REALITY CHECK REVIEW
BETELGEUSE:ISTHIS
SUPERGIANTABOUT
TOEXPLODE?
Thestarhasbeenbehavingstrangelyinrecent
months.Is it abouttogosupernova?withDRMARKMIODOWNIK
Markis professorofmaterialsandsocietyatUCL.
interviewedbyBBCScienceFocusonlineassistantSaraRigby.
ANALYSIS
In the constellation of Orion, something strange is afoot. In
October last year, the red star Betelgeuse – which marks
Orion’s right shoulder (or left as we look at it) – began to get
unusually dim. During January and February 2020, it reached
a record low – around 40 per cent of its usual brightness. We
know Betelgeuse is a mature star, and it will one day explode
in a supernova. But this dimming has led to speculation that a
supernova could be imminent. Might this be a moment of
calm before the star expires in a cosmic death-blast?
The dimming of Betelgeuse is not unexpected. (The name
of the star has its origins in Arabic, and there’s no consensus
on how to pronounce the Westernised version. However,2 system can be sustainable. And what I mean by a
system is: someone manufactures something out of
steel, you use it on your car or your razor, you then
dispose of it, it gets recycled, and then it goes back
into the system. That’s a system that can be
sustainable if you make sure that you’re using the
energy properly.
If you then try and do biodegradables, what you’re
trying to do is create a system in which the CO 2 plays
a part, and it seems to me that we’re already
problematically dealing with CO 2 in the atmosphere,
so this is a difficult system to become sustainable in
my v iew.
IS IT WORTHWHILE SWAPPING SINGLE-USE PLASTIC
FOR A DIFFERENT SINGLE-USE MATERIAL?
There is a system for paper recycling, but if it’s
contaminated with food, it won’t be recycled. And
actually, paper uses more energy and water in
general than plastics. So, you’re potentially making
the water issues worse and climate change worse by
swapping one single-use material for another.
So, the truth is that I think that people are so
alarmed with plastic and disgusted about the
pollution, and they’re right to be disgusted, but what
we don’t want are these knee-jerk reactions which
are really a greenwash. They’re sort of placating you,
but I think the inherent way to do something about
the problem is to change the system.
WHAT’S THE WAY FORWARD?
We’re not going to lose plastic from our lives,
because it’s useful. It reduces food waste, it reduces
waste of almost everything, and it’s lightweight and
tough for transporting goods across the planet and
all of that helps reduce CO 2 emissions. In our
clothes, now, the average piece of clothing is 67 per
cent plastic. Our shoes are mostly plastic. Lots of
stuff in our lives is all coated with plastic. It’s all
vital, but we don’t have any systems for recycling
those yet and I think we really, seriously fast need to
redesign everything, so that there are systems for
recycling everything in our lives.
We need to make sure every single plastic in a
supermarket is recyclable, and it all goes into one
bin and you don’t have to make any head-scratching
decisions. And those plastics all get recycled back
into new plastics which then get used for more
packaging. That is the future.