> Those are the vehicles killing the planet!
That would be boats. Cars or trucks or even semis don't even rank.
That would be boats. Cars or trucks or even semis don't even rank.
You might be referring to sulphur emissions, which are much higher for ships because they are basically unregulated, while car fuel has virtually zero sulphur.
Boats pollute massively and it’s a shame considering that water is a much more efficient medium of transportation thanks to buoyancy.
It’s a good thing people don’t use container ships to commute every day, then…
Seriously, comparing the effect of one car to that of one ship is not even remotely useful. Cars would be much better if they were used by more than one person on average. At which point we could even scale them up and operate them among fixed, predictable routes at fixes, predictable times.
Anyway, no, they really are not making your point. Comparing the emissions of the global shipping fleet to that of all the cars used to commute every day tells a lot about where efficiency can be found. Sure, some shipping is frivolous, but then a single person (or even two people) commuting in a light truck is beyond stupid on every level.
I think that was probably a good thing in the long run, but there's some evidence that the sulfur particulate matter was "hiding" some of the warming we "should" have been seeing based on our CO2 emissions, because global warming has spiked a bit as sulfur has decreased.
The main concern with big ocean vessels is that they burn fuel "dirtier", as opposed to cars which--in most countries--are already subject to emissions standards and mandatory catalytic-converters etc. because people got tired of smog and acid-rain.
On a pure CO2 basis, ships may actually be the lesser-evil in terms of payload/distance, lack of alternatives, etc.