4 ms·

> The warming impact is tiny, far less than the impact of carbon dioxide emissions, and only a fraction of the impact of soot. So...they may be doing something

by MarkusQ 5mo ago

> The warming impact is tiny, far less than the impact of carbon dioxide emissions, and only a fraction of the impact of soot. So...they may be doing something. Or not. But if they are, it's not much. More study is needed to keep this ball in the air.

LeCompteSftware 5mo ago
This knee-jerk cynicism is badly undermined two sentences later: > Researchers say that climate models may need to be updated to account for the warming effect of plastic, but the new study is far from conclusive. So it's not scientific make-work, they are looking into whether climate models are missing something. That seems important. Perhaps local effects in India are more severe than "a fraction of the impact of soil" - India produces a huge amount of new plastic while also scavenging and recycling international plastic imports, all with very poor oversight and corrupt regulation.
- MarkusQ 5mo ago
  What? How does their saying that the study is is far from conclusive "badly undermine" my point?
  - breakyerself 5mo ago
    Pretty sure they were responding to this: "More study is needed to keep this ball in the air." Implying the goal is to keep research money flowing in as opposed to learning things about the world. Which is overly cynical bs.
    - MarkusQ 5mo ago
      A quick back of the envelope calculation shows that airborne microplastics can't possibly be significantly contributing to global warming. That's not surprising; there are millions of other things that aren't contributing to global warming. Despite this, someone decides to do a study, and finds that, to no one's surprise, airborne micro plastic is not in fact making a significant contribution to global warming. So that should surely settle it, right? Nope. Instead, they declare that it's far from conclusive, leaving the door open for another round of the same grift, taking away funding that could be going to things that actually _are_ contributing to the problem. And somehow _pointing_this_out_ is "overly cynical bs"?
breakyerself 5mo ago
I'm really looking forward to this attitude going out of style. The federal government is abandoning basic research. You won. Fucking move on.
- MarkusQ 5mo ago
  I am 100% in favor of real research, basic or otherwise. That's _why_ I'm so opposed to hype, grift, misrepresentation of results, p-hacking, and all the other nonsense. Science is measured in explanatory progress and facts discovered, not in number of nonsense papers published and funding.

by MarkusQ 5mo ago

LeCompteSftware 5mo ago

This knee-jerk cynicism is badly undermined two sentences later: > Researchers say that climate models may need to be updated to account for the warming effect of plastic, but the new study is far from conclusive. So it's not scientific make-work, they are looking into whether climate models are missing something. That seems important. Perhaps local effects in India are more severe than "a fraction of the impact of soil" - India produces a huge amount of new plastic while also scavenging and recycling international plastic imports, all with very poor oversight and corrupt regulation.

MarkusQ 5mo ago
What? How does their saying that the study is is far from conclusive "badly undermine" my point?
- breakyerself 5mo ago
  Pretty sure they were responding to this: "More study is needed to keep this ball in the air." Implying the goal is to keep research money flowing in as opposed to learning things about the world. Which is overly cynical bs.
  - MarkusQ 5mo ago
    A quick back of the envelope calculation shows that airborne microplastics can't possibly be significantly contributing to global warming. That's not surprising; there are millions of other things that aren't contributing to global warming. Despite this, someone decides to do a study, and finds that, to no one's surprise, airborne micro plastic is not in fact making a significant contribution to global warming. So that should surely settle it, right? Nope. Instead, they declare that it's far from conclusive, leaving the door open for another round of the same grift, taking away funding that could be going to things that actually _are_ contributing to the problem. And somehow _pointing_this_out_ is "overly cynical bs"?

breakyerself 5mo ago

I'm really looking forward to this attitude going out of style. The federal government is abandoning basic research. You won. Fucking move on.

MarkusQ 5mo ago
I am 100% in favor of real research, basic or otherwise. That's _why_ I'm so opposed to hype, grift, misrepresentation of results, p-hacking, and all the other nonsense. Science is measured in explanatory progress and facts discovered, not in number of nonsense papers published and funding.