“The rich gazed at their superyachts, and decided they were not enough. The new breed of megayachts, which are at least 70 metres (230ft) in length, may be the most expensive moveable assets ever created.”
“First and foremost, owning a megayacht is the most polluting activity a single person can possibly engage in. Abramovich’s yachts emit more than 22,000 tonnes of carbon every year, which is more than some small countries. Even flying long-haul every day of the year, or air-conditioning a sprawling palace, would not get close to those emissions levels.
The bulk of these emissions happen whether or not a yacht actually travels anywhere. Simply owning one – or indeed building one – is an act of enormous climate vandalism.”
Better to turn them into artificial reefs if you see them
This is why I fucking hate the do your part bullshit.
Corporations and wealthy don’t have the same pressure or responsibility, but it’s us as consumers who have to put all the extra work and thought into changing our routines and habits (not to mention how much more it could cost)
Fuck these fucks. Greed killed the earth.
This is why I fucking hate the do your part bullshit.
Same thing with water usage. Our house had a nice, normal-sized lawn and we basically had to kill it a few years ago when the CA drought was really bad. It was a bummer because our house looked nice, but big picture, I understood why water restrictions were in place and did my part.
Meanwhile, there are 120+ golf courses in the Palm Springs/Coachella Valley area. Residential water usage in the state of CA accounts for like 10% of water usage and I’m over here having to kill my lawn. It was hard to reconcile those facts.
California would probably have plenty of water if they didn’t allow the cultivation of thirsty crops in the goddamn desert. Everyone talks about California regulations (there are some silly ones), but what sticks out to me the most is the corporate shit they refuse to regulate.
Water law in the west is really weird.
It was developed around the idea that the first mine in an area could use the water that they wanted, and the next mine in the area could do the same only inasmuch as it didn’t affect the water available to the first mine.
So you’ve got water rights that are primarily based on seniority and continuing to use your allotment so you don’t lose it. That’s not very well aligned with goals of conservation.
I’m standing over my recycling bin agonizing over whether the plastic thing I’ve just washed out is recyclable or garbage, all while knowing my city doesn’t even differentiate between the two. And then these guys will throw will have a party that has a bigger ecological footprint than I’ll have on any year of my life.
Now do cruise ships.
Per person, cruise ships are probably a couple of order of magnitude better than mega yacht… but yeah both are good.
I’d love to see cruise sail ships.
Sailing is hard work on a two-person vessel; World fare be a nominal fee plus n hours of labor? Sign me up!
Sailing is hard work on a two-person vessel;
Why do you say two-person vessel specifically? Are there no automated sail boats on the small scale?
Cruise ships aren’t all that much worse than long haul flights (specifics gonna depend on the ship and the plane but my first google results ended up with a 14 day cruise being roughly equivalent to four transatlantic flights) purely in terms of co2, just bc there are so many people on board. Though flights also need to cut emissions by a lot really, so that’s still not great. And cruise ships tend to use fuel that releases other harmful chemicals beyond just greenhouse gases.
Still, to particularly focus on them rather than just one of many things that need to be reduced and also made more efficient feels a bit misplaced to me. Though I’d imagine that if sail container ships actually prove viable, sail cruise ships might follow.
seems like the world should ban filthy wealth lifestyle. How should we proceed, any idea anyone ?
This is just a “feel bad” story rather than an actionable policy suggestion since, as the author acknowledges, regulating these yachts is going to be rather difficult because they can just sail somewhere else. Plenty of countries will welcome them in return for the economic activity associated with being a haven for the super-rich.
If the yachts already exist anyway and so the carbon footprint will be the same, it seems better for them to exist here where they put a lot of money into the local economy rather than somewhere else. I suppose that has to be weighted against the potential to discourage future yacht construction…
