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Science X's Phys.org site describes a report about the harm from tire particles, which account for about a third of all microplastic contamination in the environment. Unlike other types of plastic, tire particles are smaller, have greater chemical complexity, and different behavior in ecosystems. Thus the call is for them to be placed in a new, separate enviromental category.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research, highlights the gap in current knowledge about the environmental presence, transportation, and toxic impact of these particles. The authors have identified ten priority research questions across four key themes: environmental detection, chemical composition, biotic impacts, and regulation.
The research brought together an interdisciplinary network of experts from countries including the U.K., U.S., Norway, Australia, South Korea, Finland, Austria, China, and Canada. Their findings underscore the need for a standardized framework to quantify and manage TPs and their leachates, especially as the global presence of these contaminants rises.
A second study is being carried out on the effects from tire chemicals and particles on marine life in UK waters.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Thursday November 21, @05:18PM (6 children)
I posit that, if you wrap every individual in a bubble of plastic, there would be no one left to care.
Yes, we should care about the environment. However, we should care more about the humans in that environment. Which a lot of people just don't get. Modern conveniences like Air Conditioners, Houses, Roads, and Running Water were created to improve the lives of people. Who would care, if the entire planet was a paradise and everyone was dead? Assuming more people cared about people, I posit that fixing the environment problems would be a bigger deal to more people.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday November 21, @05:31PM (5 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday November 21, @06:18PM (3 children)
Then we'll have been very poor engineers.
Space Engineers game quote:
That said, there's all kinds of horrible things wrong with the saying you quoted. Assuming we did clean up the air "for nothing", then we probably did a horrible job at cleaning it. The air quality is horrific in some places and as someone who likes to breathe, I find clean air to be a very nice thing. There's also the "what if scenario" of them being right. Assume we bankrupt the USA trying to clean the environment and either one of these two options. Scenario 1 we find out we didn't need to to do it. Scenario 2 we find out that there was no possible way to do it and/or we just couldn't due to running out of money. In either of those scenarios, pollution will inevitably get worse due to an entire country being unable to afford basic sanitation.
There's also the assumption that the USA could "clean the air of the world" and that's beyond absurd. The only way to "clean the air of the world" is for the entire world to actually care about the pollution they pump into the air. The United Sates is country 102 of 134 on this list: https://www.iqair.com/us/world-most-polluted-countries [iqair.com]
India is the only country in the top 10 that I expected to be there, with China hitting the #19 spot.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Thursday November 21, @07:33PM
I've never actually heard anyone say this. I question the value of worrying about this anyway, we know shit thrown in the air in China can reach us and if it got bad enough to cause health problems over here we'd do something about it anyway just out of necessity. What are we going to do, label alien air particles for air-filters to reject?
I don't think it was ever about 'cleaning the air of world', just a cold reality of the fact that we're all sharing the same resource. It's also easily spun by those wanting higher profit margins.
Right... but not doing anything because others are worse is counter-productive. We're going to pay for pollution one way or another. If everybody develops cancer, for example, then the money savings from NOT putting shit in the air means nothing. Also... ignoring warning signs and continuing to move merrily along means a higher expense down the road to correct it. There's wisdom, and then there's just plain gambling. We lost a big important mine in our last pair of hurricanes. Is that being accounted for while deciding to keep fucking around like this?
There is a very powerful profit motive behind getting that message in front of your face, and it's been going on for decades. During that time there have been huge improvements in air quality, far better/efficient use of electricity, and we have several solid means of generating electrical power. It's less than ideal today but you CAN go buy a car and 'fuel' it with panels in your back yard, but you still can't generate a tank of gasoline. Those technical innovations are considered by some a drag on the existing market without considering the new markets they open. Wanna build a wind farm? Jobs. Wanna build a nuclear plant? Jobs. Wanna build cars that run on electricity and use gasoline to generate that electricity? Design jobs, manufacturing jobs, electrical generation jobs, you name it.
We've been thriving for decades despite the push towards better environmental practices.
I actually do agree with you on the point that silly extremes will get silly results, I don't agree with you that the extremes are what's playing out right now. "Babble" and "doing" are two different things, and that applies to both sides.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Interesting) by corey on Thursday November 21, @10:07PM (1 child)
I appreciate that quote. As an engineer, my mind went straight for solutions. No tyres, or change to a biodegradeable compound. Firstly, I don't think there are any non-tyre solutions? We seem to need rubber/like material to keep wheels on the ground. Until we get flying cars viable, or a hovercraft-like device (hmm starting to think of options there..). The second option, biodegradeable. I don't know anything about tyre compound (other than soft/hard etc), I am sure the tyre companies can come up with something better. But I would think that normal tyre rubber would break down anyway. Everything does, faster if it's in very small pieces, which this is.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22, @10:31AM
You can do a quick fermi calc of how much of this stuff there is.1
how many cars in your city : lets say a million
how many years your tyres last : lets say three years
how much rubber each tyre loses between new and bald : 3kg as a guesstimate2
-> 1,000,000 (cars) *4 (tyres/car) * 3(Kg) / 3 (years)
= ~ 4000 tonnes per year of this dust dropped on your city.3
---
1. This is very rough, you can plug in much more accurate figures for your particular city.
2. 1.5m circumference * 20cm width * 1 cm tread height * guessing at a rubber density of 1
3. This also doesn't include trucks, which apparently go through way more tyres/km than cars.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Friday November 22, @01:25PM
Or: "What if we make things worse instead of better?"
Here, we know that developed world societies are less polluting and low population growth (driven by immigration of high fertility populations BTW). Meanwhile current environmentalism has a tough time showing it can beat this modest expectation bar - that the proposed action makes things better. It's not a simple choice between good and bad. There are substantial trade offs to environmentalism that are outright ignored. That in turn creates significant poverty and significant population growth. Until one understands the human dynamics - particularly the incredible power of developed world economies, one can't fix the problems of the world.