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In the anthropocene era, sometimes we should err on the side of caution. If our human activities can reshape the Earth significantly and such changes can last f
by Frost1x 6y ago
In the anthropocene era, sometimes we should err on the side of caution. If our human activities can reshape the Earth significantly and such changes can last for very long periods of time, we likely shouldn't proceed gung-ho on those fronts but do so slowly gathering as much knowledge as we can.
We used to pump lead into all sorts of things and throw CFCs into the environment but we realized later these are bad for most us Earth dewllers. At the time, we didn't have abundant evidence of the negative effects and that got us into trouble.
Maybe microplastics are harmless but it may be a wise assumption to assume they are and proceed slowly and cautiously. Turning these things backwards may be incredibly difficult to nearly impossible (e.g. Chernobyl).
Scale is very important for experimenting if something is harmful or not. Its better to experiment with these things at small scale before rolling processes out globally. Some effects are only clear at full scale though, unfortunately.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ballenf 6y agoIronically, plastics and other hydrocarbons now substitute for many of the uses of lead: pipes, paint, gasoline additives, etc. So to say we should have moved slowly to plastics would probably mean lead would have been around for a lot longer. I'd happily take the wager that removing lead from the environment around us was the right move. I might lose the bet, but I think it's a reasonable position.
- EinwegPlastik 6y agoHuh? i assumed we went from lead to copper and not straight to plastic
- withinboredom 6y agoThen we'd just complain about an overabundance of minerals in our body.
- EinwegPlastik 6y agoIn germany we have a ton of copper pipes and there are no copper minerals going into the water as soon as the oxidatinlayer is there. Its still standard having copper pipes here; we use plastic after the water arrives at the room.
- kaybe 6y agoSeeing that humans have a far higher tolerance for copper compared to other animals we can assume that this was indeed at some point in our history a major problem.
- nikolay 6y agoCopper is toxic, too. Don't overeat liver!
- Frost1x 6y agoHow have plastics substituted for lead in paint and gasoline additives (genuinely curious)? Pipes I'm quite familiar with (lead/PVC). It's my understanding gas tends to use ethanol as a substitute, not plastics? No clue about paint. It's also my understanding the vast majority of microplastics found are for plastics designed to be small (e.g. micro beads in soaps) and clothing (e.g. polyester material strands) and not from fragments of larger plastic components (e.g. PVC pipes).
- XorNot 6y agoGasoline is not substituted with ethanol. It's a combination of improved engine design and non-lead additives to provide the necessary anti-detonation properties.
- Frost1x 6y agoI meant ethanol as one of the substitutes for lead (previously a common additive) in gasoline which was often used before to better control compression and combustion. Are microplastics or plastics used to better control combusion engines now?
- XorNot 6y agoI meant ethanol was not substituted for lead AFAIK - the lead was replaced with MTBE in practice, and then the story of ethanol blending has more to do with CO2 emissions reduction (or in the case of Australia, a conservative prime minister somehow getting away with a levy on milk to bail out his mate's ethanol plant and mandating 10% blending in fuel at the pumps). Ethanol was the original anti knock agent, but afaik was actually replaced by tetraethyl lead originally.
- Frost1x 6y agoInteresting, thanks.
- mekkkkkk 6y agoThat's kind of a false dichotomy though, isn't it?