Pretty much. Even this pic is doctored to fit their agenda. 80% of plastics in the ocean are from land, yet they stood on a pile of fishing net and made a claim that fits their goals.
46% of the plastic is from fishing nets. Other types of fishing gear account for a substantial portion of the remainder:
A comprehensive new study by Slat’s team of scientists, published in Scientific Reports Thursday, concluded that the 79,000 tons was four to 16 times larger than has been previously estimated for the patch. The study also found that fishing nets account for 46 percent of the trash, with the majority of the rest composed of other fishing industry gear, including ropes, oyster spacers, eel traps, crates, and baskets.
The pacific rubbish patch represents a very small amount of the plastic in the worlds oceans. Most of the plastic is in the form of microplastics and non-buoyant plastics. Greenpeace did a study in 2019 that placed discarded fishing gear (not just nets) at 10% of the errant plastic in the ocean. I will grant you that the pacific rubbish patch is largely discarded fishing gear but it is much less of a problem compared to other forms of plastic.
I think it gets a lot of attention because it is the area of most obvious danger to large marine life (despite the fact that microplastics in the food chain are just as dangerous to whales/dolphins etc.) and it also provides people with a scapegoat (i.e. fishermen & women) that makes them feel better about themselves so they can pretend that they aren't just as big of a contributor the global problem.
I watched that documentary on Netflix, I think it was (forgot the name) and I thought the same thing. All that "info" is only good for people to say "welp, that makes me blameless!". And I even had a moment after where I was like "fuck fisherman" but then it hit me. We still need to do our part.
It gets attention because it makes for good PR when they can release pictures like this. Its the same reason they release pictures of baby seals when they protest the seal hunt in Canada even though baby seals aren't whats being culled.
These folks, like peta, like the conveniently misrepresent the facts for their own fundraising efforts.
Edit: Majority almost always refers to an absolute majority of >50%. If OP means a plurality or relative majority, they should specify that. Not doing so is intentionally misleading.
Congratulations, but instead googling the minimum to confirm your side, maybe Google "majority vs plurality" and get back to me.
Majority has multiple definitions, a simple, inexact definition in common English, and a more exact definition in poli-sci, math, and engineering.
Of course, all of this is an irrelevant aside since as op clarified, fishing equipment constitutes over 50% of the trash, making it the majority by any definition.
Wikipedia specifically separates the two understandings, with majority (and more specifically simple majority) meaning a subset with more than half of the sets elements. The subset of apples is not more than half of the set. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majority
That definition doesn't work though because I could just as easily say from your example that a majority of fruits are not apples and I would be just as correct because the sum of oranges and bananas is the greater number compared to apples.
Being wrong is embarrassing, but you are coming across as a real cocky piece of shit and it's a really simple word you can't understand. That word is used constantly in professional and scientific settings and it absolutely never means what you think it does. It means more than half. up votes and down votes and a three word definition you found on the internet and don't understand can't make you right.
Bruh I literally googled the oxford definition, it’s in the fucking dictionary.
Ofc I’m coming off as cocky, like 5 people came out of the woodworks to ‘correct’ this dude on his grammatically correct use of the word ‘majority’. They corrected him without even looking up the definition.
Majority, quite literally means ‘the bigger number’.
Majority means more than half. If there are more than two categories, and it's the largest, I believe the correct terms would be plurality or relative majority.
he used the % for just the nets, and misquoted the NatGeo article, but more than half of all garbage is indeed fishing gear which includes the nets which are 46% of the total by themselves
The study also found that fishing nets account for 46 percent of the trash, with the majority of the rest composed of other fishing industry gear, including ropes, oyster spacers, eel traps, crates, and baskets.
We all know that majority almost always means absolute majority. If that's not what OP meant, they should specify that they meant relative majority or plurality. Or, they could have included a percentage.
It's possible to technically be correct but also be intentionally misleading.
When does majority almost always mean absolute? We call pluralities in politics and racial percentages majorities all the time because nobody uses plurality.
Fair enough! I always think of majority as 50+1% and plurality as the most out of all options but you’re right, simple majority is the same as plurality
Well either you were blind af, because countless people share my opinion of their attitude all around the world. So much that South Park even had an episode about their doucheiness. Or, well, you're just one of them and you're just equally douchey but can't introspect. Time for some self reflection, mate.
I introspect plenty. Before I went to do my first brief stint welding on the Steve Irwin I was concerned that the people might be as you described. It wasn’t very hard to imagine that being the case. But I was very impressed with most of the crew. Intelligent people from many demographics and countries with honest concerns about the environment. Most people never mentioned (or hated) the TV show. Paul Watson’s name didn’t really come up that often either. I liked that because I was really worried about a cult of personality scene.
I fully imagined from the outset that the people is Sea Shepherd might be as you describe (some probably are), but my personal experiences over five years were quite the opposite. Just because countless people share an opinion does not make it valid. By the way most of us still enjoyed the South Park episode as well.
In the end it really is not that important. I am more concerned with the health of the ocean and the planet. Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace both do things to create publicity for these issues to make people aware of them. Both have done some dumb things on occasion. Things are not black and white.
Hmmm Vaquita was listed as endangered then as critically endangered in the 90's.
sea shepherd didn't do squat about them until they lost the whale wars with Japan and needed another cause they could beg money for. There is a term for what they are doing for the Vaquita: Too little, too late.
The founder of Sea Shepherd was also a founding member of Greenpeace but was kicked off the board because he didn't agree with their definition of "non-violence" if that tells you anything. Greenpeace has since called him a violent extremist and an eco-terrorist.
they euthanize a majority of animals that come in their shelters. like 99%
That part is not the problem. They euthanize animals because there is no one who can or will pay for their care. No kill shelters can exist because the vast majority of old, sick, and expensive animals go to shelters like PETA.
Everything else they do that you outlined is fucked up and I dislike PETA, but euthanizing animals is a necessary evil and we are lucky someone has the compassion to do it.
I know this may sound bad, but someday I hope society will advance enough where we have the same compassion for humans and allow for euthanasia of the terminally ill.
There is also some instances where they took pets and euthanized them onto the day. I read about one instance where they had been invited to capture semi feral cats. They had spoken with a family but came back later and tried to lure their dog onto public properly which failed so they went onto their porch to grab it. It was euthanized the same day.
I think they also tried to see if the family could be illegals when they sued.
They reportedly ignore collars and tags on animals and euthanize as fast as they can despite legal waiting periods.
Aside from that they also sued David Slater for the monkey selfie....
Both examples are ones I have read about the legal proceedings but since I don't live in the US it is all just things people described. Both did re-homing so probably true but it comes down to them not believing in humans having pets.
I am sure it makes sense from their point of view.
^^ Related to this, my neighbor called me telling me an animal control officer was trying to lure my dog (with an electronic fence, by the way) off of my property and into the street.
The Mayor got a phone call, names of said officer and the witness in hand. The message from me was very simple: my dog is a member of my family, and luring a member of my family is a form of kidnap in my mind.
I was refinishing floors at a bed and breakfast a few addresses down from PETA HQ. We had a contractor's dumpster in the parking lot and one day there was a bunch of people standing around the dumpster. My first thought was a dead body and I was kind of right. They found a bunch of dead dogs in garbage bags. That shit still haunts me to this day.
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u/Positronix Aug 12 '21
Ah, so the PETA of the sea then