There’s growing awareness that plastics are an environmental disaster for marine and terrestrial ecosystems alike. A new United Nations report published Tuesday shows they’re also a huge problem for human beings—and that they don’t affect us all equally.

The world is producing more plastic than ever before as oil and gas firms focus on expanding plastic production in an attempt to stay in business. If the upward trend continues, plastic will account for 20% of the world’s oil consumption by 2050.

According to the new analysis, the world produced more than 9 billion tons of new plastic from 1950 to 2015. Even more shockingly, more than 50% of all plastic in history was created in the last 18 years. At this rate of growth, the world is on track produce 38 tons of plastic by 2025, which is enough to cover every foot of coastline on Earth with a layer of 100 plastic bags. Yet plastic production and pollution remain out of sight and out of mind in high-income communities, with the worst impacts foisted on people already suffering.

The study, released by the United Nations Environment Program and the environmental justice nonprofit Azul, shows that problems with plastic start long before it’s thrown away. Every aspect of plastics’ life cycle—from the extraction of raw materials and production to distribution and disposal—are threatening human health. At every stage, the report also explains, economically and socially disadvantaged groups, ”including women, children, the poor, migrants and internally displaced people, indigenous peoples, and persons with disabilities,” are the most negatively affected.

“Plastic pollution is a social justice issue,”Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš, executive director of Azul and co-author of the study, said in a statement. “Current efforts, limited to managing and decreasing plastic pollution, are inadequate to address the whole scope of problems plastic creates, especially the disparate impacts on communities affected by the harmful effects of plastic at every point from production to waste.”

Ninety-nine percent of plastic is made from oil and gas. Even before drilling starts, this is often an environmental justice problem, the report notes. Many oil and gas projects are approved to operation on Indigenous land from North America to Ecuador to Sudan despite a lack of consente. And when extraction begins, mountains of research shows that poor communities, often of color, are most likely to be affected by the local air pollution, as well as by the climate crisis which it perpetuates.


Read more: https://earther.gizmodo.com/plastic-is-creating-an-environmental-justice-crisis-1846584041

“[DeSantis] is clearly Trump's mini-me when it comes to handling the coronavirus," says Mehdi Hasan. "He's as reckless and anti-science as Trump was. And that makes him as popular as ever with the conservative base that does not seem to care about mass death in this country." Aired on 03/30/2021.

Rep. Matt Gaetz is claiming extortion and denying wrongdoing after a New York Times report revealed the Florida Republican is said to be facing a Justice Dept. investigation into whether he had sex with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him. Katie Benner who broke the story joins to discuss. Aired on 03/30/2021.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) joins Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss why Rep. Matt Gaetz should be stripped of his seat on the Judiciary Committee while the DOJ investigates allegations of a sexual relationship between Rep. Gaetz and a 17-year-old girl. Aired on 03/30/2021.

What is the filibuster? What do first ladies do? Why do presidents lie about their health? If you don’t know, now you know everything about the government.

The third grader said she was “sad and kind of mad” when she witnessed Chauvin with his knee pressed into George Floyd’s neck. Due to her age, her testimony was not on courtroom cameras.

On day 2 of former police officer Derek Chauvin’s trial, eyewitness on the scene Donald Williams says that he “called the police on the police,” because he believed he “witnessed a murder.” When asked why he didn’t speak to an officer on the scene he says he didn’t feel a connection of a “human being relationship.” Aired on 03/30/2021.




'Mr. Williams Was Particularly Effective': Unpacking This Morning's Witness Testimonies - Katy Tur - MSNBC



NBC News Correspondent Shaquille Brewster, University of Alabama Law Professor Joyce Vance, and former Senior FBI Official and former U.S. Attorney, Chuck Rosenberg, join Ayman Mohyeldin to discuss what we saw from witnesses this morning at the Derek Chauvin trial. Aired on 03/30/2021.

Witness and off-duty firefighter Genevieve Hansen gets emotional during her testimony at the Derek Chauvin trial as she recalls wanting to give George Floyd medical attention but being denied access from officers at the scene. Aired on 03/30/2021.

ATLANTA (The Borowitz Report)—Raising the ante in his ongoing battle with the aqueous substance, Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, has declared water “a gateway drug that leads to voting.”

“We’ve consulted a lot of studies on this,” he said. “People are much more likely to vote if they are under the influence of water.”

The governor said that he was considering a number of measures to address water addiction, including stiffer penalties for voting while quenching.

In his starkest warning, Kemp told those who traffic in the banned liquid, “We’re coming after you,” and promised prison time for anyone combining hydrogen and oxygen in illegal water labs.


Short article, no more at link: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/georgia-governor-declares-water-a-gateway-drug-that-leads-to-voting

Rachel Maddow reports on the astounding pace of vaccinations in the United States, and notes new research that shows that vaccines not only significantly protect against Covid symptoms but for the most part, actually block infection, which means they also prevent the spread of the virus. Aired on 03/29/2021.




'I Just Can't Face Another Surge': Premature Reopenings Threaten Vaccine Successes - Rachel Maddow - MSNBC



CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky celebrates the optimism that comes from the successful distribution of Covid vaccines in the U.S. but cautions that premature reopenings and last-minute sloppiness could undermine that success with a variant-driven fourth surge. Aired on 03/29/2021.




'We Know That These Masks Work': Absent New OSHA Rules, CDC Stresses Masks At Work - Rachel Maddow - MSNBC



CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, while not able to speak about pending new OSHA standards for Covid mitigation in the workplace, emphasizes that masks are effective and encouraged by the CDC. Aired on 03/29/2021.