Comment by ninetyninenine

if you think about it global warming in the end is more catastrophic then microplastics. Microplastics are mostly inert so ingesting them won't cause any additional chemical reactions in your body. Any damage it does to your body is more mechanical in nature.

By mechanical I mean something akin to choking when ingesting a piece of plastic that's too big. Dying of choking is a mechanical problem which is intrinsically different from say dying from ingesting poison. Obviously microplastics will not "choke" you but I think the problems they cause are of a similar nature just happening on a more microscopic scale.

Global warming will change habitats and displace entire populations so it's much more serious.

the idea that microplastics are “mostly inert” is starting to break down. they can bind with environmental toxins like PCBs, heavy metals, and flame retardants. they hitch a ride into the body and potentially leach out. the plastics themselves often contain additives like BPA and phthalates that mess with hormone systems.

the comparison to choking makes sense on a surface level. once you look at nanoplastics it changes. they are small enough to pass through gut walls, enter the bloodstream, and even reach the brain.

” Still, fish exposed to virgin- and marine-plastic treatments show signs of stress in their livers, including glycogen depletion, fatty vacuolation and single cell necrosis. Severe glycogen depletion was seen in 74% of fish from the marine-plastic treatment (n = 19 fish), 46% of fish from the virgin-plastic treatment (n = 24 fish) and 0% of fish from the control treatment (n = 24 fish). Fatty vacuolation was seen in 47% of fish from the marine-plastic treatment, 29% of fish from the virgin-plastic treatment and 21% of fish from the control treatment. Single cell necrosis was seen in 11% of fish from the marine-plastic treatment and in 0% of fish from the control and virgin-plastic treatment. An eosinophilic focus of cellular alteration, a precursor to a tumor, was seen in one fish from the virgin-plastic treatment (Figure 4b) and a tumor, a hepatocellular adenoma (comprising 25% of the liver), was seen in one fish from the marine- plastic treatment (Figure 4c).”

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep03263

that is way beyond mechanical damage. it’s more like chronic low-grade poisoning with poorly understood long-term effects.

microplastics are also now found in basically every environment. arctic ice, rainwater, human placentas, fish, honey. the exposure is constant and increasing.

climate change is still the more immediate and catastrophic risk, no doubt. microplastics are more like a slow, persistent systems rot. over time they could undermine ecosystems from the bottom up. if plankton or filter feeders start collapsing from plastic toxicity, food chains could unravel. that would affect humans too.

so it’s not one or the other. these problems compound each other. ocean warming stresses marine life, and plastic pollution just piles on more stress. both are outputs of the same extractive system built on burning carbon and dumping waste into shared environments.

climate change is more urgent. but microplastics are not trivial. just more quiet.