Bits of plastic particles were recently discovered above eastern China, with new research showing that these microplastics could influence cloud formation and the weather.
A group of scientists from Shandong University in China collected cloud water atop Mount Tai, finding microplastics in 24 out of 28 samples. They include polyethylene terephthalate (otherwise known as PET), polypropylene, polyethylene and polystyrene, all particles commonly found in synthetic fibers, clothing and textiles, as well as packaging and face masks.
“This finding provides significant evidence of the presence of abundant MP’s [microplastics] in clouds,” the researchers stated in the paper published today in Environmental Science and Technology Letters.
I feel sorry for the peasants that still have hope. Humanity is fucked by its own hand in the name of private short term profit for a few thousand sociopath families.
We are for one reason or another wholly unwilling to forcibly disempower these people, forcibly shutter all non-essential (essential being medical supplies, baby formula, staple crops, etc, non-essential being playstations, luxury suvs, the most polluting livestock, etc) manufacturing, forcibly remove their hold on government and their own industry’s regulators, and forcibly use their assets to begin to address the damage the owner class has done. It isn’t even being discussed. It isn’t even being considered.
Therefore, there is no hope. If we aren’t willing to address the root cause, and we aren’t, all our symptom chasing is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Hey, the capitalists have more bullshit to SELL world governments as the newest vaporware solution to their destruction! What is it this week?
Ethanol Hydrogen clean coaloh yeah, planet scale carbon filters! Yeah that’s the ticket! They’re very expensive, that’s what makes them good!I’ve found peace with this. Even our level of carelessness with technologies we never considered the externalities of won’t be enough to destroy all life on our Mother Earth. She will recover from us, just as she did from the Chicxulub asteroid and the mass extinctions before that. As the great George Carlin said, the Earth will heal itself and cleanse itself because that’s what it is, a self correcting system that has been here long before us and will be here long after us.
We were just another mistake of biology. Just another failed mutation. An evolutionary cul-de-sac.
Homo-sapien is not unlike the trees from 300 million years ago that there were no biological mechanisms to decompose yet, which caused a massive ice age due to lack of atmospheric carbon. The carboniferous period, only we cause the reverse through insatiable selfishness.
Amen to that.
Only around 10-12% of expanded polystyrene (EPS) is recycled across the US, and according to a Cleveland State University study, nearly 30% of US landfill space is taken up by EPS.
Makes you wonder where the other 58-60% of EPS ends up.
Not to doubt that those numbers are accurate (it’s probably worse honestly), but the citation for that quote leads to a broken link on a Utah recycling site. It probably mostly goes to a landfill but they were probably saying that 30% of the total makeup of US landfills is EPS; not that only 30% of all EPS actually gets there.
The link opens for me. Here’s a screenshot.
There’s a link within that article that would presumably go to the source of those numbers at “https://recycleutah.org/what-the-styrofoam/” but it seems like that article is broken on that site.
Ah, my apologies. I misunderstood.
Shit.
We’re literally drowning in shit everywhere now and seem utterly unable to even tap the brakes to make it better.
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Half memories from 3rd grade science…
Water droplets must form around impurities. The those microplastics aren’t just going to rain down on us, they’re the founding particles of that rain.
Oh crap
