Topic: Is your cruiseline ENVIRONMENTALLY friendly?

The results are in...

The following report has been released by Friends of the Earth (USA). Marks have been given in the following categories, then a final grade was given overall. For the surprising results see attached table.


Friends of the Earth Cruise Report Card.png

- Overall Grading Scale

A 100-85 Excellent
B 84-70 Satisfactory
C 69-50 Needs Work
D 49-25 Poor
F 24-0 Unacceptable


- Sewage Treatment

Whether a cruise line has installed the most advanced sewage and wastewater treatment systems available instead of dumping raw or minimally treated sewage directly into the water.


- Air Pollution Reduction

Whether a cruise line has retrofitted its ships to "plug in" to available shoreside electrical grids instead of running polluting engines when docked.


- Water Quality Compliance

To what degree cruise ships violated 2008 water pollution standards designed to better protect the Alaskan coast.


- Explanation of Accessibility of Environmental Info

Three factors were assessed: (1) ease of locating environmental information on cruise line's website; (2) whether information includes concrete environmental technologies and practices of cruise line or only vague and aspirational environmental goals; and (3) specificity of information with regard to individual cruise ships.



For more information go to: http://www.foe.org/cruisereportcard

That's really quite surprising - especially about Royal Caribbean. They pride themselves on being 'innovative'. They need to go back to basics and look at the damage they're doing to the environment. Surely in this day and age, if a cruiseship is that polluting - it shouldn't be able to sail. Who's protecting the environment?

QUOTE:

Whether a cruise line has retrofitted its ships
to "plug in" to available shoreside electrical grids
instead of running polluting engines when docked.

Ummm...Power being generated for available shoreside electrical grids
is being made by diesel-turbines ten miles away from the port
doing their CO2/pollution thing at a distance.
Same thing, purty much, I reckon.

We are all part of the human pollution, carbon footprint impact on the planet
even the eco-freakos so against drilling in the Arctic.
They too buy gasoline for their cars.

The only way out is to die:
then and only then do we stop using planetary resources
stop adding to the CO2 levels (with every exhaled breath we make)
etc etc etc. ;)

_____________________________
Tell me something:
isn't it about time that the larger cruise ships started going nuclear?
Like larger aircraft carriers?
They're big enough to do it. Why isn't OASIS nuclear powered??
Sure would get rid of the hassle of fuel surcharges!
.

I can't take any of this too seriously whilst no one (except Aplmac) addresses the issue of population, which is the main cause of the problem, and will continue to be so until someone has the courage to grasp it.
What's the point in me leaving my heating off and wearing an additional jumper, whilst the Chinese are building a coal fired power station everyday, or however often it is.
That's not to say I think ships should discharge raw sewage into the sea, that's a different matter entirely to the fuel/power issue.

Eco friendly, whats all this then ?? When sheep in New Zealand are a major cause of methane gas in the atmosphere, what chance does a smelly old cruise liner stand !!
should we give up eating lamb and keep on cruising, or vice versa?? An engineer on my last cruise ship told me that their fuel consumption was about one gallon per FOOT travelled, we refuelled in dock, and the ship took the entire load of a medium sized tanker. ( ship, not road !!) with fuel consumption like that, plus the fuel used in the jumbo jet to get us there and back, who the hell is worried about using the ships gennie rather than shore power !! perhaps we should only use Star Clippers from UK ports (but only if they promise not to use thier engine or genorator !!) If everyone in the UK went back to the stoneage, and did not use ANY type of energy at all, the chinese would make up for it in under a week, when you add India, Korea, and all of the developing countries, plus the good ol US of A who are the largest world polluter of all, the problem of worrying over our energy use is a waste of time. Nothing we do will make any difference whatsoever. As for using nuclear power on cruise ships, you would not be going green but GLOWING green, No thanks !! keep it fossil.. oh for the simple days of sail !! p.s. If we all held our breath, would that help ??

I reckon one of the biggest of all tabboo subjects
NOT to be even mentioned..
is that of upper-level atmospheric pollution by hi-flying jets at 30-35,000 ft.

Nothing is ever said about this facet of pollution
and yet it must be a fair contributing factor if you consider that,
in Nature, nothing is supposed to be going on, up there!

We're adding CO and CO2, from the top down!

Nature at least takes into consideration us humans messing it about
anywhere from sea level up to about 10-15,000ft. - an arbitrary figure.

Think of ea. two- and four-engined jet aircraft while up there
laying down multi trails of yukky engine exhaust fumes, day after day!

Talk about trickle-down effect: this example has to be the best...sorry worst!
.

QUOTE:

Ummm...Power being generated for available shoreside electrical grids
is being made by diesel-turbines ten miles away from the port
doing their CO2/pollution thing at a distance.
Same thing, purty much, I reckon.

We are all part of the human pollution, carbon footprint impact on the planet
even the eco-freakos so against drilling in the Arctic.
They too buy gasoline for their cars.

The only way out is to die:
then and only then do we stop using planetary resources
stop adding to the CO2 levels (with every exhaled breath we make)
etc etc etc.

_____________________________
Tell me something:
isn't it about time that the larger cruise ships started going nuclear?
Like larger aircraft carriers?
They're big enough to do it. Why isn't OASIS nuclear powered??
Sure would get rid of the hassle of fuel surcharges!
.

I think it's a great idea to plug in when in port but sell the power to the shore ;) Go Nuclear is the best way forward just think when a cruise ship stops over you could do a maintainance shut down on a local power station. :D

Recent article in the Daily Mail and it,s not pleasant.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html

QUOTE:

Recent article in the Daily Mail and it,s not pleasant.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html

Just read the article The Mail needs to get a better calculator they spend all their time running down cruises but are happy to sell advertising space for cruises.

"Thanks to the IMO’s rules, the largest ships can each emit as much as 5,000 tons of sulphur in a year – the same as 50million typical cars, each emitting an average of 100 grams of sulphur a year.

With an estimated 800million cars driving around the planet, that means 16 super-ships can emit as much sulphur as the world fleet of cars."




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html#ixzz0YNZohSSg (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html#ixzz0YNZohSSg)

As I said in my earlier post, about the jumbo jet that flies you there and back, aircraft are major polluters, after 9/11 in the states, when all planes were grounded for a while, the lack of planes even in that short period, changed their climate !! I have also read somewhere that all of the worlds shipping combined causes twenty five percent of the worlds pollution,,I have booked my next cruise on the Cutty Sark !! we wont go far, but at least we will be green, ( unless it catches fire again !! )