Microplastics

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It seems unfair to give give all of the gloom-and-doom attention to climate change when there are other global threats to humanity out there...like microplastics.

► "How harmful are microplastics?"
► "Microplastics found in fresh Antarctic snow"
► "Japanese scientists find microplastics are present in clouds"

and now...

"Scientists Find Microplastics in Cave Sealed Off From All Humans"

I think microplastics in food is the most worrying thing?

Dont eat the air , or breathe the food ...Its bad for yah... ........

What's the point of worrying about something one has no control over? Trying to remediate micro-plastics or even climate change...anything the individual can do is like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Its too little too late.

"Given how ubiquitous plastics are, it'll be a difficult trend to reverse. One solution according to Hasenmueller is that society as a whole should ditch synthetic clothing."

Yep.

Some synthetic clothing is more comfortable/better performing than natural textiles.. buuuut, I'd rather the textiles industry figured out how to utilize natural fibres to achieve similar/close enough results than further destroy the planet with microplastics.

At least I use clothing for a very long time vs. throw it out and buy more frequently.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

The general public will have to find a new thing to get rid of so they can feel better - like plastic grocery bags and plastic straws. All while turning a blind eye to the basic facts - that 90+% of the plastics that end up illegally dumped in the oceans and roughly the same amount of Carbon Dioxide Emissions are caused by the same handful of multi-national corporations and not the individual.

There have been quite a few environmental studies that have shown that waste plastics are starting to become part of the geochemical top layer of Earth. One study I read found it in volcanic rocks that form from lava reaching the ocean. The plastics from the ocean water melt into the rock as it cools. It changes the chemical makeup of the rock. You could consider them almost a different mineral now.

Along those lines, this process also increases exposure leading to adaptation for living species. A few bacteria have developed that can digest certain plastics, reducing them down into much smaller organic chemicals (i.e. not microplastics). There is also a type of clam/oyster that can break down polymers in the ocean. Unfortunately, some plastics come from toxic compounds (like styrene or phenol), so they can reform those as the carbon bonds break apart in the backbone chain. Just because something can break plastic down does not always mean it can make it into something harmless to other living things.

Parts of the environment will adapt to plastics, some will not. Whether or not humans do is another question for another time.