Waist v Waste

 

John in the Bible’s Revelation 6:1–8

Waist v Waste

Plastics – Love ‘Em/Hate ‘Em// Climate Change: So What?

“Our world is drowning in plastic pollution… By 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean… Microplastics in our bloodstreams are creating health problems we’re only just beginning to understand.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, November 25th.

From greenhouse gas emissions to microplastics everywhere and uneaten food rotting in dumps and landfills generating lots of methane… Mother Nature, humanity has a self-inflicted problem. Mother Nature’s response, invoking her immutable laws of physics: “So what, I specialize in global catastrophes and species extinction! See any dinosaurs anywhere? LOL. Maybe, you’re next?!” Hey Mother Nature, that’s so callous and cruel! “Yeah, but it is what it is. Deal with it!!!” But among deniers, marginalizers, austerity buffs, those who place commercial interests above any environmental concerns, small nations who expect big nations to fund it all, science skeptics, those who are wildly misinformed, it is abundantly clear that the necessary change or pace of change is way too little, way too late. Mankind seems destined to face its hardest lessons!

Perhaps, maintain those fearing Malthusian overcrowding, this is a just mechanism – joining war, plague, petulance, famine – as the overpowering population control overseers. We are witnessing demographic vectors in the severe and general population contraction as birthrates plunge in developed and educated nations, from China, Japan and Korea in the Eastern Hemisphere, to the United States and Western Europe in the Western Hemisphere. What do they fear? Impoverished nations claim an economic inability to take corrective action, while in rich nations, business interests pour billions (legal and illegal) into making sure that corrective regulation will not impact their bottom line at all… or at least slow the process to a crawl. It’s often simple missteps that do not make the headlines, added to the mega-climate disasters so many believe are simple “natural cycles.”

Writing for the November 28th Los Angeles Times, Kate Linthicum addresses one of those ignored realities: “Each day, an army of trucks delivers tens of thousands of pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables to Mexico City’s Central de Abasto, one of the world’s largest wholesale food markets… Most of the produce finds its way to people’s kitchens, and eventually their stomachs. But around 420 tons goes bad each day before it can be sold. It ends up, like so much food around the world, in a landfill.

“Globally, a staggering one-third of all food that is produced is never eaten. That waste — more than 1 billion tons annually — fuels climate change. As organic matter decomposes, it releases methane, a greenhouse gas that is much more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to warming the planet… The United Nations estimates that up to 10% of all human-produced greenhouse gases are generated by food loss and waste. That’s nearly five times the emissions from the aviation industry.” As cattle are among the greatest emitters of methane, “Dairy farmers in Denmark face having to pay an annual tax of 672 krone ($96) per cow for the planet-heating emissions they generate.” CNN, June 27th. One tiny step from a small, rich country.

The 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) climate change warning metric is already toast. No matter how much we have conferences and pollution directed international treaty gatherings, not much happens. The 2024 UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 29) held from 11 to 22 November 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan – ironically in a nation that extracts massive levels of fossil fuels as its core industry – produced little in the way of meaningful climate change progress.

Likewise, delegates from 175 countries met in late November, in Busan, South Korea, to consider increasing policies and restrictions to contain pollution, with a heavy emphasis on plastic waste. This conference represented the “fifth and final round of negotiations … for a United Nations-led treaty that would regulate plastic’s full life cycle, including its production, design and disposal.

“Many hoped the initiative, which began two years ago, would result in the most consequential environmental accord since the Paris climate agreement in 2016… Yet over the course of four rounds of talks, sharp divisions emerged, stirring concern that the session in Busan [ended] with a watered-down treaty far removed from those ambitious goals.

“The biggest disagreements center on whether the treaty should focus on reducing overall plastic production or whether it is sufficient to simply improve recycling practices… Meanwhile, the commitment of the U.S., which is one of the world’s top producers of plastic waste, has been cast into doubt after the outcome of the presidential election.” Max Kim for the November 28th Los Angeles Times. Indeed, the same President who pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Change Accord in 2016, has assembled a cadre of senior nominees to cabinet and subcabinet posts who are hardened climate change deniers and dedicated disruptors against any regulations that would rein in corporate polluters at any level. Nature does not care.

Plastic waste represents an environmental catastrophe – from the massive floating gyres of ocean debris (like the 620 thousand square mile Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch) to the microplastics are present in almost all forms of life, significantly including humans – of alarming proportions. Health threats, killers and often unrecyclable toxins. “Few disagree that the level of pollution has reached alarming heights… Between 2000 and 2019, annual production of plastics doubled to 460 million tons. It is expected to reach 736 million tons by 2040, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

“Very little of the world’s plastic waste — about half of which comes from single-use plastics such as packaging, straws and disposable utensils — is recycled. Just 9% of the 353 million tons of plastic discarded in 2019 was recycled… That figure is even lower in the U.S., where each person generates an average of 487 pounds of plastic waste each year: Just 4% was recycled in 2019, with the majority incinerated or dumped in landfills… Because it does not biodegrade, much of the plastic we throw away ends up leaking into the environment as microplastics — tiny particles less than 5 millimeters in size that have been found in water, food and even in human placentas.” Max Kim.

And it can kill, slowly or with dramatic speed. While individuals seem to be able to make sensible decisions on frequent occasions, the major leaders of our entire planet struggle to deal with the most existential threats to life itself. A slow, miserable strangulation of inaction. There is no Ozempic for self-deluded stupidity!

I’m Peter Dekom, and while humanity does not seem to care much about these existential threats, Mother Nature actually doesn’t care at all!