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Vanuatu View Drop Down
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    Posted: 08 Jun 2019 at 00:21
A study was highlighted this week concerning plastic particles in the ocean off the coast of Monterrey Ca.
Apparently we are all breathing and ingesting plastic particles. So much is speculative now as to the levels that can be tolerated and whether toxic effects will build overtime and become deadly.

If the tiny sea animals are consuming microscopic plastic particles and it just goes into the food chain, we eat fish and the plastic might be staying in our bodies it's an unknown at this time. The article from National Geographic has most of the significant facts obtained through the recent study. 

I'm not entirely sure it's a bad thing if we can ingest plastic and live. Plastic is everywhere and we do have to breath. Maybe this is a kind of evolutionary adaptation that we have to make in order to live on Earth.


Edited by Vanuatu - 08 Jun 2019 at 00:22
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Guest Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Jun 2019 at 13:42
The tons of plastic and other garbage finding it's way into our oceans is unsustainable.

The impact that it have over time on ocean dwelling creatures as well as humans can only be guessed at, but humans have to take action now to clean up the oceans and to keep them clean. Like in global warming, which we can only control in part, act now or suffer the long term consequences.
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Points: 1468 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote caldrail Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Jun 2019 at 20:42
They recently found a plastic bag at the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the Pacific, the deepest ocean floor anywhere. Plastic is a problem and it's right that things are being done about it. But as I said elsewhere on the net, expanding population also expands our problems. It is notable that all this global warming, pollution, waste, health susceptibility, and so forth has become an issue during the period where human global populations have rocketed to three times the previous maximums for the first time in history.
http://www.unrv.com/forum/blog/31-caldrails-blog/
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Nothing is going to get better until, possibly due to overcrowding, we get an old fashioned plague. 
Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate. (J. R. R. Tolkien)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guest Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jun 2019 at 19:11
Originally posted by Vanuatu Vanuatu wrote:

Nothing is going to get better until, possibly due to overcrowding, we get an old fashioned plague. 

Speaking of which, we weren't but......what's the big deal with Measles now?

When I was young, it was expected that we all got measles, mumps and chicken pox-it was all part of growing up. I've had all three and I think I'm OK, that is, I can't blame them for my current plethora of illnesses.
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regarding population, I would suggest checking out Hans Rosling's tedtalks.
Listening to him, things seem rather positive.

Just hope that you (we) don't get shingles, which is based on having chicken pox as a child. 

Things should be done about plastics, and they are being done about plastics, but not every idea is a good idea.  Some people are like OMG! we gotta do something!  Yes, but I worry about people embracing drastic measures that might do more harm than good.  I tend to favor forming little eco-systems of ideas, trying out different things in different places, seeing what can help, and what can hurt also.  But in a limited fashion, that is not so much imposing a top-down, one system fits, well, none.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guest Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Jun 2019 at 19:52
If the Good Lord had wanted us to have plastic intestines etc, we would have been born with them.Wink
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Originally posted by toyomotor toyomotor wrote:

If the Good Lord had wanted us to have plastic intestines etc, we would have been born with them.Wink
My Friend, Plastic is our Friend.
We will be shiny plastic people at least on the inside.Wink

A Helping Hand… or Organ?

  • 3D-Printed Body Parts: We can 3-D print toys, tools, cars, and more. While 3-D printed human body parts aren’t quite here yet, they’re closer than you may think. Researchers are working on printing various body parts such as kidneys, skin, bones, cartilage, tissues, blood vessels, and more made from diverse cell types while using plastics to help keep the part’s structure in shape. And today, 3-D printed plastic body part models are used as research and practice for complex, tough surgeries.
  • Self-Healing Plastics: Researchers are developing new materials with plastics that can self-heal—and they’re using them to develop artificial skin and muscle. The plastic skin mimics the flexibility and sensitivity of human skin and may enable new prosthetics, while the plastic muscle may be used to help move artificial limbs, to replace missing limbs, or even for advanced robots. And both may have the ability to heal themselves, just like human tissue.

If you think about it, all those plastic medical tools you take for granted in your doctor’s office were once revolutionary. And plastics will continue to help drive innovations in medical care that we only dream about today.
Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate. (J. R. R. Tolkien)
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Quote regarding population, I would suggest checking out Hans Rosling's tedtalks.
Listening to him, things seem rather positive.
I seem to be hearing similar things everywhere, almost as if the problems of escalating population are nothing to be concerned about. I disagree. The human element of climate change is directly related to our burgeoning population - human activity creates heat, and since the global population has more than tripled since 1945, well, it seems our climate can't cope. But it goes further. urbanisation and land use. Resources. I mean, really, if things look potentially bad now what's it going to be like when there's ten times as many of us? A hundred times? A thousand? It can't go on, and natural factors dictate that sooner or later our superiority will collapse dramatically. There are plenty of dominant species in the fossil record already if one needs a warning. But hey, life goes on doesn't it?
http://www.unrv.com/forum/blog/31-caldrails-blog/
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The future described in the UN study strikes me as being a more likely scenario. The chatter about food additives effectively de-feminizing women and emasculating men isn't going away. US is adding "unknowables" to corn which is in everything- even plastic-tee hee. Then they ship it all over the world. 

In the FUTURE Embryos will be selected, everyday people will loose the capacity to reproduce and the ruling class will order genetically enhanced babies online. Endocrine disrupting chemicals (ECDs) xenobiotics, sounds friendly right? They are in the air, food, water and the sterilizing effect is evident in wildlife, it's accumulating in human/animal bodies and everywhere else.
Remember the newspapers shrieking about the population soaring to 8 Billion in the 1970's? Never happened, killer bees were a concern then also. Then we started killing all the bees so no problems now.

According to United Nations’ estimates, the world population in 2100 will be within a range between 15.8 billion people according to the highest estimates -high fertility variant– and 6.2 billion according to the lowest – low fertility variant–, a figure that stands below the current 7 billion.

A mathematical model developed by a team from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and the CEU-San Pablo University, both from Spain, seems to confirm the lower estimate, in addition to a standstill and even a slight drop in the number of people on Earth by the mid-21st century.

The population prospects between 1950 and 2100 provided by the UN were used to conduct the study, published in the journal ‘Simulation’. Mathematical equations which are used in scientific fields, such as condensed matter physics, were then applied to this data.

“This is a model that describes the evolution of a two-level system in which there is a probability of passing from one level to another,” as explained to SINC by Félix F. Muñoz, UAM researcher and co-author of the project.

The team considered the Earth as a closed and finite system where the migration of people within the system has no impact and where the fundamental principle of the conservation of mass –biomass in this case– and energy is fulfilled.
Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate. (J. R. R. Tolkien)
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I can't find the server you mention, Rosling estimates that the world population will level out at 8 million, part of that is longevity 'leveling out' too.  About population, and plastics and other problems in general I am cautiously optimistic.  We have to respond to the problems and we have to respond in the right way, but I do not believe that the sky is falling in our time, any more or less than it is for any other time in history.

Or you could cite 'the Population Bomb" by Paul Ehrlich(?), which was the excuse of various dictators to purge populations considered less desirable.  Talk about a step backwards.

Hans Rosling has a wonderful lecture to a woman's organization about the revolutionary invention of the (clothes) washing machine, I recommend it, Rosling's presentations are so good, even if you knew what he was going to say, it is just fun to see for the presentational aspect of the presentation.
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It's a transformation. The Earth must be like the human in body in the way it endures yet carries on. The earth is irrevocably changed but it won't mean the end of it all yet, eh? Maybe we realize and do better before we can totally recover but manage to change enough ourselves to cope with new conditions.

http://https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth
This is another link, same UN study. 


Edited by Vanuatu - 26 Jun 2019 at 08:07
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The Earth will be fine, we might be screwed, there may be a die off (is? a die off)? but there have been great extinctions before, and the Earth has come back.  So, yes, we should work on getting plastics (more) out of the ecosystem.  But, we should understand that with us or not, the world will continue on.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guest Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Jun 2019 at 12:16
Quote But, we should understand that with us or not, the world will continue on.

Agreed, but what condition will it be in? Will all the sea life have been killed off by toxic plastics? How about the increased problem in safely getting rid of plastic?

How come someone hasn't invented water soluble plastic? 
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Originally posted by toyomotor toyomotor wrote:

Quote But, we should understand that with us or not, the world will continue on.

Agreed, but what condition will it be in? Will all the sea life have been killed off by toxic plastics? How about the increased problem in safely getting rid of plastic?

How come someone hasn't invented water soluble plastic? 
I won't be surprised if humans find a way to arrest the problem of plastics, the hole in the ozone has been recovering since the aerosol bans. These pollutants can be dealt with and hopefully now they become a priority.

The ozone layer, which protects us from ultraviolet light, looks to be successfully healing after gaping holes were discovered in the 1980s.

The Northern Hemisphere could be fully fixed by the 2030s and Antarctica by the 2060s.

A new United Nations report says it's an example of what global agreements can achieve.

The ozone layer had been damaged by man-made chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
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I think that God made life in the Universe infinitely rare.  But, once it gets going it is incredibly hard to stop completely.  There have been two or three huge die-offs in the past.  Not just the dinosaurs, but a bigger one before that.  Right now we are in the middle of a big, man-made die-off, maybe we can reverse it, maybe we won't be able to.  But, either we _all_ (the giant squid, and the platypus too I hope) will learn to continue on, or it will also kill us off and the remnant of life will continue without us, and start again.

But I think we will get through plastics, but what about that to follow, and that to follow that?  I think humans are very adaptive, but animals are having a hard time, it is easier for them in many cases to die-off than to adapt. 
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Yeah the animals are hard to even think about, the large species are all but gone in the wild. I hope there are enough samples of DNA to recreate the animals in a lab. After they have disappeared from earth there may be another generation that is prepared to bring them back.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guest Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Jun 2019 at 16:23
Originally posted by Vanuatu Vanuatu wrote:

Yeah the animals are hard to even think about, the large species are all but gone in the wild. I hope there are enough samples of DNA to recreate the animals in a lab. After they have disappeared from earth there may be another generation that is prepared to bring them back.

Slightly off topic, but......

Many animal welfare organisations criticise putting animals in zoos or special reserves. If the only way to save a species is to put them in zoos or reserves, I'd support it. Not ideal, but too many species are now endangered because of humans.
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PETA runs animal shelters that put animals to "sleep" rather than allow their adoption.  They don't recognize that man has a relationship with domesticated animals, which is not purely exploitative.

Or as Joe Rogan puts it, giraffes in capitivity have it pretty good, they can't run as far as they can in the wild, on other hand, they don't get eaten by lions either.
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Originally posted by franciscosan franciscosan wrote:

PETA runs animal shelters that put animals to "sleep" rather than allow their adoption.  They don't recognize that man has a relationship with domesticated animals, which is not purely exploitative.

Or as Joe Rogan puts it, giraffes in capitivity have it pretty good, they can't run as far as they can in the wild, on other hand, they don't get eaten by lions either.
Giraffes won't be eaten by humans at the zoo unless the zoo is in Africa.

Now that everyone is terrified of plastic in the water, Pepsi and Coca cola are going to start canning water. Plastic water bottles are the source of most of the plastic consumed and canned water is a better bet pollution wise.
Aluminum is more often recycled than plastic. Something like 55% aluminum to 31% of plastic are reused if the consumer gets them to the curb.  
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Quote Aluminum is more often recycled than plastic. Something like 55% aluminum to 31% of plastic are reused if the consumer gets them to the curb.

In my home state we're talking about a Container Deposit Scheme, where people obtain a small fee for returning empty drink containers. Silly thing is that we had it years ago, and then dropped it. But while people will recycle aluminium and steel cans I don't know if they'll bother with plastics.

Have to wait and see I suppose.
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Originally posted by toyomotor toyomotor wrote:

Quote Aluminum is more often recycled than plastic. Something like 55% aluminum to 31% of plastic are reused if the consumer gets them to the curb.

In my home state we're talking about a Container Deposit Scheme, where people obtain a small fee for returning empty drink containers. Silly thing is that we had it years ago, and then dropped it. But while people will recycle aluminium and steel cans I don't know if they'll bother with plastics.

Have to wait and see I suppose.
AU Brilliant!
That is what has always been missing from the short sighted consumer perspective- Incentive!
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I think we can probably do something about those little plastic packets of screws at hardware stores, but plastic is great stuff, I don't see us getting rid of it as a whole.   Fact is, I am not sure why alcohol, beer, wine are still sold in glass containers, although it may have something to do with familiar habits.  A beer is nicer in a glass bottle, but I think that a soda is also nicer in a glass bottle, and yet they do plastic.

Plastic does not break like glass, and it is a lot lighter.  Although there may be other advantages to glass than aesthetics.

A little different, in the grocery store they put soy milk and almond milk in the coolers with the regular milk, despite the fact that they don't spoil without refrigeration.  Would people reject their favorite substitute for milk if it didn't come from a cooler?  Would people reject beers if they came in plastic?
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There was news this year about a curious state in which potassium becomes liquid and remains a solid.
Maybe humans are capable of a state under the right circumstances that allow a buildup of plastic to incorporate into bio-quantum fibers.

And good news about squid maybe they can bail us out of this plastic infusion.

http://https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190221083430.htm
Squid ring teeth are all-rounders

As humanity awakens to the aftermath of a 100-year party of plastic production, we are beginning to heed nature's warnings -- and its solutions.

"Nature produces a variety of smart materials capable of environmental sensing, self-healing and exceptional mechanical function. These materials, or biopolymers, have unique physical properties that are not readily found in synthetic polymers like plastic. Importantly, biopolymers are sustainable and can be engineered to enhance their physical properties," explains Demirel.
Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate. (J. R. R. Tolkien)
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