Shipping is the greenest method of transport. In terms of carbon emissions per ton per mile, it emits about a thousandth of aviation and about a tenth of trucking. But it’s not benign, because there’s so much of it. So shipping emissions are about three to four percent, almost the same as aviation’s. Rose George Read Quote
We know about man’s impact on the ocean in terms of fishing and overfishing, but we don’t really know much about what’s happening underneath the water. And in fact, shipping has a role to play here, because shipping noise has contributed to damaging the acoustic habitats of ocean creatures. Rose George Read Quote
Buy your fair-trade coffee beans by all means, but don’t assume fair-trade principles govern the conditions of the men who fetch it to you. You would be mistaken. Rose George Read Quote
In practice, the ocean is the world’s wildest place because of both its fearsome natural danger and how easy it is out there to slip from the boundaries of law and civilization that seem so firm ashore. Rose George Read Quote
The more ships have grown in size and consequence, the more their place in our imagination has shrunk. Rose George Read Quote
Of all the peoples of the world, the Chinese are probably the most at home with their excrement. They know its value. For 4,000 years they have used raw human feces to fertilize fields. Rose George Read Quote
Felixstowe, the United Kingdom’s largest port, stops work only for Christmas Day and for crane-toppling Force 9 gales. Rose George Read Quote
Ships are obliged to take on harbor or river pilots – who provide specialized local navigation – when they approach a port, but in the canal, a Suez crew is also obligatory. The crew members are there in case the ship needs to be moored during the canal transit, but this rarely happens. Rose George Read Quote
I find Suez astonishing for the first hour. It is a ditch in a desert, but a stunning one. The sensation of being hemmed in by huge ships, moving at a stately pace through a man-made waterway, is extraordinary. Rose George Read Quote
You’ve probably been asked to care about things like HIV/AIDS or T.B. or measles, but diarrhea kills more children than all those three things put together. It’s a very potent weapon of mass destruction. Rose George Read Quote
