Monster cruise ships that pollute the seas

News from the Celtic League:

The article below from the Celtic League points to the environmental pollution caused by large cruise ships. This comes at a time when some in the Celtic nations are promoting the economic benefits in terms of increased tourism that these visiting ships could bring. However, it would come at a price:

‘FLOATING MONSTERS’ HOW APT!

Julie Blackburn (at IOM Today) poses an interesting dilemma for ‘the Green Howard’ (aka the Manx Chief Minister) in this article about the environmental pollution caused by Cruise Ships which she describes aptly as floating monsters:

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/article.cfm…

Howard’s alter ego Treasury Minister Alf Cannan MHK wants to create a huge Cruise liner terminal so we can ‘reap the benefits’ of these behemoths of the seas. Indeed behemoths they are becoming as the good folk of Dun Laoghaire discovered some years ago when they found the Cruise ships planning to visit included a so called ‘block ship’ as tall as it is long. These vessels are so named because they are so tall they block out the sun! Dun Laoghaire the Irish Times reported in February is rethinking its policy of Cruise traffic:

http://coastmonkey.ie/block-ships-visiting-dun-laoghaire-h…/

In January 2017 in Celtic News I published a piece sceptical of the value of this ‘revenue puller’ to our Island and listed some of the down sides. As is always the case there was no interest in this offering from ‘Green Radio’ on Douglas Head whose latest contribution to the climate debate is to advise that ‘god will help us’.

Anyway here’s a piece from that 2017 item I recommend the links:

“Cruise ships will bring a great boon to the Island so the ‘end of the pier show’ narrative seemed to suggest.

“However Cruise ships polluting the Oceans of the world are a sort of eco-unfriendly exploitative tourism for people from the US and the West.

“Well that’s as maybe but it does seem the logic of the lunatic asylum to embrace the costly although necessary implications of mitigating climate change and then give a stimulus to one of the biggest polluters on the planet - the cruise industry.

“Don’t take my word for it read this:

https://www.theguardian.com/…/the-worlds-largest-cruise-shi…

“The article was only published a few months ago however these concerns have been around for years. Here is another link from Friends of the Earth also from 2016:

http://www.foe.org/cruise-report-card

“Note the quote:

‘Most travellers don’t realize that taking a cruise is more harmful to the environment and human health than many other forms of travel.’

“Finally if the Island were minded to enhance its marine assets it might start by improving its maintenance programme on the existing series of harbours and breakwaters we already have. Most of these structures built over 100 years ago are rapidly approaching the end of their shelf life.” (CELTIC NEWS January 2017)

Image; A ‘block ship’ that should look good tied up at Alf’s new Cruise terminal!

Bernard Moffatt

Celtic League