In a tweet, Fassler emphasizes just how bad these things are for the climate.
The term “superyacht” may have been coined in the early 20th century when tycoons such as J. Paul Getty and J.P. Morgan began commissioning these monuments to their great egos and wealth, but in the modern sense it really began with the billionaire Aristotle Onassis, who in 1954 revamped a Canadian anti-submarine frigate, re-naming it Christina, and outfitted it with the prototypical swimming pool, dance floor, staterooms, and bar—accoutrements that now constitute the bare-bones standard for these vessels. More modern superyachts feature helicopter pads, gyms, “infinity” pools, tennis courts, and even “snow rooms.”
As Fassler notes, there are over 5,500 of these boats waddling around the globe (or as many as 10,000, depending on your standard of measurement), spewing more carbon pollution than some small nations produce. Most carry very few passengers (maritime law certifies 12 guests, not including staff and crew). Their cost can range from $10 million to $500 million or higher. As explained by Stuart Braun, writing for Deutsche Welle, these yachts can be understood as a veritable symbol for climate breakdown:
The biggest polluting billionaire also has two of the largest yachts. [Roman] Abramovich’s “Eclipse,” currently moored in Turkey, is said to be the most expensive megayacht in the world. It is also responsible for around two-thirds of the Russian oil and gas mogul’s annual carbon footprint, which was estimated at 33,859 metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2018 — more than one-sixth of the whole island nation of Tonga. The Eclipse alone costs around $60 million (€55 million) annually to operate.
Carbon emissions aren’t the only problem either. As reported by Jon-Ungoed-Thomas for The Guardian, these boats emit vast quantities of nitrogen oxide, a greenhouse gas “300 times as potent as carbon dioxide at heating the atmosphere.” This actually prompted the U.N. to issue rules in 2015 designed to curb those emissions, but that effort was thwarted by the yacht manufacturers lobby. (Unsurprisingly, there is such a thing.)
The industry successfully lobbied for the International Maritime Organization (IMO) emission standards to be delayed for five years for superyachts under 500 tonnes. They were finally implemented in January last year, but the US Coast Guard has said it will not enforce the regulations after lobbying by the marine industry which says the bulky equipment required to remove pollution out of engine exhaust is impractical on many yachts.
Still (as Fassler acknowledges) even those noxious emissions are dwarfed by the amount of CO2 released by private jets, once the prior exclusive of choice for the world’s billionaires, now relegated to a cheesy, secondhand status symbol for paltry multimillionaires. But, as Fassler explains, the relative scarcity of these superyachts makes them more conspicuous in the eyes of the public, and that’s important:
Research in economics and psychology suggests humans are willing to behave altruistically — but only when they believe everyone is being asked to contribute. People “stop cooperating when they see that some are not doing their part,” the cognitive scientists Nicolas Baumard and Coralie Chevallier wrote last year in Le Monde.
In that sense, superpolluting yachts and jets don’t just worsen climate change; they lessen the chance that we will work together to fix it. Why bother when the luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault is cruising around on the Symphony, a $150 million, 333-foot superyacht?
One of the most effective arguments trotted out in this country to prevent effective governmental action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is by pointing out the inaction of others. Why should we sacrifice if so-and-so isn’t sacrificing? Why should I buy a fuel-efficient vehicle if Robert Redford is jetting to Aspen to attend a climate conference? Why should we have to sacrifice if China is the biggest greenhouse gas polluter? These variants of “whattaboutism” all capitalize on the unfortunate human sentiment that the only individual sacrifices worth making are those that are also being made by others.
As Fassler puts it (a bit more politely):
Whether we’re talking about voluntary changes (insulating our attics and taking public transit) or mandated ones (tolerating a wind farm on the horizon or saying goodbye to a lush lawn), the climate fight hinges, to some extent, on our willingness to participate. When the ultrarich are given a free pass, we lose faith in the value of that sacrifice.
It is perhaps beyond tiresome to reiterate that no one “needs” one of these yachts. And a good argument can be made that permitting someone to amass hundreds of billions of dollars in the first place is as great a problem as the environmental damage they cause. Still, they are a fact of life that isn’t going to change in our lifetimes. At the very least, subjecting these colossal toys to the galvanizing exposure of public opinion would serve to remind the rest of the world that no one should be exempt from making the behavioral changes that need to be made if the human race actually intends to survive beyond the next century.
Until then, the superyachts will continue to exist as a big, floating metaphor, reminding us of everything we could have done, but chose to ignore instead.
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