Sustainability Science

A price on carbon would ensure that this pollution is at least generated for useful work/engines.

In the midst of yet another holiday party, what to my wandering eyes should appear but an excellent episode of Mythbusters (absent reindeer).

Here they test whether motocycles or cars are better on the environment.  They test vehicles from the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and current models.  Long story short is that things have been improving over time and current lightweight motocycles perform pretty well in terms of MPG.  But when you factor in actual emissions (VOCx, unburned hydrocarbons, etc.), motorcycles perform much worse than a typical car.

The North Star is one of the first of this new breed of "plugable" cargo ships which can plug into special sockets when in port and so depower the entirety of its onboard generators.

There is an interesting episode airing on the Smithsonian Channel’s Mighty Ships series about this ship, but I can't find a full episode.  I only was able to find a few snippets (like this one), none of which show the electrical coupling aspects.  If you can find it, only the first 10 minutes are worth the watch (the rest is a typcial fake reality drama when no drama actually exists thing).

The Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach is moving full bore with adopting such requirements for long haul freighters/terminals amongst a host of approaches to minimize emissions (known as the Clean Air Action Plan) generally.  Lastly you might be interested in both a nice example of a Life Cycle Analysis for the goings on at the Port of Los Angeles and a guide for how entities can improve their emissions.