Microscopic Fibers Are Falling From the Sky In Rocky Mountains (theguardian.com) 128
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Plastic was the furthest thing from Gregory Wetherbee's mind when he began analyzing rainwater samples collected from the Rocky Mountains. "I guess I expected to see mostly soil and mineral particles," said the U.S. Geological Survey researcher. Instead, he found multicolored microscopic plastic fibers. The discovery, published in a recent study (pdf) titled "It is raining plastic", raises new questions about the amount of plastic waste permeating the air, water, and soil virtually everywhere on Earth. Rainwater samples collected across Colorado and analyzed under a microscope contained a rainbow of plastic fibers, as well as beads and shards. The findings shocked Wetherbee, who had been collecting the samples in order to study nitrogen pollution. "My results are purely accidental," he said, though they are consistent with another recent study that found microplastics in the Pyrenees, suggesting plastic particles could travel with the wind for hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometers. Other studies have turned up microplastics in the deepest reaches of the ocean, in UK lakes and rivers and in U.S. groundwater.
This is why I worry about polution first (Score:5, Insightful)
When we can address polution, the non bio degradable products. Then we address what causes global changes. The process of producing these products also produce chemicals that affect what causes global changes.
I think when we address what polutes the water we drink, the air that we breath. We will also be addressing what affects everything that affects us.
Re:This is why I worry about polution first (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not both?
What's so important about continuing to produce carbon dioxide that you would be willing to suggest that removing plastic from society is such a more feasible and worthwhile goal that it should supplant carbon reduction, based on the unproven hypothesis that addressing one type of pollution addresses others?
Re:This is why I worry about polution first (Score:5, Interesting)
Because lots of people feel that the reasoning behind anthropogenic climate change is funky, and even if it isn't, the things common people are told to do about it constantly are bullshit little baby farts compared to the GHGs released by China and India not giving a fuck. On the other hand, everyone can agree that pollution is bad and we should do something about it.
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Australia is worse per capita IIRC, as are some of the gulf states. It's not a good position to be in.
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That has more to do with the fact that our population and population density are sane and more people have their own car. We're already solving that problem; lots of people are moving to hybrid and electric, and more will as there is more industry support for it. Regardless, per-capita GHGs are *not* a useful measure for climate impact, because the real problem remains the ludicrously huge industrial numbers in China and India. If you're worried about climate change more than things just being dirty and unh
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Your dipshittery in wanting to pollute just as much a nations that have three times or more your population is noted. And how much of that Chinese and Indian pollution is generated to make the products you buy.
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Yeah, "allow me to pollute more" is obviously what people mean when they point out that there are massive nations known to engage in much more irresponsible industrial practices. Fuck off.
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That's exactly what they mean when they deflect to China and India, which pollute a fraction per capita compared to the United States. You dumb fuck.
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US is the highest per-capita polluter, especially the red states.
Um, no. Large families are built in carpools, built in space sharing ...
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How are the nations ranked? Is there a common factor among the best and worst on the list? Just how far is the USA from the next 5 or 10? Has the USA been getting worse or better on pollution over time? In other words... citation needed.
Here's my guess what the data shows, based on what I've seen from CO2 emission data before, the USA is not in fact the worst polluter per capita but only such among the major economies. There's lots of small nations that burn oil for electricity, and have little concern
Re:This is why I worry about polution first (Score:4, Interesting)
Windfarms generate costs first and electricity second.
That describes every energy source. There will be a capital expense that must be paid up front with the income from electricity to follow.
You are lucky to have lots of gas turbines in operation in USA at the same time or else there is a huge problem with reliability.
I won't disagree, there will be a need for natural gas as a means to manage the varied demand until we can have enough nuclear, hydro, or whatever else comes along. The inherent varied output of wind over time will add to this need for some kind of reliable supply like natural gas but this addition is not likely to be a problem so long as there is not an over reliance on wind for energy. I expect wind to be a significant producer of electricity in the USA for a very long time.
Windfarms are a good solution for some problems in some localities but general solution to energy needs are based neither on windmills nor solar panels as energy density of these is just to low.
Again I can't disagree generally but I don't see how this is relevant. I make no claim that wind should be used in places where it is not economic to use.
Onshore wind is an inexpensive energy source.
http://www.renewable-energysou... [renewable-...ources.com]
It's as cheap as hydro, geothermal, or solar PV. Solar thermal is just too expensive to bother.
The energy return for wind is comparable with many others we use today, and we get sufficient return to support our economy.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/... [world-nuclear.org]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
Solar PV rarely provides enough of an energy return on investment to support our economy, is often more expensive than alternatives, and should be considered a source of last resort.
Solar power, whether that be PV or thermal, is a money pit. It makes no sense to use on the grid. If you have a grid connection then solar power is a waste of money. Off grid, in far off locations where fuel would have to be shipped in, then solar might make sense. Wind power though is still often viable, and I believe it has a bright future.
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Storage is likely to supplant the need for peaker generation and it's going to cut the top off power prices (decimating power company profits on their unregulated commercial sales).
And Wind (particularly the vast offshore wind resources in the northeast)/Solar along with existing Hydro are likely to provide all the power needs the US needs, provided sufficient storage is built and efficient long distance transmissions lines are built linking the countries many disparate grids so excess power in the various
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Storage is likely to supplant the need for peaker generation and it's going to cut the top off power prices (decimating power company profits on their unregulated commercial sales).
Natural gas is pretty cheap. It's not only cheap but it's an energy source. Storage of any kind is an energy sink, because there will be losses. Natural gas has an inherent ability to store electricity, it's stored as fuel in the tanks. Electric storage offers the ability to shift electrical energy in time but, again, with a loss and only if there is another source of electricity. You want to tell me that electricity storage is going to drive natural gas off the market? Then where is this electricity
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US is the highest per-capita polluter, especially the red states.
You assert without proof. I claim the US isn't even in the top 10, being #11, and here's my proof: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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nice, owned
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Your "proof" is suspect when the US military, all by itself, pollutes more than 140 countries [qz.com] combined. But according to your own source, the US pollutes more than double per capita than China and India, also combined. Which makes the constant deflection to those to countries an especially pernicious line of dipshit thinking.
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Except that per capita *still doesn't matter*. At all! The total is what matters, because the big numbers come from industry, not individuals. China is very nearly *single-handedly* spouting enough CO2 to do whatever it is you people claim it does.
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So you're arguing that the thousand people who live in the Vatican get to pollute just as much as the United States with 300+ million people, because only per nation pollution matters, because derp.
Lets put this in terms a western exceptionalists can understand: should California be expected to limit itself to the amount of emissions produced by Rhode Island
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But according to your own source, the US pollutes more than double per capita than China and India, also combined. Which makes the constant deflection to those to countries an especially pernicious line of dipshit thinking.
China, as a country, leads the field in emissions. It's not 'dipshit thinking' to take a hard look there. Indeed it would be the very essence of dipshit thinking to not look there. Totals per country matter because countries are where the pollution laws can be effectively applied.
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It's the definition of dipshittery. China is the most populous nation on the planet has four times the population of the United States. That means they get to produce four times the emissions of the United States.
Period.
And much of that pollution is generated to make products purchased by Americans. Making this dipshittery squared.
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US is the highest per-capita polluter, especially the red states.
Wikipedia only has data for 2013 [wikipedia.org] and older. Back in 2013, the US was the 14th worst per capita polluter of GHGs.
Union of Concerned Scientists [ucsusa.org] has data for 2015. The US produced 15.53 metric tons of CO2 per capita; Saudi Arabia 16.85; Australia 15.83;
Do you have access to more recent data?
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Per capita is meaningless. The world is dying IN TOTAL.
If this matters to you, do something to reduce your personal contribution and encourage your government to reduce your regional contribution.
If you can demonstrate success at this, then please give your expert advice to the rest of the world... until then, stuff it.
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US is the highest per-capita polluter, especially the red states. [citation needed]
According to the numbers [wikipedia.org] the US is the 11th or 12th, which isn't great. Do you have any numbers comparing red states to blue states?
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Some people think the reasoning behind the earth being round is funky, doesn't mean we should coddle them. People willing to go against the overwhelming scientific consensus also probably shouldn't be trusted to accurately represent the relative carbon output of different nations or their willingness to change. The only difference between the climate deniers and the flat earthers is that the former has a political party that is courting their vote.
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It's like you didn't even read the rest of the post.
The horrible evil climate deniers *still want things to be clean, healthy, and efficient.* If you don't constantly insult their intelligence, they might help with that.
Re:This is why I worry about polution first (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they don't. You are literally talking about people who don't see a connection between how they live and what is happening in the environment. They want their yards to be clean, they want their neighborhoods to be clean, but they don't give a fuck about the cuyahoga river or a patch of water in the middle of the pacific. Want to know how I know? They have already gone out of their way to justify a pseudoscience that absolves them of any personal responsibility for what is happening. Now that it is becoming more and more apparent that the science is right, they have resorted to waving their hands in the direction of other countries to prevent them from having to make any changes at all.
It's not about intelligence. It's a mix of fear of change and a little bit of selfishness. Some of these guys spend a lot of time coming up with partial stats to justify their theories. And you know what, that's fine, but don't kid yourself that you are going to reach someone who is going to spend their day finding alternate sources to debunk 99% of all established scientists conclusions. They don't want change. Period.
Re: This is why I worry about polution first (Score:2)
How do you think it got that way? Conservation of natural resources isn't a hard sell. Telling people to start eating bugs and stop flushing asswipes is. Treating people as dullards because they happen to notice that the number you claim to care about mostly consists of something they have no actual control over poisons the well. Quit it, or accept that you have created the atmosphere of hostility that makes red voters do dumb shit like rolling coal trucks.
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It's like you didn't even read the rest of the post.
The horrible evil climate deniers *still want things to be clean, healthy, and efficient.* If you don't constantly insult their intelligence, they might help with that.
As a human being I want things clean, healthy, and efficient. I'm on the fence to how much climate change is actually caused by mankind vs natural events and cycles. I believe we should adopt green technologies as they become economically viable or otherwise make sense. Once electric vehicles have a range that fits my needs I'll make the switch. When I lived in Hawaii I grew a lot of my own produce to lower transportation costs and emissions. I pumped water through pipes on my lanai roof to heat it before p
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Why not both?
Because you can't do everything at once and in some cases two things are at odds and which comes first must be determined. Moreover pollution can often be tackled locally. Global warming most certainly cannot. Global warming is an excellent modern day example of tragedy of the commons.
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> the water we drink
Get rid of "clean water credits".
>the air that we breath
Get better fire management in California.
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You address polution, you also address climate change.
Excess CO2 is by definition pollution. So yes, let's address pollution. Thanks for your endorsement!
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In that case, I apologize for my jerking knee, and not doing a bit more research before commenting.
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Define excess (Score:3)
I believe there are too many Trumps and Clintons. There is therefore an excess. Therefore they are pollutants.
More unintended consequences (Score:2)
BPA (Score:4, Interesting)
With the recent flap over BPA, is there a particular reason to think it was exceptionally bioreactive? Or are we likely to find similar levels of evidence of harm from some significant fraction of all the plastics and additives that we bother to study more closely?
Re:BPA (Score:5, Interesting)
This is an actual question, not rhetorical.
With the recent flap over BPA, is there a particular reason to think it was exceptionally bioreactive? Or are we likely to find similar levels of evidence of harm from some significant fraction of all the plastics and additives that we bother to study more closely?
Most plastics release estrogenic like chemicals. BPA based plastics are the worst they release an analogue of estrogen that when ingested does effect the endocrine systems of organisms. In the long term we do not know what these chemicals will do. I won't live long enough to find out but I can bet that my grandchildren will. The increases in microplastics in the marine environment are well understood. The worst areas are where we dump our trash BPA containing and other plastics that we pretend to recycle offshore. We are littering the oceans of the world as fast as we dump them overboard and wash them down our sewers/rivers.
Yes there are some legitimate installations that are recycling some of out trash but they are a drop in the bucket compared to what we either burn or dump in landfill or dump in the ocean.
How much plastic? Quite a bit now that most Asian countries are refusing our trash or sending it back by the container load.
The petrochemical industry could care less if the worlds oceans start to fuck up because of the millions of tonnes of microplastics being dumped there. In fact the more plastics that are dumped in the ocean the more money they make. If microplastics are starting to circulate in the atmosphere because of the natural cycles of rain then just maybe the human race will finally wake up to the damage that fossil fuels and the petrochemical industry is doing to the entire planet. But I doubt it, we still have too many billionaires involved in the petrochemical industry and unfortunately they run the world, we don't. Hell they even seem to have shills spouting pseudo scientific denial bullshit here on slashdot!
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"But I doubt it, we still have too many billionaires involved in the petrochemical industry"
Too many OLD billionaires. They don't give a shit what happens to the planet and everything on it in 50 years time, most of them will be dead in 20 and they're too sociopathic to give a shit what happens to their kids or grandkids if they even have any.
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BPA based plastics are the worst
Not so. [sciencemag.org]
When you buy a plastic that says "BPA free" -- what do you think they replaced the BPA with? (pause...think about it...) Most people's natural assumption is that "BPA-free" means it's the same exact plastic, but without the BPA. But BPA serves a purpose in plastic manufacturing. So when they remove BPA from the process, they replace it with other chemicals. Notice that they don't tell you what they replace it with. The FDA doesn't require that they do.
BPA is the most studied, and quite possibly
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If you are buying a drinking container: JUST DON'T BUY PLASTIC. ESPECIALLY FOR CHILDREN. And BPA-FREE DOES NOT MEAN SAFE.
So metal, then? Because you can't give 'em glass. Guess this is a vote for Klean Kanteen, which has a cap that doesn't put plastic in contact with your beverage (only a silicone O-ring, and stainless steel.) But wait, you can't use stainless with high acid beverages...
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I drank from glass bottles as a kid. And as an added benefit, I collected the glass bottles and returned them to the store for money, which I then used to buy more cokes and candies. To my mind, it was the perfect system. Unfortunately 2 liters came around, one thing lead to another, and now you can buy 4 ounce bottle water in plastic containers.
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When you were a kid, there was a lot more glass in glass bottles. They were a lot harder to break and they tended to break into chunks instead of exploding into zillions of tiny bits, unless you really chucked 'em at a rock or wall.
It turned out to not be cost-effective to return bottles. Having to wash out the cigarette butts and chaw spit is a no go.
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To be fair most of the beverages that are highly acidic people probably shouldn't be feeding their child very often anyways. Poking around online I'm seeing things like soda, lemonade, and a few fruit juices as the highly acidic beverages that are most commonly consumed which all happen to be very high in sugar. If you're regularly giving your kids sugary drinks like what I list above, plastic is far from their biggest long term health worry. Obesity, diabetes, and dental decay seem a bit more significant.
T
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I use glass at home and stainless steel for a travel thermos. Stainless steel, if it is the proper grade, is resistant to acidic drinks unless they are very hot. Check out the answer by Martin Carr, PhD MRSC. [quora.com]
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Did I miss a brainwashing campaign?
Firstly, you get a bonus point for spelling "silicone" correctly. A depressingly high proportion of people get it hilariously wrong.
But .. in what way are silicones not "plastics"? They're produced from organic compounds ; many of their compositions include significant organic side chains and cross-linking branches ; they're artificial-only products (unles
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BPA was first discovered about a century ago (long before plastics) as a drug analog to female progesterone. It reacts in the body much like this female hormone.
BPA was replaced in most products by BPB, a second analog that's about 100x stronger in the human body as a female hormone.
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Well, you got that right. 1891.
Well, much stickier ground there. The first synthetic polymer product, Bakelite [wikipedia.org], was discovered in 1907 and patented in 1909. It was thermosetting not thermoplastic, but hey we can let that important distinction pass. However ... I don't know about your chemistry education at school, but my 14-16 year-old school course included the preparation of Galalith [wikipedia.org], another thermosetting polymer prepared by cross-linkin
Re:BPA (Score:5, Interesting)
"Plastics have been in wide use since the 50s, and the apocalyptic harm has been ... uh ... well .."
Compare the usage of plastics in the 50s compared to now and the tonnage produced and hence dumped later. Also compare the types of plastics and the chemicals they contain. Plastic is not a single substance, its a term for a broad range of substances a lot of which were only invented recently.
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There is some evidence of harm. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
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Well, it can. The individual molecules still have to be reactive. The actual polymers of many plastics aren't very reactive, but the additives in them often are, and those additives leach out of nanoparticles faster than larger chunks.
Nanoparticles of the right size can also have physical and biological effects independent of chemical reactivity though. Polystyrene nanoparticles don't seem to be very chemically reactive, but can cross the blood brain barrier, can accumulate and gum things up, and some immun
Sampling, controls (Score:2)
Even worse than I thought (Score:4, Informative)
NUANC samples were collected in plastic bag-lined buckets. Sites CO84, CO94, and CO98 used standard, unlined NTN buckets. The entire volumes of each sample submitted to the NADP Central Analytical Laboratory were filtered (0.45 micrometer, polyethersulfone) to obtain particulates assumed to be washed from the atmosphere (washout). The filters were dried, weighed, and manually analyzed with a binocular microscope fitted with a digital camera (see photomicrographs). Four deionized water rinses of the sampling system were analyzed as blanks. This study was not designed for collecting and analyzing samples for plastic particles. The results are unanticipated and opportune.
More like, the results are suspect and should not have been reported without a proper study utilizing controls and statistics.
How science is meant to work (Score:5, Insightful)
In the course of another study they incidentally made an interesting observation, so they reported it in a brief note alongside (as you noticed) a statement of the limitations of the observation, and the suggestion that further study is needed (with better techniques). That way people with the resources/expertise to follow up the observation actually get to hear about it.
This is EXACTLY how science is meant to work. It is a process of collaborative refinement of understanding, not of paranoid loners working in absolute secrecy until they have some perfect irrefutable gem of wisdom to unleash fully formed on the supplicant masses.
Now if you were talking about mainstream media reporting on preliminary observations that would be a different story.
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Thing is, they could have or someone else could have already chemically compared them to say the samples we've pulled out of the air and rivers here in Ontario. My guess, is that once they trace the source back it's going to be the same shit...coming from China and the sweat shop operators in northern africa and SEA making $300 nikes at $0.12/day. The big boom in synthetic fiber ending up in the air and rivers is already pretty well known.
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Best comment of this thread!
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That sensationalism came from the authors themselves, not some lame press stooge, and is wholly unjustified given the quality of the study.
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Your suspicion/perception of sensationalism is understood. But so is the legitimate concern of the authors, because our global plastic problem is neither imaginary nor exaggerated.
Further reading (article published less than 1 hours ago): https://www.bbc.com/news/scien... [bbc.com]
Even in the Arctic, microscopic particles of plastic are falling out of the sky with snow, a study has found.
The scientists said they were shocked by the sheer number of particles they found: more than 10,000 of them per litre in the Arctic.
Spoiler alert: They did not use plastic collection vessels.
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The most exciting words in science are "That's odd."
hey... (Score:2)
... free hydrocarbons!
Frank was right. (Score:2)
Proof for string theory (Score:3)
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Maybe we've found the strings that everything comes from...
And maybe it's a constant cycle...
Obligatory John Effing Denver (Score:2)
It's Colorado rocky mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
Friends around the campfire and everybody's high
Thread fall (Score:3, Funny)
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dibs on the runt!
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No problem, at least according to The Three-Body Problem . It's just a big 1-D proton.
And this is a surprise because.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time we wash our clothes we generate a soup of microscopic fiber particles and dump them into the drainage system.
The fibers originating from natural materials will mostly be degraded by bacteria & fungi in the waste water processing plant.. Those from man made fibers aren't degraded because there are no organisms which digest these polymers. The particles are less dense than water so they aren't trapped in settlement tanks and instead they are released with the 'clean' water into rivers and seas.
Once in the sea it's easy to see how droplets containing these microscopic fibers will enter the atmosphere and be carried around the planet.
So I'm not in the least surprised to find that microscopic fiber particles are found in rainwater, and would expect similar results pretty much anywhere.
To resolve this either a) stop washing our clothes or b) wear cotton, linen, and wool
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it is getting more and more difficult to find cotton clothing.
We've reached peak cotton because of the lack of availability of water, and the instability of weather. It's only going to get worse from here. Try bamboo, I have a bamboo tee shirt and it's pretty nice. A little harder on the nipples when sweat-soaked than good cotton, but within the range of normal cotton fabrics. But nothing is as good as cotton, the original microfiber, except maybe silk. And I haven't met a silk weave yet that's as permeable to airflow when wet as cotton jersey.
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By the time "Bamboo" has been processed to the point where you can make it a fabric, it's basically just Rayon, a plastic. The marketing difference is that the cellulose source for the rayon was from bamboo, rather than some other plant.
Hemp is likely a more suitable natural fiber for these kinds of things, as the fibers obtained from it can be pretty easily turned into yarns and thus fabric.
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2/ There is at least the potential
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My money's on that the whole thing is dryer lint. Time to invest in lint catchers.
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Or (c) put a lint filter on your washer discharge, and make sure the one on your dryer is working well.
Lint filters help a lot, and it's a really simple step that doesn't actually require anyone to do anything inconvenient.
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Serving as dust cores for rain seeding, we should be seeing increased rainfall.
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They can digest the components of the polymers. The problem is the polymer molecules are incredibly long - tens of thousands to millions of repeating chains long. They can't process something that long. Break it down into smaller pieces and they can digest it, but not some
Plastic eating bacteria (Score:3)
There will be an absolutely massive explosion in bacteria if and when they adapt to eat plastics.
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There are a bunch of plastic eating bacteria. Could be interesting if they become really common.
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common? they already are. there are bacteria that eat petroleum products and plastics. They eat oil spills, for example. If we'd quit making more all these microfibers of plastic would get broken down by sun and bacteria, no problem. However, if we keep polluting.... who knows
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Yes, there are lots of bacteria that eat petroleum products. Plastics are a less common, and the ones that actually eat plastic as an energy source even more so.
But when I said really common I meant Ringworld superconductor disease common.
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They are ringworld disease common, that's the point
the most common plastic is PE, for example, and plenty of bacteria and fungus in the soil eat them. just chains of hydrogen and carbon. om nom nom.
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We might be waiting a very long time. The Carboniferous Period lasted around 60 Million years because none of the existing fauna had evolved to digest cellulose yet. Cellulose was an incredibly abundant resource, far more abundant than plastics are now.
This is a GOOD thing! (Score:2)
Probably means the AGW models are all screwed (Score:2)
Because they never consider such as swathes of micro-plastic in the air.
But they will add it, and once more declare that we must hand over our cash and life or face apocalypse.
On the plus side... (Score:2)
It's good news for the ski areas. The particulates are needed for snow formation.
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They're turning the frogs gay.
Have you seen Gen Z, it's more than the frogs.
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I guess we now know what those chemtrail planes are spraying. Now, what is the purpose? ;-)
The purpose is to distract from the chemicals put in our drinking water supply.
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There is a part which is seriously wrong with that reasoning: 'let's move all manufacturing to China and then blame them for pollution and climate change'. It's a bit similar to 'let's use a lot of oil and blame those who dig it up for us'.
But there is also a part which is correct: Spectacular economic growth needs environmental infrastructure and attitudes to keep pace with them.
If they don't you get unrestrained pollution. That is how the rivers which release most plastic in the seas are in China and Indi
Re:It all points to (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if everyone could agree that China was somehow the key in this issue, what's your solution to it? Generally the people who have a reflex reaction of "China" haven't got any further than effectively expecting them to "know their place and stay poor" rather than do exactly what we in the West did which is get rich by exploiting nature and polluting. If those same people were willing to consider using some kind of financial assistance to help other countries develop in an ecologically sound way I'd have more time for their finger pointing, but they won't because they baulk at even giving a small sum to other countries when there are full on famines.
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"the "chemtrail activist" community, a group of amateur scientists who study the "fibers" that they claim are raining down out of chemtrails in the sky."