The Plasticene Epoch: Climate Change & Plastic
The “Pleistocene” was a period of global climate change in the geological past. Today, anthropogenic warming and plastics are connected. Now entering: the “Plasticene.”
If you traveled back to North America 20,000 years ago, you would probably find yourself standing on ice.
The Pleistocene Epoch is defined by the most-recent ice age, when changes in Earth’s orbit put us farther from the sun than we are today. Natural warming gradually ended the ice age, bringing us out of the Pleistocene. Today, human-caused climate change is warming the planet ten times faster than that.
We’re talking about climate change because it goes hand-in-hand with the plastic problem. In the next two decades, greenhouse gas emissions from plastics are projected to make up nearly 20% of net carbon we put in the atmosphere. Plastic is everywhere and won’t go away soon without behavioral changes and new technologies. We left the Pleistocene, only to enter a new epoch: the Plasticene.
Global mean temperature since the last ice age (Osman et. al. 2021). The spike at the end? That’s where we are today.
The Backdrop
Plastics contribute to greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of their life cycle. Extracting fossil fuels, refining them into plastics, transporting these plastics for consumption, incinerating them after use, and letting them break down in oxygenless landfills puts carbon into the atmosphere. Plastics break down into microplastics which harm the algae responsible for half of all CO2 removed from the atmosphere by living organisms.
Since the 1970’s, fossil fuel companies have played a key role in advancing the global spread of plastic, especially single-use. By working with the food and tobacco industries - some call it Big Oil meets Big Soda meets Big Tobacco - the oil industry found a use for plastics in everything, and a way to hide its consequences. It was Exxon Mobil that introduced plastic bags to American grocery stores. When researchers began raising awareness about plastic persistence not longer after, the oil industry quieted public guilt toward single-use plastic use by presenting recycling as the solution to plastic pollution. The truth remains that less than 10% of plastic is recycled in the U.S. today.
The Present Day
It’s 2022, and the U.S. passed the most aggressive climate law in its history: the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Activists around the world celebrated the $369 billion dollar investment in renewable energy, clean transportation, and carbon capture. Finally, the world’s 2nd-largest emitter of greenhouse gasses is institutionally prioritizing climate change - a win for the planet! At first glance, it seems to put oil companies in hot water via corporate tax increases and national momentum for decarbonization. However, the Act’s impact on oil companies might backfire - and instead make it more difficult to mitigate the plastic problem. This would, in turn, make it more difficult to mitigate climate change.
Support for the Inflation Reduction Act confirmed that the fossil fuel industry is in trouble. Their response? Double down on plastics.
The International Energy Agency predicts that plastics will be the largest growth market for oil companies, making up nearly half of all oil demand by 2050. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and others are building recycling facilities despite knowing that plastic recycling is, by design, ineffective.
The Inflation Reduction Act’s fine print may also temporarily give Big Oil a boost. The law requires oil corporations pay federal taxes based on profits. However, it allows them to request tax breaks based on 2020 earnings (the year of the oil price crash) despite record-high earnings in 2022. They can incorporate asset depreciation and exclude foreign taxes when calculating federal tax, both of which are important for the industry. The Act also streamlines the process of obtaining permits for major infrastructure projects, including oil drilling. Perhaps most significantly, it requires that the leasing of federal lands for renewable energy be accompanied by offering land leases for oil and gas first.
West Virginia senator and coal magnate Joe Manchin is responsible for the last clause. Famous for opposing earlier, more climate-aggressive drafts of the Inflation Reduction Act, Manchin expressed that his support for any version of the Act would only come if it kept fossil fuels afloat. And democrats caved. Manchin reflects the chokehold that American oil still has on national policy, economics, and culture.
Oil and gas companies’ political and cultural power comes from over $200 billion in annual revenue, and deep-rooted symbioses with other environment-threatening industries like food packaging and cosmetics. Cutting off the oil industry now, both politically and financially, means less power for them to turn to plan B - plastic production - as the world attempts to move away from fossil fuel-based energy.
The bright side: plastic alone is not enough to keep oil industries afloat. And even if oil companies don’t bend on their stance on plastics, which they aren’t likely to, businesses can change plastic culture. Major corporations like Unilever are already setting their sights on a waste-free, circular-economic world through plans to cut virgin plastic use in half by 2025. Fifteen U.S. states and territories have banned plastic shopping bags.
The Plasticene and Anthropocene are fundamentally linked. Plastic pollution and climate change activists share the mutual goal of reducing harm to the natural world and eroding the fossil fuel industry. By continuing to undermine the demand for plastic and cleaning up what already exists, we hope the fossil fuel industry will be have neither a plan A nor B left. That is what we would consider a win for the planet.
