On Lord Howe Island—a remote volcanic outpost with fewer than 500 residents—tens of thousands of seabirds are filling up with plastic.
  • huppakee@lemm.eeEnglish
    17·
    1 month ago

    This is one of the most depressing stories I read about the state of our planet in a while, especially because this is happening in a remote place.

    If anyone needs an uplifting story you could visit https://theoceancleanup.com/, they’ve been doing great work and doing more and more every year. Also if you have some left over money please check it out.

    • pulsewidth@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      1 month ago

      Those plastic dog toys are kinda part of the problem. They don’t last long before they’re off to the dump, and a lot of small bits that break off get swallowed by the pooch.

      My dogs (rip) always loved bones, dry pigs ears, goat horns - natural items. We don’t need the consumerist plastic crap they push on us.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish
    6·
    1 month ago

    This single issue alone should be so fucking alarming that the world would out everything on hold to fix this one problem.

    Instead we live in a world where this issue is so ti y it barely registers and even if or when it does, nobody gives a shit. Dumb birds shouldn’t be swallowing shit, that’s what you’ll hear, while they load the plastic bottles in their plastic bag.

    This is a solvable issue.

    Just like the much, much bigger issues

    Ukraine? The entire world could join together in a UN that actually does something and send the mother of all armies to Ukraine and drive Russia out, arrest Putin, and get democracy going in Russia.

    Same goes for Israel and Palestine. The world could send a massive army, chase Israel out and make it surrender, arrest Netanyahu for war crimes, setup a fair plan for both Israelites and Palestinians, and keep a peace force for a while until they’re all friends

    We could really kick climate change’s ass if we wanted to. We could push hard for renewables, we could in 10 year transform all the cities in the world into walkable and cyclable cities with great public transportation. We have the resources.

    The rich poor divide? We could tax anyone with a worth over 10 million at 100% and use all that money to invest in all these projects.

    All the plastics in the water at this point is a relatively small issue. We can easily filter out the plastics in a few years time, we can tax plastics hard so that companies will make the switch to better materials. It is not THAT hard.

    All of this is in the realm of possibilities, but there is no want. People don’t give a shit.

    It’s so sad

  • jqubed@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    1 month ago

    I’ve never been anyplace where you can just touch a wild bird, let alone determine they make a crunching sound when touched!