IT is the most economical and environmentally sound method of moving goods around the world, an essential mode of transport that feeds and fuels the world. So how come the shipping industry has suddenly been forced on the defensive, with ship operators struggling to keep the environmental debate sensible, as this December's Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen approaches?
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| To believe or not: On the grounds that if something is repeated sufficiently, it becomes truth, wildly exaggerated reports of the 'research' on the harm done to human health by emissions from marine diesels are repeated, each more sensational than the last |
Scarcely a day goes by without some new revelation about the shipping industry and the harm it is allegedly doing to human health. Even its technical triumphs are somehow turned against it, whether it is angry debates questioning the rationale of very large container ships - somehow becoming arguments against world trade, or a triumphant Arctic voyage being re-branded as a demonstration of global warming and melting icecaps. As the run-up to Copenhagen becomes increasingly vehement, it gets more difficult for shipping to make its voice heard. On the grounds that if something is repeated sufficiently, it becomes truth, wildly exaggerated reports of the 'research' on the harm done to human health by emissions from marine diesels are repeated, each more sensational than the last. The 'diesel death zone' around the ports where ships congregate could, according to US research, account for 87,000 premature deaths by 2012. The shipping industry, it is said, is 'in denial', its institutions ineffective and too slow at countering this menace to world health and in the case of its CO2 emissions, to life on earth itself.
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Do you think such reports are inaccurate?
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