Topic: Getting a Grip on Cruise Ship Pollution

Friends of the Earth have issued a comprehensive report on the environmental impacts of the cruise industry

The report, Getting a Grip on Cruise Ship Pollution, researched and authored by Ross Klein, an independent expert on cruise ship pollution, takes a detailed look at the various ways in which the cruise industry has harmed—and continues to harm—the environments in which cruise ships travel.

“This report provides a vital resource to anyone concerned about the cruise industry’s environmental impacts. With today’s launch of the largest cruise ship ever built—Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas—this report shines a light on an industry that has long avoided comprehensive environmental regulation and pollution controls,” said Marcie Keever, Friends of the Earth’s Clean Vessels Campaign Director. “Cruise ships continue to dump sewage into our waters and poison our air with engines that burn bottom-of-the barrel bunker fuel.”

Getting a Grip on Cruise Ship Pollution looks at all aspects of the cruise industry, from its pollution streams, to its history of environmental violations, to the modest number of environmental laws that govern the industry. The report also contains a wide-ranging set of policy recommendations, providing solutions for comprehensive environmental reform of the cruise industry.

To read the report and learn more, visit: http://www.foe.org/getting-grip-cruise-ship-pollution.

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Friends of the Earth have issued a comprehensive report on the environmental impacts of the cruise industry

The report, Getting a Grip on Cruise Ship Pollution, researched and authored by Ross Klein, an independent expert on cruise ship pollution, takes a detailed look at the various ways in which the cruise industry has harmed—and continues to harm—the environments in which cruise ships travel.

“This report provides a vital resource to anyone concerned about the cruise industry’s environmental impacts. With today’s launch of the largest cruise ship ever built—Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas—this report shines a light on an industry that has long avoided comprehensive environmental regulation and pollution controls,” said Marcie Keever, Friends of the Earth’s Clean Vessels Campaign Director. “Cruise ships continue to dump sewage into our waters and poison our air with engines that burn bottom-of-the barrel bunker fuel.”

Getting a Grip on Cruise Ship Pollution looks at all aspects of the cruise industry, from its pollution streams, to its history of environmental violations, to the modest number of environmental laws that govern the industry. The report also contains a wide-ranging set of policy recommendations, providing solutions for comprehensive environmental reform of the cruise industry.

To read the report and learn more, visit: http://www.foe.org/getting-grip-cruise-ship-pollution.

Yes, but Friends of the Earth think everything is polluting. I assume that the environmental reform includes sail power where possible. The only way to travel without pollution is to walk or cycle. Surely fly-cruises are the ultimate in travel pollution?

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Yes, but Friends of the Earth think everything is polluting.

The only way to travel without pollution is to walk or cycle.
Surely fly-cruises are the ultimate in travel pollution? ===> Yes!

Must say I agree with you.

I consider myself an environmentalist type
but some of the extremist types are over the top,really!

Cruise ships are now a lot cleaner(environmentally) than they were thirty years ago.
They may not be perfect like us land-bound diesel-burners
but at least they're working on it.

As far as I am concerned Friends of the Earth, along with Transport 200 and the suchlike are just well meaning crackpots, as many of their views are so extreme that I personally could not take them seriously, these people would have us all back on horses if they could enforce it.
If the green type groups put there energy into putting pressure on countries like China who’s thousands of power stations are each burning thousands of tons of poor quality coal a day, they would be taken much more seriously.
As for cruise ship pollution I have never seen any, as nothing now goes into the sea, and most bulky rubbish is correctly offloaded to skips in port, as for exhaust gas that is minimal as most ships engines do run very very hot and so burns the fuel most efficiently, I think there is more pollution from badly maintained local authority trucks and buses, just have a look at a bus exhaust and watch the muck pour out of that, charming!!

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If the green type groups put there energy into putting pressure on countries like China who’s thousands of power stations are each burning thousands of tons of poor quality coal a day, they would be taken much more seriously.
[[/I]

Who are we to tell developing countries that they can't have their industrial revolution?

I'm still waiting on Friends of The Upper Atmosphere to run their 'expozay'
on all the muck Big Jets are laying down at 30,000 ft. via their condensation trails.

Somehow I don't think Nature intended us
to be spewing hydrocarbon emissions at those altitudes.

Good thing it's having absolutely zero effect on the planet's climatology! :D

This is an issue you never hear about:
it's close to being the Number One Unspeakable Environmental Issue.
.

You know what? - I've had it up to here *points to his eye-brows* with the anti-pollution lobby worldwide...

YES - we know the we (as in the human race) cause pollution

YES - it's been "proven" there is a greenhouse effect

YES - poles are melting and water levels are rising...

YES - at some point the planet may not be able to sustain "human life" ... possible as a result...

However Does it reallymatter?... over Millions of years our planet has gone through cycles - LONG before man had anything to do with it... and it will do again... an ice age will come and "humans" may well get wiped out... So what?... does it matter? do WE matter?... of course we don't ... we've all been hood-winked into believing we can stop it happening... and how ? mainly by being taxed by our world leaders "in the name of the environment"...

It's time we all woke up and smelled the coffee. China will have her industrial revolution (as we did)... AND India et all...

Some will say I'm being selfish but I don't begin for 1 second to think my life is even vaguely significant in the "universe"... Let mother earth "heal herself" - by plunging us into an ice age or whatever... Apparently if you believe everything you read, we've already gone too far - so with that in mind... so long as I can afford to pay my heating bill, I'm going to sit on my sofa in the middle of winter IN my Bermuda shorts and make the most of my time here...

Slightly tongue in cheek - Mark
:p

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You know what? - I've had it up to here *points to his eye-brows* with the anti-pollution lobby worldwide...

Slightly tongue in cheek - Mark
:p

Might be tongue in cheek, but not wrong by much. The Romans grew grapes all over Britain, it must have been much warmer then. If we have even one of the natural disasters i.e. massive volcanic eruptions/earthquakes that are predicted, climate change will take on a real and urgent meaning.

We are only here because of the sun and we don't know enough about that to predict anything for certain.

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Might be tongue in cheek, but not wrong by much. The Romans grew grapes all over Britain, it must have been much warmer then. If we have even one of the natural disasters i.e. massive volcanic eruptions/earthquakes that are predicted, climate change will take on a real and urgent meaning.

We are only here because of the sun and we don't know enough about that to predict anything for certain.

I agree - NOTHING we do to "save the planet" is worth the effort (or cost)... although I'm not saying we should go out of our way to damage eco-systems for the sake of it etc. but it's time we accept we are insignificant in the universe and make the most of the small amount of time we have

Wo'h Wo'h and thrice Wo'h, verily it will come to pass, whatever we, as insignificant morals do, the climate will change, and has been changing for thousands of years, its just that the crackpots have alerted the devious department in the government, and it's in their own interest to show that they are doing something constructive ;) like, TAX US ALL.

If England was the most efficient and cleanest less polluting country in the world, it would make no difference whatsoever to our planet, and our little country including Gordon Brown. can not save the world.

I wish we had climate in Great Britain unfortunately we only have weather some good, most of it bad, but it’s ours, and we get along with it.
O'h by the way, we don't hear about the hole in the ozone layer nowadays, and I'm told that’s because it's gone, oddly enough it's healed itself.