Random Ships 2

You may have concluded that I’m obsessed with–among other things–ships and the fact that they move from here to anywhere, as long as it’s coastal. Foreign flags and even non-roman script like that on Dubai below speaks of exotic shores and harbors and the folk inhabiting them. But I’m not naive, and the love affair our society has with cheap goods from afar arriving here on ships has a cost. The Guardian reports on the planetary emissions from shipping–after after cars, housing, agriculture and industry– here.

 

Greek on the Maersk ship and Sanskrit on the orange New Delhi Express, and all these ships passing through the modest KVK in less than one hour. Talk about international!

 

and then this empty fuel barge ready to receive liquid mineral from beneath the North Sea or the swamps along Maracaibo or the Niger delta or the empty quarter….

 

I hate to be pessimistic, but SUV could expand to supremely unclean vessels, from an environmental POV even if they fuel my imagination . . . Some distance downwind . . . it evens smells problematic. Add this into the price of cheap goods from afar.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m fascinated by these vessels, but cobras and sharks and grizzlies might excite my imagination in the same way, yet . . .