How plastics are going to kill us all

Atmospheric microplastics and nanoplastics are now believed to be causing warming, by functioning as a forcing in their own right. Under the new assumptions, their color causes them to absorb sunlight, whereas under old assumptions, they simply reflected sunlight.

The impact is currently very minor. It’s estimated at around 0.02 °C today.

But then there is another effect you need to take into consideration: Our carbon sinks weaken as a result of plastics pollution. A plant that is dealing with plastics pollution is less competent at sequestering CO2.

So, there’s a very minor contributor to global warming that nobody is taking seriously. Who cares right? Well, here’s the thing. It generally takes decades for plastic pollution to turn into microplastics and then from microplastics into nanoplastics. Most of the warming currently being caused by plastic pollution is due to nanoplastics, rather than microplastics.

You’re currently mainly seeing the impact on global warming, of plastics we produced decades ago. Overall production has roughly doubled over the past two decades.

If you try to come up with a best case scenario for plastics production, where we agree to a global treaty to dramatically reduce global plastics production by 2030, production then begins to fall and leakage into the environment falls, you still find yourself facing the reality that the impact of microplastics on global temperatures is going to grow, simply because it takes decades for the plastics you produced to reveal their true impact.

Under this best case scenario, if you were to take only plastics into consideration (not all the other unincluded issues we’re dealing with) you can expect that our carbon budgets should actually be 15% lower to stay under 1.5 degree and 7% lower to stay under 2 degree than we currently estimate. That’s what I consider the best estimate, under a best case scenario where we rapidly start reducing our plastics production by 2030 and get much better at ensuring none of it leaks into the environment.

Effectively no climate scientists are seriously looking at how plastics pollution impacts our overall chances of keeping global warming under control. When you hear about climate change in the media, you hear about what charlatans like Michael Mann and Zeke Hausfather are predicting. If you search really hard, you may hear from people who are actually honest about the scope of the predicament we face, like James Hansen, Rockstrom and Schellnuber.

Schellnuber by the way, has actual balls. He pointed out that if you continue on this trajectory you have all collectively agreed upon, as you all jump in your airplane to go to another exotic destination this summer that happened to be on your bucket list, the Earth will have a carrying capacity below 1 billion. Not some Dutch guy with a blog, an actual scientist. Billions of people will just die because the Earth will become too warm to keep them alive.

So take what I just explained to you. James Hansen, Rockström, Schellnuber, these people are seen as prophets of doom. And yet, those people have not yet incorporated into their models what happens if we continue producing plastics at the growing rate that we are producing them. This is an entirely new source of warming, on top of everything else that people have been investigating.

Well, now take a look at what is considered the realistic trajectory for plastics production. Annual production will double between now and 2060. In fact, annual production is not expected to peak until 2100. There is NO SERIOUS ATTEMPT to reduce our global plastic production.

There is effectively no serious attempt yet to reduce microplastics and nanoplastics pollution in our environment, even though the evidence suggests it plays a substantial role in future global warming that no climate models take into proper consideration yet.

If plastics pollution was taken into serious consideration, we would have to acknowledge the climate change crisis is even more severe and difficult to solve than we thought and the risk of breaching important tipping points is also more acute than we thought it is.

So, what can we actually expect to change about global warming by 2100, as a result of plastic pollution? Well, this is difficult to put an accurate number on, but the estimate I have right now is 0.2 degree Celsius by 2100, on top of everything else we already face. That should shock you and if you are a climate scientist, it should immediately spur you into action to take a good look at the plastics problem.

So, this is a newly recognized feedback loop, that will be adding roughly as much global warming by 2100 as the melting permafrost will, unless you morons somehow manage to get your governments to reduce plastic production.

I think it’s arguably worse than 0.2 degree Celsius for two reasons:

1. Warming begets warming. The warming from the microplastics, leads to further permafrost melting, which leads to further warming, in a nasty loop of positive feedback.
2. I’m only looking at the two direct effect of microplastics and nanoplastics here: Absorbing sunlight and harming our natural ecosystems ability to absorb carbon for us. As I have explained before, those plastics in our soils also reduce agricultural yields. If that forces farmers whose soils have been polluted with plastic to deforest neighboring land to increase their food production, or if it forces them to use more fertilizer, then microplastics and nanoplastics are indirectly responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions.

Yeah, no need to say thank you. In regards to me, all I ask for, as I spend my days explaining to you what kind of insanity lies ahead of you that’s going to be killing billions of people, is that I’m allowed to spend my days sedating myself with a cocktail of various psychoactive drugs, without any harassment from government, law enforcement, family or other authorities. A woman would be nice too, but I would already be happy if I’m allowed to just do my own thing without people bothering me.