Shame of shipping: Being force marched in a Children’s Crusade by Greta Thunberg et al.
 No better proof could be found - if any were needed - that the anti-carbon craze raging through the shipping world will only benefit big business by destroying smaller concerns, unable to meet soaring compliance costs.
Never in the history of international shipping, except perhaps in times of total war, has there been such a divorce between an economic need for change and the radical change demanded by bureaucrats because of an imagined threat to life on the planet.
In World War I and II, everyone with rare exception could accept the need for universal compliance to new rules because there existed a clear and present danger to one's life. But this is not the case today. Despite the hyperbolic rhetoric of the so-called "climate emergency", few beyond social justice warrior street thugs, power-hungry state bureaucracies and big business is taken in by Chicken Little Sky Is Falling demands for drastic action from climate alarmists. What justifies these extreme sacrifices people are expected to make worldwide? Reliably unreliable computer models have predicted environmental doom since the 1970s, with the Club of Rome saying the world would run out of oil by the year 2000.
The media, academic, bureaucratic complex, aka the Elders of Davos or the Deep State, having failed to have their repeated predictions come true, are now planning to engineer a purpose-built disaster by banning fossil fuels that refused to die of over consumption.
Justification of such a plan is contained in a thinly masked article in the otherwise sensible Fort Lauderdale's Maritime Executive journal that starts off "Fuel efficiency is part of the business for shipping, but the pace and extent of change is challenging traditional thinking".
But is this true? And to what extent is it true? The author, Sean McLaughlin, sounding like a shill for the Elders of Davos, is a strategy consultant at Houlder, an "independent design and engineering consultancy with sustainability at its core".
Fuel efficiency is one cost among many, to be tolerated to the degree needed to fit in with the ambient costs determined by supply and demand. Yes, there have been regulatory costs, outside the dynamics of economic supply and demand before, but they tended to be tangential to the big picture.
Not that there haven't been scares in the past. Oil shocks of the 1970s came when Arab-dominated Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quadrupled the price of crude. But that was pure economics, when oligopolistic suppliers increased demand by limiting supply. But this was later mitigated when the cartel was undermined by one of its members, Nigeria, which needed ready cash and sold oil below OPEC list prices. That, and renewed oil and gas exploration, as well a massive abandonment of gas-guzzling cars dulled OPEC's impact.
We have been conditioned in recent years to accept extreme bureaucratic strictures bordering on transgressing constitutional limits that were justified by the Covid crises.
It was clear from the start - though we did not know at first whether it would be long-lasting or an episodic experience - but after six months it was clear that people over 60 comprised the bulk of Covid deaths. Conversely those below 60 seldom died without an accompanying life-threatening illness.
But bureaucrats came to scarifying conclusions, fanned by a scardey-cat feminized media, magnified every fear and downplayed re-assuring trends. Doctors who advised less drastic measures were persecuted by professional regulatory bodies if they failed to parrot the official line. Only those retired, distinguished emeritus academics beyond reach of those who could destroy careers, dared speak out.
Returning to shipping and CO2 fuel debate, we have Mr McLaughlin saying: "Fuel efficiency has always been good for business. Owners and operators have been investing in improved vessel efficiency for years, but the need to decarbonize the fleet coupled with the recent and unprecedented rise in fuel costs has moved this from good business practice to a core and urgent objective."
This is disingenuous. Mr McLaughlin makes it appear that simple economics dictate the need for fuel efficiency. What is unsaid is that the reason that is so it because cheaper fuels have been banned. The reason for the ban is not mentioned, but is just one of those unexamined assumptions that float by in the ether of the unexplained and inexplicable.
Thus, Mr McLaughlin makes it appear that it just makes economic sense to jump through these costly hoops. Then comes the stick: "To add to the regulatory pressure to decarbonize, there is now significant and growing pressure to do more from charterers, financiers and consumers, and pressure from internal stakeholders who want to be part of a company that is delivering change.”
What a vacuous statement! That "charterers, financiers and consumers, and internal stakeholders want to be part of a company that is delivering change".
One seldom, if ever, hears of anyone wanting and company to deliver "change" in the abstract. And one can safely wager that few if any carriers regard such change as anything but an imposition. Perhaps the leading liners welcome such change as was way to driving small fry out of business and gaining market share. But judging from comments heard at shipping conferences, this would be a slight positive against an overwhelming negative of being burdened with the obligation to fulfil the demands of the Children's Crusade led by Greta Thunberg.
Mr McLaughlin admits to the problem: "A survey of shipowners from the container, tanker, bulk, cruise and ferry sectors demonstrates that collaboration between owners, as well as collaboration between and clean technology providers, remains a barrier to the uptake of new technology at the pace needed."
The reason is simple enough. They hate it. |
