Plastic pollution in our seas

[paralog]

Originally Posted by boatman61

From what I see the Western world is in a panic because the Chinese are starting to refuse all the Wests waste that its been taking by the billions of tons for recycling over the years.
Now the West has to solve its own problems legislation that should have kicked in 50yrs ago is just starting..
But hey.. don't let me spoil your blame game..

And yes.. education is needed but India for one is kicking off some great cottage industry ideas for dealing with their problems.

I think the Western Governments that force us to recycle, have to mandate that the plastics etc are recycled correctly, not just dumped into some poorer country to pollute their rivers. As we all know much of our recycling that we are asked or forced to recycle ends up in landfills as it is not economical for the recyclers to process correctly.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

That’s rubbish. As people grow more wealthy they procreate less. They have more time and resources to solve really large problems. These same wrong predictions were made 50 years ago. The planet cannot feed X billion people, for example, or we’ll run out of oil or any number of other doomsday scenarios. Of course they were wrong. And this time they are wrong again. The pessimism of so-called academics in the face of so many wrong predictions of doom is staggering.

The solution is to make as many people as possible wealthy, smarter and improve the standard of living all over the world. Rich people don’t want wars. Poor people start wars.

And yes, I do support taxes used for infrastructure. We need bullets too. Else we would have no need for infrastructure.

It seems you and I read it about the same. I guess it is just our humble opinions?

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

That’s rubbish. As people grow more wealthy they procreate less. They have more time and resources to solve really large problems. These same wrong predictions were made 50 years ago. The planet cannot feed X billion people, for example, or we’ll run out of oil or any number of other doomsday scenarios. Of course they were wrong. And this time they are wrong again. The pessimism of so-called academics in the face of so many wrong predictions of doom is staggering.

The solution is to make as many people as possible wealthy, smarter and improve the standard of living all over the world. Rich people don’t want wars. Poor people start wars.

And yes, I do support taxes used for infrastructure. We need bullets too. Else we would have no need for infrastructure.

It's so cute how you simply dismiss out of hand any information which is counter to your ideology. I'd attempt to provide more data, but I can see it would be a waste, so I'll stop so as to avoid further drift.

[Hardhead]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

The solution is to make as many people as possible wealthy, smarter and improve the standard of living all over the world. Rich people don’t want wars. Poor people start wars.

That's definitely true. You might wonder why poor people are forced do it. Solve that, solve the wars.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Rich people don’t want wars. Poor people start wars.

Oh come on, even you know this isn't true. The rich and powerful start wars for profit and gain and to maintain or expand control. Poor people start revolutions.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Oh come on, even you know this isn't true. The rich and powerful start wars for profit and gain and to maintain or expand control. Poor people start revolutions.

The real truth is rich people start wars, but they are mostly fought by poor people.

[cyan]

Originally Posted by StuM

Be careful how you interpret that data. As I posted earlier, it's been taken badly out of context by the media.

It's talking about "river borne plastics". That's estimated to be anywhere between 10% and 50% of global ocean plastic pollution. ( Yep, there are huge error bars all over the relevant data)

Yeah, it's strange how long the bad informatioin lingers. Fact checking shows that the original press release on the 2017 study was badly worded and news reports and even memes picked up on that.
https://factcheck.afp.com/widely-cit...just-10-rivers

Still, those 10 bad rivers being responsible for 88-95% of ocean plastics among ALL WORLD RIVER PLASTIC SOURCES is still quite remarkable. (and probably easier to solve than non-river sources?)

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Pretty amusing you characterize it as "commie wealth-distribution." It's no different than any other tax, which is always at its core a wealth-distribution scheme. Do you characterize all taxes as "commie"?

No, most taxes are used to generate revenue to fund useful government controlled expenditures - healthcare, infrastructure, police, armed forces, drug safety, etc, etc; as well as a bunch of "socially progressive" things to enable smug-ass liberals to feel good about themselves.

A "tax" that describes itself as "revenue-neutral" is by its very nature a method of robin hooding the rich.

The middle class usually bears the brunt of most public policy. That's because it is usually the largest segment of society (at least it used to be). But yes, there is a cost to carbon -- that's the whole point of this exercise. Everyone -- all of us -- needs to start paying the cost of this pollution.

The middle class is an endangered species, and that tax is sure to drive more of them into the lower class.

What do you call someone who eats a "100-mile diet ... shop at the overpriced farmer's markets, and eat at the trendiest vegan restaurants and shop eco-consciously." Sure sounds like you were holding up the typical "eco-nut" as the positive example. Or did I miss-read your text.

No, I was putting the pretentious man-bun wearing douchebag up as an example - but you have fully sidestepped the question.

You asked for references regarding the fact that wealthier folks generally use more resources, and have a higher carbon footprint. Not about whether a carbon tax will be effective. If you want references that support the idea that a carbon tax is effective at changing behaviour I can google-search it for you (again).

Don't bother - you provided an example to show a carbon tax changes behaviour. Unfortunately that behavioural change results in a net increase in carbon use. Congratulations.

[NorthernMac]

Originally Posted by Sputnik

I recently went to the Red Sea, Egypt, and was appalled by the quantity of plastic floating in the water. Please have a look at this petition....something really needs to be done.

https://www.change.org/p/un-secretar...ect-our-oceans

Thank you.

Neil

Problem is most of the ick in the waters is from places like china and India and the like, doubt they care about a petition, sadly all that often comes from this mindless out crying is the first world gov fat cats using it as a excuse to make a another tax that doesn’t do anything for the real problem of the filth from the third world, sad part is how do you tell a person who doesn’t know if they have enough to feed their own huge family that they should think twice about where they toss that empty water jug.

Originally Posted by Lodesman

Don't bother - you provided an example to show a carbon tax changes behaviour. Unfortunately that behavioural change results in a net increase in carbon use. Congratulations.

^and that

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

The middle class is an endangered species...

... because with union-busting, outsourcing, offshoring, temping and McJobs, there are less decent-paying jobs around. So that corporate profits can continue to soar. You know this.

[Mike] you provided an example to show a carbon tax changes behaviour. Unfortunately that behavioural change results in a net increase in carbon use. Congratulations.

No, you just cherry picked one paragraph about one hypothetical redistribution example and incorrectly claimed it applied to carbon taxation.

[NorthernMac]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

... because with union-busting, outsourcing, offshoring, temping and McJobs, there are less decent-paying jobs around. So that corporate profits can continue to soar. You know this.


No, you just cherry picked one paragraph about one hypothetical redistribution example and incorrectly claimed it applied to carbon taxation.

No, it’s taxes.

We are taxed into our class.

Unless you can make LARGE jumps in income the income tax scheme will keep you in your place.

[S/V Adeline]

Originally Posted by NorthernMac

No, it’s taxes.

We ware taxed into our class.

Unless you can make LARGE jumps in income the income tax scheme will keep you in your place.

True stuff ^^^^

[cyan]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

... because with union-busting, outsourcing, offshoring, temping and McJobs, there are less decent-paying jobs around....

FYI, this (Canadian?) trend might not be the same everywhere...

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Well, a carbon pricing scheme isn't exactly taking $1000 from the rich and giving it to the poor. So, that wouldn't really be the effect.

You clearly don't understand the concept of Canada's "revenue-neutral carbon tax". According to the Prime idiot the average Canadian joe is going to get a nice fat rebate cheque - who do you think is paying for that?

The paper ably supports the contention that the wealthy have a bigger carbon footprint. So you have conceded that point and are onto something new, I guess?

Which paper was that? There was one paper that was referenced, but I have yet to see an actual paper to see the methodology used. The one referenced, comparing the highest 10% income bracket against the lowest 10% of the country does not give a clear picture. I imagine that the 10% at the lowest end of the income spectrum in the US are homeless - it would be little wonder that someone without a home or car would have a miniscule carbon footprint. I'd like to see how the middle-class compares to the wealthy.
Scientific dishonesty is stock-in-trade for whinging leftist eco-warriors.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

I imagine that the 10% at the lowest end of the income spectrum in the US are homeless - it would be little wonder that someone without a home or car would have a miniscule carbon footprint.

So 10% of your population is homeless? You must be so proud.

Scientific dishonesty is stock-in-trade for whinging leftist eco-warriors.

You guys... honestly. You must be trolling. No one really believes all that stuff you're throwing out... do they?