38 ms·

Ships are not efficient?

godelski 7y ago
The problem is "what is efficient?" The quickest reference for emissions is Wiki [0] saying > Maritime transport accounts for 3.5% to 4% of all climate change emissions, primarily carbon dioxide. Aviation is about half that, but there is a lot less aviation, so we need to consider that. If we are saying "efficient" as a comparison, yes ships are. But that's not really the issue about climate change. The issue is that we have too much green house gasses in our atmosphere and are not slowing down (side bar: with sequestration the argument is that greenhouse gasses aren't inherently bad, but the levels are. So as long as net is zero or negative, who cares -- there is more nuance to this than suggested here). The issue is that we have to transport stuff. Sorry, but we can't live our current life unless we transport stuff globally. Doing otherwise would require drastic shift, which is needed, but come at a great cost. So do we solve it technologically or socially (I for one don't have faith in the social solution, but would love to be surprised). So the three ways we have of getting stuff across oceans (if we include Musk for entertainment value) are (in order of emissions): Shipping, Aviation, big fucking rockets (this isn't a linear scale and one of these dwarfs all the others). The issue is that we need to be at 0 or negative emissions (i.e. sequestering carbon). The short end of that argument is that US and EU combined is about 25% of global emissions and I don't know if we can trust other countries to be as aggressive as we are. (So obviously in favor of sequestration. What's the worst that can happen? We go too far and have to operate a few coal plants to balance out? LOL) The conversation is frequently a distracting one. We talk about energy, cars, and plastic straws. That accounts for <50% of a first world's carbon emissions, which energy needs are growing btw (keeping current levels of emissions is a difficult challenge alone!). Unless we have a serious conversation about this, we're never going to get to 0 emissions by 2100 (forget 2050, we've already given up on that. We're not willing to have a nuanced discussion about the issues and instead pretending paper vs plastic straws are an actual issue). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shipping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shippi...
- goodcanadian 7y ago
  Just a nitpick, really, but the plastic issue has little to do with climate change. It is a separate but also very important environmental problem.

The problem is "what is efficient?" The quickest reference for emissions is Wiki [0] saying > Maritime transport accounts for 3.5% to 4% of all climate change emissions, primarily carbon dioxide. Aviation is about half that, but there is a lot less aviation, so we need to consider that. If we are saying "efficient" as a comparison, yes ships are. But that's not really the issue about climate change. The issue is that we have too much green house gasses in our atmosphere and are not slowing down (side bar: with sequestration the argument is that greenhouse gasses aren't inherently bad, but the levels are. So as long as net is zero or negative, who cares -- there is more nuance to this than suggested here). The issue is that we have to transport stuff. Sorry, but we can't live our current life unless we transport stuff globally. Doing otherwise would require drastic shift, which is needed, but come at a great cost. So do we solve it technologically or socially (I for one don't have faith in the social solution, but would love to be surprised). So the three ways we have of getting stuff across oceans (if we include Musk for entertainment value) are (in order of emissions): Shipping, Aviation, big fucking rockets (this isn't a linear scale and one of these dwarfs all the others). The issue is that we need to be at 0 or negative emissions (i.e. sequestering carbon). The short end of that argument is that US and EU combined is about 25% of global emissions and I don't know if we can trust other countries to be as aggressive as we are. (So obviously in favor of sequestration. What's the worst that can happen? We go too far and have to operate a few coal plants to balance out? LOL) The conversation is frequently a distracting one. We talk about energy, cars, and plastic straws. That accounts for <50% of a first world's carbon emissions, which energy needs are growing btw (keeping current levels of emissions is a difficult challenge alone!). Unless we have a serious conversation about this, we're never going to get to 0 emissions by 2100 (forget 2050, we've already given up on that. We're not willing to have a nuanced discussion about the issues and instead pretending paper vs plastic straws are an actual issue). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shipping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shippi...

goodcanadian 7y ago
Just a nitpick, really, but the plastic issue has little to do with climate change. It is a separate but also very important environmental problem.