Plastic - oil derivative. Polyester fashion -oil derivative. Oil extraction, pipelines and storage use a lot of steel, for that you need coal. David Sime Cargill 'may' have started the third Anglo-Burmese War to gain access to the oil reserves of Burma. Became BP (British Petroleum). Walter C. Teagle (Standard Oil California/Chevron) sold tetraethyl lead and synthetic rubber patents to Adolph Hitler for his war effort. The US military wanted it too but Walter said "Sorry, no. IG Faben has the patents." These guys are big, like an economic tsunami. Plastic in us ? That's cool ; get sick, go see your doctor. Good for the medical economy. Climate change ; hell yeah, it'll free up Arctic Oil, fisheries and the north-west passage. Corporations act under a legal leviathan called 'shareholder primacy' which means they act for the majority shareholders. The mega wealthy who - ironically - have the means to turn this world mess around. But not the will or the imagination. Do what you can, be a consumer not, challenge yourself and the earth will be grateful to you for that. Murder By Injection - Eustace Mullins.
Like most people who have an interest in the poly crisis the plastics and chemical pollution issue is not unknown to me but I confess to hesitating to listen to this episode as I wasn't sure I wanted to subject myself to the sheer horror of the details. I did grit my teeth, however, and was not disappointed.
There is something profoundly belittling in knowing that government is deliberately encouraging the poisoning of its population for profit, that it ruthlessly weeds out any dissent and even though this has been going on for decades it finds itself immune from consequences.
I am not given to expressing anger much but I feel like a pressure cooker about to explode the more I hear about the callousness of those in power who profess their concern for our well-being. And while I weep - and I mean it - for the generations that are reaping and will reap the increasing crop of harms I also feel that there is little time for tears and all of us must fight for our lives and the lives of those to come.
Good to see and hear this cogent and concise essentially repeat message of what some of us have been saying as often and as widely as we could since Rachel Carson and the other first generation toxics activists.
Does the greater reach of contemporary communications technology and the more complete entoxification of our bodies and planet mean more is likely to be done to address the problem (in a world with billions more people than were alive in those first Earth Day years)? Hopefully so. In any case, heartfelt thanks to Jane and Rachel and others carrying on, and deepening, and intensifying, the struggle. And, yes, good luck.
My generation (I'm 83) screwed up, despite the best efforts of many of us who devoted most of our adult lives to environmental activism, many of us focusing on global toxification the chlorine and fossil fuel chemical industry (Dow Chemical of course, being one of the primary perps, still at it, as Jane noted.) Let's hope we're not locked into Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Is this what Andy Warhol meant by The Exploding Plastic Inevitable? It seems to me that this is so dire, so personal and undeniable that it could be the lever for change, but only if awareness out competes the misinformation campaign that will inevitably follow.
Is there any evidence that there was actually a decades long plan to make plastic ubiquitous, or has it just been a series of opportunistic moves?
A great scary listen. Thanks for outlining just how terribly connected this all is. Even the plastic alternatives are so energy intensive! Rachel, your implication at the end (that capitalist economy is the obstacle to making these needed changes because profit motive drives it all) makes me want to platform Derrick Jensen at derrickjensen.org. You featured his coauthor of the book Bright Green Lies. Anyway... in Jensen's book Endgame, he analyzes how [industrial] civilization acts like a domestic abuser, doing all the gaslighting your plate can hold while (the victim) ecology suffers. He himself was brutally abused by his father so he's got a clear take on this. Anyway... Jensen has written over 20 books, walks his talk in remote northern California, and advocates for all things salmon as the foundation of the food system in that part of the world. A radical thinker up your alley! :-)
Writing about climate and other issues, I have found myself again and again facing the question: what are the incentives to do the right thing? What are the incentives not to? The perverse incentives we live with, without even realizing it most of the time, are behind all of the problems discussed in this podcast. The pursuit of short-term profit, and the social structure of competition, is behind everything we so badly need to change, including the overuse of plastics. Is there a short-term financial and competitive incentive to end global warming, just to take one example? No, there isn't, and in fact, the opposite is the case. It drives me mad. I often want to say "People, we cannot even get rid of the tobacco industry! Why on Earth does anyone think we can get rid of all these other problems?" But I will never give up trying to fight this and to make people aware of what is going on.
Jane mentioned the lack of environmental education. It is not being merely overlooked, it is by design omitted from educational programs. The Guardian just reported on the UK's largest education union secretary general saying that philosophy should be taught in all schools, for example, to help children deal with talking about the so-called "Middle East Crisis," when naturally, an educational system that fails to teach the subject of How To Think is obviously not going to produce great results unless the goal is merely to teach students a marketable skill so that they can go out be good slaves to the billionaires. Will philosophy ever be part of the "three Rs"? Of course not, as long as those ultimately deciding what students should learn are wealthy and powerful people... Education, or the lack of it, is absolutely huge here, but we won't ever get real progress there as long as education is defined by people like Bill Gates.
Thanks so much for your clarity in describing the magnitude of what we have done to our once pure existence. In such a short period of time in the history of humans on Earth.
Everything I am researching when it comes to plastic is its permanency as a product. A permanent product comes with permanent problems once it escapes our control.
I feel we are beyond repair. Is it time to start the conversation on a global scale of a world no longer safe to bring life into. We are forever polluted from here on. The damage was caused the day plastic ever became our brand-new reality.
We can't save ourselves, let us imagine we can save the human not yet born into a world we all know will never be safe.
I wish I could see a way out of this disaster. I know after attempting to clean a beach remote from the rest of human existence was an impossible task. Microscopic particles of plastic never to be retrieved.
Words from native indigenous thinkers of the past. "What we do to the Earth. We do to ourselves." How did wo get so removed from where we first began this human journey?
Again, thanks for an incredible podcast. I am forwarding it to everyone I think can handle the intense reality of what was discussed.
Could someone please give me simple instructions to find the "show notes" for Planet Critical? I've tried going to Planet Critical.com on Google and it takes me automatically to Spotify. I can't ever find any links for the folks interviewed - are they somewhere else?
Plastic - oil derivative. Polyester fashion -oil derivative. Oil extraction, pipelines and storage use a lot of steel, for that you need coal. David Sime Cargill 'may' have started the third Anglo-Burmese War to gain access to the oil reserves of Burma. Became BP (British Petroleum). Walter C. Teagle (Standard Oil California/Chevron) sold tetraethyl lead and synthetic rubber patents to Adolph Hitler for his war effort. The US military wanted it too but Walter said "Sorry, no. IG Faben has the patents." These guys are big, like an economic tsunami. Plastic in us ? That's cool ; get sick, go see your doctor. Good for the medical economy. Climate change ; hell yeah, it'll free up Arctic Oil, fisheries and the north-west passage. Corporations act under a legal leviathan called 'shareholder primacy' which means they act for the majority shareholders. The mega wealthy who - ironically - have the means to turn this world mess around. But not the will or the imagination. Do what you can, be a consumer not, challenge yourself and the earth will be grateful to you for that. Murder By Injection - Eustace Mullins.
Like most people who have an interest in the poly crisis the plastics and chemical pollution issue is not unknown to me but I confess to hesitating to listen to this episode as I wasn't sure I wanted to subject myself to the sheer horror of the details. I did grit my teeth, however, and was not disappointed.
There is something profoundly belittling in knowing that government is deliberately encouraging the poisoning of its population for profit, that it ruthlessly weeds out any dissent and even though this has been going on for decades it finds itself immune from consequences.
I am not given to expressing anger much but I feel like a pressure cooker about to explode the more I hear about the callousness of those in power who profess their concern for our well-being. And while I weep - and I mean it - for the generations that are reaping and will reap the increasing crop of harms I also feel that there is little time for tears and all of us must fight for our lives and the lives of those to come.
Good to see and hear this cogent and concise essentially repeat message of what some of us have been saying as often and as widely as we could since Rachel Carson and the other first generation toxics activists.
Does the greater reach of contemporary communications technology and the more complete entoxification of our bodies and planet mean more is likely to be done to address the problem (in a world with billions more people than were alive in those first Earth Day years)? Hopefully so. In any case, heartfelt thanks to Jane and Rachel and others carrying on, and deepening, and intensifying, the struggle. And, yes, good luck.
My generation (I'm 83) screwed up, despite the best efforts of many of us who devoted most of our adult lives to environmental activism, many of us focusing on global toxification the chlorine and fossil fuel chemical industry (Dow Chemical of course, being one of the primary perps, still at it, as Jane noted.) Let's hope we're not locked into Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Is this what Andy Warhol meant by The Exploding Plastic Inevitable? It seems to me that this is so dire, so personal and undeniable that it could be the lever for change, but only if awareness out competes the misinformation campaign that will inevitably follow.
Is there any evidence that there was actually a decades long plan to make plastic ubiquitous, or has it just been a series of opportunistic moves?
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/plastic-wars/?
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueling-Plastics-Plastic-Industry-Awareness-of-the-Ocean-Plastics-Problem.pdf
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09506-1
I may reach out to Amy Westervelt to see if she has seen any papers on the industry's knowledge and/or plan in the 1970's/80's.
Thanks for sharing those links Jane.
A great scary listen. Thanks for outlining just how terribly connected this all is. Even the plastic alternatives are so energy intensive! Rachel, your implication at the end (that capitalist economy is the obstacle to making these needed changes because profit motive drives it all) makes me want to platform Derrick Jensen at derrickjensen.org. You featured his coauthor of the book Bright Green Lies. Anyway... in Jensen's book Endgame, he analyzes how [industrial] civilization acts like a domestic abuser, doing all the gaslighting your plate can hold while (the victim) ecology suffers. He himself was brutally abused by his father so he's got a clear take on this. Anyway... Jensen has written over 20 books, walks his talk in remote northern California, and advocates for all things salmon as the foundation of the food system in that part of the world. A radical thinker up your alley! :-)
Writing about climate and other issues, I have found myself again and again facing the question: what are the incentives to do the right thing? What are the incentives not to? The perverse incentives we live with, without even realizing it most of the time, are behind all of the problems discussed in this podcast. The pursuit of short-term profit, and the social structure of competition, is behind everything we so badly need to change, including the overuse of plastics. Is there a short-term financial and competitive incentive to end global warming, just to take one example? No, there isn't, and in fact, the opposite is the case. It drives me mad. I often want to say "People, we cannot even get rid of the tobacco industry! Why on Earth does anyone think we can get rid of all these other problems?" But I will never give up trying to fight this and to make people aware of what is going on.
Jane mentioned the lack of environmental education. It is not being merely overlooked, it is by design omitted from educational programs. The Guardian just reported on the UK's largest education union secretary general saying that philosophy should be taught in all schools, for example, to help children deal with talking about the so-called "Middle East Crisis," when naturally, an educational system that fails to teach the subject of How To Think is obviously not going to produce great results unless the goal is merely to teach students a marketable skill so that they can go out be good slaves to the billionaires. Will philosophy ever be part of the "three Rs"? Of course not, as long as those ultimately deciding what students should learn are wealthy and powerful people... Education, or the lack of it, is absolutely huge here, but we won't ever get real progress there as long as education is defined by people like Bill Gates.
Hi from Australia.
Thanks so much for your clarity in describing the magnitude of what we have done to our once pure existence. In such a short period of time in the history of humans on Earth.
Everything I am researching when it comes to plastic is its permanency as a product. A permanent product comes with permanent problems once it escapes our control.
I feel we are beyond repair. Is it time to start the conversation on a global scale of a world no longer safe to bring life into. We are forever polluted from here on. The damage was caused the day plastic ever became our brand-new reality.
We can't save ourselves, let us imagine we can save the human not yet born into a world we all know will never be safe.
I wish I could see a way out of this disaster. I know after attempting to clean a beach remote from the rest of human existence was an impossible task. Microscopic particles of plastic never to be retrieved.
Words from native indigenous thinkers of the past. "What we do to the Earth. We do to ourselves." How did wo get so removed from where we first began this human journey?
Again, thanks for an incredible podcast. I am forwarding it to everyone I think can handle the intense reality of what was discussed.
Kind regards
Glenn
Could someone please give me simple instructions to find the "show notes" for Planet Critical? I've tried going to Planet Critical.com on Google and it takes me automatically to Spotify. I can't ever find any links for the folks interviewed - are they somewhere else?
They're on this page that you've commented on—Jane's name is hyperlinked.