NOT Just the Garbage Patch

[S/V Adeline]

I truly wish all those who advocate nuclear energy would logically explain how our great-great-great grandchildren will dispose of the *spent* nuclear fuel rods. As someone who delivered said enriched rods to powerplants all over the NE U.S., I know for a fact we delivered 36+ rods to a single facility in a single day. Multiple times to same facility in 3 months. All while removing said rods was illegal at the time.
All spent rods remain in the cooling ponds until it becomes legal to move them to the burial grounds out west...where they remain radioactive for a half life of ??? 10,000 yrs???
How is that green and environmentally sound?

[StuM]

You may like to start by reading this:
https://grist.org/article/next-gen-n...if-we-want-it/


There may not be any spent nuclear fuel rods to dispose of. They will likely be fuelling our great-great-great grandchildren power stations

https://phys.org/news/2014-08-next-g...materials.html


https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ioactive-waste

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by S/V Adeline

I truly wish all those who advocate nuclear energy would logically explain how our great-great-great grandchildren will dispose of the *spent* nuclear fuel rods. As someone who delivered said enriched rods to powerplants all over the NE U.S., I know for a fact we delivered 36+ rods to a single facility in a single day. Multiple times to same facility in 3 months. All while removing said rods was illegal at the time.
All spent rods remain in the cooling ponds until it becomes legal to move them to the burial grounds out west...where they remain radioactive for a half life of ??? 10,000 yrs???
How is that green and environmentally sound?

It's the best worst option. That's what makes it "green."

The best option for the environment is for all of us here in the developed world to stop using so much of the planet. We consume, per capita, way more than our fair share of global resources to sustain our lifestyles. So the answer for us is to use a lot less, and that means living a lot smaller.

But that's a non-starter in our consumer-capitalist ideology, so the pragmatic approach then requires we look for the next best options. Nuclear, and pipelines, are some of these "best worst options."

[barnakiel]

No. Smaller print is not an option. It is, possibly, hard-wired into us to want more. We all want more. Scarce few want less.



I think most new boat offerings are 50' and 60' now.



When we look at other species we discover they too want more. Where they do not get more, this is only on the border with another species that makes claims on exactly the same resources.


In the past, famine and wars limited these pressures. But now the war is being externalized just like a lot of pollution is. Huge swathes of the world have been peacefully growing populations at a good clip over last 50 years or so.


Even if we dream in a wildest dash of imagination the situation that some enlightened nations of the North (a concept, non existent at present) limit their growth, then there are Africa, South America and Asia, and so that noble attempt at self-extinction of five meagre intellectuals does nothing to the situation, globally.


Perhaps we have come to a point and that's that. Sad to watch but nothing much to do except for trying to avoid individual harm.


b.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

No. Smaller print is not an option. It is, possibly, hard-wired into us to want more. We all want more. Scarce few want less....
When we look at other species we discover they too want more. Where they do not get more, this is only on the border with another species that makes claims on exactly the same resources.

Ah... we have a disagreement. Fun, fun .

I don't think greed, perpetual growth and hording of resources is hard-wired; not in Homo Sapiens and not in any other critter that lives on this planet. It's easy to observe that all animals seek resources sufficient to their need, but don't overtly exceed. The same pattern is easily seen in historic resource use in our Indigenous peoples around the world, and in the few remaining hunter-gather communities.

Species as a whole certainly do over-extract and can collapse their eco-systems with over-consumption. But that has to do with population growth, not individual greed.

All animals, including humans, are hard-wired to acquire enough resources. It takes a deeply dysfunctional ideology like consumer-capitalism to distort this basic nature.

[NorthernMac]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

The cotton gin (patented in 1794) had zero to do with ending slavery in the US (1865). Do you even know what it does? The cotton gin doesn't plant, tend or harvest the cotton crop. Please stop spreading that racist lie.



It's not 'greenies' who have prevented more nuclear development. It's lazy governments and oil-funded politicians.

That’s funny.

So as time went on how many workers are in the fields picking cotton?

None. Science and invention be racist!!


Point to the obesity thing is folks simply don’t have to use their bodies as much as they used to, with modern food systems food is more plentiful and some of it has a ton of calories, which can be both good and bad. Good news is the chance of you starving to death in the modern world is MUCH lower than back in the 1800s, but it’s much easier to be and stay fat. Seems like a pretty good trade if you ask me.

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by S/V Adeline

Having spent far more time in retail than I care to remember, I can tell you this: we live in a society who, for the most part, doesn't want to purchase something that isn't *new*. I have literally dealt with those who require an item be opened to verify fit/function/compatibility or whatever, then refuse to purchase that item ^^insisting on the same item in a sealed package^^
Literally had a salesman do this to me yesterday for my water pump">raw water pump impeller. *HE* opened the package to verify I don't even remember what, then resealed it, put it back, and got me another one (identical) and stated here, this one hasn't been opened. I honestly didn't have words...

Personally I want the opened one as know it’s right

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by NorthernMac

That’s funny.

So as time went on how many workers are in the fields picking cotton?

None. Science and invention be racist!!

If you don't know what a cotton gin is, just ask.

However, like many inventors, Whitney (who died in 1825) could not have foreseen the ways in which his invention would change society for the worse. The most significant of these was the growth of slavery. While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for slaves to grow and pick the cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that it greatly increased their demand for both land and slave labor. In 1790 there were six slave states; in 1860 there were 15. From 1790 until Congress banned the importation of slaves from Africa in 1808, Southerners imported 80,000 Africans. By 1860 approximately one in three Southerners was a slave.

Because of the cotton gin, slaves now labored on ever-larger plantations where work was more regimented and relentless. As large plantations spread into the Southwest, the price of slaves and land inhibited the growth of cities and industries. In the 1850s seven-eighths of all immigrants settled in the North, where they found 72% of the nation's manufacturing capacity. The growth of the "peculiar institution" was affecting many aspects of Southern life.

there's your "just like how slaves were replaced by the cotton gin." right there.

[barnakiel]

Arghhh.


And so we have not saved the world again.


I am surprised many people put so much stress on 'us'.


The way I see this it is beyond us. The way I see this today is the powers that be (administration, businesses) far outweigh us and act in stupid ways that create more wealth for the already wealthy ones while destroying air, water and life quality for everybody.


But it is good to read the many takes and attitudes. Many ideas are better then none. Clearly I am frustrated but at least I do not feel like I am the only one getting creeps from watching the situation.


Some say everything is fine, and I bet it is where they live.


b.

[OloteleMtn]

Not fine where I live, but no one wants to change their trash throwing behaviors, and they hate me for mentioning it. Stores are full of Chinese plastic crap, and when it breaks, they throw it in my yard or in the bushes.

[billgewater]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

As is well known from your 'arguments' and 'contributions' to numerous global warming and similar-type threads, your opinion and bias almost always seem to cloud your perceptions.

Not really sure how much of that long-ago Stage 1 university class on geology stuck, because the divisions and names of geological periods have always been somewhat arbitrary and subject to revision, as more information is discovered, more theories are accepted and different disciplines are incorporated into the field. Any comparison of geology textbooks from different periods in time will support this.

The very fact that you don't seem to be able to comprehend that man's (and life in general's) effect of the geosphere is very signifigant indeed, or that a deep understanding of the geosphere cannot be had without the study of chemistry, succintly illustrates exactly how much your opinion of this is "worth reading or listening too".

If you'd actually paid attention to any of the numerous popular or scientific literature on it (or apparently anything else on the subject), you'd know that the 'agricultural revolution' was the real beginning of man's recognizable imprint on the geosphere, at least with the technology we have now, though with technological development we may find that there are other signatures that go back as far as 40-60K years, concurrent with the evolution of the 'modern' human brain.

As for the 'stratigraphic series' that "will be observable as the "anthropocene" boundary in a few hundred thousand years time", in no particular order;
glacial deposit fluctuations, carbon isotope signatures, soil structure, reef migration and growth-rate variation, coccolithopore and foraminifera distribution and population changes, mining and other land-use type features (such as monoculture, both floral and faunal), the list goes on and on.

Quite interesting that you don't seem to realize that, geologically speaking, there is really no difference in now and 15,000 years ago.

One of the things that will make the Anthropocene so striking is the abruptness of it's onset, which could only be rivaled by a large asteroid strike or a super-volcano eruption (>1000 Km3). Wouldn't be hard to imagine the future (extraterrestrial?) geologists scratching their heads in search of the crater or impact zone, until they bring their version of a biologist (to examine the preponderance of a single species or three), or a chemist (to explain the existance and ubiquity of a non-naturally occured element [plastic]).

But I think it's just better to follow your advice that your opinion on this subject from here out is "not worth reading or listening too".

A fairly detailed description and discussion re the Anthropocene can be found in "The Human Planet how we Created the Anthropocene" by Simon Lewis, Professor of Global Change Science at University College London and University of Leeds and Mark A. Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science at UCL and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Scholar (ISBN 978 0241 28088 1). The field of those who study and research the entire gamut of issues have seemed to settle largely on a common indicator in the fossil records. Plastics. But there are many pervasive ubiquitous indicators of man's changes to this planet. At the introduction they quote Aristotle from Nicomanchean Ethics , c. 359 BC 'What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not do." To deny the concept of the Anthropocene seems incredulous. To accept that it is very difficult for an individual to make effective changes is fairly realistic, but to morally accept that it is all OK is an exercise in rampant stupidity.

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by billgewater

A fairly detailed description and discussion re the Anthropocene can be found in "The Human Planet how we Created the Anthropocene" by Simon Lewis, Professor of Global Change Science at University College London and University of Leeds and Mark A. Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science at UCL and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Scholar (ISBN 978 0241 28088 1). The field of those who study and research the entire gamut of issues have seemed to settle largely on a common indicator in the fossil records. Plastics. But there are many pervasive ubiquitous indicators of man's changes to this planet. At the introduction they quote Aristotle from Nicomanchean Ethics , c. 359 BC 'What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not do." To deny the concept of the Anthropocene seems incredulous. To accept that it is very difficult for an individual to make effective changes is fairly realistic, but to morally accept that it is all OK is an exercise in rampant stupidity.

Well, I never was a big fan of morals...hope I haven't given the impression that I think this catastrophic-for-all-lifeforms-higher-than-a-protist, narci-solipsistic, obliviously-driven-by-the adoption-of-'free-market'-principles (regardless of political 'flavor') dilemma is 'OK'. It is not.

However, its' inevitability is open to debate...

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

...That is, if today's children get their act together.

If they don't, all bets are off...

This, perhaps, could offer to some at least a glimmer of 'hope'.

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

[barnakiel]

Very interesting.


If only we had more people with his mindset, and fewer with the mindset as depicted in the insets at the start of this video. Specially the guy in blonde wig.


Unfortunately, we cannot clone the programming genius and replace the remaining part of our societies. This guy is one in ??? millions?


Say one in a million. Not enaf. Not enaf.0x0D0A


b.

[Nicholson58]

The top ten rivers contribute 90% of the total plastic pollution to the seas. The next ten are also horrible.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...in-the-oceans/

The Focused removal and disposal effort applied at only ten points is the low hanging fruit and worth the resources of the world to handle. Consider that these places do not manufacture plastic. One wonders why they consume so much? Why can it not be eliminated? These and other third world places also have no means to recycle even the easy stuff. In much of the Caribbean the Single use bag and other similar packaging is prohibited or on the way out. Their only means to recycle is to put the trash on a ship to the US or other recycle capable country. Totally prohibitive. The usual argument by producers and packagers is that they are using recyclable materials. While this is true, it is impractical to impossible to a large extent. The position does not wash.

These places also tend to be the worst polluters of other materials, sewage, etc.

This does not mean we should ignore our close to home sources. If we can find alternates and methods that work at home we can probably apply them at the most egregious places. Finding alternates to all single use packaging is the only way to eliminate this waste stream worldwide. Massive clean up efforts applied only to local waste streams without eliminating the source is futile. If we were 100% effective on all of these sources the 90% would still remain.