World by Gwynne Dyer “We’re waiting on food goods like coconut milk and syrups, some spare parts for motors, we’ve got some forklift trucks, some Amazon goods on there, all sorts,” said Steve Parks of Seaport Freight Services in England, who is awaiting 20 of the 18,300 containers aboard the recently freed Ever Given. Which of those things cannot be sourced from somewhere closer than Asia? Oh, all right. Coconut trees don’t grow in Europe, where Ever Given is bound. But at least 80 per cent of the cargo on that gigantic container ship and the 370 vessels still backed up behind it (of which a third are container ships and car-carriers) didn’t really need to be moved halfway around the world. The stuff could be made a lot closer to where it is wanted. In fact, that used to be how things worked.