Paint Dust Covers the Upper Layer of the World's Oceans

sciencehabit (1205606) writes Even when the sea looks clean, its surface can be flecked with tiny fragments of paint and fiberglass. That's the finding from a study that looked for plastic pollution in the uppermost millimeter of ocean. The microscopic fragments come from the decks and hulls of boats, and they could pose a threat to zooplankton, an important part of the marine food web.

Comments

slowly

[polar red]

We're slowly poisoning ourselves. At one point, there will be NO turning back. Scientists have warned us enough!

Re: slowly

[dywolf]

because the conclusions of Silent Spring are somehow invalid and pesticides are so safe you could just gobble them up willy nilly?

some of the people decrying the human impact on the world may be alarmist or overreacting, but they are far less dangerous than those who try to say that there's no impact, nothing is wrong, and everything is/will be fine, so stop worrying.

you can try to impugn one side by saying bias, and defend the other by again claiming bias, but that's irrelevent. the science says what it will, and if you follow the science, that's all that matters. in the case of evolution, global warming, or vaccines the science says "its real", "its happening" and "they work". end of story.

in this new avenue of research the science doesnt say a whole lot yet. its only just started to ask the question, the question being, paraphrased, "is there potential harm here to plankton from particulates in the very top most layer?". there's already been questions asked about the micro-plastics we flush into the water daily (espcially the new fad of plastic microbeads in soaps) that can make it through water treatment plants into the rivers or lakes or oceans, and evidence found that they can buildup in and eventually block fish gills. so this is then related to that line of thinking, but is a new question itself. and it's a good question because plankton is one of the most important (if not THE most important) classes of life on Earth. its the very first link in the food chain for a majority of life on Earth. Further its also the primary producer of oxygen, both atmospheric and water-dissolved, which is fairly important too.

Sherwin-Williams Conspiracy

[timrod]

This makes Sherwin-Williams and their "Cover the Earth" logo look a lot less like a paint seller/manufacturer and a lot more like some kind of Bond villain.

Balancing skepticism

[mcrbids]

It's important not to accept any input as pure fact on its face. It's equally important to accept facts that are verified, even if inconvenient. Far too often, "healthy skepticism" is another way to say "inconvenient so LA LA LA LA LA (fingers in ears)".

Fact is that micro pollutants are just now entering the threshold of human understanding - and it's a bigger problem than just about anybody guessed.

Re:Least green logo ever

[timrod]

Well, I noticed Halliburton doesn't have a corporate logo, so I started drawing them one that might be less green. The logo is Dick Cheney in a Hummer H-2 running over small woodland creatures while dumping unused barrels of Agent Orange out of the Hummer's trunk and lighting the rainforest on fire with a flamethrower.

Now if only I had any actual artistic talent and this didn't look like a giant blob of orange highlighter.

Re:Holy shit

[dywolf]

remember how kids eating chips of lead based paint ended up with physiological damage because of the chemials dissolving and entering their tissues?

same concept.
just smaller chips.
and a much larger affected biomass.

Re:Least green logo ever

[drinkypoo]

The logo is Dick Cheney in a Hummer H-2 running over small woodland creatures while dumping unused barrels of Agent Orange out of the Hummer's trunk and lighting the rainforest on fire with a flamethrower.

That is so fucking totally unfair. Agent Orange is a Monsanto product.