{"id":29003,"date":"2020-06-12T18:04:26","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T23:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=29003"},"modified":"2020-06-12T18:04:26","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T23:04:26","slug":"another-long-term-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2020\/06\/12\/another-long-term-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Long Term Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Never rains but it pours.<\/p>\n

Oh, sorry in advance.<\/p>\n

Wired<\/strong><\/em> has a report<\/a> on the next problem originating from our excess:<\/p>\n

Writing today<\/a>\u00a0in the journal\u00a0Science<\/em>, researchers report a startling discovery: After collecting rainwater and air samples for 14 months, they calculated that over 1,000 metric tons of microplastic particles fall into 11 protected areas in the western US each year. That\u2019s the equivalent of over 120 million plastic water bottles. \u201cWe just did that for the area of protected areas in the West, which is only 6 percent of the total US area,\u201d says lead author Janice Brahney, an environmental scientist at Utah State University. \u201cThe number was just so large, it’s shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

It further confirms an increasingly hellish scenario: Microplastics are blowing all over the world, landing in supposedly pure habitats, like\u00a0the Arctic<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0remote French Pyrenees<\/a>. They\u2019re flowing into the oceans via wastewater and tainting\u00a0deep-sea ecosystems<\/a>, and they\u2019re even ejecting\u00a0out<\/em>\u00a0of the water and\u00a0blowing onto land in sea breezes<\/a>. And now in the American West, and presumably across the rest of the world given that these are fundamental atmospheric processes, they are falling in the form of\u00a0plastic rain<\/em>\u2014the new acid rain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder how this will be dismissed by the anti-regulatory right?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Skipping over questions that I can’t answer regarding collection, disposal, and prevention, it seems to me that only one thing will get the right on board with taking steps to stop and roll it back – if, in fact, there is a viable strategy for same – and that’s if something they value is hurt by it. Consider Ducks Unlimited<\/strong><\/em>, dedicated to the conservation and increase of waterfowl. Seeing as<\/p>\n

The majority of DU’s financial contributors and 90 percent of members are hunters.\u00a0 [Wikipedia<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

J. P. Morgan<\/p><\/div>\n

and the founders included robber baron J. P. Morgan, it seems reasonable to assume that if these plastic micro-debris begins hurting, say, their favorite prey animal, or begins ruining scenic overlooks, we might start seeing some activity on the right side of the political spectrum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Never rains but it pours. Oh, sorry in advance. Wired has a report on the next problem originating from our excess: Writing today\u00a0in the journal\u00a0Science, researchers report a startling discovery: After collecting rainwater and air samples for 14 months, they calculated that over 1,000 metric tons of microplastic particles fall \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29008,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29003\/revisions\/29008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}