Wow… I just read the comments on that TreeHugger garbage-gyre post and another about Chris Jordan’s photographs of plastic-stuffed albatross chicks, and… People are just RIDICULOUS. This is a serious comment from the Jordan post:

While some people will certainly be disturbed by these images, they are actually evidence that (1) birds can cope with a large amount of junk in their stomach for some time and (2) they are functioning as highly-efficient garbage collectors. There are hundreds of millions new chicks born every year, and the thousands that die from plastic will just make room for more birds.

Whoever this joker is seriously thinks garbage collection can be privatized to BIRDS, yo. I won’t even acknowledge the notion that thousands of chicks dying off before reaching reproductive age will somehow “make room” for millions more birds.

Okay—one more (in response to another poster commenting that doomed fisheries will have a devastating impact on people):

Except for those of us who don’t rely on fish :) 

In a sick and twisted way, the over fishing is actually a good thing. The rising ocean acidification is killing ocean plankton, which are the basis of the ocean food chain. If we kill fish as well as plankton, the populations stay the same proportionate to each other. The reason that is good is dynamic equilibrium.

I know, never read the comments. But like, how are you such a libertarian that you think you can opt out of the goddamn ecosystem?