this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024

189 points (98.5% liked)

World News

39041 readers

2872 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

189

Great Pacific Garbage Patch could be eliminated in 10 years, cleanup organization says (www.latimes.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

After three years extracting plastic waste from the notorious Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an environmental nonprofit says it can finish the job within a decade, with a price tag of several billion dollars.

Twice the size of Texas, the mass of about 79,000 metric tons of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii is growing at an exponential pace, according to researchers.

top 16 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's no reason to take this guy or his organization at face value when they make claims. It's been hype and hopium for a decade now, fueled by TED Talks and wunderkind-loving media.

Cleaning up the garbage patch isn't just a matter of collecting nicely floating big pieces of plastic. Doing that is good, but it's not actually something that can ever get it to "clean", it's just something that helps slow the accumulation over time. You get the big stuff (relatively) easily, then it gets progressively harder, and eventually impossible.

Which is progress. It's just not the lofty result they keep promising. If all it took was a big net and a relatively modest (by government standards) budget, this wouldn't be a problem.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Yeah the article doesn't contain a lot of information. However if the garbage patch is "growing at an exponential pace" and "In their three years at sea, the Ocean Cleanup vessels have removed more than a million pounds of trash, representing 0.5% of the total accumulation. ", then I'd say a little more effort would be required :(

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's great news. It doesn't say in the article but are they going to start on the Great Atlantic Garbage Patch after they are done?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago

This is a white-paper proposal for a clean-up effort that nobody wants to fund. The CEO of Ocean Cleanup has been pitching this fix since 2012. This isn't even a new idea, its just been going through permutations of refinement since the initial proposal, with funding coming primarily from private independent donations. But we're talking tens-of-millions raised on a project that needs 100x that amount.

And it does not appear to include the cost of physically processing the removed waste, just collecting and moving it to another location.

Given the stinginess of state governments when it comes to waste cleanup, I'm not holding my breath.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

There seems to be a basic math problem here - if it’s still growing at an exponential pace, any effort to clean it up will fail

Why don’t we focus on scaling those trash interceptors to every major river and harbor, to see if we can fix that math?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Most of the garbage comes from commercial fishing. So that won't help.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

At least that'll correct itself when all the fish are dead, right?

..right?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I think this company has few different teams that work on the problem from different angles

Some are on the boats in the Pacific some are building interceptors in rivers in countries that are the largest producers of waste that makes it to the ocean. Of course they can't fix the problem just slow it down. The fix comes from these countries changing how they allow garbage to be collected and stored.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

AT what cost? 80,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere wouldn't surprise me...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

80,000 tons of CO2 is better than 80,000 tons in the ocean, I guess.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Finally! Now no one can deny that Gojira song really IS about Great Britain.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

I will be a billionaire in ten years by solving climate change and rolling back the clock on all human damage to the earth!

Money pweeeeese

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Eliminated...or relocated. I assume relocated like when people go cleanup a park. They just shuffle the garbage to be someone else's problem. Stop consuming please

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

Sure, but I'd rather have it relocated to a landfill where it'll be kept out of the water supply and will eventually get covered with dirt and turned into a park or forest preserve.

Landfills aren't just a hole in the ground people throw shit into. They're complex, managed systems that efficiently store garbage and keep it sequestered while it breaks down over long periods of time.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You don't buy anything and don't have any trash?