Are all these ships delivering products from other countries to US causing pollution to enviroment and ocean?
April 30th, 2010 | 
Author: You know like from China or whatever other country they are coming from. Are they causing bad pollution to enviroment and ocean. I should think that they are. And if so should we continue to buy products from other countries?
I try to buy product from the US. I think that they are better made but not everything I want/need is made in the US. I would love it if it was.
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Yes, shipping makes up about 5% of global CO2 emissions, a similar amount to the airline industry, however shipping does carry 95% of world cargo. Thus if you have to purchase foreign produce, one that is shipped is better than produce sent by air.
However it is extremely difficult to calculate what is best, for example an article I read in the last 6 months compared transporting similar amounts of cargo from London to Manchester by road produces more emissions than transporting the same amount of cargo from London by sea to somewhere in China, I have trawled the internet, but can not seem to find a link to the article.
I think we need more information on products to make informed choices about what we purchase such as the carbon labels added in the UK, so that we can easily compare products.
http://howtosaveenergy.blogspot.com/2007/07/carbon-labelling.html
Energy Saver
http://howtosaveenergy.blogspot.com
Yes it is harming the environment and as more firms close factories in our own countries and open new ones in places like China it becomes more harming because more ships are needed to ship more cargo which will need to burn more fuel.
The ships are emitting CO2 (and some other nasty stuff) from their diesel engines and the need to use ballast also has its problems (because they often get marine life in their ballasts that they shouldn’t and then flush them where those creatures shouldn’t be).
On the whole though the damage is not that bad so it’s not really a very good argument for autarky.
Yep. Everyone in the world is polluting it.
Of course ships pollute .. whether it is burning fuel, dumping sewage or waste, dumping ballast (One of the most overlooked problems in the Great Lakes is non-native species in Ship’s ballast water . . . ships take on ballast water in foreign ports when empty to stabilize them and then discard it when loading which can pollute).
Does that mean we should stop international trade?
No.. while it may cause some environmental issues international trade contributes just as much — if not much more — to the well being of us all.. and gives us the $$ to devote to pollution prevention, etc.
If we did not have international trade why would we be concerned about the rest of the world? It would not matter at all.. we could close our borders, and ignore the rest of the world. Then the poverty and aids in africa, human rights in China, environmental pollution and degridation all over, etc.. would not affect us and we could ignore it.
International trade gives the US (and the international community looking back) reasons why we need the rest of the world and why they need the US.
Please take a broader look at things.. open your eyes to the inter relationships between things.. The environment is important yes.. but there are many other considerations..