science

If I recall correctly, the Andromeda Strain mutated into a form that ate plastic.

There's a lot of discussion in here about how great this is. And it is. But it is at odds with another environmentalist concern.

What if we could take carbon dioxide and turn it into something that can't be degraded by living organisms? Well, plastic is one of those things, or was. Plastic is a form of carbon sequestration.

These micro organisms, they're turning plastic into carbon dioxide. Any and all carbon compounds on earth will enter the carbon cycle. every drop of oil pulled out of the ground, even the stuff that's used to make plastic, will wind up in the atmosphere.

This may all SEEM fine & dandy, but..

The such ocean gyres, if I'm remembering what they're called correctly, had a normal, established-for-millions-of-years kind-of-ecology in them..

NOW, however, we're forcing that this fungus become a dominant-player in them..

WHAT DOES THAT FUNGUS DO TO THE OTHER ORGANISMS IN THAT ECOLOGY?

( people may remember some years ago when the Purple Loostrife we imported was killing all our North American marshes, turning them into thickets of woody stems/runners/etc, & each individual plant could put out 50,000 seeds per year...

So, the Canadian Gov't did test after test after test, & finally resolved that a .. Chinese, iirc, ladybird bug ate the stuff, but didn't eat any other plants..

so, they imported them & let them loose..

You know those new orange ladybird bugs?

the ones that bite animals?

Those are the ones, ttbomk.

They don't eat any other plants, other than purple loostrife, but their habit of biting us means that carnivorism is normal in them, and .. how does that affect the ecology??

You can't just arbitrarily alter ecologies & responsibly expect them to remain functionally-balanced, & in-harmony: consequences tend to multiply each-other, & tipping-points do get crossed. )

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