A photo posted in San Diego's Reddit community of two massively polluting ships — an enormous container ship from the Dole fruit company and a super yacht — sitting in the city harbor had viewers shaking their heads in embarrassment.
"Super yacht? Huh! Mine's bigger…" one person joked.
Another mused, "I think the Dole boat says Caribbean on it and is probably bananas. I tried looking up how many bananas that boat might hold and it's like billions."
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Given that, another pointed out the not-so-sweet truth. "Ironically organic bananas are quite possibly the most environmentally unfriendly thing to grow," they wrote. "The only way to grow bananas organically in a jungle is to absolutely decimate the surrounding land with a ton of non-organic chemicals to keep the organic ones from going bad. Ends up killing a lot of wildlife."
But beyond that, the international shipping of produce is a massive source of global planet-warming pollution.
According to research by Statista, the global shipping industry — which is what ferries produce between countries to provide out-of-season items year-round — would be the world's seventh-largest carbon polluter if it were a country. And within this category, container ships and bulk carriers like the Dole ship are the leading contributors of pollution, responsible for half of the entire maritime industry's carbon impact.
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This shipping category — also known as "food miles" — was found to be the culprit behind nearly 20% of all food-related pollution in the world, according to a study from the journal Nature Food.
And anchored next to the super yacht — an even more flagrant symbol of wealth, waste, and unnecessary resource use, according to broad popular opinion — Redditors felt they were looking at two equally shameful symbols.
Wealthy individuals have been issued scathing criticism for the disproportionately high pollution they generate from their use of private jets, super yachts, and excessively large homes.
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As the impact of this pollution becomes more visible, from weather-related threats to agriculture to disease outbreaks and pollution-driven illness, many argue that now is the time to scale back on buying into those systems wherever possible.
Instead, looking for food that's locally grown — or even growing it yourself — is a great way to lessen your own impact and incentivize local food networks, rather than the Dole-sized ones.
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