this might be the only good environmental news i’ve read since we got rid of cfcs
This is very good news! Please don’t forget that even if the great pacific garbage patch doesn’t exist, that doesn’t mean that the ocean is clean. There are still lots of garbage in the ocean!
However everybody needs to work where the problem originates.
There’s only four left to clean after this one.
In 2014, there were five areas across all the oceans where the majority of plastic concentrated. Researchers collected a total of 3070 samples across the world to identify hot spots of surface level plastic pollution. The pattern of distribution closely mirrored models of oceanic currents with the North Pacific Gyre, or Great Pacific Garbage Patch, being the highest density of plastic accumulation. The other four garbage patches include the North Atlantic garbage patch between the North America and Africa, the South Atlantic garbage patch located between eastern South America and the tip of Africa, the South Pacific garbage patch located west of South America, and the Indian Ocean garbage patch found east of South Africa.
That’s not possible unless you ban fishing nets
True, but let’s not the baby out with the bathwater.
98% or 90% or even a verifiable 50% reduction is insanely amazing news
So far, the nonprofit claims it has fished out a million pounds of trash from the patch, a mere 0.5 percent of its total. But within a decade, it says, it could ramp up its operations to get rid of it in its entirety.
:-/
They’re asking for $75B for the full project and currently relying on start up capital with a tiny fraction of that. Apple’s “committed” $7.5B tentative to Ocean Cleanup Project raising the rest on short notice.
This isn’t “on track”. It’s a pilot project that’s in the middle of a Series B funding round.
Also - most critically - it’s not clear in the article what they’re doing with the waste they recover. Simply moving it around doesn’t eliminate the garbage. And the project does not appear to include a budget for recycling or otherwise repurposing what they recover.
it’s not clear in the article what they’re doing with the waste they recover. Simply moving it around doesn’t eliminate the garbage. And the project does not appear to include a budget for recycling or otherwise repurposing what they recover.
I found this with three clicks on project’s web site:
“Once our containers are full of plastic onboard, we bring them back to shore for recycling. For each system batch, we are making durable and sustainable products. Supporters getting the products will help fund the continued ocean cleanup. Catch, rinse, recycle and repeat - until the oceans are clean. The sunglasses are a proof of concept for this.”
It might not seem like much yet, but it’s better than nothing, and they have to start somewhere.
I understand the cynicism, but I’m not going to let it distract me from the good that is being done.
They’re mostly thinking 10 years, but:
Better yet, if the nonprofit’s latest technological ideas come to fruition, Slat suggests we could even clear the patch in just five years at a cost of just $4 billion.
Ultimately though it comes down to funding, and I’m not sure this is the administration with the stomach to fund these types of projects.
i can’t seem to find a futurism on lemmy. does it exist?
it’s not on lemmy, it’s an external link
I think they were looking for a sub for them
What’s going to stop the polluters doing it again?
They are. Now.
Bio degradable plastics
finally, i don’t have to think even a second about my individually plastic wrapped candies
Glass. Always has been.
I love this, it’s great, but it doesn’t address the root cause unfortunately
i dont know why you would say this unless youre just replying to headlines… most of the plastic comes from just a handfull of rivers and they’re catching the plastic at the source with their river collection programs (lots of interesting solutions they’re using including bubble curtains)
Absolutely and that is great, but by root cause I mean how much plastic is on every fucking thing we buy, the source is not the rivers feeding into the ocean, it’s our usage, and disregard for the environment
There are shades of gray. I consider burying it in well managed landfills (what is done with the very large majority of plastic in developed countries) significantly more environmentally responsible than dumping it into the local river (what is done with most plastic in many developing countries) or ocean (fishing nets, cruise ships).
Yes it is better, no doubt, but still doesn’t resolve the root cause
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No. Much plastic comes from fishermen in the ocean.
Seems easier picking up trash by hand than taxing the rich for the project
So far, the nonprofit claims it has fished out a million pounds of trash from the patch, a mere 0.5 percent of its total. But within a decade, it says, it could ramp up its operations to get rid of it in its entirety.
Next year, the company will focus its efforts on establishing a “hotspot” map of areas in the ocean with “intense plastic accumulation.”
While $7.5 billion may sound like a lot, it’s less than one month’s worth of Apple’s profits last year, or a sixth of the bonus Tesla shareholders awarded to CEO Elon Musk.
or a sixth of the bonus Tesla shareholders awarded to CEO Elon Musk.
Disgusting. He tanked Tesla for a while, and he gets a bonus?
To give him “motivation” to keep innovating and bring us to mars, supposedly. God there’s no limit to the sheer stupidity of muskrat fanboys.
Sorry, this isn’t news.
They’ve been towing these nets around for a decade now.
The article says, if you give them 4 billion with a b dollars they will “clean up” the garbage patch.
No shit. Give someone a lot of money and things can be done. The problem as we all know is that there is no money available for this type of project.
If we cancelled the order of ~40 F-35s, we could have that 4 billion dollars.
If we appropriately taxed the rich, we could do it without even having to cut the precious military spending.
Sorry, neither can be done. Taxing the richies would be tantamount to communism. Cutting the military spending? Countries have to fight wars behalf of the corpos.
Sure, wake me up when either of those things happen
The weird thing is that money isn’t real. It’s just an arbitrary idea of how much somebody thinks someone/something else is worth. When was the last time we had enough gold to back up all the money promises in the world? That was a long long long time ago.
LOL. Yeah but we only do quantative easing to save bankers and billionaires, not to save the world.
I love news like this.
Btw, I assume this is referring to garbage that is floating. What about the garbage that has sunk? I mean, I don’t even know whether it’s a big problem, especially in the middle of the ocean, but I am still curious what’s up with that.
I still got microplastics in my balls.
Microplastics are stored in the balls
Finally able to cum silly strings
To cum like a 3D printer (same nozzle temperature too).
So that’s how babby is formed
They can take away our Pacific garbage patch, but they can never take our ball micro plastics!
A thin film of plastic is all that protects our block and tackle from the 5g woke mind virus. Why else do you think we call it our “Junk”?
And give up free 5g? Are you insane?
This comment is a pretty solid example of the normal UpliftingNews comments.
I wish them well. It feels good to be reminded that yes, there are still people out there trying to make things better. ❤️
Everyone can be that. Stop eating meat and drop water-pollution, land-use and co2-emissions by two thirds. Less destruction, instantly.
Imagine one billion people doing that. Animal agriculture, one of the most evil industries, would shrink by a lot, our planet would change. No need for politicians, no need to spend a lot of money, no need to lobby. You just buy a different product next time you shop groceries at the supermarket. 💚nice generalizations
While yes, consuming less meat and especially cow (dairy, beef) is good for you and the environment, your 2/3 statistic falls a part with actual data
https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
Get your statistics right or don’t say them at all.
I meant 2/3 of your personal food emissions. I’m aware that this is not the solution, but it’s a very easy step and no solution will be enough without us changing what we eat.
So 2/3 of something that wasn’t that much to start with. Got it.
Insufferable
Theres a reason people go with published peer reviewed journals and not the data sheets of non profits who refuse to disclose their sources of income. The link to the journal they’re referring to is in the article:
The data used in thr screen grabs you have also, very deliberately, separated the energy and transportation used by the meat industry, as separate things not used by the meat industry
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That graph is wrong/misleading:
In 2015, food-system emissions amounted to 18 Gt CO2 equivalent per year globally, representing 34% of total GHG emissions. The largest contribution came from agriculture and land use/land-use change activities (71%), with the remaining were from supply chain activities: retail, transport, consumption, fuel production, waste management, industrial processes and packaging.
Food = total GHG emissions * 0.34
Agriculture = Food * 0.71
(supply chain activities: retail, transport, consumption, fuel production, waste management, industrial processes and packaging) = Food * 0.29
Learn to read
I know how to: .71 * 18 = 12.78 Gt, which is more than double what your graph ascribes to agriculture.
Also, there’s no need to be rude, even if I had been wrong.
I really need to stop making excuses and stop eating meat. I think I’m going to start tomorrow. I dunno why but this thread really is motivating me.
Give the plant based meats a try, like Impossible meat or Quorn. They’re astonishingly good now, and have completely replaced animal meat for me.
Beans are cheaper and delicious
Even if you don’t go meatless, dropping or severely limiting beef is a huge start.
My family realized that most meals we have meat was just kind of an unnecessary element? Cut out meat and it was still delicious.
Our meat consumption dropped to ground turkey once a month and beef maybe once every 6 months when our to eat? i really feel like limiting is the way to go for most people, but too many suggest all or nothing.
I feel like meat only on weekends would be a pretty great compromise for the near term.
If enough people did that, meat would stop being the default with every meal and it’d end up easier to go farther.
And I think people are more likely to stick with a dramatic reduction than to go all the way.
Simply being selective with meat can go a long way as well. Cattle grazing on regenerative farms is in a completely different category from generic CAFO beef from the grocery store (at least if you’re in the US). The main issue is finding it locally.
And yes it’s more expensive, but also more nutritionally dense so you end up using less anyway. Plus it actually tastes like beef. We should be paying more for meat IMO, considering the resources going into its production.
Grass fed cattle uses way more land and resources and produce more emissions than the efficient hell on earth we call “intensive life stock farming”.
Wouldn’t just a reduction in meat consumption be enough? Though looking at how much the average is that will probably need to be a very significant reduction frI’m some people.
Solar farms go well with grazing animals, recently heard it can actually increase the grass yields when you add solar panels, think it helps protect it a bit from strong wind and too much sun that can dry out the soil more and stunt growth.
Also any time you hear people complain about “prime farmland” (that is so shit they only ever use it for grazing) being used for solar “instead of food production” be aware it’s very likely bullshit anti-solar propaganda. It’s very common here in the UK.
My family realized that most meals we have meat was just kind of an unnecessary element? Cut out meat and it was still delicious.
Our meat consumption dropped to ground turkey once a month and beef maybe once every 6 months when our to eat? i really feel like limiting is the way to go for most people, but too many suggest all or nothing.
I say why not, imagine 1 billion people eating 0 meat or 8 billion people reducing their intake. Net result is probably the same, but the problem is that there are some people that will use this reduction excuse to not actually do much about their diet. Then there are the people like you mentioned that eat meat 3 times a day and then there are the people that surround their own identity around meat eating.
I’m not a dogmatic and tell people irl that each individual should do as much as they can, but even with that low bar most people don’t do shit.
We usually don’t have that much, this week between 2 of us we bought 6 of the finest sausages Aldi provide and they went into a sausage and bean casserole that lasted for 3 meals each. Other meals didn’t have meat in them.
Would like to try finding a butchers but there aren’t really any near where we live other than a guy selling meat out of a van a few days a week.
I would prefer for the giant polluting corporations to do something that’s actually useful. Enjoy veganism though.
I wish corpos disappeared in flames tomorrow, but unless I get a magic lamp that won’t happen. In the mean times there are levels of activism everyone can do including in their personal lives. Deflecting and ignoring won’t achieve anything, so we have to take responsibility for our actions as well.
While This is true, always remember that each single one of us only has a small impact and you shouldn’t feel guilty for not being able to do everything while billionaires fly with private jets.
So you’d stop eating meat when billionaires stop flying private jets? Then both of you will continue until our biosphere collapses.
To me, this sounds like a protective claim while you’re just as greedy, entitled and reckless as the billionaire, you just have fewer opportunities and resources. Contributing to something as evil as global animal agriculture while ignoring the numerous alternatives is something everyone has to take responsibility for, no?You completely missed my point. I actively try to reduce my carbon footprint, but I will not jump through 16 extra hoops to save a tiny fraction of CO2, while Taylor swift fly’s to fucking space. You can not blame the entirety of climate change onto the single individual. Change is especially needed in terms of abolishing billionaires and it also has to come from the politics.
An example: In my hometown village there is basically zero public transit. There is some usable, but its main use is for people who aren’t in a rush and dont have that much other things that might interfere. If I want to drive to the next city without using a car it takes me about 1h, which includes about 10 minutes with riding your bike to the next village. This bus drives every two hours so a trip to the next city to do some stuff takes at least 2-3 hours and depending on what you have/want to do there it can quickly become a 4-5 hour trip. Under these circumstances I Am usually going to drive there by car (which takes about 20-25 minutes). Does it emit more CO2? Of course it does. Can I easily sacrifice 3-5 hours for something that can be done in 1-2? Usually not.
The thing is, we’re at a point where any reduction or slowing of Co2 is a victory, and can at the very least buy us (especially the populations most effected) a little bit more time to get our collective shit together against the big polluters.
But we don’t know when that time will come, so we need to do as much as we can until then. We know the billionaires planes will continue, but we can at the very least prevent some of our own emissions from compounding with them. Us doing our bit is not negated by the billionaires not joining in with us. It’s not fair, but the climate doesn’t care about fair, it cares about total emissions.
So let’s chip in collectively to slow things down, even if only slightly, until we can slow it down a lot. :)
The way I lobby for that is by not buying products that are harmful.
Yeah, me too. That’s something we have no power over, though. But you can take responsibility for what you eat.
If it can get the necessary funds, that is. In a press release, the organization claimed that eliminating the patch once and for all would cost a whopping $7.5 billion
If you give me 7.5 billion i’ll do my very best to clean up the ocean too
This is /c/upliftingnews. I’ll take what I can get ☺️
That’s like 0.8% of the US military budget for 2025. That’s basically a rounding error
Yup. It’s also 0.042% of China’s GDP, and I’ll bet they never get it.
China’s GDP is going to keeping a billion people housed and fed, and producing more solar panels than the rest of the world combined. The US military budget is going to blowing up brown people.
Awesome way to say you don’t care about the planet by making excuses for China not picking lint out of its pocket to clean the ocean—and then somehow turning this into an ICE problem.
Those dastardly brown people. How dare they exist, usually without hurting anyone else??
About 1.5% of Musk’s net worth when it was at it’s height when he was US President.
I think it’s actually higher now. It’s a whopping $480 billion now
Better that than it going to Tesla or whatever.
Finally someone attempts to remove the UK ❤️
They’re going to be so embarrassed when they realize the garbage patch isn’t even in the Pacific.
It was moved following brexit
angry bri’ish noises
tutting intensifies
the patch is continually being replenished, so…
There’s other projects that also tackle that
So? Then you just gotta do a cleanup run every month or so to keep it clean. Its not about getting it to zero, its about minimizing it.
They thought of that, too. There are a finite number of rivers responsible for bringing the vast majority of trash into the ocean
And the fishermen in the ocean?
