5 ms·
Why do you strongly suspect this?
by HiroshiSan 8y ago
Why do you strongly suspect this?
- wffurr 8y agoNo high quality source of hydrocarbons goes unexploited for long.
- seanalltogether 8y agoThe carboniferous period lasted 60 million years. We probably have some time to work with.
- lomnakkus 8y agoI think you mean the "biosphere" rather than "we". Modern humans have existed anywhere from 50k-200k years. Just to put the time scales into context. EDIT: Just to clarify: As long as disasters happen slowly enough and there are actually local maxima for the species to evolve "into", everything may be fine for "humans"... but those assumptions may be overly optimistic.
- wffurr 8y agoLocked away in geologically stable layers in a time of cataclysmic climate change. Maybe there's something to that and the oceans will acidify too much for bacteria to evolve to eat the plastic, and there will forever be a "plastic layer" in the geological record to mark this era. I was thinking more that the plastics in question are free-floating in a soluble medium and thus ripe for digestion by an opportunistic microbe.
- wellboy 8y agoHe kind of has a point. There are mutations in microbes all the time that allow plastic digestion, probably millions every day. Only needs one that really punches through.
- freehunter 8y agoWell for one, bacteria already exists that eats plastic: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196 It's not too far fetched to assume this already-existent bacteria could continue to exist and possibly mutate into something more efficient or proliferate to encompass the entire ocean.
- HiroshiSan 8y agoNeat!
- b1daly 8y agoWe should genetically engineer this new breed of bacteria and seed the oceans. What could go wrong?