If you’re a billionaire and own a palatial ship, there’s only one thing to do in mid-May: head to istanbul and join your elite peers in an awards-style ceremony oscarin which homage is paid to the builders, designers and owners of the most luxurious boats in the world, many of them just over 60 meters in length.
The nominations for the World Super Yacht Awards they were delivered in 2022, and the biggest hopefuls are basically floating mansions on the sea, with amenities like glass elevators, glass-enclosed pools, Turkish baths, and teak decks. He Nebula68 meters long, and owned by the co-founder of WhatsApp Jan Koumhas an air-conditioned helicopter hangar.
I hate to be a killjoy, but the ceremony istanbul it’s embarrassing Owning or operating a superyacht is perhaps the most damaging thing an individual can do to the climate. If we really want to avoid climate chaos, we need to tax, or at least shame, these resource-hogging monsters out of existence.. In fact, taking on the carbon aristocracy, and their more emission-intensive modes of transport and leisure, may be the best chance we have to raise our “climate morality” collective and increase our appetite for personal sacrifice, from individual behavior changes to far-reaching political mandates.
Individually, the super-rich pollute much more than the rest of us, and travel is one of the biggest parts of that impact. For example, rising sunthe 82-room, 138-meter-long mega-ship owned by the co-founder of dreamworks, David Geffenwhich according to a 2021 analysis in the journal Sustainabilityit is calculated that the diesel that feeds the navigation of geffen annually spews 16,320 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent gases into the atmosphere, nearly 800 times what the average American generates per year.
And that’s just one boat. Worldwide, more than 5,500 private vessels are around 30 meters or more in length, the size at which a yacht becomes a superyacht.. This fleet pollutes as much as entire nations: the 300 largest ships alone emit 315,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, which is equivalent to the more than ten million inhabitants of Burundi. In fact, without moving, a 200-foot ship burns 132 gallons of diesel per hour, and can gulp down 2,200 gallons just to travel 115 miles.
Then there are the private jets, whose global contribution to climate change is much greater. Private aviation added 37 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in 2016, which rivals the annual emissions of Hong Kong either Ireland. (The use of private jets has increased since then, so the current figure is likely to be higher.)
Surely you are thinking: but isn’t that a drop of water in the sea compared to the thousands of coal plants that emit carbon all over the world? Last year, Christophe BéchuFrench Minister of Environmentdismissed the requests to regulate yachts and charter flights on the grounds that it was a “showy”, scandalous and populist measure that cheers people up but in the end just stays out of climate change.
However, this overlooks a much more important aspect. The investigations in Economy and Psychology they suggest that human beings are willing to behave altruistically, but only when they believe that everyone is being asked to contribute. People “stops cooperating when he sees that some do not do their part”, as cognitive scientists Nicolas Baumard and Coralie Chevallier they wrote it last year in the world.
In that sense, super-polluting yachts and jets not only make climate change worse, they reduce the chance that we will work together to fix it. Why bother, when the luxury goods mogul bernard arnault navigate in the Symphonya superyacht of 150 million dollars and 101 meters in length?
“If some people are allowed to emit 10 times more carbon for their comfort”, they raised Baumard and Chevallier“So why restrict meat consumption, turn down the thermostat, or limit purchases of new products?”.
Whether we’re talking voluntary (insulate our attics and use public transportation) or mandatory changes (tolerate a wind farm on the horizon or say goodbye to a lush lawn), the fight for the climate depends to some extent on our willingness to participate. When the ultra-rich are given those liberties, we lose faith in the value of that sacrifice..
Taxes earmarked for superyachts and private jets would take some of the awkwardness out of these talks, helping to improve “everyone’s climate morale,” a term coined by the U.S. law professor. georgetown, brian galle. But making these oversized toys a bit more expensive is unlikely to change the behavior of the billionaires who buy them. Instead, we can impose new costs social through a good old-fashioned shame.
Last June, @CelebJets -an account of Twitter that tracked the flights of well-known personalities using public data, and then calculated their carbon emissions for the world to see—revealed that the influential Kylie Jenner took a seventeen minute flight between two regional airports in California. “Kylie Jenner Is There Taking Three-Minute Flights With Her Private Jet, But I’m The One Who Has To Use Paper Straws”, wrote a user of Twitter.
While the media around the world covered the rejection that this generated, other celebrities such as Drake and Taylor Swift they were quick to defend their heavy reliance on private jet travel. (Twitter suspended the account @CelebJets in december after Elon Muska frequent target of accounts that track private jets, acquired the platform).
Here’s a lesson: emissions per capita massively disproportionate make people angry. And so it should be. When billionaires waste our common resources on ridiculous boats or comfortable charter flights, they shorten the time the rest of us have before the effects of warming are truly devastating. From this point of view, superyachts and private planes begin to look less like an extravagance and more like a robbery.
Change is possible, and fast. French officials are exploring the possibility of limiting private air travel. And just last week – after continued pressure from activists – the airport of Schiphol in Amsterdam announced it would ban private jets as an eco-saving measure.
Even in USAthe “carbon humiliation” can have a huge impact. Richard Aboulafiaan aviation industry consultant and analyst for 35 years, says that cleaner, greener aviation for short flights is already on the horizon, from the “city hoppers” all-electric to a new class of sustainable fuels. High net worth private aviation customers just need more incentive to adopt these new technologies. Ultimately, he says, only our vigilance and pressure will accelerate these changes.
Superyachts offer a similar opportunity. There is nothing more to see Koruthe new megaship of Jeff Bezos127 meters long, a three-masted schooner said to be able to cross the Atlantic wind power only. It’s a start.
Even small victories defy the standard narrative on climate change. We can say no to the idea of unlimited looting, of unjustifiable excessive consumption. We can say no to the toys of billionaires.
(C) The New York Times.-
Source-www.infobae.com