For climate warriors and enviro-radicals, the science (their science, anyway) is always “settled.”
That is, until it isn’t.
The latest backtrack? Turns out there’s less plastic in the oceans than claimed. Far less.
Per a new study in the journal Nature Geoscience, just 500,000 metric tons of plastic end up in the world’s oceans each year, not the 8 million tons previously bewailed.
That’s an overestimation of 1,600%!
Meanwhile, worries about ocean plastic have fueled restrictions on the use of a range of products — shopping bags, utensils, straws — no matter the inconveniences or side effects.
But don’t expect the revised “science” to change the minds of ideologues.
The green-mongering New York Times, for example, acknowledged the wildly wrong initial estimate but still insists ocean plastic is a big problem.
“There Might Be Less Plastic in the Sea Than We Thought. But Read On,” warned its headline.
“Within 20 years, the amount of plastic on the sea surface could double,” its story huffed.
Notably, an earlier Times headline on that report stated simply, “Previous Study Overestimated Level of Plastics in the Oceans.”
Yet the paper is known for changing headlines when it faces pressure from the left.
In fact, Manhattan Institute waste expert John Tierney notes that “virtually all the consumer plastics polluting the world’s oceans comes from ‘mismanaged waste’ in developing countries.”
He adds that “there’d be less plastic polluting the seas if Americans tossed their yogurt containers and water bottles into the trash, so that the plastic could be safely buried at the nearest landfill.”
Yet US environmentalists oppose the creation of landfills. Instead, most trash is shipped to developing nations.
As with COVID and global warming, lefties loves to preach “Follow the science.”
Too bad they don’t follow their own advice.