A cruise ship pollutes the environment as much as one million cars.

[CreamCat]

It is said that a few luxurious cruise ships pollute the world more than every car in the world.

The cruise industry and its customers are not conscious enough of how cruise ships cause cancer and various diseases in people who live near harbors that accommodate these massive cruise ships. While the customers are playing on cruise ships, citizens of nearby harbors suffer cancer.

Edited October 20, 2019 by CreamCat

[Hansu]

While the video is correct on CO2 emissions, its incorrect and very shallow on many other points.

Take it with a pinch of salt.

[tenta]

Yet demonizing individuals for using straws instead of realizing companies need to take responsibility continues

[Leo Gura]

You have to take into account, though, that if all those 1000s of people didn't go on that cruise, they would be polluting individually back at home. Don't forget to take into account how much 1000 people shit, piss, eat, buy, throw away, etc. in one week back at home. Don't forget to factor in the cost of gas, oil, sewage, and water back at home.

Just to stay alive requires pollution. How much do 1000 birds shit in one week?

I'm not saying cruise ships aren't wasteful, but context is important. Of course 1000s of people gathered in a small space will create lots of pollution.

[Michael569]

There is too much environmental pushback against these and it is very likely we will see dramatic reduction or a change in the way these companies operate. The habitat destruction is just too obvious. 

The next big hit will be every big city operating a space shuttle launching platform sending 20 shuttles a day for commercial flights to space. Boy, we better be ready for the crap those will be releasing. Orange will always find a way don't you worry child

[Hansu]

38 minutes ago, Michael569 said:

it is very likely we will see dramatic reduction or a change in the way these companies operate.

There is tremendous pressure in the shipping world to move towards greener technology. One reason is of course lower costs (Ships use a LOT of fuel) and one reason is IMO regulations.

Electric ships are amazing because they are easy to maintain without engineers onboard 24/7. In my opinion and with 5 years of experience I believe that a diesel powered ship will never be unmanned. The engine room simply cannot be left unmanned unless you build so much redundancy that you lose more money in lost cargo space than when you hire someone to upkeep the engine room.

And then there is IMO, and without IMO the sulphur 2020 regulations would have never happened. The scrubber system required to reduce suplhur emissions from Heavy Fuel Oil is a costly system, its an engineers nightmare when its malfunctioning, its an engineers nightmare to retrofit to a ship and the cheaper scrubber solutions have limited areas of use because not all sea areas contain water that can be used in the scrubber system.

Because of these problems, a lot of shipping companies have objected the sulphur 2020 regulations and some shipping companies have contemplated on moving to the sulphur free Marine Diesel Oil alltogether and ditch the HFO, but IMO wont budge.

IMO is an environmental fighter that sadly lacks the praise it deserves

Edited November 11, 2019 by Hansu

[Michael569]

@Hansu patience my dear..patience 

[Nak Khid]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You have to take into account, though, that if all those 1000s of people didn't go on that cruise, they would be polluting individually back at home.

That could be taken into account and the result would be the people staying at home using their cars and every other polluting thing they are doing at home is much less than what these cruise ships, in constant motion are doing.
Instead of a future of stability that is conducive to things like mediation  and contemplation we are facing a future in which millions of people will be thrust into survival mode
 

Personally I think these ships should be banned.
The world is now entering possibly irreversible environmental crisis that could result in mass starvation.  If you have any children they may die before their time. Ecosystems and the atmosphere are delicate integrated systems that have evolved over millions of years.   We don't know enough about them to manage and predict how our massive alterations to the environment will  effect not just warming but a number of other environmental threats as well.

Ships, especially those out in international waters, commonly burn bunker fuel — the dirtiest form of fuel. The emissions billowing out of their smoke stacks include high levels of nitrogen and sulphur oxides (NOx and SOx), which are linked to asthma, lung cancer and heart disease.

"With current limitations on technology, it seems that electrification will be limited to small craft undertaking short, ferry-type voyages,"
---Peter Hinchliffe, secretary general, International Chamber of Shipping (ICS),

Here is a shipping industry article written by a ship captain discussing the details on fuel options to attempt to meet IMO standards in 2020
(IMO) the International Maritime Organization – is the United Nations specialized agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine and atmospheric pollution by ships.

https://www.myseatime.com/blog/detail/imo-2020-sox-sulphur-limits

IMO 2020 Sulphur limits: All you need to know

Written by Capt Rajeev Jassal on December 9, 2018

 

Edited November 11, 2019 by Nak Khid

[Nak Khid]

On 10/19/2019 at 9:55 AM, Hansu said:

While the video is correct on CO2 emissions, its incorrect and very shallow on many other points.

Take it with a pinch of salt.

This video is enlightening the general public as to how polluting large ships are.  Most people are completely unaware of it so massive kudos to this video and a full container of salt.  
The other points are secondary and you have said nothing explaining why you think some other points are shallow

[Hansu]

@Nak Khid

For one, they use the argument that the ship dumps human waste into the ocean and makes it seem like its a bad thing.

However, they leave out the fact that the waste goes through extensive cleaning before its let out into the ocean. The same process that city waste management facilities go through before dumping their waste into the ocean. They left that fact out purposely because it would have nullified their argument. They do it because they have agenda and that fact doesn't fit that agenda.

Im not gonna go deeper into the other mis/twisted information on the video, but Im just saying dont take their words at face value.

[Nak Khid]

1 minute ago, Hansu said:

@Nak Khid

For one, they use the argument that the ship dumps human waste into the ocean and makes it seem like its a bad thing.

However, they leave out the fact that the waste goes through extensive cleaning before its let out into the ocean. The same process that city waste management facilities go through before dumping their waste into the ocean. They left that fact out purposely because it would have nullified their argument. They do it because they have agenda and that fact doesn't fit that agenda.

Im not gonna go deeper into the other mis/twisted information on the video, but Im just saying dont take their words at face value.

 

For decades, sewage sludge has been dumped into the ocean as a means of recycling the water used and so that people did not have to find a way to store it safely. Sewage sludge is defined as “a mixture of water, inorganic, and organic solids removed from municipal wastewater by physical, biological, and/or chemical treatment and it and liquid effluent are the two products resulting from municipal wastewater treatment”. The Ocean Dumping Ban, signed into law in 1988, prohibited ocean dumping after December 31, 1991. Dumping is currently banned in the United States, Sweden, Switzerland, and many other countries

[Leo Gura]

@Nak Khid I agree we need some kind of carbon tax which might make such businesses like cruise ships unprofitable.

[Nak Khid]

To complicate matters A forthcoming UN regulation will slash shipping industry pollution but may also speed up climate change.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610007/were-about-to-kill-a-massive-accidental-experiment-in-halting-global-warming/

MIT Technology Review

We’re about to kill a massive, accidental experiment in reducing global warming

A forthcoming UN regulation will slash shipping industry pollution but may also speed up climate change.

by James Temple

Jan 22, 2018

Studies have found that ships have a net cooling effect on the planet, despite belching out nearly a billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. That’s almost entirely because they also emit sulfur, which can scatter sunlight in the atmosphere and form or thicken clouds that reflect it away.

In effect, the shipping industry has been carrying out an unintentional experiment in climate engineering for more than a century. Global mean temperatures could be as much as 0.25 ˚C lower than they would otherwise have been, based on the mean “forcing effect” calculated by a 2009 study that pulled together other findings (see “The Growing Case for Geoengineering”). For a world struggling to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 ˚C, that’s a big helping hand.

And we’re about to take it away.

In 2016, the UN’s International Maritime Organization announced that by 2020, international shipping vessels will have to significantly cut sulfur pollution. Specifically, ship owners must switch to fuels with no more than 0.5 percent sulfur content, down from the current 3.5 percent, or install exhaust cleaning systems that achieve the same reduction, Shell noted in a brochure for customers.

There are very good reasons to cut sulfur: it contributes to both ozone depletion and acid rain, and it can cause or exacerbate respiratory problems.

But as a 2009 paper in Environmental Science & Technology noted, limiting sulfur emissions is a double-edged sword. “Given these reductions, shipping will, relative to present-day impacts, impart a ‘double warming’ effect: one from [carbon dioxide], and one from the reduction of [sulfur dioxide],” wrote the authors. “Therefore, after some decades the net climate effect of shipping will shift from cooling to warming.”

Sulfur pollution from coal burning has a similar effect. Some studies suggest that China’s surge in coal consumption over the last decade partly offset the recent global warming trend (though coal does have a strong net warming effect).

It’s difficult to estimate how much the new rule could affect temperatures. We don’t know enough about cloud physics and the behavior of atmospheric particles, nor how diligently the shipping industry will comply with the new rule, says Robert Wood, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.

Another wrinkle is that ships emit other particles that can sometimes also stimulate cloud droplets to form, including black carbon, a major component of soot. Removing the sulfur from the fuel could alter the size and quantity of these particles, which could affect clouds as well, says Lynn Russell, a professor of atmospheric science at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

“So we can’t really say exactly what the change will be,” says Russell, though she adds that the rule change is “likely” to produce a warming effect on balance.

The upcoming change does offer a different way of thinking about intentional efforts to cool the climate, known as geoengineering, according to some proponents of research in this area. Rather than some radical experiment, deliberate geoengineering could instead be seen as a way of continuing to do what we’ve been doing inadvertently with ships, but in a safer way.

Sulfur emissions cool the planet in two ways, directly and indirectly. The direct way is that when sulfur dioxide is further oxidized in the atmosphere, it can form particles that reflect sunlight back into space. This happens in large volcanic eruptions, which can release tens of millions of tons of sulfur dioxide.

The indirect way is that sulfur particles can also act as nuclei around which cloud droplets form. Clouds, too, reflect more sunlight. You can see this in satellite images, which show lines of white clouds above the ocean along busy shipping lanes.

Geoengineering researchers have explored both processes, but with less toxic particles, as potential ways to alter the climate (see “Scientists Consider Brighter Clouds to Preserve the Great Barrier Reef”).

For instance, researchers with the Marine Cloud Brightening Project, centered at the University of Washington, have spent years studying the possibility of spraying tiny salt particles into the sky along coastlines to induce cloud droplets to form. The group has spent the last few years attempting to raise several million dollars to build the sort of sprayers that would be needed, in the hopes of carrying out small-scale field experiments somewhere along the Pacific coastline.

Both Russell and Wood said the upcoming rule change could also offer a chance to conduct some basic climate science by observing the interactions between airborne particles and clouds. Those insights could make climate simulations more accurate—how clouds behave is one of the least understood parts of the system, Wood says—as well as informing the debate about whether and how to carry out geoengineering.

But that all depends on whether scientists can get funding for such research, which will require more frequent satellite observations and surface sensors. Ideally, the research should start before the new rule goes into effect to ensure an accurate picture of how things change.

“We’re approaching dangerous thresholds of temperature increases, so an additional bump of 0.1 or 0.2 degrees is something that we as a civilization should be watching really, really closely,” says Kelly Wanser, principal director with the Marine Cloud Brightening Project.

Whether the money will be available is less clear. Certain nations have been increasing funding levels for climate research. But it’s become far more difficult to secure such grants in the United States under the Trump administration, which specifically sought to cut NASA programs that monitor clouds and airborne particles.

[CreamCat]

18 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

 

 

What is this? A shit porn?

[CreamCat]

18 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

The Ocean Dumping Ban, signed into law in 1988, prohibited ocean dumping after December 31, 1991. Dumping is currently banned in the United States, Sweden, Switzerland, and many other countries

But, waste products have to go somewhere. You cannot store infinite amount of waste products for ever.

[Nak Khid]

3 hours ago, CreamCat said:

What is this? A shit porn?

No it's a very informative video about how sewage is processed in New York. that vast majority of it is cleaned and processed into fertilizer.

Had you had watched the video you would know this

[Hansu]

On 11.11.2019 at 9:23 PM, Nak Khid said:

 

For decades, sewage sludge has been dumped into the ocean as a means of recycling the water used and so that people did not have to find a way to store it safely. Sewage sludge is defined as “a mixture of water, inorganic, and organic solids removed from municipal wastewater by physical, biological, and/or chemical treatment and it and liquid effluent are the two products resulting from municipal wastewater treatment”. The Ocean Dumping Ban, signed into law in 1988, prohibited ocean dumping after December 31, 1991. Dumping is currently banned in the United States, Sweden, Switzerland, and many other countries

Just like on the ship, the treated water is released back to the environment. This is true in ship and ground facilities.

[CreamCat]

@Hansu Did the video exaggerate cancer risk to nearby citizens?

[remember]

there are cruiseships with sails - but i guess they are on the more cost intense side, as they are smaller with more specialized staff needed. although if some development would be put int more automation of sailing ships, i wonder why there should not be more of that. of course one would have to cut the number of places visited in one cruise down, but it def has some charm. it`s not that there are no potential alternatives.

for cargo cruise it would be probably still difficult.

 

 

(the shit is another problem with potential solutions, just produce better shit! when you buy your food already think about the shit quality)

Edited November 13, 2019 by remember

[Hansu]

19 hours ago, CreamCat said:

@Hansu Did the video exaggerate cancer risk to nearby citizens?

Its not really my area of expertise(Im just a marine engineer and currently work as ship designer so I dont know much about cancerous toxins) but there is definitely research out there that points out higher cancer risk for people living in port cities. There was this document I watched of a man who worked as ship engineer until his 70's who's lungs were as bad as someone who was a chain smoker for their entire lifetime, but he claimed that he never smoked in is life.

However, this was back in the day when we were paying little attention to the quality of gasses we let out of those engines. Nowdays we have higher engine efficiency(less exhaust gasses and less harmful substances in the exhaust gas), better fuel distillation processes(cleaner fuel), shipping industry is moving towards using Liquefied Natural Gas instead of HFO and MDO (cleaner than MDO and MUCH cleaner than HFO) more and more ports are requiring you to switch over to cleaner fuels before you enter the port, scrubbers are here which are a big game changer etc.

Something to criticize about the video; It claims that one ship in port according to experts in Brussels and Germany releases more sulphur in a day than millions of cars but they leave out whether this study was done on HFO, MDO, or LNG fuel and if the ships were using HFO, did they use scrubbers. This is critical information due to the 2020 sulphur regulations and the move towards LNG.

I would love to check this myself but they didnt care to share sources in their video or its description

TL;DR I think their claims are based on actual research, but the research is outdated and does not take into account the recent and upcoming changes in fuel quality, fuel types and post-cleansing of exhaust gasses.

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by Hansu