CO2 output from shipping...

(This goes to the problem of resources being shipped across the world to where the labor is cheaper - and then shipped back as products. Buy local.)

From The Guardian:

90% of the world’s goods are carried by sea and world trade is increasing all the time.

Carbon dioxide emissions from shipping are double those of aviation and increasing at an alarming rate which will have a serious impact on global warming, according to research by the industry and European academics.

Separate studies suggest that maritime carbon dioxide emissions are not only higher than previously thought, but could rise by as much as 75% in the next 15 to 20 years if world trade continues to grow and no action is taken. The figures from the oil giant BP, which owns 50 tankers, and researchers at the Institute for Physics and Atmosphere in Wessling, Germany reveal that annual emissions from shipping range between 600 and 800m tonnes of carbon dioxide, or up to 5% of the global total. This is nearly double Britain's total emissions and more than all African countries combined.

Carbon dioxide emissions from ships do not come under the Kyoto agreement or any proposed European legislation and few studies have been made of them, even though they are set to increase.
Aviation carbon dioxide emissions, estimated to be about 2% of the global total, have been at the forefront of the climate change debate because of the sharp increase in cheap flights, whereas shipping emissions have risen nearly as fast in the past 20 years but have been ignored by governments and environmental groups. Shipping is responsible for transporting 90% of world trade which has doubled in 25 years.

Donald Gregory, director of environment at BP Marine, said this week that BP estimates that the global fleet of 70,000 ships uses approximately 200m tonnes of fuel a year and this is expected to grow to 350m tonnes a year by 2020. "We estimate carbon dioxide emissions from shipping to be 4% of the global total. Ships are getting bigger and every shipyard in the world has a full order book. There are about 20,000 new ships on order" he said....

An IMO study of greenhouse gas emissions has estimated that emissions from the global fleet would increase dramatically in the next 20 years as globalisation leads to increased demand for bigger, faster ships.... Yesterday the independent Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, which has launched a two-year study into shipping emissions, said the problem needed to be addressed urgently.