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Thank you. But what if you factor in a flight? This assumes you need to travel to your vacation destination of course. That's additional miles travelled in an a

Thank you. But what if you factor in a flight? This assumes you need to travel to your vacation destination of course. That's additional miles travelled in an aircraft at 31 gCO2/km, would be 1000s of km that you don't need to factor in for a cruise.

runarberg 3y ago
I didn’t, but quite many people actually fly to and from the the cruise’s start harbor and destination. Medium haul passenger flights tend to by around 180-200 g CO2 per passenger km, so (surprising to many) less then a single occupant car. If your cruise passenger would instead fly to every single of the cruise’s stop, they can actually expect to emit less. However this kind of detailed analysis is out of scope for me personally. I don’t have the means to do excessive research factoring in various alternatives (and if I did I—as a non-expert—I would risk overfitting). For example a tourist arriving on an airplane is likely to stay in a hotel connected to the electricity grid, which is more likely to be fare more efficient and less carbon intensive than a cruise ship generating the onboard power with heavy fuel oil. I can, on the other hand, do a rudimentary ‘sniff test’ and locate easy to find data for what is going to be the biggest—perhaps even the overwhelming—factor, the emissions of the transport it self. And as such the claim that: “[we should consider] all the pollution that NOT happening because those thousands of people are on a cruise for the week” miserably fails. Looking into the emissions of an average cruise ship tells us the story that—to the contrary—we need NOT consider this.
- jaybrendansmith 3y ago
  Ok fair enough. If we stipulate that, then we just need to regulate these emissions because they are getting a free ride on externalities. We just need to say 'if you wish to dock at our port, you must have a boat that emits less than x'. The market will then adjust by building ships that are cleaner. Cost of a cruise will go up by a few bucks, problem solved.

runarberg 3y ago

I didn’t, but quite many people actually fly to and from the the cruise’s start harbor and destination. Medium haul passenger flights tend to by around 180-200 g CO2 per passenger km, so (surprising to many) less then a single occupant car. If your cruise passenger would instead fly to every single of the cruise’s stop, they can actually expect to emit less. However this kind of detailed analysis is out of scope for me personally. I don’t have the means to do excessive research factoring in various alternatives (and if I did I—as a non-expert—I would risk overfitting). For example a tourist arriving on an airplane is likely to stay in a hotel connected to the electricity grid, which is more likely to be fare more efficient and less carbon intensive than a cruise ship generating the onboard power with heavy fuel oil. I can, on the other hand, do a rudimentary ‘sniff test’ and locate easy to find data for what is going to be the biggest—perhaps even the overwhelming—factor, the emissions of the transport it self. And as such the claim that: “[we should consider] all the pollution that NOT happening because those thousands of people are on a cruise for the week” miserably fails. Looking into the emissions of an average cruise ship tells us the story that—to the contrary—we need NOT consider this.

jaybrendansmith 3y ago
Ok fair enough. If we stipulate that, then we just need to regulate these emissions because they are getting a free ride on externalities. We just need to say 'if you wish to dock at our port, you must have a boat that emits less than x'. The market will then adjust by building ships that are cleaner. Cost of a cruise will go up by a few bucks, problem solved.