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Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

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Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#171

Post by throwaway0x7E6 »

paulcole wrote: post #101

So today the wheel of who-do-we-blame-for-fucking-the-earth settles on commercial fishermen. The reality is that the actual wheel points at me and you and everyone we know (and everyone we don’t). If you’re reading this, the lifestyle you’re living is very likely incompatible with a planet that isn’t ravaged by climate change. You’ve got to make drastic changes to how you choose to live and do everything you can to g…

which reality do you live in? the one where everyone lives in a mcmansion, drives a F150 and making an international flight on their private jet every other day?

60% of the population in the US is one paycheck away from being homeless. what the fuck do you propose they do, stop eating?

begin with yourself. send the plastic toy you've typed this on to recycling and don't buy another one.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#172

Post by ksaj »

pfdietz wrote: post #106
gbear605 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, that’s strange since they break down fine in my home compost bin. I wonder what’s the difference for them?

They may look like their breaking down, but your compost is now laced with PFAs. Forever chemicals for you!

Yes, lots of "biodegradable" products do have PFAs. Including most of the paper straws that are supposedly better than plastic ones. That's a result of corporate lobbying right there.

The point of the products I mentioned is that they don't contain PFAs. They are starch and cellulose. Cellulose just so happens to look and behave an awful lot like plastic. If you've ever seen those novelty see-through rolling papers, they're the same thing but without the starch. You're not smoking PFAs with them.

The process is expensive. It's hard to convince people the extra costs are actually worth it in the end. Hopefully they keep working on the products and discover some manufacturing efficiencies. But it is like competing real fruit beverages against big-name colas - it's a tough battle to win.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#173

Post by biztos »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #161
noahtallen wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely different scenarios, right? The rainy parts of the Midwest aren’t in a drought which makes water consumption important to track. California is. Anyways, they do use in freshwater differently. Where I grew up in NW Ohio, there is practically no irrigation. It rains enough there’s no need. Freshwater use is passive, in other words. Out west, farms have to actively pump water to irrigate since there’s not eno…

> Where I grew up in NW Ohio, there is practically no irrigation. It rains enough there’s no need. Freshwater use is passive, in other words. Out west, farms have to actively pump water to irrigate since there’s not enough rain. Interestingly, the natural state of much of California was a swamp. We put in a lot of effort converting the swamp to desert. If we reestablished the swamps, California would be a much less p…

Isn’t the rice mostly grown in Northern California, which is definitely not a desert and AFAIK was not a swamp?

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#174

Post by ksaj »

palmtree3000 wrote: post #145
hnick wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this in effect add a regressive tax to staple products like bread and flour, which are transported by trucks and would require raised prices to be passed on? I'd be interested in seeing the numbers and what price rise if any would be expected.

Sure, but you can make it as progressive as you want by redistributing the tax income back to people.

The logistics and shipping are all part of the price of the food and whatever other items you buy. If it was solely up to the trucking companies to pay for the road wear, the increase in costs will then of course be added to the price of the food and everything else that gets shipped. So the people will end up paying for it either way, but through food (etc.) costs.

I suppose it might be cheaper for drivers that way, but groceries and other items will all be more expensive, even for those who do not drive.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#175

Post by Ekaros »

causality0 wrote: post #111
dahdum wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find trucks and commercial vehicles getting a pass all that strange, they are far more essential than passenger vehicles. I consider most roads and basically all highways as meant for them, passenger vehicles are the luxury.

Trucks suck. Even with the US' road-friendly policies, transporting goods via truck is twelve times as expensive as by rail.

I'm not sure we are comparing apples to apples here. How much it cost to transfer let's say one container worth of stuff per week to place that doesn't yet have rail?

On scale rai is cheaper, but less you use the infra and less you transport at one time more expensive it will get.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#176

Post by epolanski »

airstrike wrote: post #108
causality0 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really weird how cars get a pass for so much. It's really weird how trucks get a pass from people who don't give cars a pass. If tire wear is proportional to road wear, the majority of tire-originating microplastics is from semi trucks, not commuter sedans.

The corollary to this argument is that most environmental issues routinely blamed on individual behavior pale in comparison to the externalities from industry and commerce People talk shutting off the faucet while brushing one's teeth but ~70% of global freshwater usage comes from agriculture and ~20% from industry, with municipalities accounting for only 10%

Well, the freshwater argument could be extended to individual behavior simply by saying: eat less meat.

We produce most of our food for cattle, and cattle needs tons of freshwater (both consumed directly and indirectly).

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#177

Post by Gordonjcp »

milesvp wrote: post #160
sacrosancty wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water shortage isn't a real environmental issue. It's a result of people building enough water production capacity for most of their needs but not too much excess for peaks. We can simply buy more fresh water if we want more. And of course it's renewable so there's no long term value in trying to reduce usage.

Huh? water usage is a huge environmental issue. Only people far upstream really can say it’s not. We are amazing at not only diverting freshwater from streams and rivers, we’re also really good at pumping it out of the ground and diverting aquifer water from reaching downstream as well. While fresh water is largely renewable, it’s not like it’s an infinite resource and it’s very hard to see the long term effects of c…

Water usage isn't an environmental issue. There's as much water now as there ever was, barring a few hundred litres aboard the ISS.

The issue is that you want to live in a desert but with a lifestyle like you're not in a desert.

The hard conversation you need to have is that California is not habitable. There's no water and there's nowhere to grow food. If you want to make it habitable you'll need to turn all those golf courses into farms, raise cows on them, plant more trees, and try to expand those green areas as much as you can.

If you want to live in a green city, move to Glasgow, where there's loads of water and because it never gets above about 25°C or below about 5°C it's t-shirt weather all year round and you don't need to refrigerate your house.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#178

Post by Gordonjcp »

jrajav wrote: post #134
hnick wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the last miles, delivering parcels to people and pallets to commerce, they are for sure. Rail just won't work well at that level of granularity. Between cities is probably another story where rail makes more sense but I'd guess it's much easier to schedule a truck at the last minute and you're not beholden to whoever operates the rail network(s).

I assumed we were talking about the high-tonnage 18-wheeler semis in context, not last-mile delivery.

What are you going to replace those with?

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#179

Post by Gordonjcp »

williamscales wrote: post #143
dahdum wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find trucks and commercial vehicles getting a pass all that strange, they are far more essential than passenger vehicles. I consider most roads and basically all highways as meant for them, passenger vehicles are the luxury.

No, not at all. There's just no need whatsoever for trucks. We could simply use rail. The idea that folks on bicycles should be subject to gigantic, badly designed commercial vehicles while going about their business is absurd and a product of decades upon decades of lobbying.

That only works if you've got rail.

Re: Fishing gear accounts for an alarming amount of plastic in oceans (2021)

#180

Post by rtpg »

cycomanic wrote: post #125
dahdum wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find trucks and commercial vehicles getting a pass all that strange, they are far more essential than passenger vehicles. I consider most roads and basically all highways as meant for them, passenger vehicles are the luxury.

Freight is far easier to transport using rail. However, the massive subsidies that road freight receives over other means of transport (i.e. the use of the road infrastructure basically for free, as they don't pay for maintance according to the damage they cause) makes rail financially unattractive in many cases.

I don't get where "easier to transport via rail" comes from. The instant you have a post office, you do want some sort of roads, and the number of rails and switching you would need to get to even some of the distribution centers spread across various supermarkets is a big ask!

That doesn't mean every single last meter needs to happen via truck (lots of deliveries in urban areas can happen via foot or scooter) but ... at one point you need to get the 200 cartons of milk to the supermarket.

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