tOfficial what the fuck are we doing to our planet thread.

[Rocinante]

I just heard this story and then read some other stuff about microplastics.  They are everywhere.  We eat them, we drink them, we breathe them in.  And there's very little research on how the body processes microplastics.  What the fuck.

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/15/713561484/microplastic-found-even-in-the-air-in-frances-pyrenees-mountains

https://owlcation.com/stem/Microplastics-in-the-Human-Body-and-Potential-Health-Effects

And then there's the fucking walruses falling to their deaths.

[DWags]

Daughters told me about this. I will not watch it.

Fuck us all.

[Rocinante]

It's hard to watch. I heard about it days ago and just finally had the courage to watch it today.

[Rocinante]

We Know Plastic is Harming Marine Life. What About Us?

Some of these chemicals are considered endocrine disruptors—chemicals that interfere with normal hormone function, even contributing to weight gain. Flame retardants may interfere with brain development in fetuses and children; other compounds that cling to plastics can cause cancer or birth defects. A basic tenet of toxicology holds that the dose makes the poison, but many of these chemicals—BPA and its close relatives, for example—appear to impair lab animals at levels some governments consider safe for humans.

[Other Teams Pursuing That]

God works in mysterious ways.

[Rocinante]

Some hope

A running list of action on plastic pollution

[Rocinante]

But whose fault is it?  We're told that "the consumer" is to blame for buying loads of bottled water or using plastic grocery sacks, but although 74% of American Adults have said the government "should do whatever it takes to protect the environment", corporate lobbies like "Keep America Beautiful" (Yes, that's a corporate lobby - the same one behind the crying indian.) fight to keep manufacturers blameless.

More Recycling Won't Solve Plastic Pollution - It’s a lie that wasteful consumers cause the problem and that changing our individual habits can fix it

In fact, the greatest success of Keep America Beautiful has been to shift the onus of environmental responsibility onto the public while simultaneously becoming a trusted name in the environmental movement. This psychological misdirect has built public support for a legal framework that punishes individual litterers with hefty fines or jail time, while imposing almost no responsibility on plastic manufacturers for the numerous environmental, economic and health hazards imposed by their products.

[Floyd Robertson]

Yeah, I watched that Walrus episode last week and it's very disturbing.

[Rocinante]

https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/

OUR MISSION IS TO ACCELERATE THE TRANSITION TO A CIRCULAR ECONOMY
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation works with business, government and academia to build a framework for an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design

[Robert J Sakimano]

what's unfortunate is that saving the planet - the only one we have - is somehow "political".

[Sponsored content]