Support Sail Trade Products - here's the explanation why!
With the help of our collaborators, Luz Helena Salazar from Finca Maracay and Alex Geldenhuys from New dawn Traders we could successfully import a sail cargo load of beans from Colombia this year. The journey had taken around 6 months back and forth sailing, lots of good work at the farm and on the boat. We are honoured to roast this lot and honestly I haven't felt better about a project since a good while now and I would like to share with you why it is important to start thinking about trade by sail again! Particularly here at the beautiful shores of Ireland.
6 months sailing? Lots of physical work? Wind and humans? Sounds very inefficient for the homo economicus of our age, but let me explain why I feel different and how it makes sense to you as well.
Irish companies have imported roughly about 130000 bags of green coffee this year from across the coffee belt countries. One shipping container can carry about 300 bags so as a country we have imported around 430 containers of green beans in total.
An average sized commercial cargo ship can carry around 15000 containers so we could have easily carried all of our annual consumption for the country on just a single cargo ship! Obviously, this is not how our trade works as we need to import from different regions at different times of the year.
There are over 90000 ocean going container ships in operation. They carry all ocean traded goods globally while burning around 16 tons of fuel per hour day and night. These ships essentially underpin 90% of our current global economy.
Have you ever wondered what kind of fuel is being used in these massive ships? Bad news unfortunately as traditionally, most cargo ships have used heavy fuel oil (HFO) or marine gas oil (MGO), both of which are derived from crude oil and often known as bunker fuel, which is a heavy, viscous, and low-quality fuel. Bunker fuel is a by-product of the refining process and has high sulphur content, which makes it a cheap option for shipping companies. However, the use of bunker fuel results in high emissions of pollutants.
Just as a reminder about the impact of sulphur on the environment, this pollutant was widely used in for land transport of goods up until the 90s when it was directly linked to acid rain as one of the main contributors. Hence, we stopped using sulphur on land, but as it's one of the late stage by-product of refining oil, we kept producing enormous amounts of low quality fuel that had to go somewhere according to market economics. But it couldn't be used up on land anymore so the industry found a way to use it under the sea. Welcome to the age of high sulphur content shipping fuel injected into the oceans on a global level.
Surprise! After a couple years, research proved that high sulphur content fuel has caused similar damage in the sea as it had on land previously and as regulations had to be updated to the research findings, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) implemented a global 0.5% limit on the sulphur content of fuel from 2020, commonly known as the global sulphur cap. This limit is the latest policy in the efforts to reduce sulphur emissions from shipping, following the designation of emission control areas (ECAs) and other regional regulations. As a result sulphite emissions dropped by 10%.
How does Sulphur dioxide(SO2) emissions tie into climate change? Well, most dominantly they are the precursor of sulphate aerosol, which is a key player in Earth’s energy balance. Why? Aerosols, by scattering, reflecting or absorbing sunlight, reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the lower layers of our atmosphere and as you probably already assumed, they do the same under the sea.
Another surprise! 2023 record-breaking North Atlantic heatwave. A couple scientists have started to examine the link between the significant reduction in atmospheric sulphate aerosols and their contribution to albedo reduction and acceleration in Earth’s Heating Rate. The possibility of a termination shock, whereby rapid anthropogenic aerosol emission reductions cause rapid global warming, cannot be excluded. We have arrived to the challenge of our life-time. How can you decrease aerosol emissions by avoiding the acceleration of warming up?
What we have seen in this case, is a primer example of this situation that we are facing when our economy tries to drift away from using atmospheric pollutants. Aerosols are decreasing the rate of warming, but also causing other damaging issues (eg.acidification). As we regulate the usage of the pollutant, the feedback loop kicks in and the decreased amount of aerosols start accelerating the warm up that has it's own risk factors.
We are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
While the connection between human emitted greenhouse gases and global warming is scientifically agreed upon, the other complexities and feedbacks of our climate system are still just beginning to be understood.
Selling a cup of sail-shipped coffee isn’t going to change how we currently ship the majority of consumer goods around the globe, but it will draw attention to it and with greater awareness we can make better choices and shifting customer behaviour always piques the interest of big industries, it drives change.
This is why we need your support. Please consider becoming a supporter of sail trade goods if you have the opportunity, explain to your friends and family what you have learned about shipping fuel emissions and drive the change by your decisions. We as a community can make change happen.
6 months sailing? Lots of physical work? Wind and humans? Sounds very inefficient for the homo economicus of our age, but let me explain why I feel different and how it makes sense to you as well.
Irish companies have imported roughly about 130000 bags of green coffee this year from across the coffee belt countries. One shipping container can carry about 300 bags so as a country we have imported around 430 containers of green beans in total.
An average sized commercial cargo ship can carry around 15000 containers so we could have easily carried all of our annual consumption for the country on just a single cargo ship! Obviously, this is not how our trade works as we need to import from different regions at different times of the year.
There are over 90000 ocean going container ships in operation. They carry all ocean traded goods globally while burning around 16 tons of fuel per hour day and night. These ships essentially underpin 90% of our current global economy.
Have you ever wondered what kind of fuel is being used in these massive ships? Bad news unfortunately as traditionally, most cargo ships have used heavy fuel oil (HFO) or marine gas oil (MGO), both of which are derived from crude oil and often known as bunker fuel, which is a heavy, viscous, and low-quality fuel. Bunker fuel is a by-product of the refining process and has high sulphur content, which makes it a cheap option for shipping companies. However, the use of bunker fuel results in high emissions of pollutants.
Just as a reminder about the impact of sulphur on the environment, this pollutant was widely used in for land transport of goods up until the 90s when it was directly linked to acid rain as one of the main contributors. Hence, we stopped using sulphur on land, but as it's one of the late stage by-product of refining oil, we kept producing enormous amounts of low quality fuel that had to go somewhere according to market economics. But it couldn't be used up on land anymore so the industry found a way to use it under the sea. Welcome to the age of high sulphur content shipping fuel injected into the oceans on a global level.
Surprise! After a couple years, research proved that high sulphur content fuel has caused similar damage in the sea as it had on land previously and as regulations had to be updated to the research findings, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) implemented a global 0.5% limit on the sulphur content of fuel from 2020, commonly known as the global sulphur cap. This limit is the latest policy in the efforts to reduce sulphur emissions from shipping, following the designation of emission control areas (ECAs) and other regional regulations. As a result sulphite emissions dropped by 10%.
How does Sulphur dioxide(SO2) emissions tie into climate change? Well, most dominantly they are the precursor of sulphate aerosol, which is a key player in Earth’s energy balance. Why? Aerosols, by scattering, reflecting or absorbing sunlight, reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the lower layers of our atmosphere and as you probably already assumed, they do the same under the sea.
Another surprise! 2023 record-breaking North Atlantic heatwave. A couple scientists have started to examine the link between the significant reduction in atmospheric sulphate aerosols and their contribution to albedo reduction and acceleration in Earth’s Heating Rate. The possibility of a termination shock, whereby rapid anthropogenic aerosol emission reductions cause rapid global warming, cannot be excluded. We have arrived to the challenge of our life-time. How can you decrease aerosol emissions by avoiding the acceleration of warming up?
What we have seen in this case, is a primer example of this situation that we are facing when our economy tries to drift away from using atmospheric pollutants. Aerosols are decreasing the rate of warming, but also causing other damaging issues (eg.acidification). As we regulate the usage of the pollutant, the feedback loop kicks in and the decreased amount of aerosols start accelerating the warm up that has it's own risk factors.
We are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
While the connection between human emitted greenhouse gases and global warming is scientifically agreed upon, the other complexities and feedbacks of our climate system are still just beginning to be understood.
Selling a cup of sail-shipped coffee isn’t going to change how we currently ship the majority of consumer goods around the globe, but it will draw attention to it and with greater awareness we can make better choices and shifting customer behaviour always piques the interest of big industries, it drives change.
This is why we need your support. Please consider becoming a supporter of sail trade goods if you have the opportunity, explain to your friends and family what you have learned about shipping fuel emissions and drive the change by your decisions. We as a community can make change happen.