Fun to watch map, and UN to reduce plastics

  Another great historical video...

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Plastics: NPR article from Monday, 11.13.23 

"... last year the United Nations set out to write a legally binding agreement to deal with the issue. That decision by U.N. member states "will clearly take us towards a future with no plastic pollution," Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, Japan's then-environment minister, said at the time.

This week, negotiators from around 150 countries are gathering in Kenya to start hashing out the treaty's details. Outside groups are there too, trying to influence the talks, including public health advocates, human rights activists, environmentalists and the oil and gas industry.

Oil and gas companies push recycling

Oil and gas companies have spent decades touting recycling as a solution to the plastic waste problem. Yet reporting reveals they knew that the economics of recycling don't make sense and that recycling wouldn't keep waste from piling up in landfills and the environment. Despite years of advertising campaigns and municipal efforts, less than 10% of plastic waste gets recycled globally.

The problem is that making new plastic is almost always cheaper than collecting and recycling used material. Recycling plastic also requires a lot of energy, and some plastic waste can't be recycled at all, says Bethanie Carney Almroth, a professor of ecotoxicology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

Yet the idea of a circular economy for plastic — using, recycling and reusing material — is central to the U.N. negotiations, in part because, for now, it's hard to imagine a world without plastic, says Winnie Lau, who leads a project at the Pew Charitable Trusts to keep plastic waste out of oceans.

But Marcos Orellana, the U.N. special rapporteur on toxics and human rights, says a circular economy is "wishful thinking" at best. "In the worst case, it's the design of a misinformation campaign intended to confuse the population," he says.

Oil producers will fight to keep their plastics business

What's clear is that oil-producing countries will fight to protect their business with the plastics industry.
Russia and China have argued that production cuts don't belong in a global plastics treaty. And Saudi Arabia said limiting the supply of plastics would "risk economic growth and stability." The countries are all participating in the negotiations.

"I am not a skeptic of business," Lau (of the Pew Charitable Trusts) says. But she says the solutions that companies are pitching to governments need scrutiny. "If you don't have the right accountability mechanism and oversight mechanism in place, they could be designed to not work at all."

The U.N.'s goal is to finish the treaty negotiations next year.

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Today's quote:

The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all. -Pablo Casals, cellist, conductor, and composer (1876-1973)

Love my chocolate, but... (also comments about the Supreme Court "code")

 Eating chocolate isn't always healthy, as Consumer Reports shows how much lead and cambium can be found it it...dark chocolate, milk chocolate, drinks, brownies, cake mixes and more.

I wasn't thrilled to hear about dark chocolate, my favorite. But they didn't test my brand, Lindt. 

Here are some other results:

"When we tested dark chocolate bars last year, we found lead or cadmium levels above CR’s thresholds in 23 of 28 bars, or 82 percent of them. Our results this time were similar. Of the seven bars we tested, five, or 71 percent, were above our levels for lead, cadmium, or both.

I do like to make brownies though, oops!

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Below 100% of CR's levels

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Above 100% of CR's levels

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My favorite brownie mix...results:

Ghirardelli

 

Premium Brownie Mix Double Chocolate

16 servings per box

 

LEAD

 

 

108%

 

CADMIUM

 

 

37%

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The way I look at that is that it's 108 times above the allowable amount of lead for a single serving. I shall no longer bring this to pot luck functions! If it's only 8% I could live with that. I'm stewing over this.

If you understand the way it's over or under I'd like to hear how you see that working. It's really just 8% over their level, isn't it?

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Today's quote:

If you pray for rain long enough, it eventually does fall. If you pray for floodwaters to abate, they eventually do. The same happens in the absence of prayers. -Steve Allen, television host, musician, actor, comedian, and writer (1921-2000)

And just a note on current events:

Robert Reich offers this info:
Yesterday, (11.13.23) the Supreme Court announced an ethics code for the justices. But the code is utterly empty. It has no enforcement mechanism and no mechanism for the public to lodge complaints of misconduct.

It’s public relations pablum.

The court effectively admitted this, saying that “the absence of a Code … has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the justices of this court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules.”

Misunderstanding? I’m sorry, but the public understands quite well that the justices regard themselves as free to do whatever they wish, in terms of ethics.

The new rules don’t require any changes in how the justices conduct themselves.

The new code has no system for the public to lodge complaints or for any outside review of alleged ethical violations.

In the absence of any enforcement process, the document states that Chief Justice John Roberts has directed court staff to do a review of “best practices” based on systems already in place in the lower courts. It didn’t provide a timeline for that review or what action the court might take in response.

Ultimately, I blame Chief Justice John Roberts. The court’s chief justice is supposed to maintain public trust and confidence in the court, but Roberts has done everything possible to avoid a Code of Ethics with teeth. This latest pathetic attempt at pacifying the public will do little to reverse the sharp decline in public confidence in the nation’s highest court.