It’s time to turn microplastics OFF
QUICK TAKE: The ways they are killing us are many; the way we will stop them is as one
Our Fair Future focuses on the economic wellbeing of ordinary people with clean air, water, land and energy for everyone. That includes all ruination of nature and any other form of demonic despoilment such as forever chemicals and microplastics.
This headline is the latest to warn of the mind-boggling risks of such issues: Microplastics Hinder Plant Photosynthesis, Study Finds, Threatening Millions with Starvation.
A new study shows that:
“between 4% and 14% of the world’s staple crops of wheat, rice and maize is being lost due to the pervasive particles”
“microplastic pollution could increase the number at risk of starvation by another 400 million in the next two decades”
And a reminder that given everything is connected, microplastics is also a climate issue:
“Reduced photosynthesis due to microplastics may be also cutting the amount of climate-heating CO2 taken from the atmosphere by the huge phytoplankton blooms in the Earth’s oceans and unbalancing other ecosystems”
Microplastics can result in some truly disturbing and weirdly intimate headlines such as: The Human Brain May Contain as Much as a Spoon’s Worth of Microplastics. Here a recent study shows that concentrations of microplastics in the brain have doubled from 2016-2024 and represent on average seven grams (the weight of a plastic spoon). The author of the study said, “I didn’t believe it until I saw all the data”.
It’s impossible to overstate the gravity of what’s going on here at the hands of the polluters: literally millions of people are dying every year and hundreds of millions more going sick and hungry.
No more flaccid theories of change offering limp alternatives. Ordinary people must put aside their political differences, take over government and restore common sense by any means necessary. This is the life-giving goal of Our Fair Future.