There have been disconcerting reports about a large island of trash floating in the Pacific.It is, apparently, too large to clean, and had been met with only words. Although, this report has been around for a few years, the willingness for action in a concerted fashion was absent.
Well, action is finally underway to clean portions of the patch. Although, I suspect it would take a much larger effort.
This is one of those news ithat serves to remind us that the future envisaged in the Wall-E movie may be nearer than we imagine, unless action is serious.
Agreed @beastmode10 thanks for starting this thread.
Large scale plastic is a big issue, did you also know the amount of plastic introduced into the environment also results in microplastic that is very difficult if not impossible to filter from our water supplies and the environments that creatures that interact with water sources.
The long term effects are still being studied but the plastics are small enough the enter cells and disrupt function. Needless to say needless use of plastic should be discourage while should be encouraged. Please donât just toss your plastics away.
To be honest, Iâve almost a constant state of terror bubbling under the surface regarding the environment, but what can the individual do?
Itâs at the point now that only determined efforts by governments, industry and the 1% is really going to make any kind of impactful change, yet none of those could give a toss as environmental action is not going to make them richer.
Consumerism and capitalism has all but totally doomed the planet and humanity and, again, those who could have changed things refused to do so due to their desire for more and more wealth/ power.
It sickens me to think of governments/ the 1% patting themselves on the back for agreeing to emissions cuts at COP26 when if they actually gave a toss these measures would have been in place 10-20 years ago.
You mentioned what can the individual do. Well it sickens me that there are individuals that could literally fund the entire change themselves, but instead hoard money and make more money with it accruing interest or value in stock when they do nothing at all. Then the fact that people rush to their defense over people wanting to tax those individuals to improve the state of the world, thatâs just as sick.
People are patting Jeff Bezos for donating 10 billion to help fight against climate change when his worth went up by somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 billion over the past 2 years. Donât get me wrong, thank god someones investing anything, but they have so much itâd be easy to really help change the world for the better. Itâs insane.
Thats a great initiative, bilionaires should take a note and instead expending millions building rockets for wealthy ppl take a self with the earth as a background, to contribute to preserve our only home.
I live in a country ruled by a psychopath that would burn every tree to replace it by a cow, I see a lot of leaders expressing concerns about this psycho acts against our forests, however none of them actually stopped buying meat from us, for example.
As you said, it is a small step, but still it fills us with hope seeing this kind of engagement.
We, as people, have the power to change anything we want if we united ourselves in a cohesive changing force. However, we are bombarded 24/7 with stuff to keep our society divided for the big players keep milking their fortunes at the cost of our own existence.
I want to believe that, but I just donât think itâs the case.
Here in the UK, and in Australia where Iâm originally from, when all the high school students went on strike to express their concerns about climate change - and it was literally THOUSANDS of students in both countries often with parents and teachers supporting them - the governments didnât once think âoh wow, look at all these kids marching and protesting and fighting for a better world.â Instead, both countryâs governments shuffled out onto their metaphorical porches and were just like âstoopid kids, get back to your schoolinâ, ya hear!â
The people can gather and fight and protest, but the fact is that the people, no matter their strength, canât actually change anything,we can only convince those in power to change, and those in power simply are not interested in doing so.
should be encouraged. Please donât just toss your plastics away.