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The article was not arguing for inaction, it was arguing that this particular solution is not viable and could cause more harm then good. Both due to negative e

by mreome 8y ago

The article was not arguing for inaction, it was arguing that this particular solution is not viable and could cause more harm then good. Both due to negative environmental impacts and diverting funds and attention from more workable and effective solutions. Yes, we need to figure out how to clean up the plastics that are there, but more importantly, we need to stop adding more and more every day. ... which is like saying that the best way to clean dog poop off of your carpet is to not have a dog ... I would argue the analogy is more "the best way to clean dog poop off of your carpet is to train your dog not to shit on your carpet." Yeah, there is still a shit stain we have to clean up, but we can't rent a steam-cleaner every time he needs to take a crap, and if we try to clean it up with a vacuum, it's going to make everything much worse.

jlmorton 8y ago
> I would argue the analogy is more "the best way to clean dog poop off of your carpet is to train your dog not to shit on your carpet." Well, I would argue this analogy is also rather inapt. Much better would be training your 7.5 billion dogs not to shit on your carpet. Until most of those dogs are trained, it makes sense to search for tools to clean up the poop. We haven't yet extensively tested the vacuum cleaner, and it's not clear how effective it will be, or whether it might make the situation worse.
- mreome 8y ago
  No, we haven't extensively tested it... but everyone who makes vacuum cleaners are telling us they won't clean up dog poop, and people who know about carpet cleaning in general are saying there are other better ways to clean it up and the vacuum will just make a mess. But, of course, as you said none of these analogs are really apt, they are just silly simplifications of a major issue. I'm just trying to say that nobody is arguing for inaction here, on any front, they are arguing for trying to use the available resources in the most effective way possible. But people love magic bullet solutions, they want to back something that will just fix everything, so they ignore whole fields of experts and professionals, jump on the bandwagon with one buzz-worthy genius, and waste resources that could be better utilized elsewhere. My concern is less that this particular project will fail, but more that it distracts people from the real long-term solutions, and the changes that need to be made for us to work towards those solutions, and actually gives them an excuse to ignore them. I've actually heard people cite projects like this as a reason NOT to worry about the amount of waste they generate. Attention is a valuable resource, and when it comes to ecological issues, it's in desperately short supply. Also, unless any proposed clean-up solution can ultimately remove all the waste, it's actually less effective then any solution that uses the same amount of resources to prevent the same amount of plastics (yearly) from entering the ocean ecosystem. The net amount of plastic in the oceans each year will be the same in both cases, and you remove the negative impacts the new plastics have before they are removed from the ecosystem (leaching surface coating chemicals into the water for example), and since new plastic is not cycling is as quickly, it will increase the rate of decomposition. This is the argument for making reduction a bigger focus, as opposed to clean-up.

by mreome 8y ago

jlmorton 8y ago

> I would argue the analogy is more "the best way to clean dog poop off of your carpet is to train your dog not to shit on your carpet." Well, I would argue this analogy is also rather inapt. Much better would be training your 7.5 billion dogs not to shit on your carpet. Until most of those dogs are trained, it makes sense to search for tools to clean up the poop. We haven't yet extensively tested the vacuum cleaner, and it's not clear how effective it will be, or whether it might make the situation worse.

mreome 8y ago
No, we haven't extensively tested it... but everyone who makes vacuum cleaners are telling us they won't clean up dog poop, and people who know about carpet cleaning in general are saying there are other better ways to clean it up and the vacuum will just make a mess. But, of course, as you said none of these analogs are really apt, they are just silly simplifications of a major issue. I'm just trying to say that nobody is arguing for inaction here, on any front, they are arguing for trying to use the available resources in the most effective way possible. But people love magic bullet solutions, they want to back something that will just fix everything, so they ignore whole fields of experts and professionals, jump on the bandwagon with one buzz-worthy genius, and waste resources that could be better utilized elsewhere. My concern is less that this particular project will fail, but more that it distracts people from the real long-term solutions, and the changes that need to be made for us to work towards those solutions, and actually gives them an excuse to ignore them. I've actually heard people cite projects like this as a reason NOT to worry about the amount of waste they generate. Attention is a valuable resource, and when it comes to ecological issues, it's in desperately short supply. Also, unless any proposed clean-up solution can ultimately remove all the waste, it's actually less effective then any solution that uses the same amount of resources to prevent the same amount of plastics (yearly) from entering the ocean ecosystem. The net amount of plastic in the oceans each year will be the same in both cases, and you remove the negative impacts the new plastics have before they are removed from the ecosystem (leaching surface coating chemicals into the water for example), and since new plastic is not cycling is as quickly, it will increase the rate of decomposition. This is the argument for making reduction a bigger focus, as opposed to clean-up.