0:00:00.572,0:00:02.347 A couple of years ago, 0:00:02.347,0:00:04.411 Harvard Business School chose 0:00:04.411,0:00:07.314 the best business model of that year. 0:00:07.314,0:00:11.164 It chose Somali piracy. 0:00:11.164,0:00:13.347 Pretty much around the same time, 0:00:13.347,0:00:19.103 I discovered that there were 544 seafarers 0:00:19.103,0:00:22.489 being held hostage on ships, 0:00:22.489,0:00:24.687 often anchored just off the Somali coast 0:00:24.687,0:00:27.047 in plain sight. 0:00:27.047,0:00:29.694 And I learned these two facts, and I thought, 0:00:29.694,0:00:32.243 what's going on in shipping? 0:00:32.243,0:00:34.783 And I thought, would that happen[br]in any other industry? 0:00:34.783,0:00:38.326 Would we see 544 airline pilots 0:00:38.326,0:00:40.139 held captive in their jumbo jets 0:00:40.139,0:00:43.519 on a runway for months, or a year? 0:00:43.519,0:00:47.315 Would we see 544 Greyhound bus drivers? 0:00:47.315,0:00:49.147 It wouldn't happen. 0:00:49.147,0:00:51.755 So I started to get intrigued. 0:00:51.755,0:00:53.748 And I discovered another fact, 0:00:53.748,0:00:56.252 which to me was more astonishing 0:00:56.252,0:00:59.368 almost for the fact that I hadn't known it before 0:00:59.368,0:01:02.092 the age of 42, 43. 0:01:02.092,0:01:05.670 That is how fundamentally we still depend 0:01:05.670,0:01:07.587 on shipping. 0:01:07.587,0:01:09.691 Because perhaps the general public 0:01:09.691,0:01:12.924 thinks of shipping as an old-fashioned industry, 0:01:12.924,0:01:15.324 something brought by sailboat 0:01:15.324,0:01:18.509 with Moby Dicks and Jack Sparrows. 0:01:18.509,0:01:20.772 But shipping isn't that. 0:01:20.772,0:01:25.496 Shipping is as crucial to us as it has ever been. 0:01:25.496,0:01:30.144 Shipping brings us 90 percent of world trade. 0:01:30.144,0:01:34.847 Shipping has quadrupled in size since 1970. 0:01:34.847,0:01:37.855 We are more dependent on it now than ever. 0:01:37.855,0:01:41.583 And yet, for such an enormous industry 0:01:41.583,0:01:44.968 — there are a hundred thousand[br]working vessels on the sea — 0:01:44.968,0:01:48.407 it's become pretty much invisible. 0:01:48.407,0:01:52.557 Now that sounds absurd in Singapore to say that, 0:01:52.557,0:01:54.903 because here shipping is so present 0:01:54.903,0:01:58.285 that you stuck a ship on top of a hotel. 0:01:58.285,0:02:00.165 (Laughter) 0:02:00.165,0:02:02.069 But elsewhere in the world, 0:02:02.069,0:02:04.412 if you ask the general public what they know 0:02:04.412,0:02:07.051 about shipping and how much[br]trade is carried by sea, 0:02:07.051,0:02:11.759 you will get essentially a blank face. 0:02:11.759,0:02:13.776 You will ask someone on the street 0:02:13.776,0:02:15.576 if they've heard of Microsoft. 0:02:15.576,0:02:17.412 I should think they'll say yes, 0:02:17.412,0:02:19.392 because they'll know that they make software 0:02:19.392,0:02:21.456 that goes on computers, 0:02:21.456,0:02:24.632 and occasionally works. 0:02:24.632,0:02:28.267 But if you ask them if they've heard of Maersk, 0:02:28.267,0:02:31.008 I doubt you'd get the same response, 0:02:31.008,0:02:32.786 even though Maersk, 0:02:32.786,0:02:35.952 which is just one shipping company amongst many, 0:02:35.952,0:02:38.920 has revenues pretty much on a par with Microsoft. 0:02:38.920,0:02:40.648 [$60.2 billion] 0:02:40.648,0:02:42.786 Now why is this? 0:02:42.786,0:02:44.528 A few years ago, 0:02:44.528,0:02:48.048 the First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty 0:02:48.048,0:02:49.744 — he is called the First Sea Lord, 0:02:49.744,0:02:53.178 although the chief of the army[br]is not called a landlord — 0:02:53.178,0:02:56.328 he said that we, and he meant 0:02:56.328,0:02:59.102 in the industrialized nations in the West, 0:02:59.102,0:03:02.945 that we suffer from sea blindness. 0:03:02.945,0:03:04.728 We are blind to the sea 0:03:04.728,0:03:07.454 as a place of industry or of work. 0:03:07.454,0:03:09.623 It's just something we fly over, 0:03:09.623,0:03:12.690 a patch of blue on an airline map. 0:03:12.690,0:03:16.037 Nothing to see, move along. 0:03:16.037,0:03:19.738 So I wanted to open my own eyes 0:03:19.738,0:03:22.446 to my own sea blindness, 0:03:22.446,0:03:26.002 so I ran away to sea. 0:03:26.002,0:03:28.428 A couple of years ago, I took a passage 0:03:28.428,0:03:30.770 on the Maersk Kendal, 0:03:30.770,0:03:32.497 a mid-sized container ship 0:03:32.497,0:03:35.387 carrying nearly 7,000 boxes, 0:03:35.387,0:03:37.314 and I departed from Felixstowe, 0:03:37.314,0:03:39.154 on the south coast of England, 0:03:39.154,0:03:41.346 and I ended up right here in Singapore 0:03:41.346,0:03:42.994 five weeks later, 0:03:42.994,0:03:47.882 considerably less jet-lagged than I am right now. 0:03:47.882,0:03:50.970 And it was a revelation. 0:03:50.970,0:03:53.018 We traveled through five seas, 0:03:53.018,0:03:55.650 two oceans, nine ports, 0:03:55.650,0:03:58.474 and I learned a lot about shipping. 0:03:58.474,0:04:00.269 And one of the first things that surprised me 0:04:00.269,0:04:02.394 when I got on board Kendal 0:04:02.394,0:04:05.216 was, where are all the people? 0:04:05.216,0:04:06.960 I have friends in the Navy who tell me 0:04:06.960,0:04:10.096 they sail with a thousand sailors at a time, 0:04:10.096,0:04:13.377 but on Kendal there were only 21 crew. 0:04:13.377,0:04:16.192 Now that's because shipping is very efficient. 0:04:16.192,0:04:19.363 Containerization has made it very efficient. 0:04:19.363,0:04:21.488 Ships have automation now. 0:04:21.488,0:04:24.263 They can operate with small crews. 0:04:24.263,0:04:26.056 But it also means that, in the words 0:04:26.056,0:04:28.328 of a port chaplain I once met, 0:04:28.328,0:04:30.265 the average seafarer you're going to find 0:04:30.265,0:04:34.327 on a container ship is either tired or exhausted, 0:04:34.327,0:04:36.769 because the pace of modern shipping 0:04:36.769,0:04:39.735 is quite punishing for what shipping calls 0:04:39.735,0:04:41.705 its human element, 0:04:41.705,0:04:44.372 a strange phrase which they don't seem to realize 0:04:44.372,0:04:47.160 sounds a little bit inhuman. 0:04:47.160,0:04:49.927 So most seafarers now working on container ships 0:04:49.927,0:04:53.727 often have less than two hours in port at a time. 0:04:53.727,0:04:55.535 They don't have time to relax. 0:04:55.535,0:04:57.455 They're at sea for months at a time, 0:04:57.455,0:04:59.156 and even when they're on board, 0:04:59.156,0:05:00.735 they don't have access to what 0:05:00.735,0:05:04.845 a five year old would take for granted, the internet. 0:05:04.845,0:05:06.519 And another thing that surprised me 0:05:06.519,0:05:08.199 when I got on board Kendal 0:05:08.199,0:05:10.456 was who I was sitting next to. 0:05:10.456,0:05:12.604 Not the queen. 0:05:12.604,0:05:15.823 I can't imagine why they put me under her portrait. 0:05:15.823,0:05:18.423 But around that dining table in the officer's saloon, 0:05:18.423,0:05:20.359 I was sitting next to a Burmese guy, 0:05:20.359,0:05:23.608 I was opposite a Romanian, a Moldavian, an Indian. 0:05:23.608,0:05:25.783 On the next time, it was a Chinese guy. 0:05:25.783,0:05:28.933 And in the crew room, it was entirely Filipinos. 0:05:28.933,0:05:31.664 So that was a normal working ship. 0:05:31.664,0:05:33.839 Now how is that possible? 0:05:33.839,0:05:35.823 Because the biggest dramatic change 0:05:35.823,0:05:37.607 in shipping over the last 60 years, 0:05:37.607,0:05:39.948 when most of the general public stopped noticing it, 0:05:39.948,0:05:42.767 was something called an open registry, 0:05:42.767,0:05:45.480 or a flag of convenience. 0:05:45.480,0:05:48.056 Ships can now fly the flag or any nation 0:05:48.056,0:05:50.711 that provides a flag registry. 0:05:50.711,0:05:53.263 You can get a flag from the land-locked nation 0:05:53.263,0:05:55.603 of Bolivia, or Mongolia, 0:05:55.603,0:05:58.285 or North Korea, though that's not very popular. 0:05:58.285,0:05:59.816 (Laughter) 0:05:59.816,0:06:01.881 So we have these very multinational, 0:06:01.881,0:06:06.449 global, mobile crews on ships. 0:06:06.449,0:06:09.513 And that was a surprise to me. 0:06:09.513,0:06:12.537 And when we got to pirate waters, 0:06:12.537,0:06:15.586 down the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait[br]and into the Indian Ocean, 0:06:15.586,0:06:17.523 the ship changed. 0:06:17.523,0:06:20.450 And that was also shocking, because suddenly, 0:06:20.450,0:06:22.803 I realized, as the captain said to me, 0:06:22.803,0:06:24.729 that I had been crazy to choose to go 0:06:24.729,0:06:27.857 through pirate waters on a container ship. 0:06:27.857,0:06:29.925 We were no longer allowed on deck. 0:06:29.925,0:06:32.305 There were double pirate watches. 0:06:32.305,0:06:35.383 And at that time, there were those 544 seafarers 0:06:35.383,0:06:37.048 being held hostage, 0:06:37.048,0:06:38.827 and some of them were held hostage for years 0:06:38.827,0:06:41.399 because of the nature of shipping[br]and the flag of convenience. 0:06:41.399,0:06:43.267 Not all of them, but some of them were, 0:06:43.267,0:06:48.272 because for the minority[br]of unscrupulous ship owners, 0:06:48.272,0:06:50.509 it can be easy to hide behind 0:06:50.509,0:06:55.723 the anonymity offered by some flags of convenience. 0:06:55.723,0:06:59.724 What else does our sea blindness mask? 0:06:59.724,0:07:01.966 Well, if you go out to sea on a ship 0:07:01.966,0:07:04.030 or on a cruise ship, and look up to the funnel, 0:07:04.030,0:07:06.783 you'll see very black smoke. 0:07:06.783,0:07:08.596 And that's because shipping 0:07:08.596,0:07:11.998 has very tight margins,[br]and they want cheap fuel, 0:07:11.998,0:07:14.139 so they use something called bunker fuel, 0:07:14.139,0:07:16.716 which was described to me[br]by someone in the tanker industry 0:07:16.716,0:07:18.835 as the dregs of the refinery, 0:07:18.835,0:07:22.139 or just one step up from asphalt. 0:07:22.139,0:07:25.459 And shipping is the greenest method of transport. 0:07:25.459,0:07:27.755 In terms of carbon emissions per ton per mile, 0:07:27.755,0:07:30.726 it emits about a thousandth of aviation 0:07:30.726,0:07:32.995 and about a tenth of trucking. 0:07:32.995,0:07:36.037 But it's not benign, because there's so much of it. 0:07:36.037,0:07:38.731 So shipping emissions are[br]about three to four percent, 0:07:38.731,0:07:40.906 almost the same as aviation's. 0:07:40.906,0:07:42.603 And if you put shipping emissions 0:07:42.603,0:07:45.705 on a list of the countries' carbon emissions, 0:07:45.705,0:07:47.459 it would come in about sixth, 0:07:47.459,0:07:49.355 somewhere near Germany. 0:07:49.355,0:07:52.943 It was calculated in 2009 that the 15 largest ships 0:07:52.943,0:07:55.984 pollute in terms of particles and soot 0:07:55.984,0:07:57.646 and noxious gases 0:07:57.646,0:08:00.010 as much as all the cars in the world. 0:08:00.010,0:08:01.654 And the good news is that 0:08:01.654,0:08:03.711 people are now talking about sustainable shipping. 0:08:03.711,0:08:06.228 There are interesting initiatives going on. 0:08:06.228,0:08:08.406 But why has it taken so long? 0:08:08.406,0:08:10.246 When are we going to start talking and thinking 0:08:10.246,0:08:15.068 about shipping miles as well as air miles? 0:08:15.068,0:08:17.394 I also traveled to Cape Cod to look 0:08:17.394,0:08:21.475 at the plight of the North Atlantic right whale, 0:08:21.475,0:08:23.601 because this to me was one[br]of the most surprising things 0:08:23.601,0:08:25.604 about my time at sea, 0:08:25.604,0:08:27.554 and what it made me think about. 0:08:27.554,0:08:30.383 We know about man's impact on the ocean 0:08:30.383,0:08:33.097 in terms of fishing and over-fishing, 0:08:33.097,0:08:35.084 but we don't really know about what's happening 0:08:35.084,0:08:37.090 underneath the water. 0:08:37.090,0:08:39.458 And in fact, shipping has a role to play here, 0:08:39.458,0:08:43.035 because shipping noise has contributed 0:08:43.035,0:08:46.497 to damaging the acoustic[br]habitats of ocean creatures. 0:08:46.497,0:08:49.228 Light doesn't penetrate beneath[br]the surface of the water, 0:08:49.228,0:08:51.793 so ocean creatures like whales and dolphins 0:08:51.793,0:08:54.128 and even 800 species of fish 0:08:54.128,0:08:57.203 communicate by sound. 0:08:57.203,0:08:58.947 And a North Atlantic right whale 0:08:58.947,0:09:02.004 can transmit across hundreds of miles. 0:09:02.004,0:09:03.947 A humpback can transmit a sound 0:09:03.947,0:09:05.978 across a whole ocean. 0:09:05.978,0:09:07.979 But a supertanker can also be heard 0:09:07.979,0:09:10.128 coming across a whole ocean, 0:09:10.128,0:09:12.675 and because the noise that[br]propellers make underwater 0:09:12.675,0:09:15.843 is sometimes at the same frequency that whales use, 0:09:15.843,0:09:18.755 then it can damage their acoustic habitat, 0:09:18.755,0:09:20.675 and they need this for breeding, 0:09:20.675,0:09:22.419 for finding feeding grounds, 0:09:22.419,0:09:24.711 for finding mates. 0:09:24.711,0:09:27.629 And the acoustic habitat of the[br]North Atlantic right whale 0:09:27.629,0:09:31.117 has been reduced by up to 90 percent. 0:09:31.117,0:09:33.699 But there are no laws governing acoustic pollution 0:09:33.699,0:09:35.699 yet. 0:09:35.699,0:09:39.051 And when I arrived in Singapore, 0:09:39.051,0:09:40.905 and I apologize for this, but I didn't want 0:09:40.905,0:09:43.892 to get off my ship. 0:09:43.892,0:09:46.851 I'd really loved being on board Kendal. 0:09:46.851,0:09:48.715 I'd been well-treated by the crew, 0:09:48.715,0:09:51.995 I'd had a garrulous and entertaining captain, 0:09:51.995,0:09:56.039 and I would happily have signed up[br]for another five weeks, 0:09:56.039,0:09:57.960 something that the captain also said 0:09:57.960,0:10:00.263 I was crazy to think about. 0:10:00.263,0:10:02.615 But I wasn't there for nine months at a time 0:10:02.615,0:10:04.739 like the Filipino seafarers, 0:10:04.739,0:10:06.655 who, when I asked them to describe their job to me, 0:10:06.655,0:10:09.207 called it dollar for homesickness. 0:10:09.207,0:10:10.887 They had good salaries, 0:10:10.887,0:10:13.655 but theirs is still an isolating and difficult life 0:10:13.655,0:10:17.329 in a dangerous and often difficult element. 0:10:17.329,0:10:19.399 But when I get to this part, I'm in two minds, 0:10:19.399,0:10:22.355 because I want to salute those seafarers 0:10:22.355,0:10:24.542 who bring us 90 percent of everything 0:10:24.542,0:10:28.177 and get very little thanks or recognition for it. 0:10:28.177,0:10:31.005 I want to salute the hundred thousand ships 0:10:31.005,0:10:33.070 that are at sea 0:10:33.070,0:10:34.863 that are doing that work, coming in and out 0:10:34.863,0:10:37.999 every day, bringing us what we need. 0:10:37.999,0:10:41.045 But I also want to see shipping, 0:10:41.045,0:10:44.099 and us the general public,[br]who knows so little about it, 0:10:44.099,0:10:46.738 to have a bit more scrutiny, 0:10:46.738,0:10:48.595 to be a bit more transparent, 0:10:48.595,0:10:51.976 to have 90 percent transparency. 0:10:51.976,0:10:54.691 Because I think we could all benefit 0:10:54.691,0:10:56.996 from doing something very simple, 0:10:56.996,0:11:00.171 which is learning to see the sea. 0:11:00.171,0:11:02.344 Thank you. 0:11:02.344,0:11:06.344 (Applause)