Here we go
How microplastics are likely helping to heat up the planet
Microplastics lurk in nearly every corner of the globe. Scientists have found the tiny particles in rivers and lakes, in agricultural soil and in the oceans. They have infiltrated our food and water, cleaning products and cosmetics, even our own bodies.
But do they also play a role in hastening the warming of the planet?
It’s a question researchers inch closer toward answering in a new study published Monday that finds these minuscule pieces of plastic — particularly ones of various colors — are contributing to heating the atmosphere.
Drew Shindell, a Duke University earth science professor and co-author of the study in Nature Climate Change, said many questions remain about the precise impacts, but the new findings show that on the whole, microplastics in the atmosphere are likely absorbing more heat than they are reflecting.
OK, three points. First, sure, there is a possibility that this could be occurring, but, second, what’s this “likely” stuff? Is it or is it not holding heat? Why are we writing papers and articles when the conclusion is “likely”? If it is happening, that would be part of the “land use” component, not from doomy greenhouse gases.
Third, I will agree that microplastics are a big problem, as are dumped plastics. But, do we really need to drag the climate cult into this? We can just leave it as environmental issues.
The authors estimate that microplastics suspended in the atmosphere could be contributing to global warming at about one-sixth the amount of black carbon, also known as soot, a pollutant generated largely from burning fossil fuels.
So, they don’t really know? Huh.
We’ve explained to Mr Teach time and again that results from scientific studies are always conditional, thus described as “likely”. Theories can be refuted with evidence! If one doesn’t understand that, they don’t understand science.
Microplastics (< 5 mm) and nanoplastics (1 nm to 1 micrometer) are everywhere. The oceans. Our land. Even the atmosphere. Even tinier particles, nanoplastics, are in our bodies. Mr Teach's brain. Your liver. Donny's cankles.
The scientists measured the absorption of visible wavelengths of light by particles of various colors. Unsuprisingly, darker pigmented particles absorb more light. They found that the atmospheric microplastcs/nanoplastics vary widely by region.
Just another reason to limit plastics.
Perhaps it would be a shorter list if the activists would tell us what they don’t think is contributing to
global warmingclimate change?I was about to say that the activists’ nose rings don’t contribute, but, being (usually) round, perhaps they reflect that sun’s rays in ways which do contribute to the ‘problem’. This would require very intensive study, given that the nose rings are normally worn by snotty kids anyway, we’d need to know how much snot actually accumulates on nose rings.
Greenhouse gases are by far the worst offenders. So start there.
The 60% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) seen since the late 1880s comes from we (wee?) humans burning carbon sources – coal, oil and natural gas – locked underground for hundreds of millions of years!
Methane (CH4) is, kg per kg, a more potent greenhouse gas but has a much shorter residence time in the atmosphere, and comes from agriculture, fossil fuels, and waste decomposition, while natural sources, led by wetlands and ocean clathrates (thawing permafrost!) account for nearly half.
But relax. We’ll be dead by the worst of it. Let your grandkids and great grandkids solve it – if they’re able.