Everyone knows about carbon emissions, dumping trash on the ocean, deforestation etc. What are the lesser known environmental disasters?
In the mass-manufacturing of Teflon Dupont created an insidious poison called C8 or PFOA (polyfluorooctanic acid) and the chemical is now present in 99% of living beings on Earth.
Reminds me of Monsanto's "You could drink a gallon of it!" guy when pretending that glyphosate was safe.
Spoilers: He refused to even drink a teaspoonful >:(
Dang, in fact PFOA basically had the exact same thing happen
'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid#Sources_to_people - as news stories began to raise concerns about PFOA in microwaved popcorn, Dan Turner, DuPont's global public relations chief, said, "I serve microwave popcorn to my three-year-old." Five years later, journalist Peter Laufer wrote to Turner to ask if his child was still eating microwave popcorn. "I am not going to comment on such a personal inquiry", Turner replied'
In the US at least: topsoil and soil health in general. Decades of intensive industrialized agriculture that seek profit over long term sustainability have us sleepwalking into a second dust bowl
I've seen repeated studies that modern fruit and vegetables have far fewer vitamins and nutrients than they did 50 years ago. Theory being this is due to intensive soil-depletion, and yet another reason we need to reconsider more localised farming methods.
I did wonder how we need to eat like a ton of different vegetables nowadays to just get our basic nutrient needs met, my personal suspicion is this is why.
Big part of it too is selection of varieties over the years towards ones that store or ship better. As one selects for those traits usually taste and nutrition suffer. This is why the red delicious apple was ubiquitous for years despite being a garbage fruit
the red delicious apple was ubiquitous for years despite being a garbage fruit
fuckin truth
more localised farming methods
BRING BACK VILLAGES. MASS DEURBANIZATION. RETURN TO PEASANT. I'VE BEEN SAYING IT FOR YEARS, FOLKS. GARY WHO USED TO RUN THE MATTRESS STORE WILL BE MY LIEGE LORD.
I think they're saying at current business as usual use for top soil, there are 50 or 60 harvests left.
Yeah I think so, but I know Hay and Rice can sometimes be double cropped. Pretty sure most cropland is only once a year though.
If only there was form of transportation that didn’t require that :train-shining:
The environmental impact of offloading labour on developing countries. Like products will be grown in aftica shipped to US to be packaged and then shipped across the world to be sold. It's really fucked up how much energy is wasted and how it somehow increases profits.
This is a fun thread
My vote is for fast fashion, which is a relatively new phenomenon with extremely harmful consequences
Salination of freshwater sources from decades of road runoff in regions that get snow and use road salt. That and massive fertilizer runoff that's accumulating and contributing to the proliferation of harmful algae
Yup, phosphorus is the least likely thing you'd ever need to put in your soil and on your lawn but all they wanna sell is 18-18-18 for lawn care. Just throw some Nitrogen on it and you'd be fine. Or just not have a fucking lawn in the first place but thats a whole other can of worms.
My car is an '04 model and I decided I'm just going to keep replacing parts on it until I have a new car again.
It's the Honda of Theseus.
I recall reading that Cuba effectively has the least CO2 output/car of any country. The reason being that due to the embargo, they rarely have the chance to purchase new cars, so they just got really, really good at making their cars last forever.
It's well known in other circles but as the climate warms there will be a huge band within the tropics where the humidity + temperature means you cannot live there without intense air conditioning and staying indoors for months OR just dying (wet-buld temperature which also may be lower than previously assumed). This obviously applies to flora and fauna as well, not like complete mars-ification total biomass extinction but animals and a lot of plants would perish. If you look on a map you'll see the band between the tropics also has probably the majority or a huge plurality of human population, South China, Nigeria, South India, South Asia in general - billions will have to leave or die, we aren't ready for this type of human migration and the climate eco fascists that ARE aware of it think it will be possible to police that amount of human migration or even eliminate it. And that's year round wet bulb temps, it'll be seasonal a few latitudes either side. If you're 30 or younger, by the time you're 60 there will be regular heat waves that kill seniors every year in every country. This is your future, maybe we can stem the tide a bit with radical action today but the damage is also done and climate takes geological time scales to readjust.
We're back to being able to use new steel. Since they stopped showboating nukes the atmospheric background has fallen.
Biodiversity loss is pretty well known, but I haven't seen it mentioned yet. We've lost so many unique species, it's honestly horrific. It will take millions and millions of years for equivalent diversity to evolve, it may be one of the impacts that will take the absolute longest to be rectified.
microplastics in the arctic snow (and everywhere else) Also groundwater depletion of major aquifers (US & worldwide): https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/watermap_white_cp.png (and I don't think that's even that recent an image).
We lost on the microplastics file, even with a perfect coordinated response now that shit is staying in the biosphere for thousands of years and it's going to remain in all of our water and bodies for the foreseeable future. All we can do now is mitigate the damage and try to stop putting more out there.
fertilizers and tractors poisoning and packing the soil so that water and worms can't get through, eventually leading to desertification
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer covers this from a carnist perspective
