Plastics Pose A Threat To Sea Life Right Now

It has long been held that plastic waste, when dumped in the sea, posed more of a risk to careless swimmers as a bludgeoning hazard than it did to aquatic life as a pollutant. The received wisdom was that plastics were hardy materials likely to release their contaminants over time. Now, according to new research from scientists presenting to the American Chemical Society (ACS), it seems that that is not the case. It may well be, in fact, that plastics break down with ease and speed in our oceans, and are posing a threat to sea life right now.

It is well known by anyone who has seen footage of “Beaches from Hell” that often waste thrown in the ocean will wash up on the beach. This may not be desirable, but the fact that it was at least visible brought some strange comfort, at least to those of us who could ignore that the beach itself was an ecosystem all of its own. However, it is fair to say that a more than significant amount of plastic waste thrown into the sea never finds its way to the shore. Some stays in the ocean and interferes with marine life directly – as anyone who has ever tried to free a fish or a seagull from a plastic bag can attest – and a lot of it, we can now say without fear of contradiction, breaks down while in the ocean, releasing toxins that do their own brand of harm to the marine population.

Famously, the expanse of water between Hawaii and California has become known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. What is less well-known is a little statistic which states that the area is twice the size of Texas. Think of how much marine life finds its home in that area, and consider then that the water is not just polluted by bottles, bags and other detritus, but by the component parts of that detritus. Although not as viscerally horrible as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, this is a major problem and will require attention. While we have always assumed plastic in the ocean to be undesirable, now we find the true extent of how much this is the case.

It emerges that plastic when thrown into the ocean reacts extremely badly as it is exposed to the rain and the sun while already weakened by the saltwater in the ocean. The contamination caused by this has an immediately obvious negative effect – poisoning marine life – but the secondary effects it can have by entering the food chain are no less concerning. At the moment we do not know what shape the effects could take, but previous studies in animals have demonstrated that Bisphenol A – a major constituent of many plastics – can disrupt animal hormone systems. Although it would be unwise and unhelpful to become too apocalyptic in our vision of the effects this could have, it bears attention and reminds us that vigilance is vitally important. The consequences of ignorance could yet be very damaging.

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Australian Parliament Rejects Emissions Plan

Green Movement In Australia

The green movement in Australia has suffered a blow this week, as the parliamentary vote on tackling global warming saw the opposition win out with 42 votes to the government’s 30. This is seen as a major setback for the movement in Australia but not a final blow, as Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said after the vote in the country’s senate that the government would seek to re-introduce the bill after the mandatory three month waiting period. This brings into the situation a possibility of some very interesting developments not just on the environmental issue but some potential constitutional developments.

One of the notable eventualities which could arise from this reverse in the Senate is that, if the government pushed forward the same legislation and was then defeated, it could potentially trigger a general election. This makes the potential legislation quite a powerful issue, and could well lead to some political horse-trading as the ruling Labour party looks to win over some of the current skeptics. As things stand, t he votes against the bill outnumber the votes for it by twelve. In order to gain a majority, seven senators would be required to change their vote.

As things stand, opposition to the legislation makes, as politics often does, for strange bedfellows. The government was essentially leveraged by opposition on both sides – from Green members who did not feel that the measures proposed went far enough towards tackling climate change, to members of the Conservative opposition who viewed it as being excessive. The measures proposed certainly go further than any yet proposed by a government, in offering a system of carbon trading which would require the more polluting companies to pay for their carbon emissions and rewarding companies who went some way to being carbon neutral.

One of the issues raised by conservative opposition legislators was that to adopt the propositions of the bill would be to put Australia in a disadvantageous position ahead of the conference on climate change to be held in Copenhagen in December. The government has argued that their position would only be weakened by going to Copenhagen without having adopted a coherent and radical plan for the reduction of carbon emissions. This gives the government a dilemma. Trying to win over enough senators means either adopting tougher measures to win over the Greens and alienating the conservative bloc, or vice versa.

Prime Minister Rudd may not be overly inconvenienced by an early election. Australia is due to go to the polls in late 2010 anyway, so bringing the election forward by a year while his approval ratings are high (and they far exceed those of the leader of the official Opposition) may not be the worst thing that could happen. It would also give the government a clear mandate. Australian voters are believed to favour strong action to cut down on pollution, and if they backed an incumbent Premier on a platform of environmental reform it would make it significantly harder to oppose the legislation in Parliament.

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Prius hybrid at the top of the vehicular sales in Japan

One of the major concerns of anyone with green issues in mind is the motor car. There is no doubting that a massive amount of the pollution in our cities is caused by cars, and a large amount of that caused by the more gas-guzzling vehicles which just so happen to be among the most popular on the market – popular, at least, in the sense that they are much coveted, even if the average driver would need a very generous extension of credit to actually buy one. Indeed, it is price that seems to be the sticking point for cars which do just the opposite – if you want genuine fuel efficiency then you are going to have to pay for it.

Governments are trying to take a lead on cutting vehicle emissions by offering incentives to consumers who buy a green car. Certain lenders, also, are getting in on the action by offering more generous repayment terms on their loans if the car that the loan will buy is one which will pollute less. The success of their efforts to turn the roads green will only become clear with time, but it is clear that they are battling on two fronts.

Firstly, people will still have to spend more than they would ideally like to in order to get a green car and secondly, there is a continuing belief that fuel-efficient cars simply are not cool. It may be more or less fashionable to care about the environment, but if that means taking a rain check on the car of your dreams then the cool points decrease rapidly.

There are car manufacturers who realize that this problem exists with a lot of the green cars on the market. The simple fact of the matter is that a green car that looks exactly like another car with worse fuel economy will generally be seen as less cool. There is just a tendency among people to feel like their car should be their little walk on the wild side. This is not the same everywhere in the world, mind you. In Japan, home-based manufacturers Toyota are fresh from celebrating the placing of their latest Prius hybrid at the top of the vehicular sales in Japan for May.

It isn’t just a matter of cool, of course, that prevents economic vehicles from taking to the top of the charts elsewhere. The other major problem with vehicles that give an excellent fuel economy is that they cost more up front. If you have the money to spend on an economic vehicle, then you will save enough on fuel to pay for the difference from a new, less economic one. Additionally, cars that run on electric which have for some time been seen as the future of fuel-economic vehicles, still have a long way to go before they are seen as a real answer. Recharge points for the vehicles are still very unevenly distributed, and without a real push – which they haven’t been getting, they look set to be overtaken by hydrogen cell engines by the end of the next decade.

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