Cleanup Group Says It's on Track to Eliminate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
8mon 21h ago by programming.dev/u/incompetent in upliftingnews from futurism.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/36161054
I wish them well. It feels good to be reminded that yes, there are still people out there trying to make things better. ❤️
Everyone can be that. Stop eating meat and drop water-pollution, land-use and co2-emissions by two thirds. Less destruction, instantly.
Imagine one billion people doing that. Animal agriculture, one of the most evil industries, would shrink by a lot, our planet would change. No need for politicians, no need to spend a lot of money, no need to lobby. You just buy a different product next time you shop groceries at the supermarket. 💚
I meant 2/3 of your personal food emissions. I'm aware that this is not the solution, but it's a very easy step and no solution will be enough without us changing what we eat.
So 2/3 of something that wasn't that much to start with. Got it.
Theres a reason people go with published peer reviewed journals and not the data sheets of non profits who refuse to disclose their sources of income. The link to the journal they're referring to is in the article:
The data used in thr screen grabs you have also, very deliberately, separated the energy and transportation used by the meat industry, as separate things not used by the meat industry
this fluff piece uses a quote from the author of a power reviewed article which is not in that power reviewed article. their study does not support the quoted claim
Insufferable
That graph is wrong/misleading:
this article relies on poore-nemecek 2018, and should not be considered reliable itself
No? They merely state that their results are consistent with one of Poore and Nemecek's findings. The methods, article scope, and more differ.
I'm not going to defend the article further. If you all want to believe a website over a scientific publication, feel free.
oh? can you link a version that isn't pay walled?
If you all want to believe a website
what website?
I know how to: .71 * 18 = 12.78 Gt, which is more than double what your graph ascribes to agriculture.
Also, there's no need to be rude, even if I had been wrong.
Your graphic uses the same larger type of metric of greenhouse gases as does the Nature article. If you click on the greenhouse gas equivalents bit in the header where the figure came from, it makes that clear:
Carbon dioxide is the most important greenhouse gas, but not the only one. To capture all greenhouse gas emissions, researchers express them in “carbon dioxide equivalents” (CO₂eq). This takes all greenhouse gases into account, not just CO₂.
You're not wrong about meat not comprising two-thirds of any person's total GHG emissions, and I've never suggested otherwise. I just wanted to provide a better source of information than that graphic.
It's a Nature article; there's no better source for information. Not sure where you're getting the 2/3s idea or meat idea from that article--it does not use such language.
the article is poorly methodized, and should not be considered reliable
I really need to stop making excuses and stop eating meat. I think I'm going to start tomorrow. I dunno why but this thread really is motivating me.
Even if you don't go meatless, dropping or severely limiting beef is a huge start.
My family realized that most meals we have meat was just kind of an unnecessary element? Cut out meat and it was still delicious.
Our meat consumption dropped to ground turkey once a month and beef maybe once every 6 months when our to eat? i really feel like limiting is the way to go for most people, but too many suggest all or nothing.
I feel like meat only on weekends would be a pretty great compromise for the near term.
If enough people did that, meat would stop being the default with every meal and it'd end up easier to go farther.
And I think people are more likely to stick with a dramatic reduction than to go all the way.
Simply being selective with meat can go a long way as well. Cattle grazing on regenerative farms is in a completely different category from generic CAFO beef from the grocery store (at least if you're in the US). The main issue is finding it locally.
And yes it's more expensive, but also more nutritionally dense so you end up using less anyway. Plus it actually tastes like beef. We should be paying more for meat IMO, considering the resources going into its production.
Grass fed cattle uses way more land and resources and produce more emissions than the efficient hell on earth we call "intensive life stock farming".
I'm under no delusion that we should replace all beef with grazing cattle at current levels of consumption. It should be what the land can support, ideally. If they're part of a closed regenerative system, net-zero emissions and even net climate benefits can be possible. Cattle aren't going away anytime soon, why not bring responsible stewardship mainstream?
And we stop eating meat until this is reality, deal?
I would support anyone making that choice. But there's no way around the fact that some people are going to want to eat meat, and I think that's fine. Good luck trying to change other people based around your own personal dogma - especially when it's around what people eat, they don't like it and they might think you're an ass. Along with wanting to eat meat, most people don't like to be told what to do. In fact they often do the opposite. So no. In the same vein, please don't take the following as an attempt to persuade you or anyone to change your eating habits. It's simply a window into my thoughts on the matter.
It's the level of consumption, amount of waste and all the harmful externalities that I'm not ok with.
The fact is that meat farming, at a small enough scale in a closed loop system can improve the land instead of destroying it. It can also be net-zero or even provide net-negative emissions. That's not to say there are no emissions. We'll likely never see a cow that doesn't burp or fart. Cows expel quite a lot, I'm certain you know, mostly methane. There are ways to reduce it somewhat. The goal is take the harmful stuff we don't want and either harness it as an input for something else down the line, or offset it somewhere. This is difficult, it requires hella discipline and commitment, but we've learned quite a lot about how to do it. That's not to say there are one-size-fits-all systems or methods. Beef cattle need water and a lot of it. They need space and a lot of it. Grass. They produce waste and a lot of it. If you can't provide the proper inputs or reduce the outputs enough to reach net-zero (or my favorite cop-out: "net-zero... someday") is not going to happen. If you choose to do it anyway and profit from that, then you're a real piece of shit IMHO. Do something else.
If meat farming in a regenerative system is done correctly (which is going to look a bit different on every farm), meat animals are not mistreated and live the life they're meant to live, they're providing outputs for other parts of the system, customers get their (appropriate and healthy amount of) meat locally, the farmer gets a decent livelihood and can leave behind a legacy of land that's been improved, and community is built through interacting with that food system.
Meat eaters don't have any connection with the animals they consume and that's a real tragedy right now. Mass-produced meat as a concept is completely abstracted away. You grab that Styrofoam tray of chicken or whatever and that's the extent of it. Most brands greenwash the shit out of their meat, and the propaganda works.
If you're a Person Who Cares™️, maybe you spend the extra $2 on the "organic" line or you only buy "cage-free" eggs that come with a cute little booklet an unpaid intern made 10 years ago. Maybe you allow yourself to imagine happy animals peacefully grazing away in some pastoral scene replete with red wooden barns and shit. People really think like that!
But it would do some good to actually restore some connection to the animals we depend on. Go to the farm, go on tours and events. Hang out with the animals. Volunteer to help out with the baby sheep/goats/cows when they come. And speak up if something can be improved or doesn't seem ok. Form a bond with your food that actually starts at the beginning and not the end. Hunting is another (but very different) way to access that connection. As a bonus, hunters are helping with management and learning useful skills. It's not for everyone obviously, and that's ok. I'm not saying you should have to personally kill your meat or even watch that happen. It takes a certain type of person to safely carry that kind of burden. I'm not saying everyone who hasn't done this today is somehow bad. It's not the average person's fault we have such a shitty, rickety, exploitative food system (at least in the US where I'm at).
But if the idea of "meeting your meat", and taking part in its life while it's actually alive makes you uncomfortable, queasy or you'd just rather remain ignorant, yeah, you might want to take a deep look and examine whether you should be eating it at all. You (the person I'm replying to) have simply made that choice ahead of time, which is totally cool. I don't presently care about your reason for it, nor do I need to know, but you're welcome to share. What you don't have is the right to make that choice for others.
Just be mindful of replacing it with another source of protein. Just removing meat and leaving your diet as is might not do. Depending on your diet, it might not be an issue. If you're from Latin America for example, you probably already eat a lot of beans. But you are less likely to regularly eat a vegetarian source of protein if you live in a more northern region of the world.
True. We have a lot of beans now lol
Give the plant based meats a try, like Impossible meat or Quorn. They're astonishingly good now, and have completely replaced animal meat for me.
Beans are cheaper and delicious
As is Tofu, Seitan (homemade), and lentils!
We don't have any of those in Japan yet, unfortunately. I think I'll have to go with beans for now!
You could also create your own meat alternatives with tofu or Seitan, which are very cheap to make ^^
Just do it for health reasons, especially in the US where meat is full of drugs and literal shit.
Wouldn't just a reduction in meat consumption be enough? Though looking at how much the average is that will probably need to be a very significant reduction frI'm some people.
Solar farms go well with grazing animals, recently heard it can actually increase the grass yields when you add solar panels, think it helps protect it a bit from strong wind and too much sun that can dry out the soil more and stunt growth.
Also any time you hear people complain about "prime farmland" (that is so shit they only ever use it for grazing) being used for solar "instead of food production" be aware it's very likely bullshit anti-solar propaganda. It's very common here in the UK.
I say why not, imagine 1 billion people eating 0 meat or 8 billion people reducing their intake. Net result is probably the same, but the problem is that there are some people that will use this reduction excuse to not actually do much about their diet. Then there are the people like you mentioned that eat meat 3 times a day and then there are the people that surround their own identity around meat eating.
I'm not a dogmatic and tell people irl that each individual should do as much as they can, but even with that low bar most people don't do shit.
We usually don't have that much, this week between 2 of us we bought 6 of the finest sausages Aldi provide and they went into a sausage and bean casserole that lasted for 3 meals each. Other meals didn't have meat in them.
Would like to try finding a butchers but there aren't really any near where we live other than a guy selling meat out of a van a few days a week.
My family realized that most meals we have meat was just kind of an unnecessary element? Cut out meat and it was still delicious.
Our meat consumption dropped to ground turkey once a month and beef maybe once every 6 months when our to eat? i really feel like limiting is the way to go for most people, but too many suggest all or nothing.
I would prefer for the giant polluting corporations to do something that’s actually useful. Enjoy veganism though.
I wish corpos disappeared in flames tomorrow, but unless I get a magic lamp that won't happen. In the mean times there are levels of activism everyone can do including in their personal lives. Deflecting and ignoring won't achieve anything, so we have to take responsibility for our actions as well.
While This is true, always remember that each single one of us only has a small impact and you shouldn't feel guilty for not being able to do everything while billionaires fly with private jets.
So you'd stop eating meat when billionaires stop flying private jets? Then both of you will conveniently continue until our biosphere collapses.
To me, this sounds like a protective claim while you're just as greedy, entitled and reckless as the flying billionaire, you just have fewer opportunities and resources. Contributing to something as evil as global animal agriculture while ignoring the numerous alternatives is something everyone has to take responsibility for, no?
You completely missed my point. I actively try to reduce my carbon footprint, but I will not jump through 16 extra hoops to save a tiny fraction of CO2, while Taylor swift fly's to fucking space. You can not blame the entirety of climate change onto the single individual. Change is especially needed in terms of abolishing billionaires and it also has to come from the politics.
An example: In my hometown village there is basically zero public transit. There is some usable, but its main use is for people who aren't in a rush and dont have that much other things that might interfere. If I want to drive to the next city without using a car it takes me about 1h, which includes about 10 minutes with riding your bike to the next village. This bus drives every two hours so a trip to the next city to do some stuff takes at least 2-3 hours and depending on what you have/want to do there it can quickly become a 4-5 hour trip. Under these circumstances I Am usually going to drive there by car (which takes about 20-25 minutes). Does it emit more CO2? Of course it does. Can I easily sacrifice 3-5 hours for something that can be done in 1-2? Usually not.
The thing is, we're at a point where any reduction or slowing of Co2 is a victory, and can at the very least buy us (especially the populations most effected) a little bit more time to get our collective shit together against the big polluters.
But we don't know when that time will come, so we need to do as much as we can until then. We know the billionaires planes will continue, but we can at the very least prevent some of our own emissions from compounding with them. Us doing our bit is not negated by the billionaires not joining in with us. It's not fair, but the climate doesn't care about fair, it cares about total emissions.
So let's chip in collectively to slow things down, even if only slightly, until we can slow it down a lot. :)
Youre right, but each of us as an individual only has limited options. If politicians and billionaires dont want to take on climate change we sadly can't do that much against it (except trying to influence politicians as a collective).
And its of course always a matter of money. If I dont have the money for a more climate friendly lifestyle, theres not that much you can do about it.
There are quite a few options we can do that either cost nothing to do, or even save money compared to the higher emission option.
- Animal meat is usually more expensive than a plant based diet. Quorn is on par or cheaper than ground beef, homemade Seitan from vital gluten comes out to around $1.80/lb. Tofu, lentils, and beans are also extremely cheap. Red meat is the most polluting, so even just switching to chicken + vegetarian options would make a substantial difference.
- Turning the temperature down in the winter will use substantially less energy and lower your bills, and can be compensated for with the use of hot water bottles, heating pads, and bundling up, along with other methods.
- Consider joining your local Strong Towns (if you live in the US) to help make non-car transport more viable, even for rural areas.
- Buy used instead of new where possible, and buy as little as needed.
- There are low-cost solar options that can be implented slowly over time, and can be made extremely affordable using used panels from Craigslist/Facebook marketplace.
All of these combined will drastically lower your emissions. As an individual it wouldn't impact much, but done collectively, it can make a genuine difference. I can at least vouch that you'd be joining in with me :p
You're picking a water bottle out of a landfill and calling it a victory. If it makes you feel less powerless by all means, you do you. But there are a thousand corporations, each with a fleet of dump trucks adding to it every hour.
As an individual, it's a drop in the ocean, yes. But done collectively at scale, those drops become a meaningful difference. In regards to animal meat, if we collectively switch to plant based options, we literally strangle the means for the animal industry to pollute. It's a form of direct action that anyone can partake in. Even just opting for chicken instead of red meat, if done collevtively, would result in substantial decreases in emissions.
You're not wrong but getting everyone to collectively do anything is damn near impossible without laws or maybe shame to enforce it.
Alternatively, we can do something about the corporations that are doing the best majority of the polluting in the first place.
Admittedly the later option, under the current regime, would require measures that most people don't seem to be comfortable with yet.
I think the zeitgeist is beginning to shift, and we can help move it along with our own collective effort, and leading by example in our own communities (online or offline).
I don't disagree that stopping the majority of emissions at their source (corporations) is the ultimate end goal, but as you say, we don't know when that will happen. Could be in 3 years, could be in a decade or two.
I'm advocating we do what we can to buy us (and especially the poorest and most vulnerable populations) a little more time while we wait for that major reckoning to happen. Besides, if we're collectively unwilling to even give up a little bit of beef in favor of plants or chicken, that doesn't bode well for us when the time comes to make much bigger sacrifices to take on those big polluters, and capitalism itself.
If we make society more egalitarian someday, we'll still ultimately have to rely on people becoming informed of what we need to do to save the planet from climate change, and then enact those things in their lives willingly themselves. There's no real reason we shouldn't be a part of that change now, rather than wait.
And I do want to emphasize how incredibly good Impossible meat is as an extremely convenient drop-in replacement for ground beef or steak bites. It often goes on sale, which brings the price down to be fairly comparable to animal meat. If you haven't tried it yet, I highly suggest picking some up when you see some on sale, it makes the transition away from animal meat much much easier, as it allows you to continue to use all of your existing recipes. Quorn is another really solid option that's comparable in price to animal meat, and when cooked with some beef or chicken stock, tastes very, very similarly to real meat in a recipe.
That's not how I would describe it. Change always starts with a personal realization. And what animal agriculture does to our soil, rivers and atmosphere is not right, do you agree?
We could reforest close to 80% of agricultural land, thats an area the size of Africa, and return it to nature. Forests cool our climate, breathe in co2. Do you want this? It is already happening and you can be part of it if you decide to buy chickpeas and lentils instead of animal tissue. It's one step closer to a solution. A small step, but the right thing to do.
I do agree.
But a few thousand people going vegan isn't going to shut down the meat industry. And we don't have time for a gradual shift in human consumption trends.
We need drastic changes ten years ago or humanity is fucked.
Numbers are hard to measure but we have at least 80 million vegans on the planet, plus 1,5 billion vegetarians. This is not "a few thousand". A decade ago, veganism was considered a cult, now we have Veganuary and my health insurance recommends a "Planetary Health Diet" (to not scare people by saying the v-word). This movement is much bigger than you make it sound.
And again, I agree: There is destruction and exploitation wherever you look closely, it's overwhelming. I'm all for drastic changes, and fast! This includes you, Sir Kevin, to acknowledge that the diet you learned from your parents needs to be addressed. You don't have to be perfect, I'm not, but please don't ignore your responsibility in this. It's the easiest difference you can make.
Yeah, me too. That's something we have no power over, though. But you can take responsibility for what you eat.
The way I lobby for that is by not buying products that are harmful.
nice generalizations
If it can get the necessary funds, that is. In a press release, the organization claimed that eliminating the patch once and for all would cost a whopping $7.5 billion
If you give me 7.5 billion i’ll do my very best to clean up the ocean too
This is /c/upliftingnews. I’ll take what I can get ☺️
That's like 0.8% of the US military budget for 2025. That's basically a rounding error
Yup. It’s also 0.042% of China’s GDP, and I’ll bet they never get it.
China's GDP is going to keeping a billion people housed and fed, and producing more solar panels than the rest of the world combined. The US military budget is going to blowing up brown people.
Awesome way to say you don’t care about the planet by making excuses for China not picking lint out of its pocket to clean the ocean—and then somehow turning this into an ICE problem.
Nobody said anything about ICE, we're talking about the military known for bombing weddings in multiple middle eastern countries and then bombing ambulances when they respond.
If you have the money to commit atrocities in a dozen countries at once, you have money to spare.
If you have money to commit genocide against the Uyghurs you have money to spare.
Found the Wumao.
About 1.5% of Musk's net worth when it was at it's height when he was US President.
I think it's actually higher now. It's a whopping $480 billion now
Better that than it going to Tesla or whatever.
Yes, but it's a war, and they are losing to people making things much, much worse.
Finally someone attempts to remove the UK ❤️
They're going to be so embarrassed when they realize the garbage patch isn't even in the Pacific.
It was moved following brexit
angry bri'ish noises
tutting intensifies
This is very good news! Please don't forget that even if the great pacific garbage patch doesn't exist, that doesn't mean that the ocean is clean. There are still lots of garbage in the ocean!
However everybody needs to work where the problem originates.
There's only four left to clean after this one.
In 2014, there were five areas across all the oceans where the majority of plastic concentrated. Researchers collected a total of 3070 samples across the world to identify hot spots of surface level plastic pollution. The pattern of distribution closely mirrored models of oceanic currents with the North Pacific Gyre, or Great Pacific Garbage Patch, being the highest density of plastic accumulation. The other four garbage patches include the North Atlantic garbage patch between the North America and Africa, the South Atlantic garbage patch located between eastern South America and the tip of Africa, the South Pacific garbage patch located west of South America, and the Indian Ocean garbage patch found east of South Africa.
Aight but one of them is gonna take another decade to clear.
this might be the only good environmental news i've read since we got rid of cfcs
Use Ecosia.com for web searches, they plant trees.
Ecosia.org is what it redirects to, but yeah I've been using them for a couple of years now and it is nice to see some positive work being done!
I still got microplastics in my balls.
Microplastics are stored in the balls
They can take away our Pacific garbage patch, but they can never take our ball micro plastics!
A thin film of plastic is all that protects our block and tackle from the 5g woke mind virus. Why else do you think we call it our "Junk"?
And give up free 5g? Are you insane?
Finally able to cum silly strings
To cum like a 3D printer (same nozzle temperature too).
So that's how babby is formed
This comment is a pretty solid example of the normal UpliftingNews comments.
Seems easier picking up trash by hand than taxing the rich for the project
So far, the nonprofit claims it has fished out a million pounds of trash from the patch, a mere 0.5 percent of its total. But within a decade, it says, it could ramp up its operations to get rid of it in its entirety.
Next year, the company will focus its efforts on establishing a "hotspot" map of areas in the ocean with "intense plastic accumulation."
While $7.5 billion may sound like a lot, it's less than one month's worth of Apple's profits last year, or a sixth of the bonus Tesla shareholders awarded to CEO Elon Musk.
To give him "motivation" to keep innovating and bring us to mars, supposedly. God there's no limit to the sheer stupidity of muskrat fanboys.
This article is just over a year old...
Thank you for saying something! Can't believe I didn't check myself.
It also lead to me finding this: https://theoceancleanup.com/dashboard/
If I understand correctly, system 3 is the one most relevant to the great garbage patch. It's currently at port, and has been for nearly a year. Not sure what to make of this.
I wasn't even paying attention, my bad. I just saw it in my feed a decided to crosspost it here.
And the article says "we can totally do this! All need is loads of money! Please donate!"
Been following them for years. They do great work, but often seem a little overly optimistic in their messaging. What they are doing is a hard challenge and they seem to be slowly getting better and better. I wonder if they also are lacking a bit in funding to be able to efficiently move forward.
That's not possible unless you ban fishing nets
True, but let's not the baby out with the bathwater.
98% or 90% or even a verifiable 50% reduction is insanely amazing news
So far, the nonprofit claims it has fished out a million pounds of trash from the patch, a mere 0.5 percent of its total. But within a decade, it says, it could ramp up its operations to get rid of it in its entirety.
:-/
They're asking for $75B for the full project and currently relying on start up capital with a tiny fraction of that. Apple's "committed" $7.5B tentative to Ocean Cleanup Project raising the rest on short notice.
This isn't "on track". It's a pilot project that's in the middle of a Series B funding round.
Also - most critically - it's not clear in the article what they're doing with the waste they recover. Simply moving it around doesn't eliminate the garbage. And the project does not appear to include a budget for recycling or otherwise repurposing what they recover.
it’s not clear in the article what they’re doing with the waste they recover. Simply moving it around doesn’t eliminate the garbage. And the project does not appear to include a budget for recycling or otherwise repurposing what they recover.
I found this with three clicks on project's web site:
"Once our containers are full of plastic onboard, we bring them back to shore for recycling. For each system batch, we are making durable and sustainable products. Supporters getting the products will help fund the continued ocean cleanup. Catch, rinse, recycle and repeat - until the oceans are clean. The sunglasses are a proof of concept for this."
It might not seem like much yet, but it's better than nothing, and we have to start somewhere.
It might not seem like much yet, but it’s better than nothing
I've been hearing this line repeated ad nauseum since the 80s. Occasionally they pan out, but far more often you're looking at a Google Graveyard of underfunded ideas and abandoned projects.
In this case "we're going to turn the Texas Garbage Patch into sunglasses" doesn't fill me with excitement.
doesn’t fill me with excitement.
I'm skeptical too, but I choose to retain some optimism in a world with so much terrible stuff. This project seems to have more than zero potential, without introducing obvious great harm.
"No, I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing." - Oscar Wilde
Only using the plastic junk to make more plastic trinkets is not successfully recycling, no matter how they market it as such. It needs to be used for practical value products at least in part or it's just another way of reformatting the trash
We all look forward to the success of your superior alternative.
People will say this to pretend you shouldn't criticize any incentives that have decent effects. Cleaning it and putting in landfills is better than oceans. But making more trash to be thrown out isn't solving anything
I literally have a pair of the sunglasses I bought many years ago when they first came out.
How is that trash, please explain.
You're not wrong. Stuff like construction materials would be better. Hopefully this is a step towards that.
I understand the cynicism, but I'm not going to let it distract me from the good that is being done.
You can hold space for both, and both can be true at the same time and not invalidate each other. Optimism is a hugely important quality, it's focusing on moving forward and seeing the glass half full, and it keeps the darkness out. Pointing out problems is just troubleshooting, and finding ways to be better, that might seem like focusing on the glass half empty, but what if it's just focusing on achieving a better half full, glass. The important thing is to hold onto what keeps you afloat, especially right now. This is awesome news, whether it needs more work or not.
Isn't the majority of plastic in the ocean caused by fishing?
It's the largest individual source, by far. Whether or not it accounts for the majority depends on the exact stats you're looking at
What stats are at choice besides fraction of total mass?
It's more about which study or source you're looking at than what measure is used. It's tough to estimate stuff like this so different people get different answers.
They’re mostly thinking 10 years, but:
Better yet, if the nonprofit's latest technological ideas come to fruition, Slat suggests we could even clear the patch in just five years at a cost of just $4 billion.
Ultimately though it comes down to funding, and I’m not sure this is the administration with the stomach to fund these types of projects.
Once it's cleaned up we should replace all the garbage with cum, so the fish can eat the cum.
I feel like there's a story behind that comment that I'm unaware of.
Fish love cum
Well, I guess now I know.
Why do you think the oceans are so salty?
All fish or only the gay fish?
All. Of. Them.
. . . w h a t
ONCE IT'S CLEANED UP WE SHOULD REPLACE ALL OF THE GARBAGE WITH C U M SO THE FISH CAN EAT THE C U M
could you spell that?
Yes, very uplifting.
finally, i don't have to think even a second about my individually plastic wrapped candies
Glass. Always has been.
These individually glass wrapped candies make my mouth hurt.
Oh, I read that as candles.
Yeah, candies is (wax)paper. Easy.
I love this, it's great, but it doesn't address the root cause unfortunately
i dont know why you would say this unless youre just replying to headlines.. most of the plastic comes from just a handfull of rivers and they're catching the plastic at the source with their river collection programs (lots of interesting solutions they're using including bubble curtains)
Absolutely and that is great, but by root cause I mean how much plastic is on every fucking thing we buy, the source is not the rivers feeding into the ocean, it's our usage, and disregard for the environment
There are shades of gray. I consider burying it in well managed landfills (what is done with the very large majority of plastic in developed countries) significantly more environmentally responsible than dumping it into the local river (what is done with most plastic in many developing countries) or ocean (fishing nets, cruise ships).
Yes it is better, no doubt, but still doesn't resolve the root cause
No. Much plastic comes from fishermen in the ocean.
What's going to stop the polluters doing it again?
They are. Now.
And sue for costs, from the manufacturers, if plastic is too expensive, they'll stop using it, if they had to pay the environmental costs, it would become too expensive.
Bio degradable plastics
the patch is continually being replenished, so....
So? Then you just gotta do a cleanup run every month or so to keep it clean. Its not about getting it to zero, its about minimizing it.
There’s other projects that also tackle that
They thought of that, too. There are a finite number of rivers responsible for bringing the vast majority of trash into the ocean
And the fishermen in the ocean?
Sorry, this isn't news.
They've been towing these nets around for a decade now.
The article says, if you give them 4 billion with a b dollars they will "clean up" the garbage patch.
No shit. Give someone a lot of money and things can be done. The problem as we all know is that there is no money available for this type of project.
If we cancelled the order of ~40 F-35s, we could have that 4 billion dollars.
If we appropriately taxed the rich, we could do it without even having to cut the precious military spending.
Sorry, neither can be done. Taxing the richies would be tantamount to communism. Cutting the military spending? Countries have to fight wars behalf of the corpos.
Sure, wake me up when either of those things happen
The weird thing is that money isn't real. It's just an arbitrary idea of how much somebody thinks someone/something else is worth. When was the last time we had enough gold to back up all the money promises in the world? That was a long long long time ago.
LOL. Yeah but we only do quantative easing to save bankers and billionaires, not to save the world.
i can't seem to find a futurism on lemmy. does it exist?
I found a few futurology comms, not sure if that's the same thing as futurism.
Some comms also have different names but when I search futurism or futurology they are in the results so perhaps the comm description is included in the results.
Also I don't know if the method of searching I'm using in Voyager is limited to the comms that users on the instance my account is on are subscribed to.
futurology_pocasts@futurology.today
it's not on lemmy, it's an external link
I think they were looking for a sub for them
I love news like this.
Btw, I assume this is referring to garbage that is floating. What about the garbage that has sunk? I mean, I don't even know whether it's a big problem, especially in the middle of the ocean, but I am still curious what's up with that.
How will the aliens know that it isn't worth contacting us?
Radio signals 1935-current
True. We are a garbage species.
Can you imagine if they could hear radio? Our planet would be screaming noise constantly
Do you think The Ocean Cleanup isn't aware of this?