The Environment With Regards To Auto Shipping

Watching those enormous container vessels making their way across the sea is an impressive sight. They move like glaciers with their brightly colored cargo of blue, red, orange and green containers stacked up to impossible heights in the huge ship. A ship such as this is carrying someone's luxury foreign vehicle across the sea to its destination at a far away port. It will be unloaded by an equally impressive assortment of huge brightly colored cranes. Whoever is awaiting shipment of their shiny, new, expensive car is well-satisfied with the efficiency and cost-savings allowed by the shipping industry.Unfortunately, there is a downside to all this colorful efficiency. There are environmental concerns associated with the shipment of both domestic and international diesel-fueled cargo. As a new and burgeoning industry, the shipping industry is also responsible for new and growing environmental problems, with no viable solutions implemented as yet. The IMO (International Maritime Organization) met on the subject of greenhouse gas emissions from ships, particularly cargo vessels as late as 2008.

Ballast water discharged from these huge ships is equivalent to a whole other sea. Ballast water is taken in on unloading the cargo or when prior loads of the water are discharged. With these enormous carriers, the problem lies in their international course of travel. Water is pumped into the ship in one coastal area and pumped out down the sea lane in a completely different coastal zone.



Our friend anxiously awaiting the unloading of his foreign-born masterpiece of auto engineering does not give this a thought. He should and so should the rest of us inhabitants of this planet. The world demand for foreign made goods is causing upheaval and the deterioration of our environment. Into that ballast water go plants, animals, bacteria and viruses. They are pumped into the ship's tanks either alive or not in their native habitat. They will be discharged from the tanks either dead, alive, mutated, or increased in number because of procreation en route. All of them will be totally out of their element in their new home, becoming litter, vermin or invasive species. This results in utter chaos and destruction of the marine ecosystems.

Land transportation of cars does save gasoline because one carrier can drive across vast expanses of land with a load of several automobiles. If these cars were driven separately with a driver for each car, certainly the consumption of gasoline would go way up. This is a cost saving issue not an environmental saving issue. The customer saves money, the company earns money and the environment is ever more depleted and damaged.



If fewer people drove their personal vehicle those same long distances, the auto transportation industry would still continue to thrive because of the car manufacturing and car handling industry. The automotive industry is undergoing increasing expansion and growth because of newly developing third world countries. So more cars are in demand, which means more transportation by land, sea and air and more contribution to environmental disasters.