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The article seems dishonest because it downplays reducing use. For example the author refers to plastic used in maternity wards. Reasonable people will agree th

• dredmorbius 4y ago
  As I've noted a few times: - Smil's studied material usage in depth for years. - This article is a very brief introduction to the topic. His book goes into more detail than this exerpt, and the chapter from which this article is based does break down plastics use in somewhat more detail. - He especially emphasized healthcare applications, though I don't find a detailed quantification or exploration of why this is. (I'm still reading through his book, though guided in part by questions such as yours.) - Use-reduction has been advocated for something on the order of five decades, since the early environmental movement. To date it's not been particularly effective, best I can tell. That said: - No, Smil doesn't discuss use reduction in depth. To the extent he's focusing on describing the problem rather than addressing solutions, that's consistent with the general theme of the book. - Recycling does net 45 mentions in the book. Much of that is addressed at animal and human waste as alternatives to artificial fertiliser. In general, materials are adopted based on a set of factors, incuding cost, characteristics, flexibility, and convenience. Plastics have substituted for other materials including organics (plant and animal) of limited quantities, ceramics, paper (with its own sets of issues), and more. Much as fossil fuels substituted for mostly biomass-based fuel sources as those were exhausted, plastics have substituted for earlier alternatives (ceramics, wood, glass, metal, paper) as those proved insufficient, inadequate, expesive, or otherwise problematic. There is a huge extent to which these practices are dependent on other factors. The self-serve supermarket, a creation of the 1920s--1940s, introduced whole new levels and layers (metaphorically and literally) to consumer packaging. The recent shift toward online ordering / home delivery has shifted these somewhat, though not necessarily in the direction of less packaging. My view: if you want people to use fewer plastics, raise the costs. Most probably through taxes or other fees. Beware second-order effects, however. Claiming Smil is dishonest seems to me itself ... dishonest.
  • kX4A8o4mVmX8aW 4y ago
    Accurately describing the problem also means saying we use several hundred times more plastic for trivial purposes like wasteful consumer packaging than we do for hospital supplies. A materials science discussion on why plastics are irreplaceable in healthcare might be relevant to a very specific audience, but it's a red herring in an environmental discussion and certainly in a short pop-sci article in a major publication. I don't doubt Smil is an expert. It's possible the article's framing wasn't entirely his fault. However if his books follow the approach of the article -- "Fossil fuels are necessary for plastics and plastics keep newborns alive" and then leaves readers to connect the dots for themselves -- then I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish. I'm sure he intends more than just dry scientific explanation. Maybe dishonest isn't the right word, I agree.
    • dredmorbius 4y ago
      I've checked in a few places, and I don't know that Smil does break down plastics usage to the extent you'd like. And that's a fair gripe. But, again, his principle audience, as I take it are those who like the modern world, and would like it to continue as it is, with minimal change. And to them he's pointing out the underlying costs and necessary conditions (including, as you'd likely characterise it, vast overconsumption of plastics), and their implications. A visceral knowledge of which is lacking in far too many people. Smil addresses this in his book's introduction: the unprecedented, if uneven, wealth of the post-WWII era, the expansion of human understanding and fact that it's escaped the grasp of any one person --- the Renaissance Man --- centuries ago, and both a fracturing and failure of knowledge even amongst elites (political, commercial, cultural, scientific, ...) to the extent that at best even amongst the elites knowlege tends strongly to the superficial. (There's an excellent interview by Edward Murrow of Robert Oppenheimer in which the physicist notes that everyone, even scientists, are amateurs outside their own very narrow fields.) Your principle complaint with Smil seems to be that he didn't write the book you wish he had. And to that extent I'd say you're right, he did not. But he did write the book he felt the world needed, and which he set out to write. And I think he's correct in his first assessment and largely successful in the task. Whether either of those are sufficient is of course another matter. The message you seem to be taking away is that Smil is arguing fossil fuels are necessary and will continue to be necessary. There, I think you're wrong. One tactic critics of environmentalists and sustainability proponants have long used is to point out all the wonderful things fossil fuels have done for humanity, with the obvious conclusion that therefor we must continue to use them. I could point to specific examples from Milton Friedman, Julian Simon, and numerous speakers and writers from the Heritage Foundation, Heartland Foundation, Cato Institution, Adam Smith Institute, Fraser Institute, and others (most part of the Libertarian, and heavily oil-industry funded, Atlas Network). But that's not Smil. At the conclusion of his chapter on energy, and discussing decarbonisation, Smil writes: What we need is to pursue a steady reduction of our dependence on the energies that made the modern world. We still do not mnow most of the particulars of this coming transition, but one thing remains certain: it will not be (it cannot be) a sudden abandonment of fossil carbon, nor even its rapid demise --- but rather its gradual decline. That paragraph cites his own earlier writings on energy transitions. Again: Smil is addressing both denial (that the transition doesn't need to occur, that climate change isn't real), and wishful thinking about the ease of such transitions. This is a field I've watched for nearly fifty years, and even worked in to some extent (not deeply, though putting me in touch with some key people and organisations). And ... there's been a lot less progress than I'd have hoped to see. It would have been much easier to get started earlier, and it's going to be much more painful. If I've one disagreement with Smil, it's that the transition might be rapid. But the cost of that would be that it would also be highly traumatic. To the tune of billions of deaths and centuries of hardship. Possibly worse.