Some holiday weekend humor:
Our more analytical explanation of why we aren’t recycling the gyre.
Apparently the webcomic above will be making fun of us next week – I hope they do a good job!
Spoiler Alert: on Monday, I will also be talking about Seasteading, but I will be uninhibitedly making fun of some of the players on the scene.
Patri;
Your assessment of why recycling ocean plastic is unfeasible is spot on. The comic you posted is a reference to the Recycled Island project: http://www.recycledisland.com/index.html. I believe they’re well intentioned, but misinformed, as well as perhaps getting a bit excited about all the hype that the gyre-based garbage patches are receiving. Without some kind of magic bullet, there simply won’t be a cost-effective way to gather the plastic.
Seasteading may offer the best possible opportunity to gather that plastic with passive systems that separate it from fishing catches or from other systems that don’t involve intense energy expenditures.
Regarding Monday’s comic, I was impressed at the visual comedic value of “Bazooka bikini bachelor parties”. I understand from your blog that this was taken out of context.
Good humor almost inevitably comes at someone’s expense. I struggle with this idea, because most of the comics I draw are about subjects that I enjoy. It’s important for me to entertain, but also to celebrate the things that I think are worthy. I find Seasteading a very noble aspiration–one that appeals to my adventurer’s soul. I hope my comics speak with the kind of tone a peer would employ and not that of a critic.
Pyar