Our bad

719 points · 34 comments · view on lemmy.world

34 Comments

mushroommunk@lemmy.today · 60 pts · 323d

"Taste the rainbow" getting new meaning

optissima@lemmy.ml · 54 pts · 323d (13 replies)

This implies that microplastics were inevitable because of the industrial revolution instead of because of the oil industry destroying regulation for 100 years.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 15 pts · 323d (7 replies)

According to Karl Marx (in Das Kapital ) the deregulation of industry for sake of profit is inevitable.

It's cheaper to capture government than it is to follow regulations (which, in turn, are meant to serve the public, sometimes protect the public from industry)

Some nations are trying to make the capture process slow or difficult, but none have stopped it, and it only accelerates.

explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 323d (6 replies)

But supporting their central point, Marx did propose a solution that would make have made microplastics evitable.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 323d (4 replies)

Only on the presumption that we didn't detect it and aim for solutions sooner (e.g. invent circular recycling of plastics, replace major causes of microplastics with degradeable alternatives, say, vulcanized rubber with rubber and mushrooms).

Also the society's response in this late hour would probably be more effective than a disinformation campaign and a shrug.

optissima@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 322d (3 replies)

I think it's safe to assume that if we had stronger regulations, some of which were first implemented 1980, we'd be looking at significantly less than now.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 322d (2 replies)

Agreed, but 1980 was the beginning of the Reagan-Bush era and massive environmental deregulation, which only got worse through Clinton and George W. Bush.

The great conservative movement killed conservation.

optissima@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 321d (1 reply)

Your phrasing seems to indicate that you're refuting my point when it strengthens it? Yeah if we had followed the Republican bare minimum instead of letting the bottom drop out it'd already be significantly less of an issue.

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 321d

They literally started the comment out with the word "agreed" lol

maccentric@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 323d

Would have made—that cat is out of the barn

Emerald@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 322d (4 replies)

Plastic is made from petroleum. Petroleum is natural and good for you. I use a 1/4 tsp of petroleum in my water for flavor and I turned out fine.

optissima@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 321d (3 replies)

No kidding my MiL said this about eating blackberries right off the highway during leaded gasoline times.

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 321d

Extra sweet!

Emerald@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 321d (1 reply)

Well yeah, don't drink leaded gasoline of course, just the unleaded flavor

optissima@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 321d

But leaded is presweetened!

jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works · 33 pts · 323d (1 reply)

"In 1804, Richard Trevithick developed the high pressure steam engine, unwhittingly dooming all of humanity."

CubbyTustard@reddthat.com · 6 pts · 323d

ol' Dick Thicc we called 'im

NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone · 17 pts · 323d

The first nobhead to pick up a stick to use as a tool kicked off a technological singularity and now we’re buggered.

TheBat@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 323d (1 reply)
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HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 323d

HEY ED CHECK OUT THIS COOL THING I GOT ITS CALLED A GUN MAKE THESE INSTEAD

peter nooooo

StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 323d (10 replies)

Can someone smart clear this up for me? I thought distillation was the process of evaporating liquids then cooling them to form just the pure liquid on the other end, if this can happen in rain, could micro plastics find their way into distilled water too?

halfapage@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 323d (4 replies)
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Zwiebel@feddit.org · 15 pts · 323d (3 replies)

Raindrops always condensate around a little dust particle referred to as nucleus, afaik

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 323d (2 replies)

yeah, i'd think the nucleus for these raindrops were microplastic clouds

R00bot@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 322d (1 reply)

microplastic clouds

Horrific

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 322d

oh don't worry tomorrow has fresh new horrors unlike the ones we have at home

AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 323d (2 replies)

Evaporation ≠ distillation. Nature doesn't have filters everywhere. That's not to say that nature doesn't have filters, but they are seemingly sparse in the air.

Zwiebel@feddit.org · 7 pts · 323d (1 reply)

Distillation doesn't use filters either

StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 323d

Maybe it's more about sterile conditions then, in a glass tube you're probably counting on the way that the water moves through it, I keep thinking back to the game raft and how they "distill" water, always made me wonder if it would really work

Mubelotix@jlai.lu · 5 pts · 323d

It's actually not. It still carries all kinds of stuff

ayyy@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 323d

It could just be the wind that was hanging out in the same spot as the rain. Wind can carry stuff reeeeeaaaaaally far.

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 6 pts · 323d

It's rainin' [green plastic army] men, Hallelujah!

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 323d (2 replies)

Plastic is just gray goo in slow motion.

explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 323d (1 reply)

It doesn't reproduce though.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 323d

It doesn't have to if we keep producing new stuff that sinks into the environment and lingers there for eons.

Once we die out, it's going to put a damper on all the biomes trying to recover from the Holocene extinction.

FalschgeldFurkan@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 321d

Free filament for 3d printers