Plastic

Plastics made from biodegradable substances (corn oil) would be the better solution on a going ahead basis.

Regarding the existing problems, just collect from the worse concentrations and learn to life with the rest. It's inert. It's ugly but that's about it. Bulldogs are ugly until you learn to change your perception of ugly. :)
 
Ethernos 1997 said:
Is there a better way to decompose plastic material on a global scale?
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launch it into the sun

seriously ?
the debate is twisted
the material should be shredded then mixed and melted together to make things like
park furniture and kids playgrounds

but people cant exploit profit from such a process so no one is interested
its all about the profit margin
 
The real problem is throwing plastic in the ocean. Put it in the garbage can and let it end up in the city dump and there is no problem. It's inert. It serves as a stable base for land field material.

Allocate tax money from profits generated from plastic to collect plastic that ends up where it shouldn't be.

It's not a flaw of capitalism. It's a problem that capitalism can handle as well as any other economy system.
 
Ethernos 1997 said:
Is there a better way to decompose plastic material on a global scale?
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Not really. We'll end up living in the sea at some point, underground cities, with wild life and recycling done properly. Glass no plastic and paper, you get the idea. The plastic problem is more worrying then climate change. It is literally suffocating the planet. It's one of my pet hates. I'd rather live in the sea then on some alien planet.
 
davewhite04 said:
So you think man putting plastic in the ground is evolution?
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No, it's a scathing indictment of man's hubris to think that we are of any importance to anything but ourselves. And even that we seem to screw up.
Building our homes next to a volcano and then wonder why we have lava in our living room?

As Carlin said : "Saving the planet?...... The planet isn't going anywhere..........., we are!"

p.s. Ever wondered why we have global warming?
Releasing 3.5 billion years worth of sequestered CO2 back into the atmosphere during a span of a few hundred years. Think about it!
9,360,928,233 CO2 emissions this year (tons)
International Energy Agency (IEA) Statistics - CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion
  • Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR)
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https://www.worldometers.info/
 
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Write4U said:
No, it's a scathing indictment of man's hubris to think that we are of any importance to anything but ourselves. And even that we seem to screw up.
Building our homes next to a volcano and then wonder why we have lava in our living room?
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You're not humanities beggest fan? Have you seen humans doing amazing things? Humans are above animals. I don't know what you are.
 
davewhite04 said:
You're not humanities biggest fan? Have you seen humans doing amazing things? Humans are above animals. I don't know what you are.
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I am a realist.

Humans are the most amazing and smartest animals on earth and instead of exercising wisdom and prudence, we are behaving like spoiled children used to taking whatever we want (over and above what we need like all animals) without regard to consequences. It's the mark of an "invasive species" that kills everything it comes in contact until there is nothing left to kill except each other. To the rest of life on earth, humans are like a viral pandemic.

Nature will only put up with that kind of parasitic behavior for a few generations before unleashing it's natural balancing mechanisms and stopping the pandemic by natural mathematical equitable reactions.

And thinking that we can control nature on a global level is just another example of our shortsighted hubris. We are a "surface nuisance"...the earth shudders...phrrrrrrrrt...and we're gone, a failed experiment, an evolutionary cul-de-sac.

We are already in midst of the sixth extinction event.
Human beings have existed for just 200,000 years, yet our impact on the planet is so great that scientists around the world are calling for our period in the Earth’s history to be named the ‘Anthropocene‘ – the age of humans.
"Anthropocene extinction"
The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction, is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch (with the more recent time sometimes called Anthropocene) as a result of human activity.[1][2][3] The included extinctions span numerous families of plants[4] and animals, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and arthropods.
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With widespread degradation of highly biodiverse habitats such as coral reefs and rainforests, as well as other areas, the vast majority of these extinctions are thought to be undocumented, as the species are undiscovered at the time of their extinction, or no one has yet discovered their extinction. The current rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background rates
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
 
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Write4U said:
And thinking that we can control nature on a global level is just another example of our shortsighted hubris. ...

We are already in midst of the sixth extinction event.
Human beings have existed for just 200,000 years, yet our impact on the planet is so great that scientists around the world are calling for our period in the Earth’s history to be named the ‘Anthropocene‘ – the age of humans.
"Anthropocene extinction"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
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Those who claim the Anthropocene extinction are all hype and no science.
see Smithsonian paleontologist Doug Erwin...
 
sculptor said:
Those who claim the Anthropocene extinction are all hype and no science.
see Smithsonian paleontologist Doug Erwin...
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I did and he is so naively wrong.
He sees an global extinction event as an event that wipes out all life on earth. There has never been an extinction event that wipes out all of life. There will always be survivors in deep ocean or underground. An extinction event is an event that wipes out most of the earth's large surface life, which includes man

By Erwin's standard there has never been an "global extinction event", which would require a new emergence of a living organism. Well, the Dinosaurs ruled for hundreds of millions of years and they're gone.........!

And here comes Erwin and declares extinction events are much bigger than we can imagine, thus we're not currently in an extinction event, because we don't see things die around us all over the place.
But they are! The extinction rate has gone up tenfold and includes many "indicator species".
Indicator species are an appealing research and monitoring tool. A conservation practitioner can use an indicator species as a surrogate for overall biodiversity, monitoring the outcomes of management practices by measuring the rise or fall of the population of the indicator species.
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https://eol.org/docs/discover/indicator-species

Many indicator species are affected by chemical pollution.
2,540,243 Toxic chemicals released in the environment this year (tons)

Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) Program - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
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https://www.worldometers.info/

The one thing that keeps humans alive beyond their natural life expectancy is medicines, not because we are a resilient organism. Compared to other wild species man is one of the most vulnerable to all sorts of natural dangers and diseases.

As Hellstrom said; "there are only two species on the increase, man and the insect. Man because he can alter his environment, the insect because it can adapt to any alteration man can make to the environment."

Ultimately the insect is much better equipped to survive an extinction event than man. In some 3.5 billion years the insect has already survived five previous extinction events, including the one that brought down the mighty Dinosaurs. Erwin thinks we can do better?
 
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Seattle said:
It's a "flaw" of people. Do you want to eliminate people?
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I did not say "flaw of people" , I said flaw of Capitalists... difference. Don't be dulpicitous. If I said "flaw of criminals", would you ask "flaw of people"?

But as a species, like all parasitic organisms we're doing a grand job of that ourselves. In the long run we'll be killing all the good qualities that our host has to offer.
 
Write4U said:
I did not say "flaw of people" , I said flaw of Capitalists... difference. Don't be dulpicitous. If I said "flaw of criminals", would you ask "flaw of people"?

But as a species, like all parasitic organisms we're doing a grand job of that ourselves. In the long run we'll be killing all the good qualities that our host has to offer.
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I didn't say you said "flaw of people". I said it's a flaw of people. You seem to agree with your ending comments.
 
Seattle said:
I didn't say you said "flaw of people". I said it's a flaw of people. You seem to agree with your ending comments.
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No man, you even followed it up with asking if I want to eliminate people. Don't dig any deeper, please.
 
Unbridled capitalism is more of the problem, mixed with individual apathy. Not enough people care (truly care) about the environment, otherwise we would see more individual action. I think the West is filled with virtue signaling, instead of do-ing. Lots of dreamers, not enough doers.
 
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