blog_action

Blog Action Day – Maritime Shipping and Climate Change

For those of you that try to keep up with events in the blogosphere, you may know that today is Blog Action Day 2009. For those of you that don’t, Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that “unites the world’s blogger” by encouraging them to post about the same issue on the same day. The website says that this years event will be one of the largest-ever social change events on the web, currently with 8,886 registered blogs and 12,509,322 readers from 148 Countries. So what is this years issue you ask? Climate Change.

Without a doubt, the maritime shipping industry has seen the effects of climate change. Just recently, Beluga Group announced that two of its multipurpose heavy lift project carriers successfully transited the Northeast Passage – a journey that in years past has not been possible.

But not only has the maritime shipping industry seen the effects of climate change first hand, but more and more stress is being put on the shipping industry to decrease its carbon emissions and its harmful affects on the global environment. While some companies simply aim to abide by laws governing ship emissions, a few are coming up with radical ideas to reduce the impact. Here is a look at some those ideas currently in operation that are at the forefront of an industry under fire. [Continue Reading →]

Tags: · blog_action_day, Environment, green power

Breaking the Heart – S/S Norway

Today is Blog Action Day and the topic of discussion throughout the blogoshpere is the environment. There are many issues and environmental news stories worth addressing like alternative energy ideas, ship emissions, global warming, or hot topic of the month; the Hawaii Superferry. Considering we get to choose the topic of most interest to us… we bring you this video of the S/S Norway. It’s a look at her glorious past and sad future upon the beaches of Alang, the notoriously dangerous and environmentally unsound shipbreaking port in eastern India.

The director of this documentary tells us;

This is a trailer of the documentary I am making about the last of the great 1000 foot ocean liners, The S/S Norway / S/S France. This ship has a story unlike any other. Built as a transatlantic liner and later being converted into a cruise ship the S/S Norway now rests on the beach in Alang, India. Here it is waiting to be dismantled. This unique footage from on board the ship in Alang will only be shown in this documentary. The documentary will be finished in 2007.

To see the troubling images of the ship’s destruction you’ll have to wait for the documentary but here’s a quick look at what we expect to see;