Eternal Plastic: A Toxic Love Story

Description

The Long Now Foundation's monthly series Seminars About Long-term Thinking
http://longnow.org/seminars/02012/may/22/eternal-plastic-toxic-love-story/

Susan Freinkel presents
Eternal Plastic: A Toxic Love Story

Plastic now pervades civilization---how many of the things you see from where you are right now are plastic? It is an ingenious material whose miraculous qualities we take too much for granted, but it also sometimes has nightmarish downstream effects. The giant polymer molecules (polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, etc.) that are so marvelously cheap to mold, extrude, shape, and weave are also extremely durable. Their cheapness makes them the basic material of a throw-away culture (one third of all plastic goes into disposable packaging.) Their durability means that any toxic effects persist indefinitely in the environment.

Plastic presents a problem in temporal management of the very long-term and the very short-term. How do we get the benefits of plastic's amazing durability while reducing the harm from its convenient disposability? The matter requires close and respectful coordination between short-term experts (businesses) and long-term experts (governments and nonprofits). Managing plastic well is a microcosm of managing civilization well.

Susan Freinkel is the author of Plastic: A Toxic Love Story and American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree.

Seminar hosted by Stewart Brand
http://www.longnow.org/people/board/sb1/

Advance Tickets Recommended - Tickets are $10
http://longnow.org/seminars/02012/may/22/eternal-plastic-toxic-love-story/

Long Now Members get complimentary tickets
https://longnow.org/membership/

Live Audio Stream of the Seminar for Long Now Members
http://longnow.org/live/

There will be a reception at The Long Now Museum & Store following the Seminar
http://www.longnow.org/contact/

About the Series:
The Seminars About Long-term Thinking were started in 02003 to build a coherent, compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking, to help nudge civilization toward Long Now's goal of making long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare.

More Info

Link

http://longnow.org/seminars/02012/may/22/eternal-plastic-tox...

Call

4155616582 (Box Office)

Email

Contact Form (account required)