Embracing the philosophy of lemmings, as each one asks which way is cliff of climate change
 While saying the future of containerisation and world shipping is "uncertain", is a no-brainer even if said by an expert like Christian Roeloffs, CEO of Container xChange, it is still worthwhile exploring the whys and wherefores.
What must be faced here is that the pace of the development of business - that is all business in the west - will be dictated by what the government's regulatory agencies say is possible. Because much of what was allowed - and still allowed today - has will be disallowed tomorrow.
Looking beyond the obvious, one discerns a number of factors contributing to this uncertainty and the state of affairs in which we find ourselves. But it is a mere foretaste of what is to come.
Some factors are often cited, such as the Russo-Ukrainian War and the gradual decoupling from China for reasons arising from a distaste of the increasing totalitarian rule of the President-for-Life Xi Jinping.
The eventual outcome of these two factors, if not predictable, are at least are accessible to judgment and rational debate in the West.
The third factor is the outcome of a yet to be fought titanic battle in the next two years. Perhaps it is better characterised as a war, though it has yet to materialise in obvious form. But, unless resolved by an election, it is a conflict that will result from measures a host of western governments are willing to impose under some heading like the "Green New Deal".
This outcome is far from predictable and so far inaccesible to independent collective judgment and a topic in which rational debate is shunned.
The promoters, or enforcers, of such programmes have been characterised as the Deep State, international globalists, the matrix, feminists, the media, academic bureaucratic complex, Wall Street and major corporate players, assisted by ANTIFA street thugs and Climate Emergency/Crisis fanatics among others.
Against these titanic forces are mostly men, disparaged as "white" men, though the vast majority of non-white men - blacks and Asians - who have surfaced on social media, have also declared themselves for freedom and individual liberty.
But this side has not mustered into a defensive, much less an offensive force. Rather like England in the 1930s, it is praying for "peace in our time" in the hope of going along to get along. Important leaders, like Dr Jordan Peterson, have been reluctant to become a polarising figures, hoping to occupy the rapidly disappearing middle ground. But as he, and others, have been persecuted by authorities for perfectly legal views, he edges closer to taking sides. Ditto TV comedy star Bill Maher, an ertswhile anti-Trump liberal, can no longer stomach the demands of organised sexual perverts to be accepted as normal.
As only partisans challenge the double standards that relentlessly lambaste Trump for retaining classified documents while giving Biden a pass for doing the same, one goes beyond wondering about the injustice of such cases. Climate change is assumed to be a clear and present danger without anyone specifying what that danger is - while completely ignoring measurable benefits that have acrued from CO2 emissions. Making race and gender essential qualifications for jobs, gives proponents of such a scheme - the adherents of a radical Marxist ideology - the power to choose the party faithful for all jobs that fall under this regime. Which, if everything goes according to plan, should include all jobs everywhere in what looks like a shrinking job market.
What this means for container and the future of world trade is that business decisions will not be made on the basis of resources available, but rather what resources are available legally. Because standard bunker fuel can no longer used legally, only far more expensive fuel will be available.
This will contribute to the numbers of those who can no longer afford what is shipped. Enlarging this constituency further will be minimum wage laws and increasing workers' entitlements. Thus start-ups, paying almost nothing, can no longer exist, much less threaten established firms. No longer will Apple be able to dethrone IBM. Not only do rising regulatory compliance costs protect the annointed workers, they also protect a decreasing number of mega companies who can afford the extra costs.
Taken in toto, the problem can be as vast and far-reaching as it was in Soviet Russia, where virtually all human activity beyond one's front door is controlled by a parasitic bureaucrat, who seeks to expand her authority by spawning more person years under her command as new regulations spawn a host of inspectors to obstruct productive work.
Returning to what the Container xChange CEO Mr Roeloffs said about the sea of uncertainty being vast, affecting east-west trades in much the same way. One constant, according to Mr Roeloffs' calculations, is that the intra-Asia trade has been hardly touched at all. It was largely unimportant by volume before the Covid scare, continued to be unimportant for the duration, and remained unimportant afterwards.
What makes this significant - like in the Sherlock Holmes story in which a dog didn't bark was the solution of the mystery - was that while both east-west, Asia-Europe and transpacific trades, were profoundly affected, intra-Asia escaped serious impact.
What this indicates is that the more affluent western economies are more vulnerable to economic shocks than less affluent and less vulnerable Asian economies. So while not much of anything happened on the intra-Asian front, one can expect great convulsions in America and Europe.
The corporate world has embraced the current carbon craze without serious thought. It is the triumph of political correctness - itself a Marxist concept. The angry words of St Greta of Climate change is all that was needed to convince them. Questioning senior executives of Maersk, CMA CGM, the ports of Gottenburg and Rotterdam, over the years, they said they were true believers (CMA CGM and Gottenburg and Rotterdam) though all were anxious to discuss anything else while Maersk refused to discuss it all.
The Green New Deal would take mankind down a road upon which many do not want to go. Many more will agree as they approach what appears to be a distopian hell that will only make things more expensive and for the poorest of the poor, putting life's necessities beyond reach.
This is not good for containerisation. This is not good for world trade. It is not good for anyone except power hungry bureaucrats of the Marxist persuasion.
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