The article says "pollution" not CO2. Given that they burn bunker fuel (very dirty oil left over after things like gasoline are refined away), it's likely the

The article says "pollution" not CO2. Given that they burn bunker fuel (very dirty oil left over after things like gasoline are refined away), it's likely the article means particulate or sulfur emissions. The CO2 emissions are easily estimated and not even close. A container ship can burn 225 tons of bunker fuel per day at normal cruising speed.[1] At a generous 300 days in transit per year (they spend time in port loading / unloading / waiting), that's 67,500 tons of fuel per year. It's a massive number, but a drop in the bucket relative to the 913 million tons of oil consumed by Americans every year, the majority of which is spent on motor vehicle fuels.[2] Even assigning just 50% of US oil consumption to cars, you're comparing about 450 million tons consumed by American drivers versus about 1 million tons for 15 large cargo ships. [1] https://transportgeography.org/?page_id=5955 https://transportgeography.org/?page_id=5955 [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/264825/oil-consumption-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264825/oil-consumption-i...