The ocean transports you, chucks sea spray in your face and up your nose, changes colour depending on what tiny things are hidden in it and generally rocks your world.
Furthermore, the ocean transports plastics, sometimes via patches of garbage that float around the globe, sometimes sinking to the sea floor or washing up on beaches.
Environmental risks to health from chemical contaminants in the environment have been of particular concern in the Arctic, due to long-range transportation (atmospheric and ocean transport) from lower latitudes as well as from local sources.
It is predicted that coal exports and, therefore, the importance of ocean transport will increase.
Caracas is linked directly with other major urban centres of the world by air and ocean transport.
"There is just barely enough shipping capacity at these high production levels," said Jeffrey Goetz, head of marine projects and consulting at Poten & Partners, a New York-based energy and ocean transport broker.
The shrinking polar ice also introduces a revolutionary change in ocean transport between Asia and Europe — the Northeast Polar Passage would reduce transport costs by as much as 40 percent as compared with the traditional route via the Suez Canal.
His other projects included the docks at Avonmouth and Hull and the ocean transport (1878) of the 180-ton obelisk Cleopatra's Needle from Egypt and its reerection in London.
But for international environmental groups, Pacific island nations and some members of the United States Congress, the shipment opens a more dangerous chapter, involving the ocean transport under what they call weak security of raw materials that could be used for nuclear arms.
These clauses are valid, however, only if and insofar as they comply with the applicable national law or, in the case of ocean transport, with the Brussels Convention on Limitation of Liability (1923, amended 1968) that incorporates the Hague Rules, which have been adopted by the major shipping nations.
In addition to its four operating forces, the navy's Military Sealift Command provides ocean transport on government or commercial vessels for the Department of Defense and other federal agencies, provides at-sea logistic support to the armed forces, and conducts scientific and other projects for federal agencies.
