We tend to think of ships as an environmentally friendly way to travel and transport goods. Measured by miles per gallon per a given amount of weight, they can’t be beat. There’s the not-so-little problem of air pollution from ships docked at various ports, of course, and Earthjustice is working with Friends of the Earth and other groups to do something about that.

But today’s offering has to do with a ferry service in Hawai`i, and what could be more benign than that?

Plenty of things, it turns out.

A new book, The SuperFerry Chronicles, by Koohan Paik and Jerry Mander, lays it all out, and it’s a real eye opener. Here’s a taste:

"It’s this gigantic, aluminum ferryboat. . .that runs forty miles an hour in shallow water with these big catamaran blades slicing through zones teeming with whales and turtles. . . .It’s an environmental nightmare. It carries hundreds of cars out to these little islands that are choking from traffic already, and it moves all kinds of bad bugs and animals. . .that eat up everything in sight. Its owned by this really scary New York military-finance guy, one of the most aggressive, right-wing neocon war-promoter militarists. . . ."

Authorities have refused to do environmental studies. The state legislature did a sneaky end run around the state Supreme Court. You get the idea. It’s quite a story.

Jerry Mander, by the way, is an old friend, a central figure in the International Forum on Globalization, the author of scores of books and newspaper ads for good causes. There may be something far more sinister here than first meets the eye. Highly recommended.