Carbon negative

[large_ghostman]

SURELY you trust NASSA? https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/b...stic-where-is-all-our-plastic/comment-page-1/

Note this little quote

"Recent calculations project that by 2050 there be more plastic in the ocean than fish" Direct from that page, but no i am just emotional and you personally have never thrown any plastic litter out of a window...I know I know. we got bigger problems, like they might take all our guns away

 

[tcmtech]

"Recent calculations project that by 2050 there be more plastic in the ocean than fish"

Scaremongering BS targeted at the closed and weak minded. There are more microbes, bacteria and viruses in your body than there are functional human cells yet you're not turning to a puddle of bio hazardous goo as we speak. See the problem with comparing numbers without putting them in the proper contexts.

Just throwing around scary sounding arbitrary numbers without realistic comparative values (mass, volume, concentration, threshold values, etc) doesn't mean anything in real science and you should know better.

I know you feel strongly and that's the problem, You're feeling emotionally not thinking rationally. It's what kids and emotionally immature adults with very weak understandings and experiences of reality do best. It's also why those who do have a grasp on things do their damnedest to not let those people have any real control of anything that matter to us all.

Science isn't a democracy or a 'feel's convention' where the majority or those who feel the strongest get to be right.

And no, I don't always trust NASA or any major agency that been accused of or even caught pandering to poltical agendas to score easy grant money. This ain't my first day of watching this pseudoscience scaremongering clown show so I know better.

As for your guns, maybe you got some real issues to deal with but over here we certainly don't. An annoyance and an inconvenience being driven by a bunch of idealistic starry eyed ignorant kids that are being badly manipulated and taken advantage of by some dangerous anti liberty nutjobs and that's about it.

Contrary to what the media wants to show things as, the sect of our society that has all the guns also controls the vast majority of everything else the keeps this country going too right at the base levels where the real work gets done. Farming, transportation, manufacturing , military, law enforcement, infrastructure construction and upkeep. They are all kept functional by the decent rational minded majority of this country that own all the guns and everything else that actually matters.

Pretty hard to take everyone's guns away when the very law and military entities that would be required to do it are made up almost entirely of those who will fight and die to support the right to bear arms. Even harder to take over country when your opposition owns and controls everything you need to stay alive and functional while doing it and you're to stupid to realize it.

You might be screwed but we will be fine here. The leftists will fuss and whine (even louder ) and go even lower in their pandering and general absurdity and as a result even more will start to oppose them for it. The further and lower they go to the left the more of their opposition ends up to the right and above of them.

 

[large_ghostman]

When you start calling papers written by top scientists and published in nature BS, or doubt figures given by bodies like NASSA, you loose your credibility. you said you were up on the figures, so i am going to guess you think your GOV is just wasting your precious money spending all that cash on trying to clean up the oceans. Surely it would be better spent giving you a tax break?

As I pointed out that was a single paper from Nature, there are a great many other in the same publication, this is what NASSA partly based there data on, that and images taken from space. I am really amazed your not a flat earth person, how did someone convince you the earth was round ?? especially as the bit you stand on is flat?

This is such a pointless argument, it really dosnt matter what you think or believe. We have enough men of science that people believe for governments to take action, most recently England and the plastic recovery scheme.

The guns comment was a joke, personally i would arm most of you

 

[tcmtech]

When you start calling papers written by top scientists and published in nature BS,

When did I do that?

Putting your narrative in my mouth doesn't make it true.

you said you were up on the figures, so i am going to guess you think your GOV is just wasting your precious money spending all that cash on trying to clean up the oceans.

When did I say that either?

I think you're reading what you want to see, because of your emotional bias, into what I am posting, not what's actually there.

Surely it would be better spent giving you a tax break?

Would you rather spend your money on what you see fit or be forced to spend it on things you disagree with that might just go against you and countless others personal freedoms and general well being? That one's not to hard to figure out.

If you think forcing your views and wants others and making them pay for what you want while they should not be allowed to disagree and refute you is the right way to handle life you're part of the problem not the solution you think you are.

As I pointed out that was a single paper from Nature, there are a great many other in the same publication, this is what NASSA partly based there data on, that and images taken from space.

So one paper means everything (because you believe in it) yet all others that may have valid reason and method dodisa gree and disprove it don't?

I am really amazed your not a flat earth person, how did someone convince you the earth was round ?? especially as the bit you stand on is flat?

Really? You're going for false narrative personal attacks rather than bring solid facts to the table now? You are aware of what types of people use that tactic and when, right? You sure you want to be one of them?

The thing is, I'm more than twice your age and have studied environmental, plus countless other, related and unrelated topics and issues for as long or longer than you have been alive. I may not know everything but I do have a pretty good understanding of just how impossibly complex our world and our actual place in it is including the BS politics behind certain sects beliefs, wants and agendas too.

I also have a pretty solid understanding of which sides track record has been one dismal fail after another in having their claims and predictions ever come even remotely close to being accurate let alone real.

For your age you are way smarter than most adults but unlike aged and experienced adults you have a extremely limited volume of experience and breadth of understanding of the greater things in play.

Especially the part of how certain sects have extremely bad agendas (noble cause but horrific understandings and approaches to its validity and justifications) that use high level indoctrination brainwashing tactics based almost entirely on false emotional feelgood premises and pseudoscience generated data, to get others to blindly follow them using extremely, near blind, narrow views of reality and real fact.

You're upset with me over my saying there is way more in play here than what your wild imaginations of reality, or me, lead you to correctly understand and know because you're letting your emotional biases over rule your logic and fact based reasoning. Same with whats blooding you to reality that there may be a lot more bad politics pushing what you believe in and the data you are willing got accept than you care to admit to. Not my problem, yours.

This is such a pointless argument, it really dosnt matter what you think or believe. We have enough men of science that people believe for governments to take action, most recently England and the plastic recovery scheme.

You have people but the science and validations behind the agendas is quite questionable. As for having the masses behind your beliefs, that's rather why your area of the world is falling apart for very stupid reasons.
For example, I know you fight stupid regulations day in and day out just to do simple benign things and it getting worse fast.

So have you actually ever thought things through as to why? The masses voted for you to have to live that way, that's why! Welcome to your own prison cell in the hell you voted yourselves into because you feel that the wants, and obvious piss poor understanding of fact and reality or the consequences of acting without knowing, of the majority makes things right!

Sure, you probably can make lots of money helping that cause, but you're just making it to blindly fund the further construction of your own hellish ever growing restrictive misery and in the end that's just going to take that money away from you to use it to fund other fools new pet projects you won't agree with, because their reasoning and facts don't add up any better than yours did either, but since they have the majority, they get to decide what's right for you anyway.
Just as you did to someone else with your cause you felt really strongly about.

And to really rub lemon juice in the wound, you can't actually technically disagree with or fight it because you yourself felt that majority rule makes things true and right, because that's how you got your agenda pushed through at some else's expense as well, because it was the right thing to do by your views and you were right and they were wrong and they just couldn't see it despite they have a ton of data and experience that said you were who was in the wrong.

Think it though because this rabbit hole of righteous social change and pseudo environmentalism BS you're going down isn't a rabbit hole with a cute fuzzy little bunny at the bottom that wants to be your best friend for life. It a dragons nest and what's waiting at the bottom will eat you once you're in far enough.

 

[large_ghostman]

Emotional bias? no your confusing me with someone else.

So you agree then, plastic in the Ocean is a problem?

my desire to do something about certain issues is commercially based and backed by science, emotion dosnt come into it. I want to do something about it because its where my main talent is and i see money in it.
That aside, i think most most rational human beings find pictures of the devastation we cause distressing, people living in poverty is distressing. Oil to me is a precious resource that is treated like it was some kind of never ending resource.

Go back through everything you have stated is BS and find me scientific evidence to back it up as BS. not some mickey mouse site but a decent peer reviewed paper written in the last 10 years.

 

[tcmtech]

Emotional bias? no your confusing me with someone else.

How do you figure that? I only replied to you so far and you're the one making conflicting cases for justifying your views while also pandering to emotional implications to justify your views that I am a bad person for not wanting what you want.

So you agree then, plastic in the Ocean is a problem?

Only when it reaches a level that has statistical significance above and beyond typical natural min and max influences of any other variable.

Beyond that I could care less how much of your money you want to burn up chasing your dreams. It's yours and I won't stand in your way but don't expect me to lift a finger to fund your wants at my expense if I disagree with them unless you want to fund what I care about at yours and I can guarantee that no matter what you want I want the opposite at exactly the same financial value you place on yours.

my desire to do something about certain issues is commercially based and backed by science, emotion does not come into it. I want to do something about it because its where my main talent is and i see money in it.

Viable commercial operation requires gainful value to justify itself. If you have to force others, who disagree with your views, to pay for your wants it's no longer commercially viable. Only an emotional driven person would wish to pursue something that's own viability can be easily disproved with basic numbers and logic like wanting to filter out millions of tons of micro plastic bits from quadrillions of tons of already dirty sea water to clean up the environment when it would take the burning of vastly more tons of hydrocarbon fuels and money than the total mass of plastic that could be removed represents on any ecological gain/loss comparison value equivalent.
That seems pretty environmentally and financially counter productive to the point that the only way to justify it is as an emotional 'feel good' and not a rational logic based action.

That aside, i think most most rational human beings find pictures of the devastation we cause distressing, people living in poverty is distressing. Oil to me is a precious resource that is treated like it was some kind of never ending resource.

Again , pandering to emotion to make your point. Reality is that most people who live crappy lives live them by their own actions and limitations. Science can't fix willfully lazy and stupid nor does it justify forcing those who are willing to work and learn to give up the rewards of their earnings to help those who wont help themselves.

Say you do well on your work and start making lots of money. Is it fair to then say you make 20x what any poverty level person makes and therefor to help others who have less than you I can force you to live as they do in a barely above poverty status whilst still working your butt off so that it can lift 19 others who do and know nothing up to your now equally crappy minimalistic but not dead poverty level of life?
What logical rational science says that 19 others do not have to work or contribute in any way because your efforts can pay for them if you are knocked down in your life standards of function and capacity by a factor of 20? How good are you going to feel about working your butt off to be exactly where those who do absolutely nothing are?

That's the whole problem with worst case scenario isolated cases situations and wishfull idealistic thinking being put behind them. They do not define the whole or norm of an issue nor account for real fairness toward who are affected for good or bad in any way by said circumstances.

Neither does ignoring the reality of how much positive change has been done in the past to get where were are now in comparison to where we once were. For decades every major city on any coastline dumped its raw garbage in the oceans. Now they don't so how do they know all that plastic is not remnants from that time and not from recent times and if any is how do they know where it came from and who deserves the real blame and responsibility for it?

How do you define that something is worse than ever without having solid wide ranging irrefutable multi level proof of so without factoring in the ongoing influences of given past events or the actions that lead up to them that may not actually be in play anymore?

Go back through everything you have stated is BS and find me scientific evidence to back it up as BS. not some mickey mouse site but a decent peer reviewed paper written in the last 10 years.

I have no clue what you are referring to. Do you think that just because someone works for XYZ that their data and work is irrefutably correct even when countless smaller lesser known independent research people and agencies have came out and refuted them? (you yourself do that sort of work.) How much research do you do every day in your life that is directly intended to refute the common blindly accepted to be correct and true claims of experts employed anywhere? You can't have it both ways.

You are aware that way too much of our world environmental science is severely tainted by highly questionable political influences now, right? How many times have the envor nutter claims and bad poltical policies that were being built on the of XYZ being true been blown up by scandals now? Too many to not want to go around with unwavering question as to the validity and accuracy of what any singular research agency that is heavily politically funded. Thats how many.

You're young ambitious and idealistic. I get it, I was like that once too. That's normal for your age but that doesn't invalidate or outweigh the experience and wisdom of those who have been at life way longer that you have. Especially when it comes to understanding real human nature and politics and huge ranges of manipulative dirty dealing BS that goes behind all of it to get the young ambitious and idealistic to sign on to dangerously bad agendas for what they in fact are not.

 

[large_ghostman]

Tiny problem with your scenario, something myself and others have spotted. Any plastic above 0% in the Ocean is a problem, the simple fact is Oceans were (sorry i mean Ocean seeing as we only have one) not designed to contain any plastic. There is no bacteria or other organism that was intentionally put on the planet to feed on plastic, this is a problem.

take one of the many chemicals plastic leach in a chloride environment, and indecently contrary to idiotic belief do not degrade in any way shape or form, these enter the food chain. Speaking of which if you applt the rules or organic strictly, no wild fish are now legit to call Oranic because ALL contain chemicals they shouldnt contain at levels above those we except as safe. That alone means according to statistical significance, anything above 0% is a probable. Now go look up the actual amount in the general marine environment, look at pcb's as one example, even add 10% on me for your stats, then come back and tell me there is zero problem.

As for money, alot of it is being spent to get this stuff back out of places it dosnt belong, that alone is a profit. Add in a method to recover alot of the cost and there is more profit. My gut feeling is you looked at a couple of beaches somewhere and saw a few bits of plastic, you then extrapolated from that the amount of plastic you assume is in the Ocean. Others have actually gone out and studied it, weighed measured and recorded the amounts. The figures are so staggering that 70% of every nation on earth has its removal as a priority, including the USA.

So assuming you know something the scientist dont, i would contact your government pronto, you will be significantly rewarded for stopping them wasting money getting plastic out the water. BTW also look up safe limits for organo phosphates as well as pcb's, which are just three of 15 significantly dangerous non degrading chems leaching out that plastic and getting into the food chain. look at the average level contained in any random sample of fish, then decide how significant it is, because your answers prove you dont actually have a clue about the problem. With all due respect.....

 

[tcmtech]

Tiny problem with your scenario, something myself and others have spotted.

What others?
We are the only two in this whole thread so comments like that really don't help reinforce your claims in my views here.

Any plastic above 0% in the Ocean is a problem,

By what unit of measure? 1 lego brick in the whole world is above 0% yet it's ecological impact is how significant? See the problem of needing accurately qualify and quantify the relevance of something. There is always a threshold value (plus numerous other factors) that can't be ignored for convenience of how someone feels about anything. That why the STEM fields are based on scientific process and fact, not 'feels therefore reals' logic.

take one of the many chemicals plastic leach in a chloride environment, and indecently contrary to idiotic belief do not degrade in any way shape or form,

Which chloride? Seawater is a ~35,000 PPM chloride solution all by itself plus there are very few plastics made that have proven have indefinite service lives when exposed to the natural elements. I deal with that problem constantly now when working with things that were made for plastics that are only 40 some years old that were assumed to be near eternal with estimated 1000+ year life expectancies when made.

You're strawmanning with those sort of ambiguous open ended statements that are easily taken apart by a tiny bit of reality.

My gut feeling is you looked at a couple of beaches somewhere and saw a few bits of plastic, you then extrapolated from that the amount of plastic you assume is in the Ocean.

And in comparison how much sand is on that beach? 'Can find' doesn't always equate to world ending disaster. Anyone who has an Giger counter knows how that works. Radiation is everywhere yet there are thresholds to when any form of it becomes plausibly dangerous to be around. 'Radiation found' is not equal to 'deadly because it exists'. There's a threshold level for all of it.

Then there the secondary and tertiary quantifier aspects of what you found. Who made it and how did it get there plus the time factor of how long did it take to get there from when it was made.

If you're on your beach and you find a plastic bottle that came from halfway around the world that was made before you were born in a place that has long since stopped dumping it's garbage in the sea are you at fault for it being there?

Am I at fault if I was alive when it was made and dumped even though I had nothing to do with it? What if it was dumped illegally or got washed out to sea in a natural disaster? then who's fault is it?

Others have actually gone out and studied it, weighed measured and recorded the amounts. The figures are so staggering that 70% of every nation on earth has its removal as a priority, including the USA.

Yes, and pretty much every developed country stopped their legal dumping of garbage in the ocean a long time ago being it's by far the most rational and effective method to deal with the issue. It also makes the who's is it and when did it enter the system parts of the greater equation rather important to know at this point so that we know how to deal with the greater problem properly rather than just blindly throwing other people's money and resources at things and hoping it makes things better without those actions just making new future problems.

Its basic cause and effect analysis where you have to weigh out the realistic significance of the problem and see if the cure is worth it or if it's worse than the disease which is something the blind ambition driven environmental protection sects have been absolutely disterous on doing.

I recently watched a documentary where there was a discussion on the Exxon Valdez cleanup sites where it now being found that where people tried to clean things up they have done far worse and longer lasting damage to the environment than where they did nothing. That's a huge new factor we have to take into consideration before going off half cocked and trying to clean things up we don't fully understand.

Say you do start cleaning up the plastic. How much environmental damage are you going to do due to the volumes of beneficial marine stuffs you are going to take out of the systems while going after PPT concentrations of microplastics assuming you have some sort of magical environmentally neutral cleaning system to begin with, which you won't.

THe ting is, you're not going to screen salt and pepper sized plastic bits out of a million cubic miles of sea water without taking a huge amount of beinfical marine stuff out with it. Nor without burning up countless volumes of other resources that could have been used in more beneficial (or not atall) ways in the act. What's the estimated environmental, financial and social impacts of those things?

They are not zero by a huge margin and had better have some pretty solid self justifying numbers behind them before you ever start to begin with. If not, the odds are you're just going to make things worse than had you done nothing.

So assuming you know something the scientist dont, i would contact your government pronto, you will be significantly rewarded for stopping them wasting money getting plastic out the water.

I don't need to contract anyone, everything I have said so far is well understood by the real experts who's jobs it is to deal with such matters, The problem is with the idealists who don't know or understand the true dynamics and real world cause and effect circumstances of their wants and related approaches.

My contribution is to to not go sticking my head into things that are highly complex and poorly understood and assuming that I know more than everyone else and thusly can fix them with idealistic grossly oversimplified and poorly thought out methods and I wish a lot more followed my lead including my government and who they listen to and why.

BTW also look up safe limits for organo phosphates as well as pcb's, which are just three of 15 significantly dangerous non degrading chems leaching out that plastic and getting into the food chain. look at the average level contained in any random sample of fish, then decide how significant it is, because your answers prove you dont actually have a clue about the problem. With all due respect.....

As with every real life situation it's not a one size fits all value or problem with a simple single action solution. When, where, how much for how long (multivariate problem) has everything to do with it at the end. Same with the cure.

Same again with who or what's the source and why origin points of it all I take no responsibility for things I did not do and have no personal control over nor do I take responsibility for the failings of those who are supposed to enforce the law to stop such actions from happening to begin with either. I also have zero intent to pay those who are supposed to be taking care of this stuff a second time because they failed to do it right the first time as well.

You feel strongly about it so you go burn up your time and money and leave mine alone. I have my own charitable interests to pursue that need my time and money more than I think yours do. That's where I stand in all of this.

Watch this video on the reality of these sorts of issues an you may come to see where I am coming from in all of this. Scott Adams does an excellent job of breaking down the reality of environmental concerns and how the bigger picture behind it needs to be looked at before anything is actually done now or later.

~ First 5 minutes is where you need to watch. https://www.pscp.tv/w/1MYxNpNXknQGw?q=scott+adams.

 

[JimB]

Come on guys, less of the squabbling (deleted).

JimB

 

[tcmtech]

Just to point out, the squabbling wasn't between me and LG.

 

[cowboybob]

I am loath to inject myself into this thread (as it is currently trending), but...

I retired (in 2010) from the SCDNR, having worked at the MRRI division in a variety of positions (as a technician gathering data, not a scientist). The entire complex at the location of the MRRI is referred to as "Fort Johnson" and includes both State and Federal (US) internationally recognized marine research facilities.

Over the years, I participated in a number of both inshore and offshore research projects (and was "read-in" on many others), most of which were not specifically related to pollution but rather aimed at setting baselines for the current (at that time) state of the Marine environment along the Eastern seaboard of the US.

As you might expect, the instrumentation used improved over the years, both in the chemicals that could be identified but also in their sensitivity to detect the levels of those compounds.

That said, I'll also admit that I am not a "tree-hugger": I don't take anecdotal data and turn it into "The sky is falling" calls for ridiculous solutions to ill understood environmental "disasters", such as "Global Warming/Cooling" (**broken link removed**)

But I also cannot refute nor overlook the solid scientific evidence that human generated pollution (in so far as the marine environment is involved) should be of great concern to us all.

In that vein, one of the more egregious findings (by the Federal folks at Ft. Johnson) deals with drugs introduced into oceans. Most notably the well known drugs Xanax and Viagra, both of which have been found in the flesh of the top marine feeders (Tuna, Swordfish, etc.). Now, to be sure, in rather minute levels (PPMs), but there nonetheless.

This should be of great concern since it could only be in these animals as a result of the compounds being flushed (either after use or simply discarded) into the water systems and transported to the pelagic environment, taken up by bacteria and then working their way up the food chain, utterly unchanged: they are not metabolized at any stage. They are now a permanent part of the Oceans.

And impossible to effectively remove.

The same could be said (for the most part) for many other forms of ocean pollution.

All of which is to say that I believe that LG's concerns (humans are making a real mess of the environment) and TCM's solution (quit polluting) are equally legitimate.

 

[shortbus=]

Why is it squabbling to point out that a person that is presented as an environmental expert, Scott Adams, is in reality a cartoonist, that has no environmental training or standing?

Without knowing what else was deleted, I do know what it could have been due to past practices.

 

[JimB]

Without knowing what else was deleted

I deleted two of your posts and two of tcmtechs posts.

It looked like a childish petty squabble to me, so I deleted them.
If you want to ask the other moderators opinion, please do so.

JimB

 

[large_ghostman]

I deleted two of your posts and two of tcmtechs posts.

It looked like a childish petty squabble to me, so I deleted them.
If you want to ask the other moderators opinion, please do so.

JimB

Why would we do that?
Jim if you aint happy with stuff then its your job to delete it, I dont bother censoring myself when i got you around to do it for me

 

[tcmtech]

Why is it squabbling to point out that a person that is presented as an environmental expert, Scott Adams, is in reality a cartoonist, that has no environmental training or standing? .

Who presented him as such? I didn't. Plus neither he or anyone else in mainstream scientific communities makes any claims of his being an environmental expert either so where is your claim coming from, that can't be equated to you trying to project a blind false narrative to make your view credible in your mind.

Also, just because someone is well known for one thing does not negate the reality that they may have high level skills in any number of other areas that are simply less known by the general public. Your lack of knowledge, plus uninformed false projections, of someone elses abilities and experience doesn't diminish the validity of their actual knowledge, skill and or work in them.

Of which he does have solid proven education plus experience in business management and financial analysis related work which is a huge part of how anyone can determine what the range and scope of a problem is and to what possible realistic solutions can be put towards it.

Now since you clearly didn't get what I linked to him for,

It was because he does a good job of explaining the bigger picture of why it's necessary to not do anything until everyone from all sides can agree on the solid irrefutable baseline numbers and data sets that accurately describes the range and scope of a problem, including likely collateral damages, plus cost of implementation plans worked out for fixing it, made up in real world numbers that take into account more than just what present real world conditions and technology have to offer.

And beyond that, not just having one solution senario worked out but as many as you can possibly rationally come up with, which is what I have been leading LG towards seeing and taking into account right from the get go.

You can be as blind emotion driven as you can get about your or any imagined problem or solution, but if the numbers don't add up it's just an exercise in false agenda projectionism and futility. Even more so if anyone else can tear your claims apart with minimal use of real data and numbers relating to you imaginations just by giving them a basic real world definable perspective. .

(rather like playing dumb and making ignorant claims and thinking you won't get called out on any of it then getting shut down with basic easily found and proven facts)

 

[tcmtech]

All of which is to say that I believe that LG's concerns (humans are making a real mess of the environment) and TCM's solution (quit polluting) are equally legitimate.

Yes, exactly but with the caveat of what are the real life known and proven historical trends showing and what is changing in and of them.

For example,
https://www.epa.gov/air-pollution-t...ents-and-success-air-pollution-transportation
Contrary to what the uniformed half wits are screaming about our air quality nationwide is not getting worse. It getting better despite considerable gains in growth of our nation on every measurable level.

Plus beyond our air most every natural resource has shown similar quality improvements in the same timeline.

If someone is screaming that things are worse than ever yet the cold hard facts say things have improved then their claims are wrong no matter how strongly they feel about it.

Sure, pharmaceutical waste pollutant numbers are going up but how do they measure p in the bigger picture from back in the day when we were dumping raw untreated sewage, garbage, and industrial waste and now well known toxic farming chemicals in our water systems?

Historical bigger picture comparisons of past levels and actions need to be put into play to define the true measure and scope of to today's perceived problems too to give them some real world comparative perspectives.

Same with defining who is actually responsible for what and to what degree and when and to what level do they and every/anyone else hold in both the creation of the problem and what is or should be happening to fix it.

Plus beyond that, pinning down what and how many key variables are in play on all levels rather than taking a single data set to represent the whole of something, when all of the subsets of data it was derived from, may show something completely opposite of what the grossly oversimplified data string implies.

If one person is making huge fuss about something being really bad yet another can easily put their concerns in a much bigger fact based view and reduce them down to being highly questionable, that usually says the emotionally driven person has in fact not put a full range and scope of rational thought and understanding into the what they are upset about, but rather let their emotions and imagination get the better of them.

Is having a wasp in your house now really as bad or worse then when you once had a hungry bear?

 

[large_ghostman]

Ok we are upsetting the Mods, lets not upset Jim. So a few rules for the thread...

I am researching both a long blog piece and the subject in general for another reason, having a counter argument can be useful. So the rules are.............

No emotion and no use of words like BS, act professional and back up what you say (this is directed to everyone), i will post up everything I know so far and provide quality journal references to back it up, if people keep emotion out of it i can promise its actually really interesting as a topic. The time line is 30-40 years.

Its interesting to see the papers from back then and read the newer research, there is a problem and i will try and prove this using quality scientific research. I will present my case for the environmental side, anyone else can present a case for the opposition. A couple of things however, where possible use journal references and papers, if you use wikipedia then make sure you include the paper reference they used, because i guarantee i will go read the paper.

Mopst wont have access to non open access journal stuff, but alot of the info is in the abstracts. If you feel the paper helps proves your point contact me with the DOI number, it is legal for me to share a paper for personal use under current scientific publishing rules. I will retrieve the paper for you (if its one i have access to). And send you a link from my server to download it. Dont post full non open access papers in the thread (like i did!).

Just reference it, dont bother using links to blogs and opinions, you start using opinions instead of peer reviewed data and your going to get ignored ok.

At the end we hold a poll with a simple question, Is Ocean plastic a critical problem we need to deal with, something CBB said makes m,e want to widen it to pollution in general, especially contraception chemicals in water and the effect on fish and even humans. Hasnt anyone wondered why my generation are alot less hairy than most of the older generation? But we will leave that for another debate.
Lets keep it civil and decent, if Jim keeps popping up to delete stuff then we lock it.

This is an engineering forum, while its hobby based we should be able to hold a decent debate in a civil manner. Most non fidget spinners here are intelligent, so lets see if we can can have a decent discussion.

I will post again starting from 30-40 years ago, then gradually start to bring in new material. I would like people to see the changes in the last few decades, who knows, maybe we can one day even discuss Climate change in some kind of civil manner.

LG

 

[large_ghostman]

TCM, dont use sources who cant back up opinion with scientific fact, it might support your case but unless its been peer reviewed and published its just another keyboard warrior with better spelling and grammar than i have. But that dont make what he says a fact! As above feel free to use google Scholar, you find any decent abstracts then if poss i will get and share the relevant paper for you under the current personal use clause.

 

[large_ghostman]

Dont go throwing random facts about like more microbes than cells in a body. Factually this is incorrect, 'in a body' means inside a body and is factually not correct. If you include all microbes in and ON the body then the accepted new ratio is 1.3 -1 which is a considerable downgrade from the old figure.

What you should have done was point out there are now accepted to be 37.2 Trillion Cells in Your Body, the ref i am using is this one as its accessible, but I can link to other papers if required, also its from a decent source.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-372-trillion-cells-in-your-body-4941473/

Now the bit about we are not a dissolving soup because of this is misleading, it is also exactly the type of thing you have been bringing up, it is a nonsensical, emotional bias that dosnt address a very obvious point. The body contains both beneficial and non beneficial bacteria, they are generally balanced to the point we stay healthy, once the balance tips we become ill. Therefore the number of bacteria V human cells is precisely what you accuse me of, "emotional bias and half presentation of fact".

The number of bacteria V cells is completely a mute point, our health has little to do with the ratio of cell to microbe, it is reliant on the ratio of beneficial biota V non Beneficial biota. Apart from certain disease processes cell count has no correlation with Microbe count.

Despite this number of microbes, the actual number and range of species of microbe ON and IN the body, is exceptionally low compared with the number of organisms.

I also feel you wouldnt have resorted to this often quoted old fact, as it has been revised and is somewhat of a pub quiz fun fact, rather than meaningful data. Also had you researched this and read the following, I feel it unlikely you would had made the statement as it also explains why we are not bacterial soup.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4991899/

Again this is an acceptable source, I always have others to back the initial source up, but i try to link to quality sources that are open access so other can actually read the entire thing, rather than a simple abstract.

So lets start again with povety porn and water born plastic pollution, i will give you this one opportunity to revise your original statement about the quantity of plastic and the potential affect of it. You can stand by your initial staments (unwise), or you may now alter your figures and position somewhat.

Mods and others..............

This is not manhood waving or a battle of brains, showing off, or some the other things people allude too. This is a discussion with opposing views, the aim is not to prove who knows the most or has the biggest brain, this is intended to be a debate on a subject I feel is important. Please do take part if you wish too, but please just for once lets keep this totally clinical when we state facts, although clearly there is nothing wrong with expressing a feeling towards a subject if done with respect .

BTW i have tried arguing against plastic being a problem, it was during this that i discovered the size of the problem and the opportunity to both tackle the problem and do so without loosing money. hence why i changed my own view.

 

[tcmtech]

My stand is simple. How much does it cost, who pays for it and what are the realistic primary and secondary financial and environmental impacts that any realistic form of oceanic plastics recovery may have. If those actions and numbers can't be accounted for and justified then it's not feasible.

That's how real world problem solving works. If it's not cost effective and the solution may do more damage than it solves it's not worth doing. If you say it's feasible then it's up to you to prove it, not me disprove myself.

I'm on your side here but I am not for the concept of just throw other peoples money at a theory to no need without knowing what the actual cleanup work will cost and do to things. If you're going for negative carbon footprint you have to be able to put the actual numbers together to prove your actions are actually negative, right?

This is what you are up against in the garbage gyres and the bulk of the oceans and at <1 PPB by volume thats a huge volume of water to process without also taking out all the natural environmentally beneficial organics with the plastic bits.

Beyond that is the real world cost in fuel labor and equipment upkeep to do it and who is going to pay for it. Filtering a few 10's of Quintillion tons of raw sea water, (3 - 5+ million cubic miles) without taking all the organics out and doing worse ecological damage, just to get ~ 10 - 20 million tons of highly degraded microplastics, that have less than $100 a ton market value, and while staying carbon neutral, or negative, the whole time won't be cheap.

**broken link removed**

I have no issue with the efforts and work to clean up the bulky near and onshore stuff as most people see in the eco-porn pictures. Thats cheap and easy to work with and not the point I have not and am not arguing about.