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monopoly power, except effectively extranational so no antitrust Faaaantastic. Of course the entire "make 5000 miles away, ship it over the pacific" was enabl

monopoly power, except effectively extranational so no antitrust Faaaantastic. Of course the entire "make 5000 miles away, ship it over the pacific" was enabled by the lack of a proper carbon tax. If monopolies perform the same "service" then more power to them.

thfuran 5y ago
>Of course the entire "make 5000 miles away, ship it over the pacific" was enabled by the lack of a proper carbon tax. I think this pretty much sums it up: >Shippers earned $25 billion in 2020; research consultant Drewry predicted $300 billion for 2021 and 2022.[...] A study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that pollution from cargo ships has led to 60,000 deaths per year and costs up to $330 billion in annual health costs from lung and heart diseases. Even after the preposterous profit-taking from the recent supply chain clusterfuck, their profits would still be zeroed out by accounting for just some of the externalities.
- harpersealtako 5y ago
  How many people's lives are saved from increased access to trans-oceanic trade? I don't have an answer to that, but isn't it possible that the counterfactual world where no container ships exist involves worse health and mortality outcomes?
  - wilkommen 5y ago
    Probably not, national economies would just have to function more independently. The only way I can see how trans-oceanic trade results in better health and mortality outcomes is that it makes the various world superpowers more dependent on each other for trade, reducing the likelihood of large-scale armed conflict.
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    trans-ocean ships enabled the Age of Expansion (1500s) and were directly responsible for transporting gold from the Spanish New World back to Europe, by the ton. The question "what if there were no ships instead of lots of ships" is so far from the actual implementation of movement of goods and military power, that it is simply some kind of thought exercise.
topkai22 5y ago
Ocean shipping is extremely carbon/energy efficient and would likely be advantaged with a carbon tax. It’s emissions are concentrated in sulfur from the low grade oil it burns, which is harmful to humans and the environment in other ways. You could potentially argue that a carbon tax's impact on transportation generally would increase local manufacturing, but I kind of doubt it- it would advantage those manufacturers best concentration of raw materials and suppliers as those get transported multiple times in the production cycle, whereas the finished production only moves once.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  You might be correct, but what we have now is an effectively subsidized system. If it is properly regulated / priced to account for externalities (I would like some conservative regulation to make up for the unaccountable/unknown externalities, perhaps protectionism could function in that manner), then it would likely properly account for environmental concerns. My top comment of course didn't even deal with the "environmental arbitrage" that international shipping represents. You make stuff where there isn't as much regulation/price accounting for externalities, THEN you ship it 5000 miles. It used to be this amounted to simply getting to offload localized pollution on the third world, and the first world gets the benefits. You know like this: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-... But carbon emitted in China impacts us here. And that is the existential threat. If you want a good, modern "Web3" example of this, hm, why is Mongolia a new bitcoin mining hub?
WJW 5y ago
> ship it over the pacific" was enabled by the lack of a proper carbon tax. This is just demonstrably false. For a typical household product, more carbon is emitted trucking it from the port to the store than is emitted shipping it across the ocean. Cargo ships are extremely energy efficient. And of course for a great many products the raw materials are not actually produced locally, so if you shift manufacturing back home you now have to ship the raw materials instead. A "proper carbon tax" would increase oversea production since economies of scale are real and huge.
- specialp 5y ago
  It depends where the port is, and where the store is. While it is true that a cargo ship produces 20% of the carbon per km per ton that a truck does, the distance is very large. This also does not account for freight rail which produces half the carbon per km per ton that container ships do. So yes, if a cargo ship goes the 11,000 km from China to LA, then a semi-truck takes this from LA to NY the overland route would produce more carbon. Also, the part about the raw materials not being produced locally, this is true abroad too.

thfuran 5y ago

>Of course the entire "make 5000 miles away, ship it over the pacific" was enabled by the lack of a proper carbon tax. I think this pretty much sums it up: >Shippers earned $25 billion in 2020; research consultant Drewry predicted $300 billion for 2021 and 2022.[...] A study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that pollution from cargo ships has led to 60,000 deaths per year and costs up to $330 billion in annual health costs from lung and heart diseases. Even after the preposterous profit-taking from the recent supply chain clusterfuck, their profits would still be zeroed out by accounting for just some of the externalities.

harpersealtako 5y ago
How many people's lives are saved from increased access to trans-oceanic trade? I don't have an answer to that, but isn't it possible that the counterfactual world where no container ships exist involves worse health and mortality outcomes?
- wilkommen 5y ago
  Probably not, national economies would just have to function more independently. The only way I can see how trans-oceanic trade results in better health and mortality outcomes is that it makes the various world superpowers more dependent on each other for trade, reducing the likelihood of large-scale armed conflict.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  trans-ocean ships enabled the Age of Expansion (1500s) and were directly responsible for transporting gold from the Spanish New World back to Europe, by the ton. The question "what if there were no ships instead of lots of ships" is so far from the actual implementation of movement of goods and military power, that it is simply some kind of thought exercise.

topkai22 5y ago

Ocean shipping is extremely carbon/energy efficient and would likely be advantaged with a carbon tax. It’s emissions are concentrated in sulfur from the low grade oil it burns, which is harmful to humans and the environment in other ways. You could potentially argue that a carbon tax's impact on transportation generally would increase local manufacturing, but I kind of doubt it- it would advantage those manufacturers best concentration of raw materials and suppliers as those get transported multiple times in the production cycle, whereas the finished production only moves once.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
You might be correct, but what we have now is an effectively subsidized system. If it is properly regulated / priced to account for externalities (I would like some conservative regulation to make up for the unaccountable/unknown externalities, perhaps protectionism could function in that manner), then it would likely properly account for environmental concerns. My top comment of course didn't even deal with the "environmental arbitrage" that international shipping represents. You make stuff where there isn't as much regulation/price accounting for externalities, THEN you ship it 5000 miles. It used to be this amounted to simply getting to offload localized pollution on the third world, and the first world gets the benefits. You know like this: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-... But carbon emitted in China impacts us here. And that is the existential threat. If you want a good, modern "Web3" example of this, hm, why is Mongolia a new bitcoin mining hub?

WJW 5y ago

> ship it over the pacific" was enabled by the lack of a proper carbon tax. This is just demonstrably false. For a typical household product, more carbon is emitted trucking it from the port to the store than is emitted shipping it across the ocean. Cargo ships are extremely energy efficient. And of course for a great many products the raw materials are not actually produced locally, so if you shift manufacturing back home you now have to ship the raw materials instead. A "proper carbon tax" would increase oversea production since economies of scale are real and huge.

specialp 5y ago
It depends where the port is, and where the store is. While it is true that a cargo ship produces 20% of the carbon per km per ton that a truck does, the distance is very large. This also does not account for freight rail which produces half the carbon per km per ton that container ships do. So yes, if a cargo ship goes the 11,000 km from China to LA, then a semi-truck takes this from LA to NY the overland route would produce more carbon. Also, the part about the raw materials not being produced locally, this is true abroad too.