You can’t sweep this under the rug

Millennium Cargo

One of the hot topics, if you’ll excuse the pun, is global warming.

Over recent years we’ve seen more droughts, increased wildfires, animals falling into extinction and extreme weather all around the globe.

Ice caps are melting, and as a result, the sea levels are rising.

While the validity of most aspects of global warming fall under debate, global mean sea level is uncontested thanks to accurate satellite measurements since 1993.

It’s happening.

There’s no denying it or sweeping it under the rug.

I’m no expert on global warming, so I don’t know what this means or how it will impact humanity in future. It probably won’t be good.

But I do know a fair bit about shipping.

You might think that rising sea levels won’t impact the sea freight industry because, well, surely the ships just float on top of the sea regardless of how high it is?

True, but it will impact the industry in other ways.

As the Arctic ice melts, it creates the prospect of new shipping lanes opening up through the previously frozen north.

Shipping times between Europe and the Far East could be drastically reduced as containerships would be able to safely navigate the Northeast Passage along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia.

But then, that still leaves the question of whether these containerships will be able to take on or discharge cargo at existing port facilities when GSML rises significantly?

We just don’t know yet.

I guess time will tell…