The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports - 8

Bankruptcy: World's Seventh Largest Shipper

This series has focused on an area of global economy that is habitually overlooked.

At least it is overlooked in terms of global economic security (The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

The context of this series has been not only the dangers from sea level rise and fall, but also the dangers from economic pressures associated with that sea level change (Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 44).

The posts focus especially on the economic and logistic problems comprising a sea of changes (Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Ice-sheet-gravity measuring satellites have also been telling us that the Earth's great ice sheets are losing mass at an accelerated rate (Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 52).

Which axiomatically means we see now and in the future an accelerated rate of sea level change (The Question Is: How Much Acceleration Is Involved In SLR?, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

In the face of this reality, far too many casually assume that because seaports look so strong, so "robust," they are virtually impregnable.

But that is, after all, only an assumption, because the seaport world is made up of weak portions that can be more vulnerable than the infrastructure:

Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd vessels have been seized at Chinese ports in the wake of the South Korean firm's collapse, further roiling the industry as freight rates jump and manufacturers scramble for alternatives.

Seeking to contain the fallout, a South Korean court said it would soon begin proceedings to rehabilitate the carrier - which would allow Hanjin to take legal action in other countries to keep its ships and other assets from being seized.

Rival Hyundai Merchant Marine will also deploy at least 13 of its ships to two routes exclusively serviced by Hanjin, while the South Korean government also plans to reach out to overseas carriers for help.

The court's move to rehabilitate the world's seventh-largest container shipper is seen as mainly procedural, and an eventual liquidation of assets is likely, analysts and industry officials said.

(Reuters). The powers that be did not listen to the uproar from the people when President Bush II, a.k.a. the Decider, decided to let foreign interests in on American seaport ownership:

Hanjin Shipping, the world’s seventh-largest container carrier, owns a majority stake in Total Terminals International, which operates Long Beach's largest terminal.
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Hanjin’s bankruptcy filing last week stems from a challenging environment for all shipping companies, which are dealing with overcapacity brought on by a slowdown in global trade that coincided with a massive ship-building boom.
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Ports and terminals around the world — including Long Beach — have denied access to Hanjin ships and refused to move their cargo because of concerns that the South Korean shipping giant won’t be able to pay its bills.

Hanjin Shipping accounted for about 4% of container cargo imported to the Port of Los Angeles and 12% of container cargo to the Port of Long Beach during the first six months of the year, according to Datamyne, which tracks import-export transactions in the Americas.

(LA Times). The realm of international trade is as rife with cracks as the Larsen C ice shelf (A widening 80 mile crack is threatening one of Antarctica’s biggest ice shelves).

Which of course brings up the laws of when:

"The First Law of 'When': the more critical an issue is to the future of our civilization, the difficulty of determining when that critical issue will take effect tends to increase exponentially.

The Second Law of 'When': the greater the amount of time it takes for that critical issue to play out completely tends to exponentially diminish Civilization's grasp of that critical issue.

The Third Law of 'When': the more destructive the impact which that critical issue would have on civilization tends to exponentially increase the time when that critical event will be understood to have begun to take place."

(Quotes Page). There is a good article that puts the laws of when into gripping prose (When Will New York Sink?).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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"... it's just a question of when ..."

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