Guest essay by Eric Worrall
As COP26 climate negotiations stall, plastics crisis proponents are offering a merger, with a proposition that the climate crisis and plastics crisis are actually linked.
Climate Change: Tackle Plastic Pollution Urgently, Scientists Urge World Leaders
Monit Khanna
Updated on Oct 03, 2021, 01:18 ISTHighlights
This is according to a study published by researchers from the Zoological Society of London and Bangor University. As a part of the study, the team highlighted three crucial ways climate change and plastic pollution are connected.
Firstly, they highlight that manufacturing plastic goods releases a ton of greenhouse gas emissions.
Secondly, extreme weather events such as floods, typhoons that are a result of climate change cause immense devastation. This devastation is contributing to the dispersal of plastic pollution in the sea
Thirdly, they spoke about how climate change and plastic pollution is affecting the life of marine habitat. The heating of seas and oceans due to climate change is also affecting coral reefs as well as marine habitats.
Scientists are warning politicians that while they focus on combating climate change, they shouldn’t sideline plastic pollution, as together, they’re making matters worse.
They urge that instead, they should be seen together as one big issue that needs to be tackled instantly.
This is according to a study published by researchers from the Zoological Society of London and Bangor University. As a part of the study, the team highlighted three crucial ways climate change and plastic pollution are connected.
…
Read more: https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/science-and-future/climate-change-plastic-pollution-550555.html
Marc Morano predicted the rise of the plastics crisis in 2010, but to date the fake plastics crisis has mostly been overshadowed by the fake global warming crisis.
What are the prospects of the plastic crisis gaining more traction?
In my opinion the plastics narrative has probably hit its limit. As you can see from the picture above, climate protestors themselves seem to be enthusiastic personal contributors to plastic pollution. Obviously it would be embarrassing to stage a plastic crisis march which litters the landscape with plastic pollution, but to date it has been a struggle to convince the kind of kids who attend climate marches to clean up after themselves.
Having said that, my track record of predicting future crisis narratives is not that special.
After Turkey last year deployed operational autonomous hunter killer terminator robots straight out of science fiction in the Libyan civil war, delivering an overwhelming advantage their proxies, and a surprise blow to the prestige of Russian high tech military suppliers, I thought my long predicted AI crisis would get some traction. But I guess something obscure and terrible happening in Northern Africa just doesn’t have the pulling power of the fake plastics crisis, which is already established at least to some extent in the minds of the public.
At least Marc predicted a crisis which has grabbed significant public attention.
As Yogi Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”.
Betteridge’s law of headlines is an adage that states: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.” It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist who wrote about it in 2009, although the principle is much older.
I hope you are right.
This is not about a question or answer,
but about just another group that wants to join the gravy train of AGW where the one who cries the most gets the biggest piece of cake.
And time will tell that all those “crisis”(no matter climate,covid,plastic,the soon to come debt¤cy crisisor whatever) are identical twins that will all end in the same restrictions people wouldn’t accept otherwise and in more centralization in the hands of the very few that are behind political correctness,wokeism and all the other stuff.
It doesn’t always work out, but I’ve observed that it has a far higher degree of success than one might expect.
“Can the Plastics Crisis Save the COP26 Climate Conference?”
What “plastic crisis”? Anyone has analysed the three scaremongering “reasons”?
Concerning the second,
Concerning the third:
Concerning all the article: what is the definition of “pollution”? Do they think that nature wakes up every morning, brushes its teeth, then takes a bath, then puts on clean underware?
If you subscribe to the belief that the Climate Crisis is not about the environment, but about global governance:
Angela Merkel, at her press conference (about Trump leaving the Paris Climate Accord), said, “This Paris climate accord is not just some accord or the other. It is a central accord in defining the contours of globalization.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/angela-merkel-and-the-insult-of-trumps-paris-climate-accord-withdrawal
Then this reveals more about the naivety of the Zoological Society of London than anything else. IMHO
*Think about how strange that Merkel comment is: “The agreement to intercept the comet before it destroys the Earth is not just some agreement, but is central to defining the contours of globalization.” (wtf?)
I agree.
The plastics crisis is real in the USA as shortages of intermediates due storms in the Gulf and chemical refineries shutdowns have withered the downstream suppliers…. strapped for products—the supply chain blues.Get plastic bags if you can.
Also a drug problem
Damaging levels of drugs in Glastonbury river (msn.com)
“Scientists have warned there are “dangerous” levels of MDMA and cocaine in the Whitelake River in Somerset.”
Reminds me of the London crack squirrels…
Hilarious but pretty sure this is another Urban Myth. If a squirrel did discover a crack stash buried in the garden and then were stupid enough to eat the stuff, chances are it would immediately die of an overdose. Squirrels are always digging in the gardens, burying nuts to retrieve later on. Perfectly natural squirrel behavior which I have observed many times. Squirrels are responsible for planting many trees because they don’t always remember where they hid all those nuts.
With the abolition of hospitals for the insane, the U.S. has no way of keeping track of its nuts (the insane kind).
I confidently expect a lot of ad-hoc abstraction and river levels to fall
I confidently expect a lot of people to be disappointed trying to take advantage of an urban legend.
While the UK banned plastic drinking straws, it only got worse…
“The Liberal Democrats said single-use surgical masks caused “enormous” plastic waste and that environmentally friendly alternatives must be promoted.
And the Green Party wants ministers to push the media to show them less, to stop their use becoming “normalised”.
Disposable masks contain plastics which pollute water and can harm wildlife who eat them or become tangled in them. The UK government said it was investigating whether personal protective equipment (PPE) could be “reused in safe ways”.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54057799
Masks were compulsory, drinking straws were not. But then, masks don’t work, anyway.
“What are the prospects of the plastic crisis gaining more traction?”
I’d say it will get the usual the usual rhetoric and then on to something else.
I saw a set of six stainless steel straws in the local Aldi. I wondered two things, what the equivalent number of disposable straws was. Second how long would the pipecleaner last before it got lost and how long it would be before the first straw was lost. The packaging was probably equivalent to at least one pack of disposable straws.
How long before your kid punches a hole through the roof of her mouth or the back of her throat?
Out with the old crisis. In with the new crisis.Wont get fooled again.
Thankfully I can pick up my guitar and play – just like yesterday.
Don’t believe me? The evidence is on spotify, deezer ad nauseam.
I must get a reliable generator together for the studio at the back of the house
Or, you could go acoustic. Just sayin’. 🙂
Depends how good they are – if not, I’d prefer them to go aquatic!
Good posting of another attempt to advance agendas not related but said to be so. The origin of the majority of plastic ocean pollution is Asia and Africa, so go there first. I see the local environmentalists, here in Argentina, railing against mega-mining and water use, but totally ignoring the tendency to burn garbage in back yards or local areas, with toxic cancer-agent smoke polluting everyone. I point this false focus out to a very prominent Environmentalist and she said “no mega-mining” and left my office.
Environmentalists were disappointed that they were unable to prove the existence of a Texas sized garbage patch in the middle of the Pacific. It’s much easier to convince people that microplastics that can’t be seen are everywhere.
The Scorpion geniuses were hired to “fix” the giant plastic island and were shown walking around on it. Hollywood sure can do some amazing things with CGI if accuracy is not absolutely necessary.
And a bit like the heart rending photos of some turtle with a plastic straw up its nose or a gannet with a bag round its leg or neck.
How did the critter manage that, just when a photographer was there with his camera ready?
Who needs Photoshop? Or to admit using Photoshop?
Let’s not forget the starving Polar Bears and the walruses jumping off cliffs becauseclimate.
And then, ever wonder how come already in early February 2020, cameramen in Wuhan caught those shots of “Mr Average Citizen” walking down the street and ….Gosh! He suddenly had a spasm and died right there on the pavement! Wow! How lucky was that photographer! I bet he’s a Hero of the CCP by now! To have his camera up and ready!
None of our lazy Western photographers got a shot like that!
And come to think of it, how many Western John Does just keeled over in the street and died of Covid?
Of course, that’s not to say the Western photographers don’t know how to produce agitprop to order…
I used to be impressed with the dedication of nature photographers, braving inclement weather, camping out in blinds to capture amazing photos of birds and animals living their lives. Then I discovered that the vast majority of those “amazing” photos and films were stage-managed and very little actual discomfort for the photographers happened.
As for “Mr. Average Citizen” falling down dead in Wuhan, well gosh, that was a good trick too. And I watched in vain to see such sights to photograph during the height of the scourge.
Was that the post-typhoon garbage island taken in a harbor somewhere in the Phillipines?
That is foul play!… You knew it was in a harbor somewhere in the Phillipines!
One should also point out that the vast majority of the plastic pollution in the oceans comes from third world countries that don’t give a damn about regulations. All they want is their climate cash.
It is true that most ocean plastic waste apparently comes from Asian rivers. In fairness, much of it comes from plastic waste that originates in the West (although much of that is cheap Chinese junk and wrappings).
So everyone deserves to get some blame.
But insofar as there is a problem which might be real (locally), the obvious starting point would be to prevent garbage from being exported to poor Asian countries that lack appropriate facilities to deal with it and whose fearless leaders don’t give a shit about anything except increasing their power and Swiss bank accounts.
It might have helped when China eventually banned the import of plastic waste, but of course that just sent it all to Vietnam, Bangladesh etc.
So it must be asked, why is it exported from the West in the first place? Obviously, so much cheaper than treating it properly here.
And remember that the obvious way to treat it here, is to put it through an efficient, properly designed and managed incinerator and harvest both energy and useful ash.
Twenty years ago a top boffin in what used to be called the Alkali Inspectorate ( now part of the Environment Agency) showed me the actual figures for the emissions of toxic gas and particles from the then fairly new Cleveland incinerator. It worked out that, if you spent a year sitting on the top of the incinerator chimney, you would be exposed to less dioxin than if you had a couple of hours in the back garden, on Nov. 5th, bonfire night.
So how come no more incinerators? Oh Well! Because it wasn’t judged to be politically acceptable to the Great Helmsman Tony Blair and all his GangGreen chums, who go off in paroxysms if anyone mentions burning anything.
Today, I have to admit that quite a few “energy from waste” plants have been built. With the absolute minimum, well spin-doctored publicity. No protests, for once.
So our greenie chums not only have a penchant for littering, but have been one of the main obstacles to managing the problem for a generation.
Incinerating plastic waste to recover some of the energy is a fine idea and makes more sense than exporting all that trash to far distant lands, making it someone elses problem.
Considering the amount of plastic likely used in getting to, getting from, and during the conference, the answer would have to be a resounding “no”
Or would that be “yes”?
Most plastic in the seas comes from Africa and Asia. They have very different cultures to us when it comes to the environment.
Western politicians will be able to do as much about it as they can reducing CO2 in India and China. i.e sweet Felicity Arkwright.
As long as you’re not involving Luther Arkwright on this parallel we should be all right!
The “Plastics Crisis” people are just attempting to hitch their wagon onto the Global Warming Gravy Train. They see where the money is and they want to get in on the action. Nothing more than that.
COP26 is doomed, and they know it. They should have canceled it months ago, but it’s too late now. So, they will put on a brave face, and pretend everything’s just hunky-dory. Then, when it does fail, it will be loudly proclaimed a “success”. Because a bunch of people showed up and blah-blah-blahed, and stated how badly everyone (meaning “rich” countries) is doing on climate, but Covid, and we “promise” to “do better”.
The question now is what to do about the popcorn crisis.
Ignore the popcorn crisis (if any) and use whisky, or even whiskey if you prefer the Irish product.
COP26 is being held in Glasgow, they’ll be no whisky left after day 1
They’ll be at the cooking sherry by day 3 and the turps by the end of week one. Sorry bunch of idiots.
This caught my eye: Secondly, extreme weather events such as floods, typhoons that are a result of climate change cause immense devastation. This devastation is contributing to the dispersal of plastic pollution in the sea – article
Incorrect hyperbole about the causes of storms – weather events that are normal and native to this planet – is grasping at plastic straws. If the individual who concocted that were forecasting the weather, I would likely just point and laugh and holler “Look outside! The Sun is shining!” Floods and typhoons/hurricanes/BIg Storms are part of this planet’s weather cycles and have been going on since before the continents broke apart.
I also find it anything but stunning that the writer of that hyperbole ignores the fact that plastics can be and are recycled into other products on a recurring basis, as well as the simple fact that plastic degrades in ocean water. Yes, I detest that stuff, too, and make sure it goes into the trash bin, but it can be recycled into useful things.
Really, that whine is older than my socks. Fails my test of sensible stuff. But it’s all about The Plan, isn’t it?
Please, can we just find them a nice, comfy cold planet to live on? Maybe Titan would do? Okay, Titan is officially a “moon” of Saturn, but it’s rather large and has a methane/hydrocarbon atmosphere that the ecohippies and Greenbeaners could refine into something useful like plaid pants for casual wear. (Yes, I am being snarky, as if you didn’t know. 🙂 )
What does this prognosticator have to say about the expansion in the current crop of volcanoes coming online in the Northern Hemisphere? Those exhalations and venting of noxious gases don’t have anything to do with climate change? Oh, and one of Etna’s companions in the Med is starting to come online, too. How’s he going to deal with that stuff?
What is it about these Greens that makes them such pigs? Haven’t any of them learned to pick up their trash when they leave? It was like this back in the 1960s and earlier, people would pack up from a picnic and leave all their trash lying around on the ground. That stopped with the anti-litter campaigns of the next few decades but seems to be back in full swing with the Green demonstrators. Occupy Wall Street protestors did the same, left all their trash behind along with much more unsavory bits of mammalian detritus….
Until Greens learn to clean up after themselves they have no business lecturing anyone about the use of fossil fuels.
Then you compare it to the grounds after a conservative political rally where folks clean up after themselves and you understand. Leftists believe that a clean environment is a collective not an individual responsibility. That’s why they’re always pushing government responses to climate ’emergencies’ . That’s why John Kerry can fly everywhere in his private jet. His individual actions don’t count. It’s the collective that counts.
It’s an age-thing. Kids never tidy their room. Pensioners were brought up in a different age.
It will be interesting to see what happens in thirty years time when the conservatives have all passed on.
True conservatives passed on when Maggie died
Not all of us!
Correct. The pro-Trump MAGA rallies left the terrain cleaner than it was before.
Just like the exhausts of cars driven by ICEs!
The so-called “activists” protesting against the Keystone pipeline left several tonnes of trash behind, which cost a fortune to clean up. Disgusting hypocrites the lot of them!
There is no plastics crisis, though some places may have a litter problem by human aesthetic standards.
Wood, like plastic, also floats on the sea. But so what?
Inert micro particles of rock, sand, and silt also pass through the digestive systems and tissues of living organisms. Plastic particles can do the same. Nobody has ever demonstrated that this should be considered harmful, and plastics are broken down in the environment by UV/Oxygen, unlike clay minerals.
Once again, what exactly is “the plastics crisis” other than an offense against human sensibilities every time a seagull gets its head stuck inside a crisp packet? Just as the ship wreck on the sea bed is the best place to go filming for large sea creatures, on an apparently desolate empty beach the best place to find living creatures is either under a rock or inside the discarded plastic soda-bottle. There is NO “plastics crisis”.
Nature LOVES our garbage. It’s one of the reasons we take out the trash. It would attract vermin like a magnet otherwise.
Yes. But of course our greenie chums like to have it both ways.
Narrative one is that plastic is highly toxic and an immediate threat to wildlife.
Narrative two is that it is completely inert because it will stay in the oceans for ever.
I have often heard both these splendid arguments used in a single sentence, without blushing.
Funny, they are so worried about plastic “pollution” and yet they refuse to actually go out and clean it up. Always it has to be someone else who cleans up their mess.
And want to see a real litter problem? Go to any city after a Black Lies Matter/Democrat Party event, place looks like a landfill hit by a tornado, and it is worse if they decide to go “shopping” at the same time.
Intercession prayers in church today included a prayer for COP26. I asked the lady whether she remembered anything from COP25 . She didn’t know that there was a COP25.
That’s ok. The IPCC forgot there was a COP25 also. 😉
My church has a Green Group working towards the Ecochurch silver badge (it’s a bit like the Scouts).
I am not popular with them.
Especially for not worrying about what they are doing as COP26 will have exactly the same outcome as COPs 1-25. The Churches will say we must take up the White Man’s Eco-Burden. The poor nations will say “go ahead”. The Western Governments will realise that’s expensive and pointless without the poor of China and India.
So we all go round again.
Admittedly claiming that 25 failures in a row is a good sign that God is not with their campaign may have been a touch too far.
It’s an agricultural cop failure! I’ll get me coat.
You would think that with 25 failures in a row, they’d realize that God has already answered their prayers. The answer is “NO”.
I can think of another reason, but it might upset too many readers!
From the article: “Secondly, extreme weather events such as floods, typhoons that are a result of climate change cause immense devastation.”
Excerpt there is no evidence that Human-caused Climate Change does any of this. The author is living in a false reality.
I wish we could burn plastics for one last usage, get the energy out, solve the problem.
I think George Carlin had it correct. The planet could not make its own plastic, so it created humans to make it!
George Carlin – Saving the Planet – YouTube
COP26 becomes an anti-litter campaign…..
Well, that would at least be useful.
You think the outcome will be sound and healthy?…
What crisis?
Littering?
It’s a plea for help. They need therapy.
Remember the wetlands (swamp) should be preserved because a cure for disease might be there. Spotted owls only nest in old growth trees and Walmart signs. The sea turtle is almost extinct by the count except for most of them at sea. Children will not know snow. Only 10 years to save the world every 10 years. And Al Gores gasoline engine the most evil device ever invented. And the awards flow in for such statements.
It is the intellectual TRASH that these people leave behind which is the real problem. It has got a nasty smell attached to it; but we all seem to be getting used to it these days.
Nano plastic, the perfect material for the King’s new clothes.
Oh dear repent your sins Christo-
Wrapped Coast, One Million Square Feet, Little Bay, Sydney, Australia, 1969 by Christo, Jeanne-Claude :: | Art Gallery of NSW
No more plastics for the yartz! Presumably after metals and anything made with fossil fuels has been excommunicated by the woke cancel culture. Only wood clay bark and ochre by the looks although the last 2 strictly by artists of colour lest their culture be appropriated.
Problem with the “plastic crisis” is that it is primarily the developing world that is producing the plastic that they are then dumping in the oceans. First world countries landfill, incinerate, or recycle. Won’t be able to extort a cash transfer from the EU/US for this issue
Climate Container Change Crisis together now under the big top
It’s too late, there is an energy crisis in the UK and EU and northern Europe.
These folks are mentally deranged, they really are.
The Only Plastic Crisis there could ever be is when/if we run out of the stuff = exactly what they want when they imagine we should ‘leave it in the ground‘
Have your crisis, rant, rave, stamp feet whatever but not until you’ve come up with a sensible and viable alternative….
You know, try and be useful around here instead of like little children endlessly want want wanting
The plastic nuts just want the benefits of intersectionality with the climate nuts. All of the various social crisis nuts (race, etc.) are jumping on the climate bandwagon because of the publicity. The problem is that they are fundamentally incompatible and real people start laughing at them all.
if you know plastics, you understand the that UV light (sunlight) is the most detrimental thing to them…it breaks down the polymer and destroys the material…don’t bury it….it will last forever. Plastic floating on the ocean surface, the sun will destroy it in days or weeks…for plastic that cannot be recycled…the best option is to grind it up and disbruse it over the ground for the sun to breakdown…burning does produce noxious gases.
“if you know plastics, you understand the that UV light (sunlight) is the most detrimental thing to them”
I have a modest amount of land – plastic bags can blow in from anywhere and I don’t see them for a long time. It doesn’t take all that long for them to disintegrate into dust when I try to pick them up.
The only “plastics crisis” I see is the invention and continued use of that damnable hard-plastic packaging that requires power tools to open.
Isn’t that why belt knives were invented?
Also bandages, first aid kits as well as cloths to clean the blood up with! Tough damn things cause the knives to slip off and into your hand or fingers!
Appears the climate cult is trying to steal my ideas. For many years I have been saying plastic pollution has been adding to the 400 year natural ocean warming cycle. It is this ocean warming that has warmed the planet. Nothing at all to do with emissions.
Looks like some alarmists may be catching on that CO2 emissions cannot produce warming and starting to back track.