• cybervseas@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I wish them well. It feels good to be reminded that yes, there are still people out there trying to make things better. ❤️

    • apenstaartje@lemmy.cafe
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      3 months ago

      If it can get the necessary funds, that is. In a press release, the organization claimed that eliminating the patch once and for all would cost a whopping $7.5 billion

      If you give me 7.5 billion i’ll do my very best to clean up the ocean too

      • Godort@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        That’s like 0.8% of the US military budget for 2025. That’s basically a rounding error

          • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
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            3 months ago

            China’s GDP is going to keeping a billion people housed and fed, and producing more solar panels than the rest of the world combined. The US military budget is going to blowing up brown people.

            • apenstaartje@lemmy.cafe
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              3 months ago

              Awesome way to say you don’t care about the planet by making excuses for China not picking lint out of its pocket to clean the ocean—and then somehow turning this into an ICE problem.

              • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
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                3 months ago

                Nobody said anything about ICE, we’re talking about the military known for bombing weddings in multiple middle eastern countries and then bombing ambulances when they respond.

                If you have the money to commit atrocities in a dozen countries at once, you have money to spare.

    • gopher@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      Been following them for years. They do great work, but often seem a little overly optimistic in their messaging. What they are doing is a hard challenge and they seem to be slowly getting better and better. I wonder if they also are lacking a bit in funding to be able to efficiently move forward.

    • NKBTN@feddit.uk
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      3 months ago

      And the article says “we can totally do this! All need is loads of money! Please donate!”

    • Artisian@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Thank you for saying something! Can’t believe I didn’t check myself.

      It also lead to me finding this: https://theoceancleanup.com/dashboard/

      If I understand correctly, system 3 is the one most relevant to the great garbage patch. It’s currently at port, and has been for nearly a year. Not sure what to make of this.

  • krunklom@lemmy.zip
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    3 months ago

    Once it’s cleaned up we should replace all the garbage with cum, so the fish can eat the cum.

    • HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      True, but let’s not the baby out with the bathwater.

      98% or 90% or even a verifiable 50% reduction is insanely amazing news

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        So far, the nonprofit claims it has fished out a million pounds of trash from the patch, a mere 0.5 percent of its total. But within a decade, it says, it could ramp up its operations to get rid of it in its entirety.

        :-/

        They’re asking for $75B for the full project and currently relying on start up capital with a tiny fraction of that. Apple’s “committed” $7.5B tentative to Ocean Cleanup Project raising the rest on short notice.

        This isn’t “on track”. It’s a pilot project that’s in the middle of a Series B funding round.

        Also - most critically - it’s not clear in the article what they’re doing with the waste they recover. Simply moving it around doesn’t eliminate the garbage. And the project does not appear to include a budget for recycling or otherwise repurposing what they recover.

        • HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          I understand the cynicism, but I’m not going to let it distract me from the good that is being done.

          • LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            You can hold space for both, and both can be true at the same time and not invalidate each other. Optimism is a hugely important quality, it’s focusing on moving forward and seeing the glass half full, and it keeps the darkness out. Pointing out problems is just troubleshooting, and finding ways to be better, that might seem like focusing on the glass half empty, but what if it’s just focusing on achieving a better half full, glass. The important thing is to hold onto what keeps you afloat, especially right now. This is awesome news, whether it needs more work or not.

        • Taldan@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          It’s the largest individual source, by far. Whether or not it accounts for the majority depends on the exact stats you’re looking at

            • vortic@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              It’s more about which study or source you’re looking at than what measure is used. It’s tough to estimate stuff like this so different people get different answers.

  • VisionScout@lemmy.wtf
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    3 months ago

    This is very good news! Please don’t forget that even if the great pacific garbage patch doesn’t exist, that doesn’t mean that the ocean is clean. There are still lots of garbage in the ocean!

    However everybody needs to work where the problem originates.

    • pedz@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      There’s only four left to clean after this one.

      In 2014, there were five areas across all the oceans where the majority of plastic concentrated. Researchers collected a total of 3070 samples across the world to identify hot spots of surface level plastic pollution. The pattern of distribution closely mirrored models of oceanic currents with the North Pacific Gyre, or Great Pacific Garbage Patch, being the highest density of plastic accumulation. The other four garbage patches include the North Atlantic garbage patch between the North America and Africa, the South Atlantic garbage patch located between eastern South America and the tip of Africa, the South Pacific garbage patch located west of South America, and the Indian Ocean garbage patch found east of South Africa.

  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    Sorry, this isn’t news.

    They’ve been towing these nets around for a decade now.

    The article says, if you give them 4 billion with a b dollars they will “clean up” the garbage patch.

    No shit. Give someone a lot of money and things can be done. The problem as we all know is that there is no money available for this type of project.

    • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The weird thing is that money isn’t real. It’s just an arbitrary idea of how much somebody thinks someone/something else is worth. When was the last time we had enough gold to back up all the money promises in the world? That was a long long long time ago.

    • Furbag@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      If we cancelled the order of ~40 F-35s, we could have that 4 billion dollars.

      If we appropriately taxed the rich, we could do it without even having to cut the precious military spending.

  • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I love this, it’s great, but it doesn’t address the root cause unfortunately

    • SethW@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      i dont know why you would say this unless youre just replying to headlines… most of the plastic comes from just a handfull of rivers and they’re catching the plastic at the source with their river collection programs (lots of interesting solutions they’re using including bubble curtains)

      • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Absolutely and that is great, but by root cause I mean how much plastic is on every fucking thing we buy, the source is not the rivers feeding into the ocean, it’s our usage, and disregard for the environment

        • Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          There are shades of gray. I consider burying it in well managed landfills (what is done with the very large majority of plastic in developed countries) significantly more environmentally responsible than dumping it into the local river (what is done with most plastic in many developing countries) or ocean (fishing nets, cruise ships).

  • JesusTheCarpenter@feddit.uk
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    3 months ago

    I love news like this.

    Btw, I assume this is referring to garbage that is floating. What about the garbage that has sunk? I mean, I don’t even know whether it’s a big problem, especially in the middle of the ocean, but I am still curious what’s up with that.

  • moistclump@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    They’re mostly thinking 10 years, but:

    Better yet, if the nonprofit’s latest technological ideas come to fruition, Slat suggests we could even clear the patch in just five years at a cost of just $4 billion.

    Ultimately though it comes down to funding, and I’m not sure this is the administration with the stomach to fund these types of projects.

  • rapchee@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    finally, i don’t have to think even a second about my individually plastic wrapped candies

  • skhayfa@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Seems easier picking up trash by hand than taxing the rich for the project

    So far, the nonprofit claims it has fished out a million pounds of trash from the patch, a mere 0.5 percent of its total. But within a decade, it says, it could ramp up its operations to get rid of it in its entirety.

    Next year, the company will focus its efforts on establishing a “hotspot” map of areas in the ocean with “intense plastic accumulation.”

    While $7.5 billion may sound like a lot, it’s less than one month’s worth of Apple’s profits last year, or a sixth of the bonus Tesla shareholders awarded to CEO Elon Musk.

      • BearGun@ttrpg.network
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        3 months ago

        To give him “motivation” to keep innovating and bring us to mars, supposedly. God there’s no limit to the sheer stupidity of muskrat fanboys.