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Maybe this will help. Consider the first cup of water that Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun drank on his 18th birthday. That water is currently raining down on the
by jessriedel 7y ago
Maybe this will help. Consider the first cup of water that Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun drank on his 18th birthday. That water is currently raining down on the Amazon forest. This is not a good argument that we are being overwhelmed by pharaoh water. (Of course, the plastic could be a big problem; this just doesn't show it.)
- perfunctory 7y agoSo what in your view would be a better statistic?
- chrisco255 7y agoI would assume Parts Per Million via random sampling or some other relative measurement. And looking at whether that quantity is increasing significantly over time.
- jessriedel 7y agoThe fraction of the snow by weight that is plastic (ppm, or whatever), especially with a comparison to the amounts historically and to levels that are known or reasonably suspected of having bad consequences. This, for instance, is how particulate matter is quantified for assessing air quality in urban areas (one of the more harmful and less appreciated environmental damages).
- azinman2 7y agoIt doesn’t. The point is the arctic is far away from humans. Yet our generated plastic is falling out of the sky. The importance of this is an ongoing recognition that our plastic is everywhere... no part of the planet is free from the impact of 20th/21st century humanity, and our imprint is forever lasting.
- jessriedel 7y agoEgypt is far away from the Amazon. Yet it's highly misleading (not reasonable) to say "no part of the planet is free from the impacts of Tutankhamun's thirst". Individual atoms of light elements will very often travel around the world on decade-long timescales, regardless of whether they are dangerous or benign.