Groups to sue cruise lines over pollution

[Pam in CA]

There are several interesting points from these links. One is the claim that Princess and HAL fought hard against the Alaskan law. Not quite true. Cruise ships are mobile and if the new law means increased cruise costs and/or decreased bookings, the ships would just be deployed elsewhere. People mistakenly think that the cruiselines fight tooth and nail, using dirty tricks to keep an itinerary. Heck, they're changed all the time. It's not like building a hotel; just fire up the engines and go to Hawaii, Mexico or wherever.

 

The second thing that caught my eye was the report of the Dawn Princess hitting a whale. That was in 2001 and is hardly recent news nor should it be fodder for those wanting to sue the cruiselines now.

 

The third thing that I noticed is that Royal Caribbean admitted that they broke the law. The cruiselines use environmental standards that are higher than required by law. Sometimes, a crew member who isn't properly trained or just stupid does something. It happens, but not often. And the cruiselines admit it, reporting it to the authorities.

 

Sometimes, I suspect groups believe that cruiselines are covering up something because there aren't many reports. Somehow, they don't believe that there just aren't that many instances, from rape and theft on cruise ships to dumping in Alaska. In other words, if they're not seeing a flood of reports, the cruiselines must be covering up these terrible events. Sorry, I just don't buy that rationale. IMHO, that's a back-asswards way of rationalizing something that doesn't exist.

[garykool81]

But with the known reserves we have in this country being tapped it may cool off the speculation when we say we are finally going to tap them.

 

Jim -- Saudi Arabia several weeks ago announced that it was quite substantially increasing oil production to help combat rising prices. Prices since then have continued to increase. The rise in oil production, which received quite a bit of publicity, had absolutely zero effect on market speculators.

 

Remember, just as with the dot-com craze and real estate mess, market speculators are rarely guided by common sense, supply and demand models or anything that resembles logic. Quite frankly speaking, they are idiots. :-)

 

Prices *will* nose dive eventually. I am certainly not enough of an expert on commodities trading to even drop a hint as to when (could be months, could be years), but it will happen.

 

That all said, Americans still need to realize that we pay literally a fraction of what the rest of the world does for filling up their tanks, including countries that are just as dependent on the automobile as we are in the US.

 

Aside from looking for alternative, renewable energy sources, our country should also actually start investing realistic sums into high-speed, mass-transit systems such as those in Europe. It is frankly embarrassing that we still have no real high-speed rail in this entire country. The Acela line between DC and Boston is a joke...the thing runs at a fraction of the speed of those in Europe and Asia.

 

OK....now I am ranting :-)

[bishop84]

That all said, Americans still need to realize that we pay literally a fraction of what the rest of the world does for filling up their tanks, including countries that are just as dependent on the automobile as we are in the US.

 

You are not kidding! In the UK gas has hit £1.15 a litre which works out roughly at $8.55 a gallon! Now that's sticker shock!:eek: