Are you cheap in MOST all you do?

[MetroMPG]

Guess what?

This thread has veered off into a political discussion, which is discouraged here.

Please stop now.

[JacobAziza]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Guess what?

This thread has veered off into a political discussion, which is discouraged here.

Please stop now.

Fair enough. But at least its in the lounge!

[MetroMPG]

Thanks!

[Frank Lee]

Speaking of plastics:

The amount of plastic in the ocean area known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" has increased a hundredfold since the early 1970s, according to a new study, and the alarming findings could pressure California and other coastal states to do more to reduce plastic trash.

"We were really surprised. It is a very large increase," said Miriam Goldstein, a Ph.D. graduate student in biological oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and lead author of the study.

"Plastic had been detected in the open ocean in the early 1970s," she said. "People were raising the alarm then. The fact it has gotten so much worse is really disappointing."

During an expedition in 2009, Scripps researchers took extensive water samples 1,000 miles west of California, then compared the amount of plastic they found with samples taken by other researchers dating back to 1972.

While many of the samples 40 years ago found little or no plastic, vast stretches of the North Pacific are now polluted with billions of tiny pieces of confetti-like trash that comes from garbage that floats out to sea and breaks down in wind and waves... (there's more)

Scientists find hundredfold increase in plastic trash in Pacific Ocean since 1970s - San Jose Mercury News

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by JacobAziza

Fair enough. But at least its in the lounge!

Maybe it is time for the administration to determine what the purpose of 'the Lounge' is. If the Lounge serves no valid purpose here other than snide comments and political diatribe that invokes amen choruses in attendance, perhaps it is just inviting contentiousness.

OTOH, if this section is the appropriate place for it, and some are allowed to dish out whatever they wish, then it also must be allowed that a dissenting response be voiced. Debate is not a one-way street; it's a two way street, whether you like it or not. If only a one-sided viewpoint is allowed, then it becomes nothing more than permitting a harangue and a lecture, amounting to officious propaganda, with tacit approval.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

And what the plastic might be doing while it's degrading: World News - Study: Plastic in 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' increases 100-fold

Not my plastic, unless someone up the chain has been very naughty and dumped it there.

We recycle plastics around here, and so do a lot of other European countries.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock (temeporary)

If the Lounge serves no valid purpose here other than snide comments and political diatribe...

Can't see that there's any politics at all in this thread, let alone diatribe. There is philosophy, certainly: perhaps you don't quite appreciate the difference?

For the few posts that seem to have aroused your ire, they seem to fall into two categories. One simply corrects facts: the Earth (and the solar system, etc) ARE finite, most plastics do take a long time to degrade (at least relative to human/biologic timescales), etc. The second are simply questions. Why isn't it fair to ask someone WHY they like to do this or that? Or perhaps you'd prefer us not to examine our lives, or ask awkward questions?

[larrybuck]

Can you imagine if everyone on this thread lived on the same street, and by common agreement, we all met once a week like in a block party!

I can picture scenes like old time western fistfights!

There would be scowling over 1 brought a ceramic dish w non lead paint on it to rewash after the gathering.

Another brought a paperplate that he intended to use to start the evening fire to heat his home later that night.

Another brought a bright plastic plate which he was very proud of, because it most closely matched his car's paint color, and he intended to mount it as an aero wheel
cover.

Another brought his food jumbled together in a big clear plastic bag, which he was proudly thinking that after this meal, he will have washed it, and re-used it 200 times.

But nobody shared their private ideas, and instead made ASSUME AL A CARTE thoughts about everybody else.

It is easy to mis-communicate, one wrong can start wars, it seems.

Like when I started this thread, I used cheap instead of economical, and we see where that went!

This has been interesting, but I hate to see it reduced to almost a name calling
mis-fire!

Lively is great, but can we still be civil?

If a ray of question of statement; ask for clarification. We don't always know the other's mind, except maybe for 2 is see that scuffle a lot on here!

So we weight the pollution of the smoke from the paperplate versus how much soap
it takes to wash the ceramic, plastic plates, and the plastic bag.

How much hot water did they use, and is their soap "green approved"???

What is your tolerance level for obnoxious attitudes, versus strongly confident
ones that just seem wrong?

How do we balance all of this? I enjoy you guys! Aloha for now!

[jamesqf]

Ran across an interesting (to me, anyway) article re the finiteness of Earth: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/...ets-physicist/

Physicist: Before we tackle that, we’re too close to an astounding point for me to leave it unspoken. At that 2.3% growth rate, we would be using energy at a rate corresponding to the total solar input striking Earth in a little over 400 years. We would consume something comparable to the entire sun in 1400 years from now. By 2500 years, we would use energy at the rate of the entire Milky Way galaxy—100 billion stars! I think you can see the absurdity of continued energy growth. 2500 years is not that long, from a historical perspective. We know what we were doing 2500 years ago. I think I know what we’re not going to be doing 2500 years hence.

[JacobAziza]

Thanks for that! I had been wanting to find that information a long time, but never wanted to do the math. I figured something along those lines.
I'll direct everyone I talk to who thinks alternative energy will make everything ok to this from now on