Cruise Ships vs. Planes - Value Speech

 Cruise Ships vs. Planes

GP: to persuade

SP: to persuade my audience about how cruise ships are worse than planes

CI: The waste produced, the lack of regulations, and their limited airflow, and impact on the locals are all traits that make cruise ships more dangerous and inferior than planes.

Introduction

(Attention Getter)

1. Have you considered traveling after this coronavirus pandemic lockdown passes over? Perhaps on a cruise ship because the tickets will be wildly cheap? Or are you looking at flights? Or how flights might compare to cruise ships? 

(Relate Topic to the Audience)

2. As college students we are all trying to make our way in the world along with most everyone else and likely even aspire to create change for the better along the way, therefore, it is important to look at how major forms of transportation directly affect the health of those who are on board and those who are not as well as the environment. 

(Credibility)

3. I’m fascinated by the world, no matter the times the possibilities of what one could create or find or learn are always endless, so I want to travel, but I want to do so while being conscious of the lives of others - human or not. 

(CI)

4.  The waste produced, the lack of regulations, their limited airflow, and impact on the locals, are all traits that make cruise ships more dangerous and inferior to planes.

Transition: The most obvious comparison to make is based on their respective energy consumption and emissions. 

Body

1. It takes a lot of energy to transport hundreds or thousands of people around the world. 

1. Cruise ships are most likely the most inefficient modes of transportation in the world, especially because they are more like floating cities than anything else. 

1. They require an extremely large amount of energy to operate; one month at sea could power 77,000 American homes (Umbra), while the largest cruise ship by Royal Caribbean contains only 2,759 staterooms (“Symphony…”).   

2. And in order to provide this energy to the people on board, a cruise ship burns tar-like fuel.

1. This fuel is called heavy fuel oil, it is the dirtiest type of oil, because it is a by-product of the crude oil refining process, therefore contains a lot of contaminants and impurities, and when used on ships (because of its cheapness) must be kept on high heat during both storage and use (“What Is…). 

2. Along with carbon dioxide, they emit nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and diesel particulate matter, microscopic soot that is very damaging to human health (Ombellini), with the emissions reaching the equivalent of 1 million cars a day (Morgan).

2. Planes, on the other hand, are more efficient. 

1. Jet fuel, or kerosene, is more refined than crude oil and can actually be used in cars with diesel engines. 

1. In some cases biofuel is used, so the input is not fossil fuels despite still creating carbon emissions (English).

2. And recently a short-distance battery electric commercial plane has debuted in Canada (staff).

2. Planes also carry fewer people (which means less weight), providing only seating and a couple shared bathrooms, for the duration of the flight. 

Transition: It is also important to take into consideration the regulations the two are incentivized to abide by. 

2. The regulations cruise ships and planes abide by are different. 

1. Cruise ships have limited to no regulations once they are in international waters.

1. This enables them to dump both fuel and sewage directly into the ocean.  

1. Scrubbers which are now used on ships to clean fuel, have their waste pollutants dumped directly into the ocean (Laville). 

2. Many cruise ships also dump sewage, in 2014 about one billion gallons were dumped (Spross), leading to concentrated nitrogen and phosphorus in the ocean causing algal blooms that remove oxygen from the water and suffocate marine life- including coral reefs (Part). 

2. And on the civil side of things, they can register in any country they choose for the purpose of getting the labor laws they prefer, and as a result crew members end up working most hours of the day for a few months up to a year on end often with no enforced minimum wage (PolyMatter). 

2. Planes, however, are more regulated depending on a country’s laws either from the country it is registered or the air space it is in.                               

1. But no matter the country, the fuel quality and waste disposal process is all pretty similar.  

1. No scrubbing is needed, the fuel is already highly purified.

2. And they hold onto their sewage until after they have landed, whereupon it is taken to a local wastewater treatment plant. 

2. Labor laws are not so willy-nilly.

Transition: (Finally,) People on board also have differing access to hygienic conditions.

3. Airflow is drastically different and this has the ability of affecting the health of everybody on board.

1. Cruise ships have limited airflow.

1. The air is cycled throughout the entire ship, so that everyone is sharing their air with everyone else (in their close quarters).

2. This creates an enabling environment for the spread of infectious diseases.

2. Planes instead have the cabin air mixed with outside air, which is sterile from high altitude, before recirculating.

1. The air filters are also like that from an operating room. 

2. Making it so that the likelihood of infection is highest within two seats of the diseased person, and transmission falls the further away one is from them, otherwise most people are relatively unaffected (Tobin). 

Transition: Finally, at the destination, how are the local people affected?

4. The tourism cruise ships bring do not help the locals much at all, some might argue they do more harm than good. 

1. Cruise ships have everything prepaid.

1. So locals benefit minimally.

2. They also pollute while docked because they often keep the engine running rather than turn it off and plug into the local power grid, this can affect local air quality tremendously; in Marseilles about 10% of air pollution is estimated to come from shipping (Chrisafis).  

2. But planes allow people to get to their destination then stay there.

1. People take a flight to get to their destination, it is not a vacation destination itself, so they are not necessarily supporting major corporations by staying on their floating city, they have the option of supporting local and small businesses and more likely to truly immerse themselves in another culture and/or location

2. With planes it is possible to visit places in the world that do not just reside on the coast. 

Transition: To conclude, cruise ships are not nearly as supportive of the well-being of humans or other creatures as planes are. 

Conclusion

(recap main points/thesis)

1. Cruise ships use non-refined heavy fuel oil causing vastly more pollution compared to planes that use kerosene. 

2. Cruise ships abide by more slack regulations compared to planes, so they dump more waste directly into the oceans and often overwork crew members.

3. The air quality on cruise ships is far more enabling for the spread of infectious diseases than on planes.

4. The tourism cruise ships bring is less beneficial to locals than planes. 

(bang)

5. I’ll leave you with a quote from the author of Diet for a Small Planet, Frances Moore Lappé: “Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.”

Works Cited 

Chrisafis, Angelique. “'I Don't Want Ships to Kill Me': Marseille Fights Cruise Liner Pollution.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 6 July 2018, www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/06/i-dont-want-ships-to-kill-me-marseille-fights-cruise-liner-pollution.

English, Trevor. “What's the Difference Between Jet Fuel and Gasoline ?” Interesting Engineering, Interesting Engineering, 27 May 2019, interestingengineering.com/whats-the-difference-between-jet-fuel-and-gasoline.

Laville, Sandra. “Thousands of Ships Could Dump Pollutants at Sea to Avoid Dirty Fuel Ban.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 29 Oct. 2018, www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/29/thousands-of-ships-could-dump-pollutants-at-sea-to-avoid-dirty-fuel-ban.

Morgan, Sam. “Daily Emissions of Cruise Ships Same as One Million Cars.” Www.euractiv.com, EURACTIV.com, 10 July 2017, www.euractiv.com/section/air-pollution/news/daily-emissions-of-cruise-ships-same-as-one-million-cars/.

Ombellini, Silvia. “How Do Cruise Ships Impact on the Environment.” Ecobnb, Ecobnb, 1 Aug. 2018, ecobnb.com/blog/2013/07/how-does-cruise-ships-impact-on-the-environment/.

Part, Take. “Watch a Cruise Ship Pollute as Much as 13 Million Cars - in One Day.” YouTube, 27 Apr. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N9JHYtAzVk&list=PLogDUhtBbbNMg88zHGL9yQTUQDGvZJH20&index=16&t=0s.

PolyMatter. “How Cruise Ships Work.” YouTube, 6 Apr. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY1BFv8qEeM.

Spross, Jeff. “Here's What Happens To Sewage On Cruise Lines.” ThinkProgress, 4 Dec. 2014, archive.thinkprogress.org/heres-what-happens-to-sewage-on-cruise-lines-333d026c8481/.

staff, Guardian. “World's First Fully Electric Commercial Aircraft Takes Flight in Canada.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 11 Dec. 2019, www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/11/worlds-first-fully-electric-commercial-aircraft-takes-flight-in-canada.

“Symphony of the Seas.” Royal Caribbean Press Center RSS, 2020, www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/fact-sheet/31/symphony-of-the-seas/.

Tobin, Meaghan. “Why Cruise Ships Are the Worst Places to Be during a Virus Outbreak.” South China Morning Post, 22 Feb. 2020, www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3051844/worse-aeroplane-how-being-confined-cruise-ship-fuelled.

Umbra®, Ask. “You Thought Planes Burned a Lot of Carbon? Say Hello to Cruise Ships.” Grist, Grist, 9 June 2016, grist.org/living/you-thought-planes-burned-a-lot-of-carbon-say-hello-to-cruise-ships/.

“What Is Heavy Fuel Oil Used For?” Bright Hub Engineering, 7 June 2010, www.brighthubengineering.com/marine-engines-machinery/73473-properties-of-heavy-fuel-oil/.