Nothing could have prepared Ivan Macfadyen (photographed) for the devastation all around him as he sailed the Pacific. It was the silence that made this voyage different from all of those before it. Not the absence of sound, exactly. The wind still whipped the sails and whistled in the rigging. The waves sloshed against the fibreglass hull. And there were plenty of other … [Read more...]
Cruise ships cause mass pollution
What comes to your mind when you think of pollution? Thick black oil smeared on clean ice? Small piping shorebirds strangled by old plastic? According to the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), you should be thinking of something entirely different - cruise ships. NABU recently singled out AIDA and TUI, two German-based cruise lines, for their harmful … [Read more...]
Shipping emissions still in the hands of IMO
The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, the key outcome of the 17th Conference of Parties (COP17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2011, has been dubbed by many as the platform for inaction, with the decision to find agreement by 2015 being seen as the agreement to disagree at a later date. COP17 did little to directly answer the … [Read more...]