Carbon Footprints

[watervole]

I was just chatting to my dad, who likes to do a cruise holiday every couple of years, and we were discussing the environmental impact.

I thought there was a fair environmental cost to cruises, but we were both surprised by what I found when I looked it up.

Cruises are far, far worse than flying.  If you take a liner to your destination, your carbon emissions will be nearly double that of a similar flight (and the impact of that flight is bad enough that I've given up flying), and there is also a massive impact of sulphur emissions, sewage, oil contaminated water, rubbish, etc.

Add in the fact that many people fly to their starting destination, and cruises are an environmental disaster zone.

Comments

[jesuswasbatman]

That's a surprise given how many people are on a megacruise liner and the efficiencies that result.

I wonder, though, how much of those carbon emissions come from the power used in moving the ship, and how much from air conditioning and other on-board passenger services.

[watervole]

It seems to be a combination of factors. People on a cruiser have far more personal space than on an airliner, so there's much more weight per person - and that's before you factor in their share of the swimming pool, ballroom, kitchens, etc.

All those things are being carried along with them, unlike an aircraft where you just have one cramped seat and a share in a tiny kitchen that just heats food.

Yes, there's a big electricity consumption (which leads to air pollution issues at ports even when the ship is stationary), but I'm willing to bet that motive power is a large chunk of the total.

[damerell]

Also that you're just there a lot longer (and, to be fair, should hence discount it by the gas and electricity you didn't use at home...)

I remember two friends of mine producing an absolutely astronomical figure for The Canadian, the transcontinental train service, because you're on there for six days; it turns out most of this was an error between "the train refuels in six places" (which it does) and "the train arrives at these six places completely dry and takes on its full fuel capacity", which isn't even remotely true.

[watervole]

Discounting the gas and electricity is fair, though won't make a big difference. The biggest cost is simply hauling all that mass around the globe. (and ship with all those internal cabins will probably have a very high demand for air conditioning that you won't use at home)

It's the distances involves that make it so bad.

Your example of the railway will still be bad, even though not as bad as your friends calculated. It's going all the way across Canada - that's an enormous distance.

The cost of aviation looks great per mile. but there are an awful lot of miles.

Our perception of the world has shrunk. In the days when it took a sailing ship six to fourteen weeks to go from England to America, we had a much better sense of just how far it was. Now we can do it in less than a day and it's just a short hop.

[espresso_addict]

The cruise ships also cause industrial-scale building in the ports they visit, even if they don't disgorge all their passengers at once to clog the streets.

[dumain.com]

Wouldn't work for your dad as there are age limits but if you wanted to cross the Atlantic freighters tend to travel at more fuel efficient speeds. Working out exactly what your fair share of the emissions is could be a bit tricky though.

Don't have the same facilities as cruise ships either.

[watervole]

Given my ability to get sea sick, I think I'll pass for myself!

[igenlode]

Presumably it's the sheer mass being pushed through the water (and modern 'cruise' liner hulls are not streamlined to the extent that the old passenger liners were -- but then the figures given are for the QE2, which I believe *was* one of the last liners built for trans-Atlantic travel rather than cruising). Combined with the additional time spent on the journey.

One should probably knock off the equivalent energy consumption caused by not spending those weeks in a luxury hotel, but hotels don't operate things like desalination plants or generate all their own electricity.

"When speed is reduced by 20%, fuel consumption is reduced by 40% per nautical mile" -- Modern cargo ships slow to the speed of the sailing clippers (The Guardian)