Climate Crisis + Plastic

There is plenty of blame to go around for how we arrived here, this moment when the world burns with fires that cannot be contained during a pandemic many argue is also the result of climate change, overpopulation, the shrinking world. 

But there is one culprit more culpable than the rest, one that’s made itself indispensable, solidifying its place in our transportation, energy, and materials economies for decades with little competition. One so integrated in our lives it seems almost impossible to disentangle from its vast, far-reaching grip.

Almost. 

The oil and gas industry is having a moment, and not a good one. As people on the West Coast wake up to the smell of smoke in their nostrils, the burn of it in their lungs, the worst air quality in the world, they are also waking up to the reports that this industry has known for decades this would happen – and that it actively takes steps to make it worse.

Climate writer Hiroko Tabuchi recently reported that, while publicly assuring methane leaks were under control, oil and gas lobbyists admitted behind closed doors many oil companies regularly “flare” methane – burning off the excess –because it’s not as profitable as oil. But it is more dangerous to the planet than its better-known global warming cousin, carbon dioxide. Tabuchi writes “Methane can trap more than 80 times more heat in the earth’s atmosphere than carbon dioxide, over the shorter term. Research has shown that methane emissions from oil and gas production are far larger than previously estimated.”

While the Obama administration passed legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions from oil producers in the form of “leaks,” oil and gas lobbyists were able to persuade the Trump administration to roll back those measures, assuring the administration the industry knows how to cut down on leaks themselves.

But, just because they know how doesn’t mean they are. 

Also this week, NPR reported that the oil and gas industry has known for decades plastic isn’t as recyclable as they led us to believe. In the 1970s, industry leaders shrugged off the viability of their recycling claims, knowing that if the public thought they could recycle plastic, they’d be less inclined to care about plastic’s effects on the environment.

They poured millions into advertising over three decades. And, by force of the almighty dollar, fulfilled their own prophecy. If you tell yourself you “can just recycle it” when you buy plastic, their PR campaign worked on you, too. 

But, what does plastic have to do with oil and gas, and climate change? 

Plastic is made from oil – crude oil is extracted from the earth, and then refined to make plastic resin. Those two processes are the number two and three green-house gas emitters in the United States alone. These emissions contribute to climate change by helping trap that aforementioned heat in the atmosphere, creating a vicious feedback loop.

It doesn’t stop there. Once we’re through with our oil-based plastic, we recycle it, right? Not according to the data. We know that only 9% of plastic ever made has been recycled. When it is recycled, the material composition changes, rendering it one, maybe two more lives, and only in certain applications. In other words, your milk jug won’t turn back into a milk jug. And after it’s recycled into, say, a toothbrush, it can’t be recycled after that. 

We also know that every minute, a garbage truck’s worth of plastic ends up in the ocean. As you read this piece, that’s about six garbage truck’s worth of plastic entering our seas. Plastic in our oceans creates another green-house gas feedback loop: as plastic pieces break apart in our oceans over time, they emit gasses that heat the ocean – photodegradation, this breaking apart by light, creates heat, which reflects more light, degrading more plastic, creating more heat. An endless, destructive loop.  

The ocean acidifies, causing mass coral bleaching events, destroying essential marine habitats, emitting more gas, trapping more heat, causing warmer oceans, more destructive storm seasons, more destructive fire seasons, which themselves are releasing record-breaking quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. 

In other words: We’ve been duped. And we are paying for it. 

But, there is some good news. As discerning consumers, we still have a few cards to play. Without a market, oil and gas would be forced to disappear. And, there are signs pointing toward a non-oil-based economy. Auto makers seem to be reading the room,  investing in their own electric vehicles as well as start-ups. The materials economy, traditionally heavily oil-based due to the ubiquity and affordability of virgin plastics, continues to expand beyond petroleum-based plastic, with sugar, corn, hemp, even methane and food waste all elbowing their way in to become the next viable replacement. And with oil and gas looking for every possible way to keep plastic in the conversation (including a scheme to dilute Kenya’s strong anti-plastic legislation and make it the next plastic “hub”), it will take committed consumers to break the stranglehold -- and to avoid the estimated tripling of plastic production by the year 2050. 

Every dollar we spend is a vote, and we must vote wisely. Climate change is no longer some intangible notion -- it is here. And with every dollar, we vote to mitigate it, or to fuel it. 

I watched my own kids this morning, headphones on, computers powered up, feet swinging. They sit surrounded by open windows – no central AC in this old Hawaiian home, just the breeze. I noticed my 5th grader’s hair gently lifted by the breeze. I imagine them trying to learn with windows shut tight while we try to block out the smoke. I imagine them trying to learn while the world burns around them.

But then I remember: it already is. 

This post was originally published at Cracked & Golden