The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: The Shipping Industry Gets Serious About Emissions
Dear Diary. On a more positive note, the world shipping industry has gotten serios about their pollution and are mostly trying to clean up their act. Sailing ships for both cargo and passengers are being widely utilized for the first time in about 150 years. Also, those ships that do use fossil fuels are using engines that are much more efficient than those from only a couple of decades ago.
On the negative side, we do know that only a few years ago soot from the ship cargo industry has blocked some incoming solar radiation. Now that this industry is cleaning soot, that action allows for more incoming radiation to heat the planet faster
This is some good news in light of the fact that Trump and his cronies are trying their level best to undo years of environmental progress by deregulating much of U.S. industry and allowing fossil fuel interests to run amok.
Here are more details from the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/climate/the-shipping-industry-carbon-emissions.html
The Shipping Industry Gets Serious About Emissions
The shipping industry is pushing to decarbonize, and exploring cargo ships powered by wind, as it confronts President Trump’s tariffs.
The Artemis, a cargo sailing ship belonging to TransOceanic Wind Transport, in waters off the coast of Concarneau, western France, last month. Credit…Damien Meyer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Allison Prang
May 9, 2025
At a time when President Trump’s tariff policies have caused parts of the global trade system to grind to a halt, the shipping industry has been on a less-noticed campaign to cut its carbon emissions.
Last month, countries reached a draft agreement under the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, that would require ships to either reduce their emissions or pay a fee. As Somini Sengupta reported, it’s “a remarkable, though modest” move that amounts to a tax on the industry’s carbon emissions.
And a host of companies — from biofuel producers to firms that make sails to better harness ocean winds — are taking steps to overhaul an industry that’s responsible for roughly 3 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“Industry is at the precipice of some real progress,” said Ingrid Irigoyen, president and chief executive of the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance, a group of companies, many of which rely on shipping, that are working to decarbonize the shipping industry.
Based in Le Havre, France, TransOceanic Wind Transport, or TOWT, is building large sailboats to transport cargo. The company’s ships, which are more than 260 feet long and can accommodate 830 standard North American pallets, transport goods like wine, champagne and jam, often for companies that want to promote their carbon footprint. This year, TOWT also began carrying passengers on trips across the Atlantic Ocean.
More than 90 percent of TOWT’s route from France to the United States is navigated using wind power. The company currently has two ships in operation and has ordered six more to be delivered over the next couple of years. Trips from France to New York typically take about two weeks.
“It’s only just the start,” Guillaume Le Grand, the company’s chief executive officer, said.
The company’s ships are more than 260 feet long and can fit 830 standard pallets. This year, they began carrying passengers across the Atlantic as well.Credit…TransOceanic Wind Transport
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Sunday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)