Global Shipping and Cruise Industry: 15-30% of world smog pollution

Ships transport 90 percent of the world's consumer goods, including computers, cars, shoes, clothes and toys. People and the environment pay a high price for these cheap goods in the form of cancers, breathing problems and premature death from inhaling air toxics in ship engine exhaust

via earthjustice.org

Ships burn tons of fuel per hour, generating 3 to 4 percent percent or more of human-generated global warming gases—more than commercial aviation

•Bunker fuel burned by ships is 1,000 times dirtier than highway diesel used by trucks and buses.

•A single ship coming into harbor produces the smog-forming emissions of 350,000 new cars.

•Ship engines are far dirtier than on-road engines due to lack of regulation.

•The International Maritime Organization has lagged far behind in revising outdated regulations for ship emissions.

•Researches are finding that the black soot from ship smokestacks settle on polar ice sheets and help cause melting.

•The world's shipping fleet generates about four percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions.

•The shipping industry burns 300 million tons of bunker fuel per year.
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•More than one in 10 children has asthma in the world's biggest port cities.