With apologies to Dr. Seuss whose wit and whimsy has educated so many.

A stranger zipped up in the most expensive of cars! A well meaning fellow, a marine industry star.

“My friends”, he announced in a voice clear and clean, “My name is Captain Michael McMoney McGreen, and I’ve heard of your troubles. I’ve heard you’re unhappy. But I can fix that, I’m the Fix-It-Up Chappie.

I’ve come here to help you. I have what you need. And my prices are low. And I work with great speed. And my work is one hundred per cent IMO guaranteed!”

Then, quickly Michael McMoney McGreen, put together a solution that was really obscene. And he said, “You want clean air like you've never seen? My friends, you can have that air for five million a machine! Just pay me your money and hop right aboard!”

The misguided belief that dilution is a solution to ship generated pollution in the 21st century is a central theme in today’s tragedy of the maritime commons.

An International Maritime Organization (IMO) marine expert… “The solution to ship’s air exhaust pollution is simple: we scrub the exhaust and dump the waste into the ocean.”

The oceans are dying - ships flushing discharges to the sea, acidification, deep sea drilling blowouts, fishing’s strip-mining-practices, whaling, agricultural runoff, ever larger dead zones, rising temps, shoreside waste tipped into rivers and seas. The oceans aren’t infinite.

Last week California leaders and lawmakers gathered to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Assembly Bill 32. The Bill established the state’s first emission's cap-and-trade program. The program allows companies to buy permits to pollute and sets a target for reducing emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

In September Act Global Group reported that California's legislature, Democrats and Republicans, had extended the original Bill out to 2030 and set even more ambitious goals for green house gases (GHG) and particulate matter/black carbon (PM) reductions. The "new" Bill 32 accompanied by AB 197 is simple and sweeping. The Bill codifies the requirement to reduce GHG, heat trapping emissions, to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.

California now has the most aggressive carbon reduction targets in North America and will impose stricter limits on emissions from factories, power plants and mobile sources - trucks, trains, ships and planes.

For responsible shipping the good news is that AB 197 refines California's climate change programs in two ways: greater legislative oversight and transparency in implementation and secondly the policies must address those communities most impacted by climate change and air pollution.

The bad news is the Bill goes into effect January 2017.