No where on the planet has been spared!
“Microplastics exert tremendous influence over the living planet. I can hardly read a headline at a corporate media outlet without learning more about the enormous influence of microplastics. They’re in our water. They’re in our food. They’re in our blood. They contaminate beaches throughout the world.”
“Here’s the lede, followed by another sentence that completes the first paragraph: “Microplastics in the atmosphere may be altering weather and climate by facilitating ice formation in clouds. Penn State research suggests these particles could impact precipitation and climate patterns, though their full effects remain unknown.”
“Of course, “their full effects remain unknown.” As Professor and Science Educator Carl Sagan pointed out long ago, “Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” We will never know all there is to know about Earth, much less the universe we inhabit. Science is a means of accumulating reliable knowledge through observation and testing. However, complete knowledge is beyond us, as indicated in the next paragraph of the article at SciTechDaily: “Scientists have discovered microplastics—tiny plastic particles less than 5 millimeters in size—in some of the planet’s most untouched places, from the depths of the Mariana Trench to the snow-capped peak of Mt. Everest, and even in clouds over mountains in China and Japan. Microplastics have also been found in human brain tissue, inside sea turtles, and even within plant roots. Now, new research led by Penn State scientists suggests that these airborne microplastics could be influencing weather patterns and impacting the climate.”
All of the above information has been drawn from Professor Guy McPhersons Substack post, link embedded below. Readers can subscribe for free and for a small scoop of ice-cream can join the discussion: Science Snippets: Microplastics Changing Earth’s Climate
For every 1C we heat the planet we get 7% more water vapour in the atmosphere. Add to that all these Aerosole’d plastic particles that act as cloud nuclei, and we have a multiplication of the original Water Vapour Feedback Loop!
In January 2021 Professor McPherson and I interviewed Oceanographer Jim Massa, below is a similar analysis from Jim concentrating on the plastic predominantly in the oceans.
“Seventy four metric tonnes of microplastics have been found in Auckland’s atmosphere, the equivalent of three million plastic bottles per year, researchers say.”
“The University of Auckland research, published in Environmental Science & Technology, found the microplastics were of such small sizes that there was concern they could be inhaled and accumulate in the human body.”
“Nanoplastics, the smallest particles, can potentially enter cells, cross the blood-brain barrier, and may build up in organs such as the testicles, liver and brain. Plastics have also been detected in the placenta.”
“Microplastics have also been detected in human lungs and in the lung tissue of cancer patients, indicating that the inhalation of atmospheric microplastics is an exposure risk to humans,” the paper noted.”
“The levels of microplastics in Auckland’s air were much higher than those recorded in London, Paris and Hamburg in recent years, with the study utilising a method which could detect particles as small as 0.01 of a millimetre, researchers said.”
If you ever wondered why everyone is getting sick, factor plastic into the toxins we ingest.
Airborne microplastics in Auckland equivalent to millions of plastic bottles per year
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As-salamu alaykum – Peace out.
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
Thanks, Kevin, for this piece on microplastics, but we should not forget that they are just one head of a multiheaded monster, nearly all of which grow from a central source: petroleum. I am no expert, but to a simple old doc, no oil = no non-biodegradable plastics. Physicians are trained, or, at least back in the late 60’s, early 70’s, were trained to find the source of any illness, unlike today’s cookbook corporate Big Pharma drug saturated simple minded hurry-up medicine. And, now, we have mindlessly re-elected a president who prides himself on destroying the American government bureaucracy, as well as his clear devotion to finding, producing and burning fossil fuels, even as the climate collapses under weight of our well planned addiction to fossil fuels. “Drill, baby, drill.” So, we may be certain that “wrap it in plastic” will go hand in hand, and microplastics be damned. Can you see the source of this problem, because I can. Keep your chin up and consider what’s necessary to save all life on this planet, and vote like life on planet earth depends on it.
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But wait, there’s more, as always:
The Human Brain May Contain as Much as a Spoon’s Worth of Microplastics, New Research Suggests | Smithsonian
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No species is spared!
https://www.ecowatch.com/microplastics-birds-lungs.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawI0g45leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHelhFcg0pnFcY3LJTbcyAja46L_sufpY8HrXjUJxuygeC4guI1EEzyj1eA_aem_BUidTctnsQeeRJkj4fs3pA
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Here’s a latest update, and like everything else, is sure ain’t good.
Microplastics Are Messing with Photosynthesis in Plants
Microplastics can cut a plant’s ability to photosynthesize by up to 12 percent, new research shows
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/microplastic-pollution-is-messing-with-photosynthesis-in-plants/
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sealintheSelkirks
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Friends of mine sailed across the Pacific from Venezuela to Micronesia, enroute they were becalmed in the Intertropical Convergence zone around the equator, sometimes called “The Doldrums”, they were woken in the night with tapping and scratching sounds from the hull of the yacht.
They were becalmed in the South Pacific Gyre, a rubbish patch one and a half times the size of Texas, about a million square miles!
Science Snippets: The Disasters of Cooking and Heating with Plastic
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Science Snippets: Priorities, Round Three
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But wait, there’s always more:
Positively charged nanoplastics increase E. coli virulence, study finds
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-positively-nanoplastics-coli-virulence.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawKYqi9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETEzbDF2ckw0czg3aElVS0JBAR4rNYpW_V9xTS4xy3n7EdQKFIMLt658Sy72UvV41DzJe0M5755T4FmZorLR9w_aem_MbKZ_NyNwXDE18iygSjBdw
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Our predicament is always worse than we knew yesterday.
Glass Bottles May Leak Up to 50 Times More Microplastics, Scientists Say
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Looks like plastic pollution, nano-sized, is worse than we could have ever imagined:
The oceans may contain much, much more plastic than previously thought
A new study finds there are 27 million metric tons of invisible plastic particles in the North Atlantic alone.
https://grist.org/science/oceans-contain-more-plastic-than-previously-thought/
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My oldest friend and his local-born wife pick up plastic garbage nearly every weekend at the Bay/beach around the corner of their place on Windward Side of O’ahu. Have been doing that for years. The number of large plastic bags filled has grown. They only work on water’s edge to the high tide line.
The county workers that maintain the beach? They don’t want their trashcans filled up with washed-up plastic crap…because it ain’t their job as they know there is always more washing in.
Every week is the same, along with the piles of crap left by beach-going tourists and local Hawai’ian family gatherings. It also happens to be an ancient Hawai’ian graveyard beach so…yeah, there’s that, too. They call in and report those finds without disturbing them. Sometimes a truck shows up to survey, other times nobody. And the pieces wash into the sea at the next high tide.
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But this shit? Nanoparticles you can’t even see? In the trillions and with ever-increasing numbers as big pieces break down to invisible?
A never-ending debris rain from the surface down to the sea floor? Ain’t nobody going to fix that but the planet itself as it recycles its land and sea floor masses into the magma below before creating new land out of the result.
sealintheSelkirks
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Paul Beckwith on this topic”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZpSBn6ORBw
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But wait, there’s always more.
Assessment of exposure to perfluorinated industrial substances and risk of immune suppression in Greenland and its global context: a mixed-methods study – The Lancet Planetary Health
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Sapiens don’t do anything by halves, when we set out to nuke an environment we go full bore, pedal to the metal, full speed ahead.
Ugo’s latest
Running out of Resources? The real shortages are clean air and plastic-free food.
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You’ve got to admit, when we plasticize a planet, we don’t do it by halves.
One thing is sure, any life form in the universe arriving to inspect the carnage will have no lack of evidence that industrial sapiens literally nuked their only home.
Science Snippets: Trash Causes Rocks to Form Quickly
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In Guy’s latest analysis this quote came up: “Scientists studying the connection between microplastic contamination and certain medical conditions have found that people living in areas with higher levels of microplastic pollution also have a greater risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and stroke.
Science Snippets: Microplastics in Glass Containers Exceed Those in Plastic
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Our predicament is always worse than we know!
Gross Negligence: Impacts of Microplastics and Plastic Leachates on Phytoplankton Community and Ecosystem Dynamics | Environmental Science & Technology
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No where has been spared!
Microplastics, Melting Ice Reveal Deepening Crisis in Southern Ocean – Nature Bats Last
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The ‘doomscrolling’ is reaching a fever pitch I’m afraid. Latest from counterpunch:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/11/26/two-billion-dead-at-2c-warming/
You might find it ironic that this mentions our remains becoming part of the ‘Plasticene’ layer we have created on this planet.
Ironic in the most extreme George Carlin way.
sealintheSelkirks
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In 2001, I was hired to deliver a small cruising from Micronesia to Cairns in Australia, the yacht had been built in Venezuela, currently under attack by the USA. It wouldn’t be safe to leave or return there anymore due to the breakdown of international maritime law, courtesy of DJT and the USA’s relentless warmongering.
The owners accidentally sailed it into the “Great Pacific Gyre” a raft of plastic and assorted rubbish, reputedly the size of Texas.
They described the ocean as looking like a thick soup of debris.
The UV combined with friction between the debris breaks it down into ever smaller particles.
One major source of micro and nano plastics comes from vehicle tires, FTR, electric vehicles due to their weight wear out tires much faster that ICE vehicles
Science Snippets: Nanoplastics Proliferate in the World Ocean – Nature Bats Last
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