Green Options

Pirates may be figures of romance, like Captain Jack Sparrow, or historical fact, like the Viking raiders, but what they haven’t been, until the last few years, is a statistical risk. And that’s surprising, because piracy has always been with us. However, in the past five years, the ‘menace’ of piracy has begun to have serious impacts on international waters, and the worst peril is the inadvertent one.

Some say that Somalian pirates are out to help save the water from illegal dumping by Western nations. Are these green buccaneers or just men out to make a profit?

The Sirius Star, an oil tanker with the capacity to carry two million barrels and longer than three football fields, was seized by Somali pirates off the coast of East Africa.

This high tech tanker, staffed by only 25 crew members and owned by Saudi Aramco, was headed south toward the Cape of Good Hope on its way to North America when it was hijacked.  [...]