Plastic pollution in our seas

[transmitterdan]

Actually I am in favor of making everyone wealthy. There are plenty of ways to make that happen. But I know of not one person who became wealthy from receiving cash via welfare. Forced redistribution (welfare) makes everyone less wealthy and is the road to ruination.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Actually I am in favor of making everyone wealthy. There are plenty of ways to make that happen. But I know of not one person who became wealthy from receiving cash via welfare. Forced redistribution (welfare) makes everyone less wealthy and is the road to ruination.

Amen! Why work when someone else will pay for it. Granted some people need a hand and some must have little or no self esteem.
I guess we have caused enough drift.

[cyan]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

It is also a fact that developed countries have been dumping our wastes into lesser developed countries for decades. And as for pollution in general, one of the great benefits of shifting so much manufacturing to lower-wage/weaker-environmental-law areas is that we've also shifted a lot of local pollution over there as well.

This is a really interesting point, which I think was not as widely known until China stopped accepting plastics. I read that they were receiving 70% of the developed world's plastinc waste until the ban. Hey, if they want to recycle my plastic junk in a cheaper more efficient way, then have at it, right? Well, when that cheaper method simply involves cheap labor doing the dirty hand-sorting, and the nearby Asian rivers spew tons of plastic... it starts to sound wrong on many levels. That happy recycle-triangle symbol starts to take on a different meaning.

[Cadence]

I think our recycling effort only wants the beer cans. You about need in chemistry degree to figure what they want or don't want in plastics. I'll bet after it is picked over the rest goes to the land fill. They did pay by the pound for the cans.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Actually I am in favor of making everyone wealthy. There are plenty of ways to make that happen. But I know of not one person who became wealthy from receiving cash via welfare. Forced redistribution (welfare) makes everyone less wealthy and is the road to ruination.

Oh, that's a great idea...

If Everyone Lived Liked Americans, How Many Earths Would We Need?
(Answer 4+ if we all live like Canadians, or Americans)

In reality, this is where the planet is headed. Which is why we need to get off this rock, or better still, learn to share more equitably.

As for your "forced redistribution" I assume you take the same stance on governments collecting tax dollars to support things like infrastructure, environmental laws and the military. All this is "forced redistribution" by your definition.

You don't like your tax dollars supporting the needy. I don't want mine to buy more bullets. But as your esteemed Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once put it: "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by cyan

This is a really interesting point, which I think was not as widely known until China stopped accepting plastics. I read that they were receiving 70% of the developed world's plastinc waste until the ban. Hey, if they want to recycle my plastic junk in a cheaper more efficient way, then have at it, right? Well, when that cheaper method simply involves cheap labor doing the dirty hand-sorting, and the nearby Asian rivers spew tons of plastic... it starts to sound wrong on many levels. That happy recycle-triangle symbol starts to take on a different meaning.

Agreed. I'd heard about it, have been rather stunned at the scale as I learn more.

It's similar to how so much of our manufacturing has been transferred to Asia. In doing so they've taken a lot of sources of pollution with them, moving it from our shores to lesser developed nations.

[boatpoker]

Greta's time would have been better spent in India.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeDY3I841q0

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Oh, that's a great idea...

If Everyone Lived Liked Americans, How Many Earths Would We Need?
(Answer 4+ if we all live like Canadians, or Americans)

In reality, this is where the planet is headed. Which is why we need to get off this rock, or better still, learn to share more equitably.

As for your "forced redistribution" I assume you take the same stance on governments collecting tax dollars to support things like infrastructure, environmental laws and the military. All this is "forced redistribution" by your definition.

You don't like your tax dollars supporting the needy. I don't want mine to buy more bullets. But as your esteemed Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once put it: "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

Mike, what are you smoking. Do you really have a problem with successful nations? Maybe we need to back to the dark ages. Europeans. Scandinavians and Australians seem to be doing OK along with others. Your diatribe made no sense. I don't think anything was inferred giving to the actual needy was a sin or taxes for infrastructure. Ammo, try being a pacifist the next time it is needed.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Cadence

Mike, what are you smoking. Do you really have a problem with successful nations? Maybe we need to back to the dark ages. Europeans. Scandinavians and Australians seem to be doing OK along with others. Your diatribe made no sense. I don't think anything was inferred giving to the actual needy was a sin or taxes for infrastructure. Ammo, try being a pacifist the next time it is needed.

Wow, "diatribe"?? Really??? All I did was point out that making everyone wealthy like us would demand 4+ Earths (as calculated based on the per-capita resource use of Americans). I then pointed out how amusing it is that "forced redistribution" is simply taxation which pays for a lot of things that not everyone agrees with.

Try insulting less and reading more. We'll all get along better.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Thanks for the site Cyan. Love data visualization. Pretty revealing stuff.

Be careful how you interpret that data. As I posted earlier, it's been taken badly out of context by the media.


It's talking about "river borne plastics". That's estimated to be anywhere between 10% and 50% of global ocean plastic pollution. ( Yep, there are huge error bars all over the relevant data)

[OneHullPaul]

Perhaps your humble opinion could use some data?

Originally Posted by Cadence

A good point. Look at the nations with polluted rivers, drinking water, pouring into the oceans of the world. Not found in the developed nations.
I can't deny plastics are a problem. Not so much emissions, warming and cooling has been cyclical since the beginning of time. I can't deny we are making a contribution but nothing like the hype would infer. JMHO

[paralog]

Originally Posted by Sputnik

I recently went to the Red Sea, Egypt, and was appalled by the quantity of plastic floating in the water. Please have a look at this petition....something really needs to be done.

https://www.change.org/p/un-secretar...ect-our-oceans

Thank you.

Neil

Why did you not jump ashore and tell the locals that they have to clean up their plastic - please let us know what the response is you get from them.

After many shoreline cleanups here in British columbia the majority of junk comes from industry, fish farms and commericial fishing boats not from plastics straws or pop bottles.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by StuM

Be careful how you interpret that data. As I posted earlier, it's been taken badly out of context by the media.

It's talking about "river borne plastics". That's estimated to be anywhere between 10% and 50% of global ocean plastic pollution. ( Yep, there are huge error bars all over the relevant data)

Thanks Stu. Yes, good point.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Oh, that's a great idea...

If Everyone Lived Liked Americans, How Many Earths Would We Need?
(Answer 4+ if we all live like Canadians, or Americans)

That’s rubbish. As people grow more wealthy they procreate less. They have more time and resources to solve really large problems. These same wrong predictions were made 50 years ago. The planet cannot feed X billion people, for example, or we’ll run out of oil or any number of other doomsday scenarios. Of course they were wrong. And this time they are wrong again. The pessimism of so-called academics in the face of so many wrong predictions of doom is staggering.

The solution is to make as many people as possible wealthy, smarter and improve the standard of living all over the world. Rich people don’t want wars. Poor people start wars.

And yes, I do support taxes used for infrastructure. We need bullets too. Else we would have no need for infrastructure.

[Hardhead]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Actually I am in favor of making everyone wealthy. There are plenty of ways to make that happen. But I know of not one person who became wealthy from receiving cash via welfare. Forced redistribution (welfare) makes everyone less wealthy and is the road to ruination.

Except corporate welfare of course. We just spent a few trillion of our tax dollars on that. Does that count? They stayed extremely wealthy, and we did it.