• Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    I would say the very second passenger car traffic exceeds the environmental impact of the cruise industry. How much environmental damage does Carnival Cruise Lines do compared to all the highway traffic in the United States? We’re talking an entirely recreational industry here, if all cruise ships disappeared tomorrow society would keep right on rolling. Cases of norovirus would decrease.

    You want passenger rail to increase in the United States? Great. Let’s start with Amtrak’s website. I live within walking distance of an active Amtrak station. Several times in my life I’ve had a want or need to travel cross country, and it occurred to me “I wonder if I could take the train.” The answer, inevitably, is no. I go to Amtrak’s website, pick a starting station and a destination station, and usually they outright can’t plan a trip between those locations. Not even capable of saying things like “take the Silver Star to Grand Central station in New York, wait 8 hours, then take the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago.” It proved to be less work on my part to drive, fly as a passenger on an airliner, and fly as pilot of a Cessna, than take the train in this country.

    And what part of that is my personal fault?

    • november@lemmy.vg
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      4 months ago

      Oh, well, if others are worse then I guess you’re not doing anything wrong.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        If you’ve got to lose weight, you cut out the fat, not the muscle.

        If you care about the environment, target the worst, least necessary things first. You don’t genuinely care about the environment though.

        • november@lemmy.vg
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          4 months ago

          You got me, I don’t give a shit about the environment, unlike you, the biggest tree-hugger in the world.

          • WoodScientist@lemmy.worldOP
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            4 months ago

            You will if we manage to trigger another mass extinction due to dying seas and you choke to death on clouds of hydrogen sulfide. Or you will care about the environment as you starve to death after our global breadbaskets collapse due to skyrocketing temperatures. We already have WW2-level casualties locked in due to climate by the end of the century. Our efforts right now are trying to keep them merely to WW2-levels, rather than “global nuclear war” levels.

            You do not live independent of this planet’s biosphere. You are an animal that exists atop a vast pyramid of life below you, and you are completely and utterly dependent on the services of life below you provides. You are like a CEO saying, “I don’t care what happens to the people I employ. If they die, I’ll be fine.”

            Ignorant. Suicidal. Hubris.

        • Sauerkraut
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          4 months ago

          Cars not only kill the planet, but they are erode society so they are far worse than cruise ships imo.