700,000 of them can be released: Imogen E. Napper and Richard C. Thompson, “Release of Synthetic Microplastic Fibres from Domestic Washing Machines: Effects of Fabric Type and Washing Conditions,” Marine Pollution Bulletin 112, no. 1–2 (November 2016): pp. 39–45, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2016.09.025.
a quarter of fish sold: Kat Kerlin, “Plastic for Dinner: A Quarter of Fish Sold at Markets Contain Human-Made Debris,” UC Davis, September 24, 2015, www.ucdavis.edu/news/plastic-dinner-quarter-fish-sold-markets-contain-human-made-debris.
11,000 bits each year: Lisbeth Van Cauwenberghe and Colin R. Janssen, “Microplastics in Bivalves Cultured for Human Consumption,” Environmental Pollution 193 (October 2014): pp. 65–70, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2014.06.010.
total number of marine species: Clive Cookson, “The Problem with Plastic: Can Our Oceans Survive?” Financial Times, January 23, 2018.
73 percent of fish surveyed: Alina M. Wieczorek et al., “Frequency of Microplastics in Mesopelagic Fishes from the Northwest Atlantic,” Frontiers in Marine Science (February 2018), https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2018.00039.
every 100 grams of mussels: Jiana Lee et al., “Microplastics in Mussels Sampled from Coastal Waters and Supermarkets in the United Kingdom,” Environmental Pollution 241 (October 2018): pp. 35–44, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2018.05.038.
Some fish have learned to eat plastic: Matthew S. Savoca et al., “Odours from Marine Plastic Debris Induce Food Search Behaviours in a Forage Fish,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 284, no. 1860 (August 2017), https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1000.
bits that scientists are now calling “nanoplastics”: Amanda L. Dawson et al., “Turning Microplastics into Nanoplastics Through Digestive Fragmentation by Antarctic Krill,” Nature Communications 9, no. 1001 (March 2018), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03465-9.
3.4 million microplastic particles: Courtney Humphries, “Freshwater’s Macro Microplastic Problem,” Nova, May 11, 2017, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/freshwater-microplastics.
225 pieces of plastic: Cookson, “The Problem with Plastic.”
sixteen of seventeen tested brands: Ali Karami et al., “The Presence of Microplastics in Commercial Salts from Different Countries,” Scientific Reports 7, no. 46173 (April 2017), https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46173.
one million times more toxic: 5 Gyres: Science to Solutions, “Take Action: Microbeads,” www.5gyres.org/microbeads.
We can breathe in microplastics: Johnny Gasperi et al., “Microplastics in Air: Are We Breathing It In?” Current Opinion in Environmental Science and Health 1 (February 2018): pp. 1–5, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2017.10.002.
94 percent of all tested American cities: Dan Morrison and Christopher Tyree, “Invisibles: The Plastic Inside Us,” Orb (2017), https://orbmedia.org/stories/Invisibles_plastics.
expected to triple by 2050: World Economic Forum, The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics (Cologny, Switz.: January 2016), p. 10.
they release methane and ethylene: Sarah-Jeanne Royer et al., “Production of Methane and Ethylene from Plastic in the Environment,” PLOS One 13, no. 8 (August 2018), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200574.
Aerosol products actually suppress: B. H. Samset et al., “Climate Impacts from a Removal of Anthropogenic Aerosol Emissions,” Geophysical Research Letters 45, no. 2 (January 2018): pp. 1020–29, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076079.
only heated up two-thirds as much: Samset, “Climate Impacts from a Removal,” https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076079. Samset himself says, “Global warming to date is one degree Celsius (or thereabouts). Our paper showed that industrial/human induced aerosol emissions mask about half a degree of additional warming.” And because of how unevenly warming is distributed across the planet, he adds, “we note that in two models, Arctic warming due to aerosol reductions reaches 4°C in some locations.”
“Catch-22”: P. J. Crutzen, “Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulfur Injections: A Contribution to Resolve a Policy Dilemma?” Climatic Change 77 (2006): pp. 211–19, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-006-9101-y.
“devil’s bargain”: Eric Holthaus, “Devil’s Bargain,” Grist, February 8, 2018, https://grist.org/article/geoengineering-climate-change-air-pollution-save-planet.
millions of lives each year: This estimate of deaths from air pollution comes from the World Health Organization.
tens of thousands of additional premature deaths: Sebastian D. Eastham et al., “Quantifying the Impact of Sulfate Geoengineering on Mortality from Air Quality and UV-B Exposure,” Atmospheric Environment 187 (August 2018): pp. 424–34, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.05.047.
rapidly dry the Amazon: Christopher H. Trisos et al., “Potentially Dangerous Consequences for Biodiversity of Solar Geoengineering Implementation and Termination,” Nature Ecology and Evolution 2 (January 2018), pp. 472–82, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0431-0.
negative effect on plant growth: Jonathan Proctor et al., “Estimating Global Agricultural Effects of Geoengineering Using Volcanic Eruptions,” Nature 560 (August 2018): pp. 480–83, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0417-3.
Plagues of Warming
diseases that have not circulated: Jasmin Fox-Skelly, “There Are Diseases Hidden in Ice, and They Are Waking Up,” BBC, May 4, 2017, www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up.
“extremophile” bacteria: “NASA Finds Life at ‘Extremes,’ ” NASA, February 24, 2005, www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/livingthings/extremophile1.html.
an 8-million-year-old bug: Kay D. Bidle et al., “Fossil Genes and Microbes in the Oldest Ice on Earth,” Proceedings of the National Academies of Science 104, no. 33 (August 2007): pp. 13455–60, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0702196104.
a Russian scientist self-injected: Jordan Pearson, “Meet the Scientist Who Injected Himself with 3.5 Million-Year-Old Bacteria,” Motherboard, December 9, 2015, https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp3gg7/meet-the-scientist-who-injected-himself-with-35-million-year-old-bacteria.
a worm that had been frozen: Mike McRae, “A Tiny Worm Frozen in Siberian Permafrost for 42,000 Years Was Just Brought Back to Life,” Science Alert, July 27, 2018, www.sciencealert.com/40-000-year-old-nematodes-revived-siberian-permafrost.
remnants of the 1918 flu: Jeffery K. Taubenberger et al., “Discovery and Characterization of the 1918 Pandemic Influenza Virus in Historical Context,” Antiviral Therapy 12 (2007): pp. 581–91.
infected as many as 500 million and killed as many as 50 million: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Remembering the 1918 Influenza Pandemic,” www.cdc.gov/features/1918-flu-pandemic/index.html; Jeffery K. Taubenberger and David Morens, “1918 Influenza: The Mother of All Pandemics,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 12, no.1 (January 2006): pp. 15–22, https://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid1201.050979.