101–110 of 120 posts
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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but birth rates are already pretty low, and, worse than failing to deal with the problem, some people think that is a good thing.
Falling birth rates _is_ a good thing and in my view its the only viable solution to global warming. Less people is less energy use and pollution.
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Then there is nothing to worry about because everything since WW2 has been fine as far as cognition and general health is concerned. Although, IQs and sperm quality have been declining for a while now but it's probably unrelated to all the plastic pollution.
I think there likely is little cause for concern. Is it contributing to poor health? Maybe but if it is then its a small contribution. There are much bigger issues like poor diet and lifestyle. HFCS for example was easy to link to poor health and it should probably be outlawed.
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we have robust replacement for asbestos, but not clear if we will get replacement for plastic..
We have lots of replacements for plastic, what we used before plastic: Metal lunch boxes, metal cups, metal piping, etc
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> why are lifespans still increasing We are burning huge amounts of fossil fuels to run the economy. This economic boon leads to longer lifetimes, at a huge but externalized and delayed cost. > it seems like most people are doing... just fine? Where do you live? Outside of affluent areas, I think most people these days would laugh at such an absurd claim. We are not fine, physically or mentally. Our soil isn't fine.…
The age-standardized death rate from cancer has declined by 15% since 1990. https://ourworldindata.org/cancer
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Plastic gets consumed by oceanic microorganisms, though slowly. Take a look at the fascinating microscopic images of plastic partially eaten by microorganisms in this 2013 research article, "Life in the Plastisphere: Microbial Communities on Plastic Marine Debris": http://onemoregeneration.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Life... Plastics also break down to simpler hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide with prolonged exposur…
It's absolutely insane how, if humanity disappeared today, we would become really hard to detect in pretty short time scales.
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It's absolutely insane how, if humanity disappeared today, we would become really hard to detect in pretty short time scales.
I imagine the enormous metal structures we put up are the longest standing evidence, simply because metal is normally found unrefined in earth's crust
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https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tab...
Are you claiming that declining fertility is due to plastic, rather than to increasing wealth, education of women, and access to contraception? If so, then I'm going to have to ask you for a) a source and b) a plausible mechanism.
There's very strong evidence that both sperm counts and testosterone levels are going down (wikipedia it) worldwide over the last 60 years.
The mechanism here would be that many plastics are or contain endocrine disruptors. Or just an unknown mechanism (there's just so much about biology we don't know).
I believe there's also evidence that younger generations are having less sex. There's also a claim that people have much less "mature" (i.e. sexually-developed) facial features.
Of course this could all be tested by a proper study.
Now back to your point, your first reaction might be "All my friends aren't having kids because they don't want to, none are trying and can't." But if sex-drive is down across the board that may explain it. America doesn't even self-replace (unless you count new immigrants).
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> ”Most microplastic in water come from tires.” And also synthetic clothes. According to the study they found more plastic fibres than plastic particles in many samples. These get released when you launder your clothes, ending up in the drain water and ultimately the ocean. Solution? Buy clothes with natural fibres (cotton, wool, etc) instead of plastics. And wash your clothes in a modern washing machine with a micro…
> And wash your clothes in a modern washing machine with a microfibre filter on its drain outlet. That doesn't solve the whole problem because the microfibres eventually need disposal.
Depending on your location, they’ll either get destroyed by incineration or put in landfill where they’ll do less harm and hopefully break down after a few centuries.
Of course, if you clean the filter by flushing the sludge down the sink then you didn’t solve anything.
Plastics, let alone microplastics, are a rather small problem that seem to get a lot of airspace. There are no established health effects of microplastics. There are magnitudes worse health problems in e.g. both under and overnutrition that cause a lot less panic and fuss. https://www.undp.org/kosovo/blog/microplastics-human-health-...
> There are no established health effects of microplastics. It'd be more true to say, "There are no established significant health effects of microplastics on humans ." FWIW, the article you linked to doesn't say "no effects", but "limited evidence for significant adverse health impacts". This seems concerning: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9885170/