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I'm curious if the comparison is apples to apples or not. Regardless it's terrible.
0.00394 inches = 1 trillion per cubic meter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbeads#Controversy
It is still a huge environmental problem
But then we continue:
"Rayon was the most common synthetic material discovered -- 54%. Though rayon is not a plastic (it's made from wood), the authors included it"
Only to later find this is all about global warming (?)
"Global warming releases microplastic legacy frozen in Arctic Sea ice"
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EF000240/abst...
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 past, then it must be superficial ice.
If superficial arctic ice is young enough to contain plastics, and is now melting, then this marks the return of sea water from as recent as 50-100 years ago...
If melting polar ice, polluted with plastics, is a new and disturbing event, then...
Does this mean that this is the first time polar ice of that age is melting?
If 50-100-year-old polar ice is only melting just now, for the first time, then, in terms of rising sea levels, does this mean that sea levels have, thus far, only risen to their state as they existed at the end of the 19th century?
Or, is it that the arctic polar ice cap completely melts every summer and refreezes every winter?
If so, then won't a similar amount of plastic be recaptured when the arctic polar ice cap refreezes? Or are we now fretting at the idea that the arctic polar ice cap will fail to refreeze?
And doesn't that mean that 2 years ago, and 10 years ago, the polar ice cap was capturing just as many plastic particles when it refroze?
And if this plastic-bound ice has also melted during the past few summers, didn't it redistibute its captured plastics back into the ocean?
If the arctic ice cap is (or was) trapping large quantities of man-made plastics, then the sea ice doesn't seem to be the real story here.
The real story seems to be the horrendous amount of plastics in the ocean. The arctic polar ice cap, on the other, hand seems to be an unfortunate additional detail.
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…
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2014/05/Figure3.png
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/climate-chang...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/opening-of-northwe...
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…
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…
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.
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…
Earth will go on for billions of years after we are gone.
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…
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.
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?
Two reasons for this view:
* Invoke a sense of urgency in the fact that it is our own situation that is at stake, not some abstract external good that only hippies ought to care for.
* Because the value of human life is a moral pillar we all share, while I can't find any reason to value existing species over new species, or newly emerging moss species over species that might go extinct.
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…
