By Robert Bradley Jr. — January 19, 2023
“Cruise ship alarmists: check your premises and update your facts. Take a week long cruise. Bring some books to beat ‘climate anxiety.’ Epstein, Koonin, Bryce, Lomborg, Smil, Morano …. all affordable and best sellers.”
I am leaving the country on a cruise ship next week. It’s a rather amazing, affordable get-away. A week at sea with multiple international destinations is for the masses–the middle class and some lower-to-middle upper class. (Cunard from New York City to Liverpool will have to wait for some of us.)
There will be around 5,400 passengers and 2,200 crew on board (Allure of the Seas). The reformulated diesel that powers the ship (electricity too) represents the work of hundreds of thousands of “energy slaves.” All to have the experience that Kings and Queens of yore could only dream about.
Cruise ships are little cities at sea. They are monuments to freedom, joining the Supermarket and, of course, the ultimate capitalist institution, the Stock Market. There is virtually no government, just “simple rules for a complex world.”
All of the great food one can eat and a reflective look at the open ocean. Destination excursions to see eco-treasures. Again, all made possible by dense, reliable mineral energies.
Complaint! (Stephen Fern, Ark2030)
Bah, humbug–the climate busy-bodies do not like such conspicuous consumption, fueled by dense mineral energy. Here is a recent post from Stephen Fern, founder of Ark2030, in response to a next-generation mega-cruise ship, The Icon of the Seas (Royal Caribbean).
I suppose this is the perfect illustration of where the world has gone wrong. A glorious celebration of greed, consumption and avarice; packaged as ‘entertainment’. All on one boat.
It presents the perfect contrast to what ‘Ark Lovers’ are seeking.
A world where our happinness is based upon a mutual respect for people, planet and prosperity.
Where our fulfillment comes from our connection with nature, positive relationships with family and friends, belonging to communities that care about each other and the environment around them.
Looking after our physical and mental well-being, eating healthy local seasonal food and enjoying every aspect of a life that is on offer for free.
Not just taking what we want just because we can … and always making sure we give back more than we take.
More Complaint! (Angry Assaad)
Enter Assaad Razzouk, the “angry clean energy guy,” and head of Gurīn Energy in Singapore (renewables), and author of “Saving the Planet without the Bullshit.” The chapter “Saving the Planet Without the Bullshit”: A Luxury Cruise Liner is a Stinking Floating Dumpster,” states:
Luxury cruises are punctured garbage bins on water. 47 cruise ships emit 10 times more sulphur dioxide in European waters (2017 data) than all of Europe’s 260m cars combined. That’s just 1 of 3 air pollutants discharged from the ships’ smokestacks.
And it gets worse … Many in the industry also use the dirtiest possible fuel to power their ships, one that is 100 times more polluting than road diesel
– Bunker fuel is waste from the oil refining process and it is an environmental nightmare. Pitch black, thick, heavy and toxic, it doesn’t evaporate and it emits more poison than other fuels because it’s loaded with sulphur, which when burned releases gases harmful to human health and to the environment. These gases are poisonous to fish and seabirds and aren’t much good for humans living near ports, because they travel hundreds of kms: 70% of shipping emissions occur within 400kms of land.Industry emits a staggering amount of poison, much of which makes it into our lungs. Ship engine oil pollution increases incidences of childhood asthma and cancer, contributing to an estimated 1,300 premature deaths a year around the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and 60,000 a year globally
By using this fuel, the industry is also subsidizing the oil and gas sector. If shipping lines weren’t buying it, oil and gas companies would have to dispose of it safely, an expensive proposition – and a subsidy in the order of $450 billion
The shipping industry dumps its plastic in the oceans. It dumps its trash. It dumps its excess oil. It also dumps its foul wastewater
Ships are required to treat waste using equipment referred to as ‘Marine Sanitation Devices’ – except this can mean literally any equipment designed to treat sewage, often leaving behind toxic contaminants, bacteria and heavy metals that harm marine ecosystems
The shipping industry is also responsible for a billion tons of carbon a year. If it were a country, it would be the 6th largest polluter in the world. Its emissions are growing to such an extent that they are currently expected to be anywhere from 50% to 250% higher by 2050
Price they paid for all that poison: ZeroFriends of the Earth
Check your premises and facts, Angry Assaad. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and the real pollutants named have been going down and down. Check the websites of the major cruise lines and learn about the amazing technology that leaves the ocean waters as clean as they are found. And ditch the emotions and take a cruise yourself to see how you like it. (But please, not floating wind turbines or solar buoys to interfere with operations.)
Friends of the Earth
In Cruise Ships’ Environmental Impact (March 14, 2022), the eco-group Friends of the Earth states:
Cruise ships are a catastrophe for the environment — and that’s not an overstatement. They dump toxic waste into our waters, fill the planet with carbon dioxide, and kill marine wildlife. Cruise ships’ environmental impact is never ending, and they continue to get bigger. They once were small ships, around 30,000 tons. Now, corporations are building billion-dollar cruise ships to hold more than 9,000 people. They’re doing everything they can to pack these floating cities full of tourists while polluting everything in their path.
Worse:
… everything that cruise ships come in contact with are likely to be harmed along their journey. The air, water, fragile habitats, coastal communities, and wildlife are all affected. But most governments have refused to take actions to actually regulate the cruise industry and buried their heads in the sand to ignore the ongoing damage to the environment and communities.
Cruise ship alarmists: check your premises and update your facts. Take a week long cruise. Bring some books to beat ‘climate anxiety.’ Epstein, Koonin, Bryce, Lomborg, Smil, Spencer …. all affordable and best sellers.
I’m not going on a cruise, although I suspect that over 30 years of horses, bird dogs, and wine I could have financed several great cruises. This notion likely holds for followers of rock bands, golf outings, birders, theme park ventures, sports & tailgate parties, and most other spare time activities.
It is much easier to calculate the Footprint™ of relatively few cruise ships than to do the calculation for a year of tailgate parties.
Anyway, have a great cruise.
https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/svg/1f9d1-200d-1f384.svg
Soon cheering at sporting events will be banned along with singing and yelling at the refs. Too much CO2 being exhaled.
Grossly exaggerated misinformed alarmists!
With hubris too. They think they’re going to save the earth?
Why not save the universe? Save Uranus?
Yet even more Childhood Asthma p®rn I see
With sea level rise accelerating so fast, cruise ships are the last refuge of mankind
I think it may be the displacement of all those cruise ships that is causing sea level rise – ban them all!
Say, that’s an interesting idea. Someone should start fake outrage over all the cruise ships, cargo ships, warships, and millions of fishing boats and pleasure boats which raise sea level. Pay particular attention to submarines, which are entirely underwater, thus contributing more than their fair share of sea level rise.
Not all cruise ships are giant Leviathans. Here’s the Ocean Explorer in Tunu, Greenland last August:
However the larger ones are far more affordable. The behemoths have rooms for $6-700 per person while most smaller vessels are $5-8,000 per person
I can only imagine the number of people (and kids!) with the hot runs on that ship? World’s largest diarrhea laden waterpark.
We were on the Carnival Elation when it was new and cruised the Mexican coast. (It has been relocated to the Caribbean) 2100 guests and about 900 crew. Never encountered a sick passenger.
Won’t likely cruise anymore though, potential power loss situation occurring causing a lack of running water and no flushing capacity
Or getting locked aboard from the next China virus release
If only there was a way to avoid spreading this type of illness, such as, oh, I don’t know, washing your fracking hands.
It apparently is a reasonably common problem on cruise ships, but rare enough at large scale to make it news.
The port of Tacoma built a LNG storage facility to help replace bunker fuels which is way, way “cleaner” & the green wack jobs went nuts trying to oppose it. Fortunately they failed.
These are just human hating psychopaths with no grounding in reality. The best thing to do is either ignore or ridicule them.
Yes, and we are going on the newest P & O cruise ship, Arvia, in March. Like its sister ship is powered by LNG. Amazing facilities and hopefully some warmer weather
We never go on cruises. Well, only two in the Minerva of blessed memory. Visited Stalin’s dacha
It’s crazy that cruise ships exist which carry more people than many small towns. Even the crew is larger than a lot of small towns. There are 5,800 people in the town I live in.
Well, I rather agree, but my view is that three is a crowd!
Texas and Florida both have cruise ship ports. Wonder what the NYC mayor would say if Gov’s Abbott and DeSantis chartered a couple cruise ships to send illegals up to the Big Apple? Or maybe even Martha’s Vineyard. (Sure beats a bus ride.)
Surprise them and drop them off in Venezuela.
Just black out the plane Windows and fly them south. At the end of the flight hand out the parachutes
Why is it crazy? There are lots of people who want to take cruises, and bigger is more efficient and hence cheaper.
If they can make a profit without subsidies, then it isn’t crazy. It’s just something you aren’t interested in.
Imagine the number of people (and kids!) with the hot runs on that ship? World’s largest diarrhea laden waterpark.
Colin, are you a bot? Why are you repeating the same comment you made just above?
Nice shot of the Costa Concordia that semi-sank just off Italy’s Giglio island. If you go back to 2013 on the Google Earth timeline, can see it before they tipped it back upright. The captain got 16 years for the deaths of 32 climate destroying passengers. Pretty stiff ding for a first offense, huh?
My bad. Didn’t see the Royal Caribbean logo. Not the Costa Concordia, which ran under Costa Crociere/Carnival label. I shall retire in disgrace and not post anything further.
Stevie talks about ‘prosperity’. What does he mean?
Quote:”47 cruise ships emit 10 times more sulphur dioxide in European waters (2017 data) than all of Europe’s 260m cars combined.
And that is very good for the environment, the planet, the climate and everything. It is a significant reason for the seemingly observed Global Greening and a every probable reason for rising agricultural yields. ##
If yo don’t know why or how, patently you don’t, go find out why and quit bleating about a subject you know nothing of
“Keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool – rather than open it and remove all doubt”
## A nice pace to start any research might be in 1920’s Germany. Farmers there realised the immense value of having a railway-line running across their fields/farms.
And they were gutted, at the time, when the dirty smutty polluting incendiary steam engines were replaced by electric ones.
Sulphur. Smoke (Biochar) and myriad other trace elements in the ash and cinders
Be warned eco-activists, you might get what you wish for and it’s a cold & hungry place.
Very cold.
If one is critical of cruise ships, then why not also be critical of all the hotels that accommodate far greater numbers of people – some in even greater luxury. Some use these for business trips but most for holidays. Perhaps we need to shut all hotels and ban all holidays to please the climate alarmists, though they are probably the ones most likely to enjoy expensive pleasures cruise ships, luxury hotels and exotic holidays flying there by plane.
I’m building an ark in Michigan for when sea level rise reaches us. I’m also selling one percent shares in the arc for $1,000 each (1,953 ae still available). You get 1% of the ark ticket sales. Send your cash or money orders to our Green Ark of Michigan Treasurer, at his temporary office for the next six l months:
Walter “I didn’t do it” Washington
Treasurer, The Green Ark of Michigan
Suite 34
Cellblock B
Jackson Prison
Jackson, Michigan 49101
PS: A 20% discount (only $800 a share) if you include a sharp hacksaw blade in the envelope.
Mr. Washington is also in the business of relocating electric vehicles for owners who don’t like them. Then you report your EV as stolen, collect money from your insurance company, and buy an ICE vehicle, which you should have done in the first place, with about $20,000 spare cash left over in your wallet. The business will be on hold for the next six months, unless a hacksaw blade shows up in the mail before that.
I’ve never been on a cruise ship and never will be. I have no interest in a floating hotel. Even in a real hotel my only interest is a place to sleep for 8 hours. Could someone who likes cruise ships explain why they are popular, rather than flying somewhere and living where you want to explore in the daytime? Or renting a car to drive around another nation?
I can take about 10 days on a cruise ship. They are a good place to meet people you would not otherwise meet. And see places that are not easy to get to by other means.
My parents did a cruise with my wife and I not long after we married and my then middle aged parents stayed in contact with a couple they met for two decades after the cruise. They lived in another state and met up a few times. That was a long time before social media other than phone and mail.
It is a very relaxed life and lots of space. The food is usually first class but you have to monitor intake, It is easy to add weight. I usually end up having one meal a day.
Those who take to it enjoy a “cruisy” lifestyle and it is usually good value compared with other pampered pursuits. There are some people who treat their cruise ship of choice as their retirement home.
There is a car ferry that travels between Melbourne and Tasmania and I prefer that to flying mainly because there is no limit on baggage. And you have your own transport in Tasmania. We usually take the overnight voyage. Food is not cruise ship class but not bad either. It also has plenty of space to enjoy a quiet drink looking at the water and stars.
Our last cruise was a a luxury canal barge in France that a group of friends chartered. It was serious fine dining with a first class chef. I covered more distance walking than on the barge to burn calories, meeting up with the barge at the locks. We spent a week on that and that was about the right period.
I met my better half on a cruise around 30 years ago. We spent six years on a 44ft ‘cruise ship’ and visited the Bahamas and the North West Caribbean :<)
Took my wife on a cruise for her 50th birthday. Flew to LA then cruised to Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas. Saw Whales off lands end and numerous silvery flying fish at night while moving.
When you fly someplace and stay in a hotel, you see that place and some of the surrounding area. When you cruise, your hotel is in a different place every morning
And the food is included
I’m intrigued by some of those Alaska cruises. The scenery looks beautiful, and it’s not very accessible by car.
If the glaciers stop calving, it will be a long time before they starting calving again.
Alaskan cruises that depart Seattle travel through relatively narrow waterways for a long time. So a lot of remote scenery and if you spend enough time looking you will see some interesting wild animals on land, water and the air. The only time I have ever seen a bald eagle was from a canoe in Alaska – one of the many extra cost outings on offer from the cruise we did more than 10 years ago now.
Richard & MarkW,
We did the Alaskan coast cruise and loved it. One week going north from Seattle ending at Anchorages’ Alaskan port. Scenery was stupendous; especially the glaciers. And much of it can’t be seen by car.
A big ship: ~2500 passengers. Met some very nice people, decent entertainment and good food. Gained 5 lb though.
Lol
like richard green down lower I fail to see WHY youd pay good money to be jammed in confined space with 5k+public n 2k crew for weeks on end. set places you get to see and short stopovers with everyone rushing to the same “sights to see” high risk of foodborne illness and all the other bugs close confined spaces offer up. even prior to covid a plane was inconvenient confined and overpriced and the invasive socalled security invasions to person n belongings starting from biometric scans as you enter the airports and ongoing
guess I just didnt get the herd mentality genes.
more than a person per mile is getting crowded
It is difficult.to see why you would pay good money to be jammed in a confined space. Pay your good money for an outside stateroom with some space, typically on the higher decks, with a private balcony. Maybe at the aft end, so you can see the shore and the ocean. The views of the coast are amazing, and in many cases a boast is the only way to visit some of the smaller islands. Larger rooms make it much easier to hold parties in your stateroom as well.
Of course, maybe you’re more comfortable watching TV at home. My wife loves to be pampered at sea. We all have different tastes.
The scolds and killjoys quoted here are perfect examples of the nasty strain of anti-humanism that lies at the heart of the Green movement. They’d have been right at home in the Spanish Inquisition. Or the Khmer Rouge. If you gave them money and power and they would gladly force misery on millions.
They claim to be all about saving the planet, but really it’s all about power, and having the ability to force others to do your bidding.
“The scolds and killjoys quoted here are perfect examples of the nasty strain of anti-humanism that lies at the heart of the Green movement.”
Well said, and so true.
its totally true that there is no justification for cruise ships, other than fun. same for all holidays away. same for different clothes, same for going to the pub, same for a restaurant.
these are all leaisure activities.
to say one leaisure activity is more ‘valuable’ than another is farcical.
just ban leasure.
and population.
and humans.
what is the point of any cargo or transport when we can live on a collective farm?
/rant
Nice rant though
I recently talked with a ship’s captain of a new ship that goes to polar regions including Antarctica. As you can imagine, their passengers are an environmentally aware group. He said they would have preferred to build the ship to use LNG, but the port in South America that the ships sail from does not have an LNG terminal. So they just burn the cleanest diesel they can get, and go where they want to go.
Any ship going to Antarctica loaded with environmentalists should be powered exclusively by sails
Plenty of hot air onboard.
Has anyone ever visited a place where a cruise ship is docked?
Do you know what it’s like for a tiny island like Granada to be suddelny invaded by several thousand adventure seeking tourists? Or see Venice suddenly overrun by a mob of instant gratification seekers?
While it is good for the local economies, you need to plan your visits to avoid the cruise ship landings, they are just overwhelmingly awful.
I wonder how well Stephen Fern’s actual life follows his own suggestion.
I rather spend my vacation at a regional star party which will be in central Oregon in late July.
LINK
Far cheaper and there are a couple places to visit such as the city of Fossil where for a fee can dig up some fossils which I did once 15 years ago.
If I were to go on a cruise it would be the one where I go to Alaska then visit Denali and so on as part of the trip the way by brother/wife did 10 years ago.
Since 2020 both cruise ships and cargo ships burn VLSFO (Very Low Sulfur Fuel Oil), defined as less than 0.5% sulfur content. This was supposed to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions. But it apparently increases black carbon emissions by 10-85% — especially at lower engine load. So of course the usual crowd are calling for VLSFO to be banned in arctic areas to minimize ice melt. You just can’t keep these people happy.
I’m too lazy to look up data regarding the claim “47 cruise ships emit 10 times more sulphur dioxide in European waters (2017 data) than all of Europe’s 260m cars combined”, but I would bet that much more marine fuel is burned annually by cargo ships than cruise liners.
“they travel hundreds of kms”
Sciency!