Hot take: the shipping industry pollutes more than all the world's planes combined and nobody talks about it

I was reading through some UN stats last night cause I couldn't sleep, and I found out that cargo ships burn the dirtiest fuel on the planet - bunker fuel - and they pump out like 3% of global CO2. Planes are only like 2.5% I think? But everyone freaks out about flying and nobody mentions that one giant container ship can spew more sulfur than 50 million cars. Where's the outrage on that? Has anyone else looked into how bad shipping actually is?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_rowan10d ago

My mate works at the port near where I live and he told me these big ships are basically just floating chimneys. He said the crew lives on them for months at a time and the engine rooms are like 50 degrees Celsius, I couldn't do that. But the sulfur thing is wild though, he was saying they used to get away with burning literal tar basically until they tightened the rules a few years back.

hugos4610d ago

@the_rowan Your mate's right about the heat, but the other side nobody talks about is the noise. Those engines are so loud that crew go deaf over time, even with ear protection, and there's no escape from it for months.

sean_green4410d ago

Play the other side here: those tight rules on sulfur are already pushing shipping costs way up, which just gets passed to everyone buying stuff. My buddy in logistics says the switch to low sulfur fuel added like 30 percent to his freight bills last year alone, and that's before they even start worrying about carbon taxes. People want clean air but they don't want to pay more for their sneakers or groceries, you know.