Europe’s Cruise Ships Produce Toxic Sulphur Emissions Equivalent to 1 Billion Cars, Study Finds

https://www.ecowatch.com/europe-cruise-ships-sulphur-emissions-air-pollution.html

by chrisdh79

5 comments

  2. Yet the sulfur blanket has been protecting us from the worst of the planetary heating. Since recent regulations to remove sulfur from their emissions we’ve seen a sharp spike in ocean temperatures. A real catch-22.

  4. I have been on a few cruises and am always troubled by the smoke pouring out of the stack wondering if it is better or significantly worse than other forms of fossil fuel based travel (considering it is moving 2000-5000 passengers at a time) and if there is a better way to do this.

    One of the olde, smaller Royal Caribbean ships in NA that I went on was installing scrubbers – happened to go on it a year later and a year or so after that and it was still ‘being installed’ – no idea what actually happened with that or if they were having problems or just making an effort to comply for show.

    I know the local requirements in some places like the Chesapeake where this RC cruise ship was from are to put in scrubbers but I’ve read that in places like Alaska where the sludge of emissions that were scrubbed are then dumped offshore into the ocean (because, of course you spent all this money, time and effort to save the air, so why not pollute the sea!?) it created acidic dead zones that impacted fisheries.

    I suppose the alternative would be to transfer to a special toxic landfill someplace, but it reminds me of how crazy and shortsighted our regulations are., or maybe it is just how the industry manipulates it.

    On a newer and larger NCL ship I had asked the captain about any plans to install scrubbers and the answer was they already use low sulfur fuel and to the scrubbers question the answer was an immediate and empathetic no, it’s not going to happen.

  5. Cruises and the people who pay for them are immoral.

Comments are closed.