There is nothing convenient about plastic pollution. Rejoinder to Stafford and Jones “Viewpoint – Ocean plastic pollution: A convenient but distracting truth?”

This rejoinder challenges the assertions made by Stafford and Jones in the Marine Policy article: “Viewpoint – Ocean plastic pollution: A convenient but distracting truth?”. That article - and its title - are counter-productive to a shared goal of conserving the environment for current, and future generations. While it is important to keep global threats in perspective, we simply do not have the luxury of tackling environmental issues one at a time. The authors provide no evidence to support their claim that efforts to address plastic pollution are undermining progress being made to address other threats to the planet and humanity, such as climate change and biodiversity loss. We argue that continued momentum on all fronts is needed to address the growing list of environmental crises and that emerging issues should be met with additional resources.