Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for the first time

Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by gfodor on Sunday January 12, 2020 @12:33PM (#22027575)

An aside: why do those advocating for ways to improve the environment continue to land themselves in a place where their final answer to a problem is "simple: people should just do X instead of Y." These are not solutions, unless you explain how you are going to shift the behavior of billions of people to a point where it makes a real, sustainable difference. Nearly any other approach is more feasible to solving problems. If you are going to say such a thing, to be taken seriously you must articulate how you can re-align incentives to cause such a behavior change to happen at a large scale enough to move the needle. Your own experience doing so also does not move that argument forward in any way.

A system where people still consume as much fish as they please, and our technological and governmental structures lead to downstream processes that mitigate the environmental impact of that situation may not be a globally maximal solution compared to a world where we end fish consumption. But it does have one nice attribute: it may actually be possible to achieve. Personally, I do hold out hope for an even better solution, where we get to consume the foods we love but they are created without the need for animals to live and die to give it to us.

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Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by spodek on Sunday January 12, 2020 @12:57PM (#22027785)

I don't pretend to know how to solve everything, but a few podcast episodes describe my strategy.

https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the-environment/episod...

http://joshuaspodek.com/my-tedx-talk-is-online-find-your-del...

https://shows.pippa.io/leadership-and-the-environment/episod...

Many people misinterpret to think I'm saying this strategy will solve everything by itself.

Note that at the root, it's helping people live by their values. Polluting less doesn't create a worse life, however much people who haven't seriously tried fear it will. Nearly all of my guests who act report preferring acting, saving time and money, improving relationships, self-awareness, etc.

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Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by corporate_shi11 on Sunday January 12, 2020 @03:05PM (#22028853)

Your strategy still suffers from the unattractive aspect of behavior constraint. Human civilisation serves to enable us, not to constrain us. Regulation on the management of fishing nets is far more preferable to me than just advocating people constrain themselves by eating less fish.

The fetish of constraint seems to be popular among environmentalists, but it's certainly not the only way or even most preferable path forward.

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Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by gfodor on Sunday January 12, 2020 @10:16PM (#22031554)

It’s also as old as the dawn of technological civilization: there is always an imminent, existential crisis, and the only solution proposed by the least imaginative and most cynical of us is to give up on progress and start rolling back our modern lifestyle and all of its gifts, such as health, longevity, and less scarcity on nearly all fronts.

And yet, every single time, now for hundreds of years, the crisis is solved not through a culture change but through a mixture of regulation and technological progress.

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Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by spodek on Monday January 13, 2020 @08:34AM (#22034290)

Civilization is equally about regulating behavior that hurts others. Traffic lights, food labeling, laws against murder and theft, building codes, and so on all constrain us. You can punch the air as much as you want. My idea of civilization constrains you from punching someone in the face and you probably value the constraint on others to punch you in the face or steal your stuff.

Pollution hurts other people. Do you want no constraints on dioxin, PCBs, and mercury emissions?

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Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by richk449 on Sunday January 12, 2020 @06:45PM (#22030590)

> These are not solutions, unless you explain how you are going to shift the behavior of billions of people to a point where it makes a real, sustainable difference. Nearly any other approach is more feasible to solving problems. If you are going to say such a thing, to be taken seriously you must articulate how you can re-align incentives to cause such a behavior change to happen at a large scale enough to move the needle.

It’s not complicated. Tax the behaviors you want to discourage. Subsidize the behaviors you want to encourage.

You can’t solve all problems that way, because of black markets and other “non-linear” effects, but in this case it is a perfectly reasonable approach.

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Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by umvi on Sunday January 12, 2020 @02:02PM (#22028358)

There's at least one way to get people to eat less meat/fish:

Make plant based alternatives cheaper than the real thing. I would definitely buy impossible meat if it were cheaper than real beef. As it stands it is several times more expensive than real beef. Same for impossible fish (if such a thing were to exist).

If impossible fish sticks taste nearly identical to real fish sticks, but it's cheaper and plant-based, why wouldn't your average consumer buy impossible fish sticks for their kids?

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Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by soperj on Sunday January 12, 2020 @02:32PM (#22028598)

Lots of fish sticks are made from tilapia, which are plant feeding fresh water fish. They're basically impossible fish sticks.

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Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by corporate_shi11 on Sunday January 12, 2020 @02:59PM (#22028801)

Just one reason: imitation beef is often highly processed, while beef itself is all natural.

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Re:Ocean cleaning device succeeds in removing plastic for th... by samastur on Sunday January 12, 2020 @03:18PM (#22028964)

We already eat too much fish as it is and stocks all over the world in dire state, plastic or no plastic. Millions depend on them for their survival, but many of us don't and could eat less.

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