Re: “Port commissioners, keep leaning into a greener future” [June 27, Opinion]:
The Seattle Occasions editorial board rightly applauds the Port of Seattle’s determination to make shore energy obligatory for all home-porting cruise vessels by 2027, eliminating a lot of the diesel particulate air pollution threatening close by port residents and staff.
However concerning the cruise trade’s climate-wrecking carbon dioxide emissions (greenhouse gases), let’s do the maths. Cruise ships are solely plugged into Seattle shore energy for 7 hours out of a seven-day cruise, eliminating about 4% of complete GHG emissions of the journey. In the meantime, the Port has introduced that 2025 cruise calls will exceed 300, a rise of greater than 9% over 2024. So, even when each cruise ship hooks as much as shore energy in 2025 (an unrealistic projection), the Port would nonetheless be taking a look at a 5% enhance in cruise GHG emissions: not a discount in any respect, definitely not a walking-the-talk method.
For yearly we delay reducing greenhouse gases, the long run prices of addressing local weather change enhance enormously. It’s time the Port of Seattle tells the cruise trade that if it received’t cut back carbon emissions, the Port will accomplish that by lowering the variety of cruises. That’s a technique the Port Commissioners can actually lean right into a greener future.
Patrick McKee, Mercer Island (member, Seattle Cruise Management)