How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
mailonsunday.co.uk
How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
#2It is worth noting that just one cup of tea causes me to produce more urine than all the cars in the world.
(Just thought I would point out how "useful" comparisons like this are. Less useful than an entire Library of Congress...)
Re: How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
#3It is worth noting that just one cup of tea causes me to produce more urine than all the cars in the world. (Just thought I would point out how "useful" comparisons like this are. Less useful than an entire Library of Congress...)
Except that this one, um, is.
They mention explicitly that tanker fuel has half the allowable maximum of sulpur on average, but it's still a travesty and can be cut down substantially if proper measures are applied.
It's unfortunate that environmental policy is dictated in terms of sensationalism rather than actual impact. Rational policy outlook should have certainly looked at shipping as one of the first causes of airborne pollution.
Re: How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
#41. does anyone know the ratio of pollution from all-the-consumer-planes-in-the-world to all-the-cars-in-the-world? (i feel like military planes and tanks should be excluded, or rather included in a separate ratio for comparison.)
2. how does this pollution compare to oil spills (eg, Exxon's Valdez)?
Re: How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
#5It is worth noting that just one cup of tea causes me to produce more urine than all the cars in the world. (Just thought I would point out how "useful" comparisons like this are. Less useful than an entire Library of Congress...)
Except that this one, um, is. They mention explicitly that tanker fuel has half the allowable maximum of sulpur on average, but it's still a travesty and can be cut down substantially if proper measures are applied. It's unfortunate that environmental policy is dictated in terms of sensationalism rather than actual impact. Rational policy outlook should have certainly looked at shipping as one of the first causes of…
Rational policy outlook should have certainly looked at shipping as one of the first causes of airborne pollution.
Rational policy outlook should have started by looking at the adverse effects of airborne pollution. What are the adverse effects of releasing SO2 into the atmosphere over the middle of the ocean?
What and where matter just as much as how much.
Re: How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
#6Now isn't the nicest time to be going after shipping companies, with the way their profits have collapsed over the last year. The recession has been pretty hard for airlines, but the drop in shipping prices is shocking by comparison: more than a 10x drop.
Re: How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
#7It is worth noting that just one cup of tea causes me to produce more urine than all the cars in the world. (Just thought I would point out how "useful" comparisons like this are. Less useful than an entire Library of Congress...)
If one cup of tea made you produce as much urine as half of all the people on earth, then yes, we should grab you by the collar and confiscate your ungodly cup of tea.
Re: How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
#81. does anyone know the ratio of pollution from all-the-consumer-planes-in-the-world to all-the-cars-in-the-world? (i feel like military planes and tanks should be excluded, or rather included in a separate ratio for comparison.) 2. how does this pollution compare to oil spills (eg, Exxon's Valdez)?
The ratio is only referring to sulfur. I'm fairly sure the high octane required for jet fuel would prohibit most sulfur emissions. Additionally, the weight sensitivity would be an added incentive to reduce any unused components, such as sulfur.
Re: How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
#9In the United States emissions regulations recently came into effect (2007) that mandated ultra low sulfur diesel and particle filtration for vehicle exhaust systems. I wonder if the particle filtration technology could be applied to ships, and what the implications would be.
Also, the fuel being burned appears to be a byproduct of petroleum distillation, and while ships are burning it "because they can", I wonder what the other options are for disposing of it. Legislating away all of the consumers of a byproduct does not get rid of the byproduct. I would assume that the petroleum could be further distilled out of the byproduct, to some extent, but that at the end there would be some waste sludge that might be unmarketable. If that's the case, then THAT becomes a disposal headache, and I'd be curious to see how that plays out.
Re: How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
#10I am aghast to log in to HN on a Sunday morning and find the "top topic" to be a post from the MailOnSunday site. This august institution of lies, half truths and mostly made up stuff is a British byword for scientific reporting - in every negative way possible.
Without doing any fact checking or research of my own part (just bitter experience) I declare this "absolute tosh".