A couple of years ago, Harvard Business School chose the best business model of that year. It chose Somali piracy. Pretty much around the same time, I discovered that there were 544 seafarers being held hostage on ships, often anchored just off the Somali coast in plain sight.
幾年前, 哈佛商學院把該年度 最佳商業模式 選給了索馬利亞海盜。 差不多在那時候, 我看到544名船員 遭劫船做為人質, 這些被挾持的船往往就大喇喇的 停靠在索馬利亞海岸外。
And I learned these two facts, and I thought, what's going on in shipping? And I thought, would that happen in any other industry? Would we see 544 airline pilots held captive in their jumbo jets on a runway for months, or a year? Would we see 544 Greyhound bus drivers? It wouldn't happen.
這兩件事讓我思考: 海運業出了什麼問題? 這種狀況有沒有可能發生在其它產業? 我們有沒有可能看到 544名機師被挾持在飛機裡 遭囚禁長達數個月或一年? 或者是544名灰狗巴士司機? 根本不可能!
So I started to get intrigued. And I discovered another fact, which to me was more astonishing almost for the fact that I hadn't known it before at the age of 42, 43. That is how fundamentally we still depend on shipping. Because perhaps the general public thinks of shipping as an old-fashioned industry, something brought by sailboat with Moby Dicks and Jack Sparrows. But shipping isn't that. Shipping is as crucial to us as it has ever been. Shipping brings us 90 percent of world trade. Shipping has quadrupled in size since 1970. We are more dependent on it now than ever. And yet, for such an enormous industry -- there are a 100,000 working vessels on the sea — it's become pretty much invisible.
這問題讓我著迷。 隨後我發現另一個 更令我訝異的事實, 而我訝異的點在於竟然活到了42、43歲 才得知這個事實: 我們仍極度依賴海運。 這也許是因為一般普羅大眾 認為海運已經過時了,以為海運就是 貨物透過亞哈(出自白鯨記) 與史傑克(出自神鬼奇航)來做運輸。 事實並不然。 海運對我們的重要性日益加深, 它包辦了全球百分之九十的貿易物流, 運輸量從1970年起成長了四倍, 我們對海運的依賴更甚以往。 但即便有十萬艘商船正在海上航行, 這麼龐大的產業 卻像隱形似的。
Now that sounds absurd in Singapore to say that, because here shipping is so present that you stuck a ship on top of a hotel. (Laughter) But elsewhere in the world, if you ask the general public what they know about shipping and how much trade is carried by sea, you will get essentially a blank face. You will ask someone on the street if they've heard of Microsoft. I should think they'll say yes, because they'll know that they make software that goes on computers, and occasionally works. But if you ask them if they've heard of Maersk, I doubt you'd get the same response, even though Maersk, which is just one shipping company amongst many, has revenues pretty much on a par with Microsoft. [$60.2 billion]
當然在新加坡講這個聽起來很滑稽, 因為海運在這裡相當有存在感, 你們直接把船放在飯店頂樓(指金沙酒店)。 (笑聲) 但若你在其它國家 詢問一般民眾對海運 及其物流量的了解有多少時, 你只會看到一副茫然的表情。 你隨便問一個路人 有沒有聽過微軟, 我認為你會得到肯定的答案, 因為大家都知道微軟研發 電腦軟體, 不是很好用的軟體。 但要是改問他們有沒有聽過快桅(Maersk)公司時, 我不認為你還能得到肯定的答案。 儘管快桅 只是眾多海運公司裡的其中一間, 它的營收卻幾乎和微軟相當─ 602億。
Now why is this? A few years ago, the first sea lord of the British admiralty -- he is called the first sea lord, although the chief of the army is not called a land lord — he said that we, and he meant in the industrialized nations in the West, that we suffer from sea blindness. We are blind to the sea as a place of industry or of work. It's just something we fly over, a patch of blue on an airline map. Nothing to see, move along.
海運業怎麼了? 幾年前, 英國皇家海軍第一海務大臣─ 他雖被稱為第一海務大臣, 但不代表陸軍最高統帥就叫做房東 (land lord,音同房東)。 海務大臣認為我們 這些西方工業化國家 得到了"海盲症"。 我們看不見 海洋相關產業與工作, 海洋之於我們只是搭機時 呈現在飛航路線圖上的一片藍色色塊, 沒什麼好看的,我們直接飛過。
So I wanted to open my own eyes to my own sea blindness, so I ran away to sea. A couple of years ago, I took a passage on the Maersk Kendal, a mid-sized container ship carrying nearly 7,000 boxes, and I departed from Felixstowe, on the south coast of England, and I ended up right here in Singapore five weeks later, considerably less jet-lagged than I am right now. And it was a revelation. We traveled through five seas, two oceans, nine ports, and I learned a lot about shipping.
也因此,我渴望張開我的雙眼 來正視我的"海盲症", 於是我投向海洋。 多年前,我參與了一段 馬士基肯德號的航程, 這是一艘中型貨櫃船, 搭載了近7000個箱子。 我從英格蘭南部的 菲力克斯托港口出發, 五個星期後正好抵達 新加坡, 那次的旅程跟這次比,比較沒有時差問題。 我徹底開了眼界。 我們航行過五個海、 兩大洋及九個港口, 而我從中學到很多海運業的知識。
And one of the first things that surprised me when I got on board Kendal was, where are all the people? I have friends in the Navy who tell me they sail with 1,000 sailors at a time, but on Kendal there were only 21 crew. Now that's because shipping is very efficient. Containerization has made it very efficient. Ships have automation now. They can operate with small crews. But it also means that, in the words of a port chaplain I once met, the average seafarer you're going to find on a container ship is either tired or exhausted, because the pace of modern shipping is quite punishing for what the shipping calls its human element, a strange phrase which they don't seem to realize sounds a little bit inhuman. So most seafarers now working on container ships often have less than two hours in port at a time. They don't have time to relax. They're at sea for months at a time, and even when they're on board, they don't have access to what a five-year-old would take for granted, the Internet.
第一件讓我驚訝的事情 就發生在我剛登上肯德號時。 人都跑去哪了? 我在海軍服役的朋友們跟我說, 他們每次出航都會搭載1000名水兵, 但在肯德號上總共只有21名船員。 那是因為當代海運非常有效率。 貨櫃運輸大大提升了效率, 船隻配備自動化操作系統, 因此小團隊即可勝任。 但這也意味著─ 套用一個港口牧師跟我講的─ 你會發現貨櫃船上的船員, 不是疲累就是過勞, 因為當代海運的工作步調 對他們所謂的"人性要素"來講 是相當繁重緊湊的, 他們似乎沒注意到"人性要素"這詞 在這情境下聽起來並不太人道。 因此大部分在貨櫃船上工作的船員, 很少能一次在港口待上兩個小時。 他們一刻也不能鬆懈。 他們出海時間長達數個月, 即便在船上, 也沒有五歲小孩視為理所當然的 網路可用。
And another thing that surprised me when I got on board Kendal was who I was sitting next to -- Not the queen; I can't imagine why they put me underneath her portrait -- But around that dining table in the officer's saloon, I was sitting next to a Burmese guy, I was opposite a Romanian, a Moldavian, an Indian. On the next table was a Chinese guy, and in the crew room, it was entirely Filipinos. So that was a normal working ship.
另一件讓我訝異的事是,登上肯德號後, 坐在我身邊的人 並不是女王; 但我不能理解怎麼會被安排坐在她的肖像下面。 但在高級船員交誼廳裡的餐桌上, 我坐在緬甸人旁邊, 與羅馬尼亞人、摩爾多瓦人及印度人對坐。 隔壁桌坐了個中國人, 而船員室裡則清一色都是菲律賓人。 就是一般作業中船隻的樣子。
Now how is that possible? Because the biggest dramatic change in shipping over the last 60 years, when most of the general public stopped noticing it, was something called an open registry, or a flag of convenience. Ships can now fly the flag of any nation that provides a flag registry. You can get a flag from the landlocked nation of Bolivia, or Mongolia, or North Korea, though that's not very popular. (Laughter)
但這怎麼可能呢? 原因在於過去60年間, 當民眾不再留意海運業發展的同時, 有一項重大變革問世, 那就是所謂的開放登記 或稱權宜船。 船隻可懸掛任何一個有提供 船舶國籍登記的國家國旗。 你可以取得一些內陸國家的國旗, 如玻利維亞、蒙古國 或北韓,不過北韓籍並不流行。 (笑聲)
So we have these very multinational, global, mobile crews on ships. And that was a surprise to me. And when we got to pirate waters, down the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and into the Indian Ocean, the ship changed. And that was also shocking, because suddenly, I realized, as the captain said to me, that I had been crazy to choose to go through pirate waters on a container ship. We were no longer allowed on deck. There were double pirate watches. And at that time, there were those 544 seafarers being held hostage, and some of them were held hostage for years because of the nature of shipping and the flag of convenience. Not all of them, but some of them were, because for the minority of unscrupulous ship owners, it can be easy to hide behind the anonymity offered by some flags of convenience.
因此船上才能由多國籍、 全球化且機動性強的船員所組成, 這也是令我訝異的地方。 而當靠近海盜猖獗的水域, 也就是曼德海峽與印度洋之間時, 船做了些改變。 這場景相當震撼, 因為我突然想起船長曾跟我說的: 我一定是瘋了才會選擇 搭貨櫃船航經海盜猖獗的水域。 我們不准上甲板, 另佈署雙層警戒以監測海盜。 那時正值544名船員被挾持的期間, 其中有些船員早被挾持了好幾年, 這導因於海運業的本質及權宜船制度。 這當中有些船 是因為少數不肖船東, 將船隻登記在特定國籍下 好隱藏船隻的真實資料。
What else does our sea blindness mask? Well, if you go out to sea on a ship or on a cruise ship, and look up to the funnel, you'll see very black smoke. And that's because shipping has very tight margins, and they want cheap fuel, so they use something called bunker fuel, which was described to me by someone in the tanker industry as the dregs of the refinery, or just one step up from asphalt. And shipping is the greenest method of transport. In terms of carbon emissions per ton per mile, it emits about a thousandth of aviation and about a tenth of trucking. But it's not benign, because there's so much of it. So shipping emissions are about three to four percent, almost the same as aviation's. And if you put shipping emissions on a list of the countries' carbon emissions, it would come in about sixth, somewhere near Germany. It was calculated in 2009 that the 15 largest ships pollute in terms of particles and soot and noxious gases as much as all the cars in the world. And the good news is that people are now talking about sustainable shipping. There are interesting initiatives going on. But why has it taken so long? When are we going to start talking and thinking about shipping miles as well as air miles?
"海盲症"還有哪些症狀? 嗯,若你搭船出海 或來趟郵輪之旅時,抬頭看看煙囪, 你會看到非常黑的濃煙。 那是因為海運業的 利潤被壓縮得很緊, 因此需要便宜的燃油, 他們用的油叫做釜底燃料油, 依據某油輪業者的說法, 這燃油形同煉油後的渣滓, 或僅比瀝青再高一階而已。 海運是最環保的運輸方式, 海運每公噸每公里所產生的碳排放量 是空運的千分之一, 陸運的十分之一。 但這不代表它對環境無害,因為有太多艘船隻了, 因此海運碳排放量佔全球總量的3%到4%左右, 幾乎跟航空業一樣。 若將全國碳排放量做排行, 海運業 大概位於第六名。 在2009年德國外海某處, 有項針對該處15艘大型船隻所做的汙染報告指出, 其懸浮微粒、煤煙 及有毒氣體, 與全球汽車總排放量相當。 好消息是 人們開始重視海運業的永續發展, 一些富巧思的創舉也正實行中。 但這歷程為何如此緩慢? 我們何時才能對海運業有更深一步的思考, 正如我們面對航運業的問題一樣?
I also traveled to Cape Cod to look at the plight of the North Atlantic right whale, because this to me was one of the most surprising things about my time at sea, and what it made me think about. We know about man's impact on the ocean in terms of fishing and overfishing, but we don't really know much about what's happening underneath the water. And in fact, shipping has a role to play here, because shipping noise has contributed to damaging the acoustic habitats of ocean creatures. Light doesn't penetrate beneath the surface of the water, so ocean creatures like whales and dolphins and even 800 species of fish communicate by sound. And a North Atlantic right whale can transmit across hundreds of miles. A humpback can transmit a sound across a whole ocean. But a supertanker can also be heard coming across a whole ocean, and because the noise that propellers make underwater is sometimes at the same frequency that whales use, then it can damage their acoustic habitat, and they need this for breeding, for finding feeding grounds, for finding mates. And the acoustic habitat of the North Atlantic right whale has been reduced by up to 90 percent. But there are no laws governing acoustic pollution yet.
我曾走訪鱈魚角以了解 北大西洋露脊鯨所面臨的困境, 因為在我的海洋之旅裡, 這是最令我感驚奇的事情之一, 也引發我的思考。 我們知道漁業、過度濫捕等人為因素 對海洋所造成的衝擊, 卻鮮少知道 水面下發生了什麼事, 事實上,海運正對此造成了影響, 因為輪船的噪音已對 仰賴聽覺的海洋生物構成了傷害。 光無法徹底穿透海洋, 因此海洋生物如鯨、豚 及多達800種的魚類等, 都是透過聲音來溝通。 北大西洋露脊鯨的聲音 能傳達數百哩, 座頭鯨的聲音甚至能 傳遍整個海洋, 但超大型油輪的聲音 也能傳遍整片海洋。 而船螺旋槳在水裡 所產生的噪音頻率有時和鯨魚一模一樣, 這侵害了鯨魚的"聽覺棲地", 鯨魚相當仰賴聽覺來繁殖、 覓食 及找尋配偶。 而北大西洋露脊鯨的"聽覺棲地" 已減少了90%, 但目前仍未有法令針對噪音汙染做規範。
And when I arrived in Singapore, and I apologize for this, but I didn't want to get off my ship. I'd really loved being on board Kendal. I'd been well treated by the crew, I'd had a garrulous and entertaining captain, and I would happily have signed up for another five weeks, something that the captain also said I was crazy to think about. But I wasn't there for nine months at a time like the Filipino seafarers, who, when I asked them to describe their job to me, called it "dollar for homesickness." They had good salaries, but theirs is still an isolating and difficult life in a dangerous and often difficult element.
當年在我抵達新加坡後, 我得為此道歉,但我並不想下船。 我真的很享受待在肯德號上的日子, 團員們對我很照顧, 又有個多話且幽默的船長, 我原本很樂意再另外待上五個禮拜, 船長也說過 我一定是瘋了才會這樣想。 我畢竟不像那些菲律賓籍船員 一待就是九個月, 當被問及到他們的工作內容時, 他們說那是「金錢換想家」。 他們的收入不錯, 但得在危險且艱困的海上環境裡 時時面對生活的孤寂與磨練。
But when I get to this part, I'm in two minds, because I want to salute those seafarers who bring us 90 percent of everything and get very little thanks or recognition for it. I want to salute the 100,000 ships that are at sea that are doing that work, coming in and out every day, bringing us what we need. But I also want to see shipping, and us, the general public, who know so little about it, to have a bit more scrutiny, to be a bit more transparent, to have 90 percent transparency. Because I think we could all benefit from doing something very simple, which is learning to see the sea.
而講到這裡,我思緒分成了兩個部分, 我要向那些船員們致敬, 他們默默的替我們 帶來了生活中90%的物品; 我也要向那正在海上航行的 十萬艘船致敬, 他們每天起卸貨物、進出海港, 以供給我們所需。 除此之外,我也希望海運業 及對這產業所知甚少的我們 能進一步審視這產業, 讓海運業更透明化, 以窺知其90%的面貌。 我認為一個簡單的行動 就能讓我們從中獲益, 那就是開始認識海洋。
Thank you.
謝謝各位。
(Applause)
(掌聲)