3 ms·

These figures are from 2006 - so you need to factor in improvements in engineering since then - but The Guardian crunched some figures and said “According to o

These figures are from 2006 - so you need to factor in improvements in engineering since then - but The Guardian crunched some figures and said “According to our calculations, a cruiseliner such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight (even allowing for the further damage of emissions being produced in the upper atmosphere” So the answer would appear to be “jump on the plane”.

clort 7y ago
There might be a nuance missing, in that if you compare a plane journey vs a cruise you are of course not comparing like to like if you only consider 'CO2 per passenger mile' as aeroplanes are used to travel further than a cruise ship. I don't know the mileage that they actually cover on a cruise, but at 20kts they could cover 480 miles in 24 hours and bearing in mind that they are spending time in port it will be less than that. Lets estimate 300 miles per day, so a 2 week cruise could rack up ~4200 sea miles. => 1806 Kg of CO2 If I flew from Heathrow to Antigua for those 2 weeks, that would be ~8000 air miles. => 2056 Kg of CO2
- Retric 7y ago
  Longer trips would take you to different locations. So, sure visiting Australia from Florida would result in more pollution, but that’s not the same experience as a Caribbean cruise.
- Angostura 7y ago
  Alternatively, cruises tend to take meandering inefficient routes - comparable flights will always be shorter.
- LeonB 7y ago
  Agreed. It is very far from an apples to apples comparison.
B1FF_PSUVM 7y ago
The cruise liner is also doing hotel and restaurant for the traveler, and there's less of the "taxi to town" involved.
maccard 7y ago
Wow, that's so much worse than I thought. The previous example was just NOx and SOx - I suspected it would win out based on CO2 at least. My question is still though what would happen to the low grade fuel that they're currently burning? If people started to fly, and the low grade fuel was just burned anyway because it's so cheap (thinking long haul freighter etc), the situation would be worse!

clort 7y ago

There might be a nuance missing, in that if you compare a plane journey vs a cruise you are of course not comparing like to like if you only consider 'CO2 per passenger mile' as aeroplanes are used to travel further than a cruise ship. I don't know the mileage that they actually cover on a cruise, but at 20kts they could cover 480 miles in 24 hours and bearing in mind that they are spending time in port it will be less than that. Lets estimate 300 miles per day, so a 2 week cruise could rack up ~4200 sea miles. => 1806 Kg of CO2 If I flew from Heathrow to Antigua for those 2 weeks, that would be ~8000 air miles. => 2056 Kg of CO2

Retric 7y ago
Longer trips would take you to different locations. So, sure visiting Australia from Florida would result in more pollution, but that’s not the same experience as a Caribbean cruise.
Angostura 7y ago
Alternatively, cruises tend to take meandering inefficient routes - comparable flights will always be shorter.
LeonB 7y ago
Agreed. It is very far from an apples to apples comparison.

B1FF_PSUVM 7y ago

The cruise liner is also doing hotel and restaurant for the traveler, and there's less of the "taxi to town" involved.

maccard 7y ago

Wow, that's so much worse than I thought. The previous example was just NOx and SOx - I suspected it would win out based on CO2 at least. My question is still though what would happen to the low grade fuel that they're currently burning? If people started to fly, and the low grade fuel was just burned anyway because it's so cheap (thinking long haul freighter etc), the situation would be worse!