10 ms·
Maybe I’m the only one, but I like this project. Yes, we need to prevent plastic from going in in the first place, but what about al the plastic that’s already
by clay_the_ripper 8y ago
Maybe I’m the only one, but I like this project. Yes, we need to prevent plastic from going in in the first place, but what about al the plastic that’s already there? There’s a lot of it. Does this system address every single issue? No. (Like the plastic that’s more than 3 meters down). But to me this seems like an “and” project. Let’s prevent plastic from entering AND try to remove it. Let’s get rid of the top layer AND develop a solution for the lower depths. Let’s try this AND another idea.
At least they are trying something rather than twiddling their thumbs and conducting studies and not taking action because the thing isn’t perfect. The oceans are in a dire situation and action needs to be taken.
Maybe this thing doesn’t work. Maybe they have to start over. Maybe someone else comes up with something better. Great! Do that.
People pointing out that it might harm marine life. Ok I get it. You know what else harms marine life? Damn near everything else humans put into the oceans too.
At this point the oceans are basically screwed if someone doesnt start trying to fix something. And to the people pointing out that it’s a waste of 20 mil, come on. 20 mil is basically nothing and it’s no skin off your teeth. Better than money went to this than making more juceros or whatever other dumb ideas that get a lot more funding than 20 mil, and have no possibility of a net upside.
- glibgil 8y ago> Maybe this thing doesn’t work It doesn’t > Maybe they have to start over They spent $20M. They shouldn’t be allowed near money ever again > Maybe someone else comes up with something better Everyone who did nothing came up with something better. My $0 solution gets more plastic than this and leaves $20M available for other things
- eganist 8y ago> Everyone who did nothing came up with something better With that attitude, no research projects will ever go to production. As an aside, spending money doesn't destroy it. You talk as if some grave crime was committed... nah. People passionate about the environment (or at the very least, blue collar folks in need of work) likely earned a living supporting this project, something that wouldn't have happened if zero dollars were spent trying to solve the problem. The funding will continue only if we're willing to spend towards validating or invalidating new ideas; researchers just need to either rework or exclude this approach and explore others as different concepts succeed or fail.
- jacobwilliamroy 8y agoThe ocean is a common resource, and the full-scale ocean cleanup would have far-reaching negative consequences around the pacific. Opposition to the project is more than just an attitude: it's supported by decades of scientific evidence regarding the nature of the ocean and the plastics within it. The ocean cleanup seems to be ignoring the warnings and skepticism because they believe they'll be on the right side of history no matter what happens. If they don't change course, the ocean cleanup will be heading into a very slow, very expensive PR nightmare.
- eganist 8y ago> The ocean is a common resource, and the full-scale ocean cleanup would have far-reaching negative consequences around the pacific. Citation seriously needed here. Where does your assertion of certainty ("would") come from?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dang 8y agoEven if you're right, please don't post bilious denunciations to HN. Those are a cheap internet commodity that lowers the signal/noise ratio. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: unfortunately, it looks like your comments have done little but break the site guidelines lately. If you keep that up, we're going to have to ban you. If you'd review the guidelines and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd appreciate it. You might find these additional links helpful for getting a clearer idea of that original spirit: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html
- Domark 8y agoHe’s pointing out a scam. You might not believe it’s a scam, but it’s a valid opinion. Maybe try moderating HN if you don’t like the quality of the posts. Up voting and down voting is cute but it’s not moderation.
- richmarr 8y agoIf you look at this post by cultus you'll see how to share the exact opinion you describe, without violating the HN posting guidelines like glibgil's comment did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18730865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18730865
- glibgil 8y ago> please don't post bilious denunciations to HN It's not personal and I'm not sure why you would attribute malice > If you keep that up, we're going to have to ban you If you keep this up I'm going to have to delete my account
- shrumm 8y agoTHIS. 20m is a drop in the ocean (sorry!) compared to what other projects get funded with. To me, climate change is like the white walker threat in the Game of Thrones series. Everyone's squabbling over petty politics while the real threat gets increasingly worse. I'm actually annoyed that they only got 20m. A few weeks ago, I sat in as a judge for a university startup challenge. The students were given all semester to build a product and present their attempts in commercializing it. I was seated next to another startup founder and we both came to the same conclusion. The projects that had a social good / environmentally positive objective were the ones we WANTED to support but the least attractive investment wise. Social good has little intrinsic market value. Investors want to invest $1 and make $10 - that's grossly incompatible with these kind of projects. Ironically, it's probably where we need the best minds and investment focused on. Props to to this guy for trying something, and inspiring others to contribute to the project. I hope there's more like him...
- dependsontheq 8y agoFun (or actually not fun at all) fact „winter is coming“ and the endless game of thrones is actually George Martins metapher for climate change and our reaction to it.
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoThis kinda makes me hope there's not a good ending and everyone dies because they couldn't get their shit together. I didn't like the last season (which advances beyond the books) because it was getting all too idk, tropey. Glad it's not positioned as a warning - 1984 and Brave New World are both happening as we speak despite the warnings.
- oAlbe 8y agoBut people gotta have their Alexas and their Google Maps man. Their webcam & mic enabled smart TVs and their cloud connected thermostat. I mean, c'mon, how could anybody live without it? /s
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jsemrau 8y agoStuff like this is really needed. Optimizing around the next ad-click won't help at all. I fundamentally we as a society need to re-align our focus away from social media and towards solving the 'hard problems' (not because they are easy, but because they are hard)
- criddell 8y agoHow many Instagram influencers does it take to clean up the ocean?
- jacobwilliamroy 8y agoOn the scale that is required to clean up the ocean, removing plastics harms marine life. Ocean plastic aggregates marine animals; it's not like picking up trash on the beach. I've had experience removing ghostnets from the oceans, and there's no way an unsupervised system is going to be able to collect these debris without by-catch. The haste required to meet the 5-year 50% removal goal also guarantees by-catch. The fact that the ocean is already full of man-made hazards, does not convince me that adding more man-made hazards will help us to reach sustainability goals: food security for communities dependent on the ocean animals; preventing plastic from entering human bodies through the food, air and water supplies. Also, I'm very curious what the ocean cleanup means by 50%. 92% of the plastic in the north pacific gyre is microplastic, which the system is incapable of collecting.
- spaceflunky 8y agoAm I the only still enjoying my jucero?
- pizza234 8y agoIn cases like this, ideas and their development don't come for free, and subtract resources to truly addressing the problem. When it comes to ocean cleaning, technological solutions are very attractive, because the population likes to think that they push a button, lay on a sofa, and the oceans get cleaned. Assuming we want to address the symptom and not the cause (in other words, if we want to clean the garbage in the ocean rather than preventing it to enter in the first place , which is still better than not taking action), there is a simple and valid solution, but it's not attractive, since there are no buttons to push, and it involves sweat: cleaning the beaches. Here's the old response to Slat's project; it's from 2013 and until now, it holds true: https://inhabitat.com/the-fallacy-of-cleaning-the-gyres-of-plastic-with-a-floating-ocean-cleanup-array https://inhabitat.com/the-fallacy-of-cleaning-the-gyres-of-p.... The article is top-to-bottom interesting. Two limited extracts: > So far, we’ve taken one gyre cleanup advocate across the South Atlantic, from Brazil to South Africa. We had 22 days of storms with seas in excess of 30 feet at times. By the time we got to the other side, some 30+ days later, he’d abandoned his hope of cleaning the gyres once he realized how big a ‘place’ we’re talking about. What I find astonishing is that out of all the gyre cleanup proponents I’ve met, none of them have ever been to the gyres. > the sea is one giant corrosive force. Even on just a month-long sail across The South Atlantic, we tore our sails twice, broke some rigging, and utterly destroyed a wind-powered generator—all due to the force of nature.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago> When it comes to ocean cleaning, technological solutions are very attractive, because the population likes to think that they push a button, lay on a sofa, and the oceans get cleaned. Please don't dismiss that. Here's a simple fact about humanity: the more people you need ask for something, the less likely it is that it's going to happen. Coordinating humans at scale is one of the hardest social problems[0]. Technological solutions are attractive precisely because they sidestep the need to get everyone on board. -- [0] - I'm inclined to believe that it's actually the hardest social problem, the root of all other problems.
- clay_the_ripper 8y agoThanks for linking this, that’s an interesting article. I was not aware of the link between beach cleanup and gyre cleanup. I guess my general perspective is that: 1. I am not arguing that slats solution is the best solution or the only solution. I think that if it drives awareness of the issue and eventually leads us to a better solution, then it’s a success in a backwards kind of way, even if it doesn’t “succeed” 2. Concerns about its potential harm I think are a bit overblown. In real terms, what are we talking about in terms of bycatch and how does that compare percentage wise to “bycatch” from other human activities? (Shipping, commercial fishing, coastal development, climate change?). The impacts from those things are huge, so I doubt that this system is really going to make that big of an impact comparatively. 3. Complaints about the money that could have gone to other better things are also a bit invalid. I’m willing to bet that most of that 20 mil would not have gone to other solutions anyway. So it’s not taking money from other things in reality.
- m12k 8y agoI think most serious engineers know that nothing beats actually working on the real thing. Models and test environments are nice and all, but the only truly valid results come from the 'production environment'. I'm glad someone is doing this, and I think it's 20 mil well spent, even if all it does is teach us what doesn't work, and give us better data on the actual scope of the plastic problem.
- barman 8y agoI don't think you're the only one that likes this project