How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world | Hacker News Reader

How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world

dailymail.co.uk

30 pointsjchrisa21 comments

As much sulfur pollution, that is. (Mostly because ships burn bunker fuel:[1] the residue left over after you refine off the gasoline)

15 ships do not equal the carbon pollution of all the cars in the world.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil#Bunker_fuel

Carbon pollution is not the only kind of pollution. If it weren't for global warming, it wouldn't really even be important. The article mentions "filthy black smoke kicked out by funnels" so it's pretty clear it's not CO2 they're worried about.

It's not the only kind of pollution, no, but the title is both incorrect and clickbait in that it just says "pollution".

16 ships do NOT create as much pollution as all of the cars on the planet, period. They create as much of a specific type of pollution as all of the cars on the planet.

What an odd argument, at complete right angles to what I was talking about.

"Traumatic brain injuries are not the only kind of injuries. If it weren't for the fact that they result in death, they wouldn't really even be important."

If you feel I was minimizing the importance of sulfur pollution in comparison to carbon pollution, that is because I was. Carbon pollution is, in fact, more important.

Behold, data: http://i.imgur.com/t75zXYw.png

That picture only talks about effects on global warming. I'm talking about public health. As aylons's links show, hundreds of thousands of people die every year from particulates and gases other than CO2.

Don't those particulates and gases typically have a more local effect, thus being largely irrelevant when emitted out in the middle of the ocean?

Alcohol poisoning isn't the only kind of poisoning. If it weren't for widespread ethanol consumption and acute cascading organ failure, it wouldn't really even be important.

Right, so if someone complains of being poisoned, you wouldn't be surprised if they meant something other than alcohol poisoning. But commenters here seem surprised that "pollution" refers to anything other than CO2.

It's not surprise that "pollution" refers to anything other than CO2, it's surprise that "pollution" refers to one specific pollutant and no others.

What if I told you that Côte d'Ivoire produced more food than any other country in the world? What if you then discovered that by "food" I meant cocoa beans, and they're not even remotely close to being at the top when considering all food?

The way you phrased your original comment (before the edit adding context), it was a vacuous statement. That is why I posted.

Technically speaking, carbon dioxide, which is what I assume you refer to by carbon pollution, is not a pollutant. It is a non-toxic inert greenhouse gas, used by a very large quantity of organisms as an exchange gas.

Not trying to dilute the conversation, but this is a different kind of pollution. Differently from CO2, these pollutants do not have the same effect globally: cars polluting cities is way more deadly than a ship polluting in the ocean.

To put in perspective, the article cites 2k deaths/year in UK and 87k worldwide because of ship pollution. However, car pollution kills more than double that: 5k/year in the UK [1] and far more worldwide, 200k only in the USA [2].

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17704116 [2] http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-20...

The headline is astonishing bullshit. Claiming those ships pollute more than all the world's cars, then several paragraphs into the article mentioning that they are just talking about sulphur pollution, is more or less equivalent tom saying that swimming pools are responsible for more accidental deaths than cars, then mentioning later that you only mean accidental drowning deaths. It's really that bad.

The article is from the Daily Mail. All of it's articles are to be considered bullshit until at least to be read with heavy lensed critical glasses on and a large pinch of salt.

Larger ships do not pollute more. Per unit of cargo they pollute less.

Thank you for mentioning this. Things have to get to their destination somehow, and if you replaced these ships with their equivalent carrying capacity of another form of transport you would probably get even more pollution.

They could use scrubbers or switch to a different fuel when they're near a heavily populated area.

This is a bit disturbing, I wonder if this is just a case of the DailyFail inflating headlines bombastically with the modern age yellow journalism they are known for (I'm not even saying this in a negative way, people subscribe to them just for this, its their thing, its what they do).

How about similar sentiments from a publication antithetical to the Daily Mail? The Guardian reported several years ago about how 'one giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars': http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-... - though that isn't focusing on CO2 necessarily, but earlier Guardian articles talk about how shipping emits twice as much CO2 as aviation, etc.

Given that there is no discussion of pollution per cargo-ton mile or the number of deaths caused by, say, pollen production (which is killing me at the moment), I'm going with "yes."

This article is from 2009.

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