Kind of, typically though when I think of aqueducts I think of the old Roman structurs raised high above the ground (although I’m aware many parts of them were at ground level). These solar farms seem to be exclusively on ground level waterways.
Tthis is perhaps good news, but it does not amount to a change of course, unfortunately. If we have passed peak emissions, it is still a long way from net-zero emissions. Like if you pass your peak rate of overspending your salary, but you are still continuing to go farther into debt. Even when you get to parity between salary and expenditures, you will STILL have the accumulated debt and in the case of CO2, that debt is wreaking ecosystem destruction. Do not cheer this news.
I’m curious, what part of that statement needs substantive proof? I feel like you can come to this conclusion from first principles, as long as you have some level of understanding of the greenhouse effect and knowledge of how it has affected ecosystems in the past.
Still, this means that humanity is adding to the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — and doing so at close to its fastest pace ever.
It’s good that this pace is at least not accelerating, but the plateau implies a world that will continue to get warmer. To halt rising temperatures, humans will have to stop emitting greenhouse gases, zeroing their net output, and even start withdrawing the carbon previously emitted.
What's sad is, here in Utah our representatives are actively working against EPA emission standards and passing laws to restrict what the government can require from industries that produce greenhouse gases. Of course most of our legislature are shareholders in big oil and gas companies, so it's no surprise that for them, money always comes first no matter what.
My state has many ghost/zombie towns that have all but died out because the local coal mines closed. Speaking from experience, clinging to the past is not going to do them any good because what’s coming is coming one way or another. And it doesn’t even have to be because coal is displaced by renewables.
For better or worse (cough worse cough), coal is still huge in my state, but when there’s a disruption such as the mining company going “bankrupt”, the mine becoming unprofitable, mining permit revoked, etc, the communities that rely on it often fall into squalor because that’s their only livelihood.
It’s truly sad to see, but it’s an obvious danger for any community to rely on one finite industry for sustenance.
At the risk of sounding super ignorant the desire for plastic to biodegrade always seems really short-sighted to me? I understand that there are problems with plastic pollution for the ecosystem and that there may be health concerns with microplastics and whatnot… And that we probably shouldn’t make so many disposable items that we do want to degrade out of plastic (and that we should probably not have as many disposable items in the first place)… But plastics are also kind of miracle materials and ideally you want them to not break down in many use cases. Like, wouldn’t it be bad if all of a sudden we have bacteria that will eat through blood bags and plastic structures?
It seems like this article is mostly talking about studying microbes to design plastic eating enzymes that will help efficiently recycle plastic in the future, and that sounds super cool and very useful. But the whole “we should have bacteria that can quickly break down plastic in the environment” angle that I hear about a lot seems kind of risky to me because one of the reasons plastics are so awesome is that they’re very resistant to degradation… Maybe I’m just ignorant, though.
Breaking down plastic is already super super unappealing to any life form. The biggest reasons it’s so useful to us is because it’s basically super tightly woven strands which the engineered bacteria have to be forced to break apart, when the planet is filled with more readily available food like sugar molecules. The plastic eating bacteria they discover in the “wild” basically were isolated and surrounded only with plastic, and so had literally no other choice.
Releasing this bacteria into the wild won’t be an option (but given human nature it will remain an option), their use would likely be in closed facilities with big vats to break down plastic (operated by the lowest paid employees who can’t wait to skip the decontamination hallway because the football game is tonight).
The thing is, if they’re finding the relevant microbes to start this research with already eating plastic, then there are already naturally occurring plastic eating bacteria in the environment. Beyond that though, bacteria aren’t going to be able to degrade stuff to the same degree under every condition. Consider that wood is biodegradable, but we can build wooden structures and wooden objects that last for generations.
Exactly. The plastic we want them to eat is already degraded to some degree by the elements or usage, and is thus the low-hanging fruit. I’d assume it’s much easier to digest, since it’s partially broken down already and has plenty of convenient micro-fissures to exploit.
This is a reasonable concern, and there’s no way for us to know (from a simplified article/press release) whether proper precautions are being taken out of this is a corporate funded search for more cash.
The scenario is similar to invasive species brought to control certain pest populations, but the idea of bacteria causes problems is also a sci fi trope as well.
Of course, I don’t think we’re actually in danger of bacteria suddenly eating through plastic like it’s a moldy apple or anything… Obviously wood is still hard to break down, and plastics aren’t too dissimilar. It’s just kind of cool that we can build something super cheaply out of plastic and it will hold up well in the elements without much care at all.
Except it doesn’t hold up in the elements all that well, though (at least in a form that is still usable, the plastic is still there, just in little pieces and/or without the desired structural integrity). Plastics degrade when exposed to sunlight and oxygen (photo-oxidation). Combine that with mechanical action of waves, and now you have a bunch of little plastic bits floating in the ocean that are even harder to clean up (but easier for the bacteria to eat!). A glass or metal bottle will hold up much better than a plastic one, over a long enough time period.
But they even break down when exposed to temperature cycling and mechanical stress over long periods of time. I’m sure you’ve also noticed old plastic food containers, get harder and harder to clean and start getting cloudy: that’s the plastic breaking down and micro-fissures appearing on the surface, thanks to repeated exposure to dishwashers, freezers, and still-hot leftovers. Once again, a glass dish is gonna hold up much better.
They have to use special additives for plastics intended for long-term outdoor use (the additives are like sunscreen for plastic, they absorb the UV so that the plastic doesn’t) to combat these reaction pathways. And I’d bet money that if plastic-eating bacteria end up becoming a problem, there will be additives we can use to discourage them for appropriate applications.
But you’ll notice that in the case of plastic in landfills, there’s no UV light from the sun, basically no oxygen, and any mechanical stress or temperature cycling isn’t enough for fast breakdown of the plastic polymers. These conditions are also very different from, say, your kitchen counter or hospital storage rooms. If the plastic-eating bacteria prefers the landfill habitat (or literally cannot thrive in any other environment – which is not an uncommon phenomenon; in the article, they mention difficulties culturing bacteria for study in a lab environment), then we have a perfect tool for breaking down landfill plastics that won’t impact in the slightest the plastics things we want to keep. Similarly, the kind of bacteria that could be useful for ridding us of fishing lines and nets floating around in the ocean would most likely not be well suited for non-aquatic environments.
I think that something like 70% of microplastic comes from car tires, our paper straws will not help with that issue.
I also think that plastic by itself is the least of a problem we have. As I understand it is just ugly on the landfill.
What is the problem is organic waste in plastic bags, with which we could be making compost but instead it is creating methane and increasing global warming.
Single use plastic is bad, but we do have other fronts that are easier to win.
Christ, that article was hard to read, with 90% of it dedicated to the importance of palm oil, and random ads making you believe the article is finished. So, here’s the part that matters:
Food experts at Queen Margaret University (QMU) in Edinburgh say their new 100% plant-based ingredient is 70% better for the environment.
And with 80% less saturated fat and 30% fewer calories, they are also hailing PALM-ALT as a significantly healthier option.
Catriona Liddle, one of the lead developers on the QMU team, said: “It’s the holy grail to replace it and still have exactly the same end result in product – to taste the same and have the texture the same – and we’ve done that.
“We’ve put it through some special sensory testing to see if a panel can tell the difference between our product and traditional palm shortening, and they can’t.”
The new PALM-ALT product is described as having a mayonnaise-style consistency.
It is made from a by-product from the linseed industry, plus natural fibre and rapeseed oil.
The applications of this type of product wouldn’t care about any of that. If anything the improved macro nutrients (decreased calories and saturated fat) would be seen as an improvement. If this is truly a 1:1 replacement like the article is suggesting, it could be huge.
Maybe it wouldn’t be harmful for cosmetics (I don’t know) but it would for food. A true replacement would need to approximate the fatty acid profile, not just throw a bunch of inflammatory industrial waste in for cheap filler.
And funny they state its healthier when rapeseed is some of the worst foods you can consume… and with lint seed… i mean those things arent even food to begin with.
Interestingly, John Oliver said nothing about construction standards, though I’d be surprised if it’s not as huge an issue for mobile homes as it is for other recently constructed homes. The primary problem seems to be people not owning the land beneath their homes.
Admittedly I was working from memory, I could swear that his piece had at least a short discussion of the low quality materials and workmanship of mobile homes.
There’s a lawyer who has been fighting for these folks. Chevron or whichever oil company got a corrupt judge to put him on house arrest. He’s free now, but the company still hasn’t paid on a judgement against them.
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