6 ms·

Why assume it's a 0 sum game or try to regulate how people enjoy their free time? Isn't it much more effective to simply force ships to have much fewer emissio

by inglor 6y ago

Why assume it's a 0 sum game or try to regulate how people enjoy their free time? Isn't it much more effective to simply force ships to have much fewer emissions or offset them?

bserge 6y ago
I've had these debates way too many times. I am not getting into another one. My stand is, burning dirty oil for people's enjoyment to the detriment of the oceans and the air is [insert bad words]. I said, use sailboats for leisure tourism. Plenty of fun. At this rate, we'll fuck up the planet enough that governments will take the power in their hands and everyone will be forced to help with the cleanup. If we don't do something now, out of our own volition, we're all going to end up with much more authoritarian governments and limits on individual freedoms. It's either that or civil wars. No way around it.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  I don't know anything about you, but I guarantee you do something for fun that I could point to and say it's 'burning dirty oil for your enjoyment to the detriment of the world and the air'.
  - bserge 6y ago
    Sure, everyone does. Cruise ships are one thing that can be completely removed with great effect for the environment and it will be a minor inconvenience for the people who used to pay for them. Yes, many will take planes and trains and cars, any of which will still pollute less than cruise ships. There is no downside to banning them and using sail ships (aside from a potential loss of revenue).
    - petre 6y ago
      Don't worry. The health crisis will regulate things better than any government. I'd sail for leisure as well because I'm quite crowd-adverse and don't like the idea of a floating hotel, especially after what happened on Diamond Princess. However, you can't really blame elderly people going on a cruise. Also going to Anctarctica is also quite challenging on a small sailboat. I'd like to see solar + nuclear powered comercial ships with tamper proof reactors.
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        > However, you can't really blame elderly people going on a cruise. This sentence made me think... how many people are toiling hard under the promise that, when they amass enough wealth and eventually retire, then they'll have time to jump on cruise ships and see the world? Isn't this the tail end of the American dream? No surprise then that there isn't a widespread consensus to kill the cruise shipping industry - as you have people burning the best years of their life chasing a carrot, only for you to propose to take the carrot away. At the very least, the cruise ship operators should be made to internalize the entire environmental cost of their pollution. The best way to do that would be through taxing bunker fuel, but that may cause mayhem with the entire shipping industry, so I'd initially be fine with just a large and very much unfair tax on cruise operators. Not enough to take away the carrot, but enough to make it appropriately expensive, relative to the environmental costs. Now is probably the best time for that - the companies are devastated by COVID and won't have money to bribe^H^H^H^H^Hlobby against such measures.
        petre 6y ago
        I agree about the elderly, not about the bans. It's their decision, let them enjoy it. The market could change anyway, especially after the health crisis. Cruise ships scrapped? Good riddance. It's quite hard to tax them. They sail under Panama flags in international waters and are registered in some country most people haven't heard of. They can only be taxed while at anchor in a port under some jurisdiction. They'll happily refuel in Jamaica, Cuba or Haiti if fuel is taxed in the US. We've seen that in Europe with truckers and fuel taxes in some jurisdictions.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      > no downside Sailing ships have unreliable schedules, for one.
aeternum 6y ago
Why single out ships? Maybe we could just tax emissions such that the activity does not matter.
- Jackim 6y ago
  It's more efficient to remove the cause of emissions than to tax it and try to compensate for it. All carbon emissions should be taxed, but some things should just not be allowed.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Tax the purchase of bunker fuel for its emissions content. Cruise ships aren't going to drill for oil in international waters.
    - dmurray 6y ago
      Is burning bunker fuel at sea really a big problem? My understanding is that the impurities (sulphur mostly) in bunker fuel are bad for people to breathe and create smog, so they shouldn't be burned around population centres. The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, and you produce roughly the same amount of that per watt of power no matter what hydrocarbon you burn.
      - WalterBright 6y ago
        Hydrocarbons are molecules that are various combinations of H and C atoms. The H burns to H2O, the C to CO2. A hydrocarbon with a greater quantity of H is going to emit less CO2 when burned.
        dmurray 6y ago
        Sure, but H weighs 1/12 as much as C. Most of the fuel mass goes to CO2 no matter what you do: whether you slap on 1.5 H atoms or 3 for each C, it makes up a small part of the molecular weight. Of course, it could be that the C-H bonds contribute much more to the energy released by burning the fuel than the C-C. But this doesn't seem to be case. Here's a paper in favour of switching to lighter fuels for ships: it argues that the total supply chain CO2 contribution would be higher (it takes energy to refine those fuels), but only by 1%. I think that "bunker fuel is really bad and ships switching to lighter cleaner fuels is important for the environment" is a seductively easy but bad target for carbon reduction. There are way better places to spend our efforts. [0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3155/1047-3289.58.4.538 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3155/1047-3289.58.4.5...

by inglor 6y ago

Why assume it's a 0 sum game or try to regulate how people enjoy their free time? Isn't it much more effective to simply force ships to have much fewer emissions or offset them?

bserge 6y ago

I've had these debates way too many times. I am not getting into another one. My stand is, burning dirty oil for people's enjoyment to the detriment of the oceans and the air is [insert bad words]. I said, use sailboats for leisure tourism. Plenty of fun. At this rate, we'll fuck up the planet enough that governments will take the power in their hands and everyone will be forced to help with the cleanup. If we don't do something now, out of our own volition, we're all going to end up with much more authoritarian governments and limits on individual freedoms. It's either that or civil wars. No way around it.

chrisseaton 6y ago
I don't know anything about you, but I guarantee you do something for fun that I could point to and say it's 'burning dirty oil for your enjoyment to the detriment of the world and the air'.
- bserge 6y ago
  Sure, everyone does. Cruise ships are one thing that can be completely removed with great effect for the environment and it will be a minor inconvenience for the people who used to pay for them. Yes, many will take planes and trains and cars, any of which will still pollute less than cruise ships. There is no downside to banning them and using sail ships (aside from a potential loss of revenue).
  - petre 6y ago
    Don't worry. The health crisis will regulate things better than any government. I'd sail for leisure as well because I'm quite crowd-adverse and don't like the idea of a floating hotel, especially after what happened on Diamond Princess. However, you can't really blame elderly people going on a cruise. Also going to Anctarctica is also quite challenging on a small sailboat. I'd like to see solar + nuclear powered comercial ships with tamper proof reactors.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      > However, you can't really blame elderly people going on a cruise. This sentence made me think... how many people are toiling hard under the promise that, when they amass enough wealth and eventually retire, then they'll have time to jump on cruise ships and see the world? Isn't this the tail end of the American dream? No surprise then that there isn't a widespread consensus to kill the cruise shipping industry - as you have people burning the best years of their life chasing a carrot, only for you to propose to take the carrot away. At the very least, the cruise ship operators should be made to internalize the entire environmental cost of their pollution. The best way to do that would be through taxing bunker fuel, but that may cause mayhem with the entire shipping industry, so I'd initially be fine with just a large and very much unfair tax on cruise operators. Not enough to take away the carrot, but enough to make it appropriately expensive, relative to the environmental costs. Now is probably the best time for that - the companies are devastated by COVID and won't have money to bribe^H^H^H^H^Hlobby against such measures.
      - petre 6y ago
        I agree about the elderly, not about the bans. It's their decision, let them enjoy it. The market could change anyway, especially after the health crisis. Cruise ships scrapped? Good riddance. It's quite hard to tax them. They sail under Panama flags in international waters and are registered in some country most people haven't heard of. They can only be taxed while at anchor in a port under some jurisdiction. They'll happily refuel in Jamaica, Cuba or Haiti if fuel is taxed in the US. We've seen that in Europe with truckers and fuel taxes in some jurisdictions.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    > no downside Sailing ships have unreliable schedules, for one.

aeternum 6y ago

Why single out ships? Maybe we could just tax emissions such that the activity does not matter.

Jackim 6y ago
It's more efficient to remove the cause of emissions than to tax it and try to compensate for it. All carbon emissions should be taxed, but some things should just not be allowed.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Tax the purchase of bunker fuel for its emissions content. Cruise ships aren't going to drill for oil in international waters.
  - dmurray 6y ago
    Is burning bunker fuel at sea really a big problem? My understanding is that the impurities (sulphur mostly) in bunker fuel are bad for people to breathe and create smog, so they shouldn't be burned around population centres. The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, and you produce roughly the same amount of that per watt of power no matter what hydrocarbon you burn.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      Hydrocarbons are molecules that are various combinations of H and C atoms. The H burns to H2O, the C to CO2. A hydrocarbon with a greater quantity of H is going to emit less CO2 when burned.
      - dmurray 6y ago
        Sure, but H weighs 1/12 as much as C. Most of the fuel mass goes to CO2 no matter what you do: whether you slap on 1.5 H atoms or 3 for each C, it makes up a small part of the molecular weight. Of course, it could be that the C-H bonds contribute much more to the energy released by burning the fuel than the C-C. But this doesn't seem to be case. Here's a paper in favour of switching to lighter fuels for ships: it argues that the total supply chain CO2 contribution would be higher (it takes energy to refine those fuels), but only by 1%. I think that "bunker fuel is really bad and ships switching to lighter cleaner fuels is important for the environment" is a seductively easy but bad target for carbon reduction. There are way better places to spend our efforts. [0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3155/1047-3289.58.4.538 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3155/1047-3289.58.4.5...