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That's a factoid that has been going around, but lost some information as you stated it. Large container ships produce tremendous amounts of NOx and SOx polluti

That's a factoid that has been going around, but lost some information as you stated it. Large container ships produce tremendous amounts of NOx and SOx pollution compared to passenger cars, true, but CO2 is a different story. Still a lot probably but not anywhere near as much as 50MM cars per ship. Unfortunately I think some hear that factoid and take away from it that cars don't actually contribute to climate change that much, which is not true.

mc32 5y ago
Agreed. The pollution is different but it’s dirty pollution non the less. So I think it’s misleading to have people believe container ships are a “free ride”.
dylan604 5y ago
>take away from it that cars don't actually contribute to climate change that much, which is not true. The time during pandemic lockdown where traffic levels plummeted and how quickly the air cleared pretty much proves that personal auto traffic is huge contributor to bad air quality.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  Climate change != local climate != local emissions (gases, particulate matter, noise). The thing that people noticed during the 'rona was almost exclusively the latter... especially the noise and particulates. I could hear birds outside when the windows were open, the street-facing windows accumulated a lot less dust.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Local pollutions just don't stay local. They eventually become part of the entire global climate. Global climate is the sum of all of the local climates. There's no walls protecting CityA from CityB's pollution. Look at the effect of wild fires on parts of the globe without fires. This is just a sad way to look at things. Changes have to start somewhere. They can start small, and then grow larger. People like you saying "too small, not effective" just need to sit down and be quiet, thank you very much.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      edit to add: particulate emissions (diesel soot, tire and brake wear) stay local and don't ever become global. The focus on "individual action" is a talking point that BP invented in the 70s (see https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...). I won't stop anyone from reducing their footprint, but we have tried this shit for decades now and it clearly hasn't worked a single bit. We need to hold the big emitters of greenhouse gases accountable, they haven't been for about half a century. Remember the "ozone hole" and the CFC ban? That one worked, because the companies bringing CFCs into circulation were tackled instead of pushing the blame to consumers.
      - 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
        Particulate emissions from large fires very much do. I live approximately 2500 kilometers from the forest fires in Russia, and air pollution in the last two or three weeks has been intense.
flavius29663 5y ago
> cars don't actually contribute to climate change that much, which is not true I couldn't find some ready numbers, so I tried some estimations. 26% of all energy goes into transportation[1]. Automobiles are about 60% from that, so about 15% of total energy is spent moving automobiles[2]. 1 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T02.01#/?f=A&start=1949&end=2020&charted=3-6-9-12 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T... 2 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20190313STO31218/co2-emissions-from-cars-facts-and-figures-infographics https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/201... This does not include land use and agriculture emissions. Looking at it another way, US has close to 300 million vehicles, and the average automobile emits 4.8 tonnes [3] of CO2 a year. It comes down to 1.5 gigatons of CO2 each year. Total US emissions are about 5 gigatons. This would make it a 30% part of CO2 emissions. It's higher than the number above because that was based on European values of 60% of all transportation emissions coming from automobiles. The US automobiles are bigger and consume more. 3. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t... I think it's safe to say it's somewhere in the ballpark of 15-30% of all CO2 emissions are from automobiles. I don't consider the manufacturing of the automobiles, because people will need moving regardless. It's either a battery powered car, plane, train etc. Those all need manufacturing and maintaining.
Scoundreller 5y ago
SOx is dropping a lot as they move away to increasingly désulfurized fuels. To max 0.5% sulfur in fuel from max 3.5% in maritime fuel: https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2020.aspx https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2...

mc32 5y ago

Agreed. The pollution is different but it’s dirty pollution non the less. So I think it’s misleading to have people believe container ships are a “free ride”.

dylan604 5y ago

>take away from it that cars don't actually contribute to climate change that much, which is not true. The time during pandemic lockdown where traffic levels plummeted and how quickly the air cleared pretty much proves that personal auto traffic is huge contributor to bad air quality.

mschuster91 5y ago
Climate change != local climate != local emissions (gases, particulate matter, noise). The thing that people noticed during the 'rona was almost exclusively the latter... especially the noise and particulates. I could hear birds outside when the windows were open, the street-facing windows accumulated a lot less dust.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Local pollutions just don't stay local. They eventually become part of the entire global climate. Global climate is the sum of all of the local climates. There's no walls protecting CityA from CityB's pollution. Look at the effect of wild fires on parts of the globe without fires. This is just a sad way to look at things. Changes have to start somewhere. They can start small, and then grow larger. People like you saying "too small, not effective" just need to sit down and be quiet, thank you very much.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    edit to add: particulate emissions (diesel soot, tire and brake wear) stay local and don't ever become global. The focus on "individual action" is a talking point that BP invented in the 70s (see https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...). I won't stop anyone from reducing their footprint, but we have tried this shit for decades now and it clearly hasn't worked a single bit. We need to hold the big emitters of greenhouse gases accountable, they haven't been for about half a century. Remember the "ozone hole" and the CFC ban? That one worked, because the companies bringing CFCs into circulation were tackled instead of pushing the blame to consumers.
    - 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
      Particulate emissions from large fires very much do. I live approximately 2500 kilometers from the forest fires in Russia, and air pollution in the last two or three weeks has been intense.

flavius29663 5y ago

> cars don't actually contribute to climate change that much, which is not true I couldn't find some ready numbers, so I tried some estimations. 26% of all energy goes into transportation[1]. Automobiles are about 60% from that, so about 15% of total energy is spent moving automobiles[2]. 1 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T02.01#/?f=A&start=1949&end=2020&charted=3-6-9-12 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T... 2 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20190313STO31218/co2-emissions-from-cars-facts-and-figures-infographics https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/201... This does not include land use and agriculture emissions. Looking at it another way, US has close to 300 million vehicles, and the average automobile emits 4.8 tonnes [3] of CO2 a year. It comes down to 1.5 gigatons of CO2 each year. Total US emissions are about 5 gigatons. This would make it a 30% part of CO2 emissions. It's higher than the number above because that was based on European values of 60% of all transportation emissions coming from automobiles. The US automobiles are bigger and consume more. 3. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t... I think it's safe to say it's somewhere in the ballpark of 15-30% of all CO2 emissions are from automobiles. I don't consider the manufacturing of the automobiles, because people will need moving regardless. It's either a battery powered car, plane, train etc. Those all need manufacturing and maintaining.

Scoundreller 5y ago

SOx is dropping a lot as they move away to increasingly désulfurized fuels. To max 0.5% sulfur in fuel from max 3.5% in maritime fuel: https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2020.aspx https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2...