7 ms·

@smachiz, totally agree. With all the cruise and shipping companies this article feels like a political attack on Carnival. Wonder what happened if they ran the

by dfcab 7y ago

@smachiz, totally agree. With all the cruise and shipping companies this article feels like a political attack on Carnival. Wonder what happened if they ran the stats on Maersk who has the largest fleet of 700 ships in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_shipping_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_ship...

enraged_camel 7y ago
Comparing Carnival to Maersk is disingenuous at best. One is a leisure cruise line for cultureless baby boomers. The other is a commercial shipping company through which a large portion of the world's goods is transported.
- RHSeeger 7y ago
  > cultureless baby boomers That's not fair. There's a lot more people on cruises than just baby boomers.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    That doesn't change the substance of his objection, which is that leisure activities should quite obviously be held to a greater standard than general freight shipping. For instance, it's obvious that the environmental impact of backyard bonfires should be compared to the environmental impact of a comparable alternative activity, like a backyard charcoal BBQ. If you compared a backyard bonfire to controlled burns for forest management, then obviously the particulate emissions of the bonfire are going to seem inconsequential, because that's an inappropriate comparison. Whether they're enjoyed by baby boomers or baby zoomers, the environmental impact of leisure cruises should plainly be compared to comparable leisure activities. If we compare flying to a tropical beach instead of taking a cruise ship to that same beach, how do the emissions stack up? My impression is that commercial airliners are substantially more efficient on a per passenger basis.
    - mcguire 7y ago
      "If we compare flying to a tropical beach instead of taking a cruise ship to that same beach, how do the emissions stack up?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...: "Domestic, short distance, less than 463 km (250 nmi): 257 g/km CO2 or 259 g/km (14.7 oz/mile) CO2e, Domestic, long distance, greater than 463 km (250 nmi): 177 g/km CO2 or 178 g/km (10.1 oz/mile) CO2e, Long distance flights: 113 g/km CO2 or 114 g/km (6.5 oz/mile) CO2e" https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/dec/20/cruises.green https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/dec/20/cruises.green: "Climate Care, carbon offsetting company "“According to our calculations, a cruiseliner such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight (even allowing for the further damage of emissions being produced in the upper atmosphere).”" https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/ask-mr-green/which-better-for-environment-flying-or-sailing https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/ask-mr-green/which-better-...: "The Queen Mary 2, for example, gets about 20.5 miles per gallon per passenger when traveling at its full speed (though at lower speeds it is considerably more efficient, getting around 45 passenger miles per gallon per passenger). An Airbus A380, in comparison, gets 74 miles per gallon per passenger; the Boeing 737 Max8 gets 110 miles per gallon per passenger." https://grist.org/living/you-thought-planes-burned-a-lot-of-carbon-say-hello-to-cruise-ships/ https://grist.org/living/you-thought-planes-burned-a-lot-of-...: "All that adds up to 0.40 kilograms of carbon being emitted per passenger per kilometer on your typical cruise ship, according to a 2008 study. "The latest numbers from the EPA have it that air travel costs you (carboniferously speaking) between 0.17 and 0.25 kg of carbon per passenger mile. By my calculations, that is between 0.11 and 0.16 kg per passenger-kilometer, if we want to align this factoid with the cruise-ship stat above." The bottom line? The people who report these numbers seem to have a problem between miles and kilometers. I'm guessing about a factor of 2 in favor of flying.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    The assumption that baby boomers are "cultureless" or otherwise defective seems a bit suspect as well. Kind of what you would expect from useless lay-about millennials, though.
- cronix 7y ago
  > The other is a commercial shipping company through which a large portion of the world's goods is transported. What's disingenuous is acting as if that statement matters at all when talking about large pollution sources. You're saying the ends justifies the means. I don't think most people would agree. Maybe we should let out all of the bank robbers who were robbing to get money in order to eat and survive, vs those who did it to buy nice cars and enrich themselves or something.
  - enraged_camel 7y ago
    > What's disingenuous is acting as if that statement matters at all when talking about large pollution sources. Of course it does. People have choice when it comes to picking leisure activities. Do you have choice when it comes to how stuff you buy is transported to you?
    - gpvos 7y ago
      You could buy less, and more local, stuff.
    - majewsky 7y ago
      You can absolutely choose regional food over exotic imports. Sure, it gets harder to avoid imports when buying electronics, but that's a much smaller scale than food.
      - enraged_camel 7y ago
        I'm not sure if you're aware, but American manufacturing has been decimated over the past several decades. Most stuff you buy these days is manufactured overseas and shipped to North America for assembly and/or sale. What you seem to be advocating for is an almost complete cessation in consuming stuff, which is impossible to do without a big hit to one's standard of living. Compared to all this, choosing a leisure activity that is fun, relaxing, and doesn't devastate the environment should be pretty fucking easy.
        7y ago
jacurtis 7y ago
They did run the comparison between Carnival and their biggest competitor Royal Caribean (i'll call "RC"). RC was still a bad pollutant, producing 4x the pollution of all the cars in Europe, but by comparison, Carnival is pumping out over twice as much. I actually think companies like Maersk are producing far less pollution than cruise ships because cruise ships are running engines mostly to produce electricity. Only a small portion of what they burn is for propulsion. Imagine the electricity it takes to run an entire city, it would be in the megawatts. For example, Carnival's mega-ships have the capacity for around 6,400 people. The ship is producing electricity for all those people, pools, waterslides, electric go-cart tracks, dance clubs, ~30 restaurants, hospital clinics, and the list goes on. Anything a city would have, the cruise ship has too. The other big problem with cruise ships is that they produce just as much pollution while standing in port as they do on the ocean (because again they need to run engines to generate a city's worth of power). Some places like Alaska have recently passed laws that require cruise ships to modify their ships to plug into the city's power grid and not to run engines in port. This law is going into effect in 2020 I believe (only for Alaska). But most cruise ships have already complied and are capable of this. I have heard rumors that Italy is considering passing a similar law. The other benefit of this, aside from the environmental effects of it, is that money is now generated for the local city in the form of utility billing to the cruise ships. This stimulates local economies, which traditionally have been hurt by cruise ships more than benefiting from them. Shipping companies really only run engines for propulsion. They have small crews and accommodations that aren't much different from a large fishing vessel. They can likely generate most their power from their propulsion engines, without the need to run auxiliary generators 24/7. I am not saying that shipping companies are "clean", but I think they are dwarfed by the pollution created from cruise ships. So it makes sense to target the heavy hitters first. Plus for an environmental group, it is easier to target a bad guy being an optional service like a cruise. Something people can easily choose not to partake in. It is a lot harder to boycott Maersk. Since almost everything sitting on your desk right now likely sat on a Maersk ship at one point in its existence.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  > "Only a small portion of what they burn is for propulsion." I'm a bit skeptical of this. Looking at the numbers for the Symphony of the Seas ship (current largest), the peak power requirements from all propulsion (3 x 20,000KW + 4 x 5,500KW = 82MW) is comparable to the peak power output of the ship (4 x 14,400KW + 2 x 19,200KW = 96MW.) Of course I doubt the ship rarely, if ever, goes pedal to the metal with all thrusters at once, and I cannot say what it's typical energy generation looks like. So I don't have enough information to say you're wrong, but the numbers I do have make me skeptical.
rob74 7y ago
Of course there are far more freight vessels than cruise vessels, but I can imagine several valid reasons for targeting cruise vessels: - cruise ships are marketed as luxury, and also have much higher profit margins than the shipping industry, so the argument that they can afford to switch to cleaner technologies is easier to make. - cruise ships also typically dock much closer to cities than other ships. You probably won't see a large oil tanker sailing up a Norwegian fjord or through Venice's Giudecca Canal.
- mcguire 7y ago
  Cruise ships are an easier target due to public branding.
navigatesol 7y ago
>With all the cruise and shipping companies this article feels like a political attack on Carnival. Does everything have to be a conspiracy? Do you really think the small team at EcoHustler, who I had not heard of until this article, has a "political" agenda against Carnival? Is their analysis irrelevant because it didn't do a comparison against every other shipping company? Are we not allowed to point out that "this company is bad" without also stating, "but so are all these other companies?" >Wonder what happened if they ran the stats on Maersk who has the largest fleet of 700 ships in the world. Do you genuinely wonder that? I'll tell you, with zero research: Maersk is also really bad. What does that add to the discussion?
- dfcab 7y ago
  I'm no Carnival fan, they are terrible for the environment and don't seem understand the harm they cause. Example, once again fined just a few days ago: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/729622653/carnival-cruise-lines-hit-with-20-million-penalty-for-environmental-crimes https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/729622653/carnival-cruise-lin... My issue is that I'd like to see the comparison to Maersk, not sure how 700+ ships compares to Carnival Corps !00+ cruise ships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Corporation_%26_plc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Corporation_%26_plc. Article just points out how bad Carnival Corp is without painting a broader picture. You can certainly point out that a company is bad but how bad is it?
byproxy 7y ago
Ships & boats only make up 3% of transportation emissions in the United States: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-06/documents/420f19047.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-06/documents... Does anyone have the numbers for other parts of the world?
- steve19 7y ago
  That would measure only US transportation vessels between US ports, not imports or exports. It would exclude Navy, Coastguard, fishing, pleasure vessels and I would assume cruise ships. Sea transportion between ports is limited in the USA due to a law preventing non-US ships transporting between US ports.

by dfcab 7y ago

enraged_camel 7y ago

Comparing Carnival to Maersk is disingenuous at best. One is a leisure cruise line for cultureless baby boomers. The other is a commercial shipping company through which a large portion of the world's goods is transported.

RHSeeger 7y ago
> cultureless baby boomers That's not fair. There's a lot more people on cruises than just baby boomers.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  That doesn't change the substance of his objection, which is that leisure activities should quite obviously be held to a greater standard than general freight shipping. For instance, it's obvious that the environmental impact of backyard bonfires should be compared to the environmental impact of a comparable alternative activity, like a backyard charcoal BBQ. If you compared a backyard bonfire to controlled burns for forest management, then obviously the particulate emissions of the bonfire are going to seem inconsequential, because that's an inappropriate comparison. Whether they're enjoyed by baby boomers or baby zoomers, the environmental impact of leisure cruises should plainly be compared to comparable leisure activities. If we compare flying to a tropical beach instead of taking a cruise ship to that same beach, how do the emissions stack up? My impression is that commercial airliners are substantially more efficient on a per passenger basis.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    "If we compare flying to a tropical beach instead of taking a cruise ship to that same beach, how do the emissions stack up?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...: "Domestic, short distance, less than 463 km (250 nmi): 257 g/km CO2 or 259 g/km (14.7 oz/mile) CO2e, Domestic, long distance, greater than 463 km (250 nmi): 177 g/km CO2 or 178 g/km (10.1 oz/mile) CO2e, Long distance flights: 113 g/km CO2 or 114 g/km (6.5 oz/mile) CO2e" https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/dec/20/cruises.green https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/dec/20/cruises.green: "Climate Care, carbon offsetting company "“According to our calculations, a cruiseliner such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight (even allowing for the further damage of emissions being produced in the upper atmosphere).”" https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/ask-mr-green/which-better-for-environment-flying-or-sailing https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/ask-mr-green/which-better-...: "The Queen Mary 2, for example, gets about 20.5 miles per gallon per passenger when traveling at its full speed (though at lower speeds it is considerably more efficient, getting around 45 passenger miles per gallon per passenger). An Airbus A380, in comparison, gets 74 miles per gallon per passenger; the Boeing 737 Max8 gets 110 miles per gallon per passenger." https://grist.org/living/you-thought-planes-burned-a-lot-of-carbon-say-hello-to-cruise-ships/ https://grist.org/living/you-thought-planes-burned-a-lot-of-...: "All that adds up to 0.40 kilograms of carbon being emitted per passenger per kilometer on your typical cruise ship, according to a 2008 study. "The latest numbers from the EPA have it that air travel costs you (carboniferously speaking) between 0.17 and 0.25 kg of carbon per passenger mile. By my calculations, that is between 0.11 and 0.16 kg per passenger-kilometer, if we want to align this factoid with the cruise-ship stat above." The bottom line? The people who report these numbers seem to have a problem between miles and kilometers. I'm guessing about a factor of 2 in favor of flying.
- mcguire 7y ago
  The assumption that baby boomers are "cultureless" or otherwise defective seems a bit suspect as well. Kind of what you would expect from useless lay-about millennials, though.
cronix 7y ago
> The other is a commercial shipping company through which a large portion of the world's goods is transported. What's disingenuous is acting as if that statement matters at all when talking about large pollution sources. You're saying the ends justifies the means. I don't think most people would agree. Maybe we should let out all of the bank robbers who were robbing to get money in order to eat and survive, vs those who did it to buy nice cars and enrich themselves or something.
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  > What's disingenuous is acting as if that statement matters at all when talking about large pollution sources. Of course it does. People have choice when it comes to picking leisure activities. Do you have choice when it comes to how stuff you buy is transported to you?
  - gpvos 7y ago
    You could buy less, and more local, stuff.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    You can absolutely choose regional food over exotic imports. Sure, it gets harder to avoid imports when buying electronics, but that's a much smaller scale than food.
    - enraged_camel 7y ago
      I'm not sure if you're aware, but American manufacturing has been decimated over the past several decades. Most stuff you buy these days is manufactured overseas and shipped to North America for assembly and/or sale. What you seem to be advocating for is an almost complete cessation in consuming stuff, which is impossible to do without a big hit to one's standard of living. Compared to all this, choosing a leisure activity that is fun, relaxing, and doesn't devastate the environment should be pretty fucking easy.
      - 7y ago

jacurtis 7y ago

They did run the comparison between Carnival and their biggest competitor Royal Caribean (i'll call "RC"). RC was still a bad pollutant, producing 4x the pollution of all the cars in Europe, but by comparison, Carnival is pumping out over twice as much. I actually think companies like Maersk are producing far less pollution than cruise ships because cruise ships are running engines mostly to produce electricity. Only a small portion of what they burn is for propulsion. Imagine the electricity it takes to run an entire city, it would be in the megawatts. For example, Carnival's mega-ships have the capacity for around 6,400 people. The ship is producing electricity for all those people, pools, waterslides, electric go-cart tracks, dance clubs, ~30 restaurants, hospital clinics, and the list goes on. Anything a city would have, the cruise ship has too. The other big problem with cruise ships is that they produce just as much pollution while standing in port as they do on the ocean (because again they need to run engines to generate a city's worth of power). Some places like Alaska have recently passed laws that require cruise ships to modify their ships to plug into the city's power grid and not to run engines in port. This law is going into effect in 2020 I believe (only for Alaska). But most cruise ships have already complied and are capable of this. I have heard rumors that Italy is considering passing a similar law. The other benefit of this, aside from the environmental effects of it, is that money is now generated for the local city in the form of utility billing to the cruise ships. This stimulates local economies, which traditionally have been hurt by cruise ships more than benefiting from them. Shipping companies really only run engines for propulsion. They have small crews and accommodations that aren't much different from a large fishing vessel. They can likely generate most their power from their propulsion engines, without the need to run auxiliary generators 24/7. I am not saying that shipping companies are "clean", but I think they are dwarfed by the pollution created from cruise ships. So it makes sense to target the heavy hitters first. Plus for an environmental group, it is easier to target a bad guy being an optional service like a cruise. Something people can easily choose not to partake in. It is a lot harder to boycott Maersk. Since almost everything sitting on your desk right now likely sat on a Maersk ship at one point in its existence.

darkpuma 7y ago
> "Only a small portion of what they burn is for propulsion." I'm a bit skeptical of this. Looking at the numbers for the Symphony of the Seas ship (current largest), the peak power requirements from all propulsion (3 x 20,000KW + 4 x 5,500KW = 82MW) is comparable to the peak power output of the ship (4 x 14,400KW + 2 x 19,200KW = 96MW.) Of course I doubt the ship rarely, if ever, goes pedal to the metal with all thrusters at once, and I cannot say what it's typical energy generation looks like. So I don't have enough information to say you're wrong, but the numbers I do have make me skeptical.

rob74 7y ago

Of course there are far more freight vessels than cruise vessels, but I can imagine several valid reasons for targeting cruise vessels: - cruise ships are marketed as luxury, and also have much higher profit margins than the shipping industry, so the argument that they can afford to switch to cleaner technologies is easier to make. - cruise ships also typically dock much closer to cities than other ships. You probably won't see a large oil tanker sailing up a Norwegian fjord or through Venice's Giudecca Canal.

mcguire 7y ago
Cruise ships are an easier target due to public branding.

navigatesol 7y ago

>With all the cruise and shipping companies this article feels like a political attack on Carnival. Does everything have to be a conspiracy? Do you really think the small team at EcoHustler, who I had not heard of until this article, has a "political" agenda against Carnival? Is their analysis irrelevant because it didn't do a comparison against every other shipping company? Are we not allowed to point out that "this company is bad" without also stating, "but so are all these other companies?" >Wonder what happened if they ran the stats on Maersk who has the largest fleet of 700 ships in the world. Do you genuinely wonder that? I'll tell you, with zero research: Maersk is also really bad. What does that add to the discussion?

dfcab 7y ago
I'm no Carnival fan, they are terrible for the environment and don't seem understand the harm they cause. Example, once again fined just a few days ago: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/729622653/carnival-cruise-lines-hit-with-20-million-penalty-for-environmental-crimes https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/729622653/carnival-cruise-lin... My issue is that I'd like to see the comparison to Maersk, not sure how 700+ ships compares to Carnival Corps !00+ cruise ships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Corporation_%26_plc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Corporation_%26_plc. Article just points out how bad Carnival Corp is without painting a broader picture. You can certainly point out that a company is bad but how bad is it?

byproxy 7y ago

Ships & boats only make up 3% of transportation emissions in the United States: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-06/documents/420f19047.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-06/documents... Does anyone have the numbers for other parts of the world?

steve19 7y ago
That would measure only US transportation vessels between US ports, not imports or exports. It would exclude Navy, Coastguard, fishing, pleasure vessels and I would assume cruise ships. Sea transportion between ports is limited in the USA due to a law preventing non-US ships transporting between US ports.