Do You Think Climate Change Can/Will Actually Be Resolved?

[Maniakkid25]

And I assume aluminum and glass are both more expensive to produce than plastic?

Yes, and plastic is in a niche that used to be filled by another material: Wood and paper. Once polymers became a thing, everyone dumped that shit and moved on to plastic, leaving us to deal with the mess in the future.

But yeah, Aluminum SUUUUUUUUCKS trying to make. See, the problem is that Aluminum, when it's mined, is all but guaranteed to be in the oxide form (there is no such thing as naturally occuring "pure" aluminum). You know what that melts at? Around 2000 Celsius! YEAH, GOOD LUCK SMELTING THAT, DICKHEAD! What are you gonna store it in? Iron?! That'll melt before the Oxide! As such, Aluminum was basically impossible to make until electricity came along, which allowed for new techniques to be developed to actually, you know, smelt the damn stuff! Pretty much all aluminum nowadays uses a method more similar to electrolysis than iron smelting, and there is absolutely cash money to be made in recycling soda cans.

Glass is usually Silica, or Silicon Dioxide. This is a lot less expensive to make, but that's not the problem. The problem is glass historically (and still kinda does) required skilled labor to form it correctly, and unlike plastic is very brittle. You are probably very familiar with someone dropping a glass bottle, and what happens. Plastic is, well, plastic enough to deform and return to shape, so you can just IMAGINE the delight that the people who actually ship this stuff had when they found out they could have more product survive the shipping process! But the benefit with glass is not the cost, but the fact there is an actual PROCESS to recycle it: melt it down, make new glass. Many plastics will BURN before they melt, and even if they melt, if they aren't formed in the correct way, they may end up losing the properties you want (at a molecular level, all plastics are a loose, tangled mesh of hydrocarbons). Add to that that glass can be infinitely recycled, and there is actually a point in recycling it.

[ShiraNoMai]

... I love capitalism

[Karo]

Please understand profits come before anything else if something et in the way of the profits the problem must be eliminated!

[WR91]

The change is so small it doesn't need to be resolved.

[Maniakkid25]

Oh? It's small? That's a relief; I was worried over nothing! Say, you wouldn't mind drinking this glass of water, would you? I only laced it with 100 milligrams -- about 3 thousandths of an ounce -- of strychnine. That's only expected to kill you 50 percent of the time if you weigh about 145 pounds, but it's such a small amount! I'm sure you'll be fine!

...Yeah, didn't think so. Small amounts can still have big effects, especially on the scales of celestial bodies. Just because 1.5 degrees F doesn't sound like a lot in the terms of the 40 to 50 degree swings we see daily, doesn't mean it doesn't have the potential to massively screw things up. And if you've ever looked at any average summer temperature chart for the past 150 years, you'd see things are massively screwed up.

[WR91]

Oh? It's small? That's a relief; I was worried over nothing! Say, you wouldn't mind drinking this glass of water, would you? I only laced it with 100 milligrams -- about 3 thousandths of an ounce -- of strychnine. That's only expected to kill you 50 percent of the time if you weigh about 145 pounds, but it's such a small amount! I'm sure you'll be fine!

...Yeah, didn't think so. Small amounts can still have big effects, especially on the scales of celestial bodies. Just because 1.5 degrees F doesn't sound like a lot in the terms of the 40 to 50 degree swings we see daily, doesn't mean it doesn't have the potential to massively screw things up. And if you've ever looked at any average summer temperature chart for the past 150 years, you'd see things are massively screwed up.

Actually, I do mind drinking a glass of water but not because of strychnine.

I like how just because I have a difference of opinion I get sarcasm like this.

Nothing we currently do will prevent anything that'll happen to planet Earth by the time we're dead and gone. So why do you really care? Everyone you currently know or will ever know will not be here to see anything major happen to the planet. Unless NUKES get dropped. Which is bound to happen under this current regime.

[Moonface]

Nothing we currently do will prevent anything that'll happen to planet Earth by the time we're dead and gone. So why do you really care? Everyone you currently know or will ever know will not be here to see anything major happen to the planet.

Considering the current temperatures across the UK and Europe right now, which weren't expected to be hit until 2050, I'd say major things are already being seen, since 40C (104F+) will absolutely wreak havoc on countries like the UK that are not built for such temperatures. Less than 1% of homes in the UK have A/C, and even then most infrastructure was built to work in a damp, colder climate and thus retain heat and dry conditions. Notable numbers of people have died in the past when temperatures were only hitting the mid-30's, so I won't be surprised to see incredibly high numbers of fatalities at the end of the UK's current heatwave. Worse still, it will likely smash any records set this year once this time next year rolls around.

Regardless of whether you think the effects are a big deal now or before we die or not though and shouldn't be cared about, I'll just end this post with this famous Greek proverb: "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."