Making the Seas Greener

The shipping industry's carbon footprint has gone unrecognized by big green plans like the Koyoto Protocol. "Commercial shipping emissions have been one of the least studied areas of all combustion emissions," says Daniel Lack, a scientist at the Washington DC-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Until now.

Daniel Lack and his team, have uncovered damning evidence showing that emissions from shipping are worse than previously thought. And as much as aviation plays in our world economy, maritime shipping plays even a bigger role. 

Large cargo ships, for example, emit more than twice as much black carbon, or soot, which is thought to be the second largest contributor to global warming, after CO2, than was estimated in earlier studies. Even the littlest of all shipping boats, the tugboat, pumps out more black carbon for the amount of fuel it burns compared to other vessels.

Lack and his colleagues measured emissions from commercial vessels in open sea, channels and ports along the southeast coast of America during the summer of 2006. The team estimate that commercial shipping releases around 130,000 metric tons of soot a year, or 1.7% of the global total - with much of it pumped out near highly populated coastlines.

But shipping boats are not the only ones coasting the open waters. There is also cruise liners. Carnival Cruise Lines admitted that its operations pump out 401 grams of CO2 per passenger. This is 36 times more than the per-passenger emissions of Eurostar, and more than three times that of a passenger on a Boeing 747.  But cruise liners are trying to improve their eco-friendliness status. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, for example, says it is installing smokeless gas-turbine engines on up to six of its vessels and burns bio-fuel when it is available.

Only the future will tell if the shipping industry's eco-unfriendly actions cause harm to later generations. 

The complete article can be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/07/22/eash ipping122.xml&page=1