> “Cruises don’t serve any purpose,” she said as the morning sun filtered through her kitchen windows, hinting at another sweltering August afternoon. “The container ships and the ferries benefit everyone, but the cruises are benefiting the shipowners and then the people who save up to afford a cruise. It’s entertainment, and it’s entertainment that’s filled with completely ridiculous things, like an ice-skating rink on a ship. I mean, how can we authorize that?”<p>That's kind of an odd perspective. Lots of things humans do don't "serve any purpose" other than entertainment. Get rid of movie theaters?<p>The cruise industry deserves a lot of criticism and should probably get some regulation. Coming at this from a perspective of "I don't find cruises interesting so let's get rid of them" them does not, to me, sound like a good strategy. Personally, I have been on one cruise and I really enjoyed it. The price was really good and I'd even do another cruise at a higher price if that was the impact. I enjoyed being on a very nice hotel that I could wake up in a new place each day.
I think the strongest version of the activists' case is the economic one, which is something like: the cruise ships benefit the region by bringing tourists and (presumably) paying some direct fees to dock there, but this benefit is lower than the public cost of them belching pollutants into the air, and banning cruise ships is more realistic then passing the more nuanced taxes that would correctly penalize these negative externalities.<p>The weakest version is the aesthetic classist one that cruise ships are tacky. I have the same opinion, but convincing people that the thing they like is lame doesn't seem like a great tactic.
I too find cruise ship pollution while in port annoying, especially so once you realize they're burning oil to run generators ... while being just meters away from a perfectly working power grid.<p>It seems to me that a perfectly reasonable solution that would satisfy all parties would be to mandate that EU ports have appropriate grid connections, and that cruise ships must make use of them.
Large ships burn the worst fuels its very difficult to regulate the industry towards any kind of emission standards I think in recent years some large countries have strong armed the adoption of lower sulfur fuels or something but outside of territorial waters I’m sure these cruises burn the grossest by products of the petrochemical industry there’s no economic reason not to<p>On those grounds alone I sympathize with folks who don’t want to watch these things lumber into their port as people have pointed out they’re doing precious little for the local economy anyways
Might be better off just instituting pollution taxes and not letting ships fly whatever flags they want or burn whatever oil they want. Then if cruises can clean up, good for them.<p>I can't read the article btw
Since it's a Saturday and vaguely on topic, David Foster Wallace’s 1996 classic “Shipping Out” is a recommended read.<p><a href="https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazi...</a>
This seems very French, and also very irrational.<p>Show me some causative data that the cruises cause these problems, and they might have an argument other than "I seem to be having more trouble breathing"<p>Disclaimer: Fan of cruises (and not initially, but Harmony of the Seas changed me somehow)
Im curious why cities don't try to capture more of the value?<p>- Impose massive docking fees, cheaper cruises need to anchor far away and ferry in.<p>- Force passengers to buy vouchers that can only be used in that city on that date.
I agree, cruise ships pollute a lot, are wasteful, and benefit very few people, but rely on public infrastructure. We'd be better off without them.