Here’s why you should never, ever drink the rain.

Here’s why you should never, ever drink the rain.

While precipitation has become less acidic, a growing body of evidence suggests that it’s now full of many other pollutants that pose a risk to public health, including microplastics. And unlike the compounds that cause acid rain, these pollutants are almost impossible to get rid of.

Over time, these modern-era substances — which famously take decades to millennia to degrade — have leached into the environment, reaching every corner of the planet, no matter how tall or deep. Microplastics, PFAS, and some other compounds, such as pesticides, are now so widespread

They’re so common, in fact, that they’re even found in the rain.

  • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
    411·
    10 hours ago

    When i learned that there is microplastic in the rain a few years ago, i gave up on human future civilization. We will all be increasingly infertile in a few decades.

    The only way to eat food that isnt full of microplastics would be indoor growing with a heavily filtered supply of water, filtered or closed loop fertilizer and soil, etc. Its impossible to do that for even a fraction of humanity.

    • Luccus@feddit.org
      12·
      9 hours ago

      I honestly think that microplastics and CO² are a strange thing to give up over.

      Both are a mostly genuine mistake made by a civilization that was (at least at the time it commited to the mistake) largely unaware of the problems it was causing. Much like acid rain or the ozone layer.

      We are slowly getting to grips with the problem. And don’t get me wrong: it sucks how a few extremely wealthy individuals can slow the progress that most other people are trying to achieve to an absolute crawl. This absolutely fucking sucks.

      But doom scrolling every day and giving up isn’t going to change anything. Neither now nor in the future. It’s okay to be sad. And a lot of things are really sad at the moment. But where sadness paralyzes, anger moves. Be angry. You have every right to be.

      Edit: Damn. I just noticed the community I’m posting this in. ._.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
        3·
        9 hours ago

        I havent given up on humans or society. Just on the longevity of our species as it is today on a planet that is filled with toxic waste that cant ever be removed. If the research on fertility trends due to the relevant chemicals isnt completely flawed, it will be a problem that develops over many generations until natural procreation will become impossible for most people.

        Its not really our problem tho so who cares lol /s

        I think there are much more time critical and still preventable things to be doomy over. Like genocide and slavery and stuff.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
        4·
        1 day ago

        Human population count will almost certainly peak in this century anyways, but i guess moving that point closer isnt so bad lol. Maybe the humans that survive the coming centuries and millennia will just evolve resistance to microplastics by having an adapted gut biome.

    • ChinoKawaii@lemmy.world
      15·
      1 day ago

      the dirt would have the microplastics anyway

      we’re just not getting rid of it, unless there is success with some of those plastic eating micro bugs and stuff