand change, we can stop buying stuff, we can protest, we can educate, we can plant trees and forests, we can stop people spreading defeatism etc. So…

Unless you have a private jet your spending habits can’t possibly make a difference.

The only way to make a real change would be to correct the incentives. This can be done via legislation & policy but an individual can’t do it alone. I suppose an individual could change the incentives for one or two companies (e.g. violence against a decision maker) but it wouldn’t change the economics of doing business.

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#13

Post by myshpa »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #8

This is absolute garbage. Saying the plankton are gone is incredibly unlikely and requires extraordinary evidence. We can see plankton from space https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/globalmaps/data/MY1DMM... and what we see in no way correlates with “the plankton is all gone”.

Yes, the article is bad.

But lets not discredit the findings. Even if it's 90% in 2045, and if 1% of plankton dies every year (https://www.goesfoundation.com/), it means we've lost so far 70% of plankton since 1940.

It still seems like a reason to be worried, and not to say "it's absolute garbage => everything's ok, no reason to be concerned".

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#14

Post by alophawen »

myshpa wrote: post #9
alophawen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing we as individuals can do about it. Global industry pollution should have been internationally controlled decades ago if we would have had any chance of ducking this. Many has screamed about this for years, recently Greta. 2 years of covid pandemic gave the earth some breathing-room but seems in hindsight only to have slowed down the end date by about 6 months, according to recent graphs. The decision…

Stop. Please stop it. Defeatism won't help us. In fact, it's a new strategy of oil/plastic/meat/dairy producers, to stop people from changing status quo. We as individuals can do plenty. We can change our eating and spending habits (cocacola & burger anyone?), we can demand change, we can stop buying stuff, we can protest, we can educate, we can plant trees and forests, we can stop people spreading defeatism etc. So…

Remind me, how far did boycotting Coca Cola get us?

Policy makers duped consumers into sorting plastic waste and even go as far as put a plastic tax on consumers, while the majority of plastic waste comes from the industry, and is burned as fuel and greenwashed by being called "recycled energy".

Policy makers and the industry successfully shifted the blame on the population and people are even ashamed of having a vacation these years, because other duped individuals keep harassing them in the name of capitalism.

You seem to have no understanding of the severity of things.

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#15

Post by myshpa »

tehwebguy wrote: post #11
myshpa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop. Please stop it. Defeatism won't help us. In fact, it's a new strategy of oil/plastic/meat/dairy producers, to stop people from changing status quo. We as individuals can do plenty. We can change our eating and spending habits (cocacola & burger anyone?), we can demand change, we can stop buying stuff, we can protest, we can educate, we can plant trees and forests, we can stop people spreading defeatism etc. So…

Unless you have a private jet your spending habits can’t possibly make a difference. The only way to make a real change would be to correct the incentives. This can be done via legislation & policy but an individual can’t do it alone. I suppose an individual could change the incentives for one or two companies (e.g. violence against a decision maker) but it wouldn’t change the economics of doing business.

Collective change in spending habits can have the power. We're seeing it with rise of veganism & meat/dairy, those producers are very concerned (pushing against naming plant-based foods milk/burgers etc.).

I agree that legislation & policy & subsidies are critical. But this change won't come without support of the public.

It seems to me, that if you want to change something, you have to change yourself first. We can't just wait for somebody to change it. It won't ever happen this way. People have to know & do, then politicians cannot pretend not to know/care and then the change will happen.

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#16

Post by fnordpiglet »

alophawen wrote: post #7
superchroma wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah so this really took the shine off of my morning too, BUT apparently it's a crappy study without good backing for its claims. Some guy on reddit remarked that the plankton are still clearly visible from space in huge amounts. THAT SAID, we don't need to wait around for this headline except for real before we take action, and countries really need to get their stuff in gear. There's no good reason for plastic to b…

Seriously? You try to discredit a serious article about a subject you should be well aware is 100% true by now even if you were in fact living under a rock.-- by siding with random anon redditor that had a take more suitable for your world view. It is not surprising the least why we are in this rut.

Don’t look up!

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#17

Post by fnordpiglet »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #8

This is absolute garbage. Saying the plankton are gone is incredibly unlikely and requires extraordinary evidence. We can see plankton from space https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/globalmaps/data/MY1DMM... and what we see in no way correlates with “the plankton is all gone”.

You know that image was from 2002 right?

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#18

Post by myshpa »

alophawen wrote: post #14
myshpa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop. Please stop it. Defeatism won't help us. In fact, it's a new strategy of oil/plastic/meat/dairy producers, to stop people from changing status quo. We as individuals can do plenty. We can change our eating and spending habits (cocacola & burger anyone?), we can demand change, we can stop buying stuff, we can protest, we can educate, we can plant trees and forests, we can stop people spreading defeatism etc. So…

Remind me, how far did boycotting Coca Cola get us? Policy makers duped consumers into sorting plastic waste and even go as far as put a plastic tax on consumers, while the majority of plastic waste comes from the industry, and is burned as fuel and greenwashed by being called "recycled energy". Policy makers and the industry successfully shifted the blame on the population and people are even ashamed of having a vac…

Coca-cola is the single one biggest plastic polluter, together with fishing industry.

I did my research, and I boycott everything I know it hurts the planet. Do you?

> Policy makers duped consumers ...

Not policy makers, but plastic producers bought politicans and public opinion. See the movie "Plastic wars", i did.

> You seem to have no understanding of the severity of things.

I do. I certainly do. I thought about it for a long time. I simply believe that you cannot both gluttonize and be angry at the world to be doing nothing. The change have to start somewhere.

Re: Scots research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out

#19

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

myshpa wrote: post #10
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming it is as bad as the article claims, then sadly I think we all know how this will go. Because it would require massive effort and inconvenience many, especially the wealthy, the reality of the situation will be denied and any attempts at remedy will be fought. We saw this all play out with climate change already.

We have to change ourselves, fast, and then the change will come automatically. Stop traveling everywhere by car/plane, stop buying meat/dairy, stop buying plastic (check your shopping basket), reject consumerism, educate others to do the same, organize, then bring off legislative change. The wealthy are just the minor obstacle. The masses of people not willing to change their habits may be bigger problem.

That's what I'm saying though: those masses of people don't want to self-sacrifice any more than the wealthy do, and are therefore likely to believe whatever excuse they can grab onto so they don't have to, and the wealthy will push the excuses.

We saw this same exact scenario with climate change. Big Oil knew it was a problem decades ago and did everything they could to deny it and push narratives to the public that allowed them to deny it too. People tend to choose to believe what they want to believe and the only way around that is to beat them over the head with the truth, but as long as doing so doesn't serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful it won't be done.

Post reply on HN