Arctic Circle Cartoons and the Environmental Cost of Cruise Ships in Lyttelton, New Zealand
Cruise ships are a filthy way to have a vacation. Lyttelton Harbour, near Christchurch New Zealand is expanding its port to accommodate bigger cruise liners which is bad news for residence and the water and air quality.
As I write this post, I can hear a pile driver banging steel posts into Lyttelton harbour. The port is building a new cruise ship terminal to accommodate bigger vessels. This may be good news for Lyttelton Port Company (majority owned by Christchurch City Council) but it isn't good news for the endangered dolphins disturbed by the noise and for the residents of Lyttelton, New Zealand.
Cruise ships are as polluting as half a million cars. And some.
Cruise ships burn a lot of fossil fuel and at the moment they are burning the toxic bottom-of-the-barrel heavy oil that cannot be used anywhere else because it is so polluting.
Should cruises be allowed to the Arctic?
When they are docked in port they have to have their engines running the whole time to keep the power on. An article on national radio revealed that when big cruise ships do this they release as much pollution as 700,000 diesel buses. And when the easterly is blowing we can smell that pollution at our house.
But the biggest the most detrimental effect of cruise ships happens when please leave port. Once they are 12 miles offshore (sometimes sooner if no one is watching and nobody ever is) the cruise ships can dump all their untreated sewage. This often isn't just organic matter unfortunately and is contributing to the plastic pollution at sea. What's more, a lot of cruise ships dump their rubbish at sea as well as there is rarely anyone out there to stop them from doing it. The few times this has been reported has been due to whistleblowers on board.
Is there such a thing as an environmentally friendly cruise ship?
I'm a big fan of travelling by surface rather than by air, but not when it is done with a disregard for the environmental consequences.
Newsletter Extract: Time management when time is running out.
I'm a big fan of the late Randy Pausch who was excellent at getting a balance in his life. If you haven't seen his talk on time management and you need more time to do the important stuff in your life you should check it out here on YouTube (although it takes an hour to watch, it is time you will save after watching it!). When I'm in need of a refresher, I listen to it when inking.
One of the things I think (I definitely need to listen again) he mentions in his talk is Stephen Covey's Urgent vs Important Matrix:
Stephen Covey wrote The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People . I haven't read his book, but I use his matrix all the time. Basically, you need to work on the things that are important first and let go of the things that are not important. With the constant barrage of information from the likes of social media, it is worth bearing in mind.
Forget Kids– Get a Dog is something that's not urgent but it is important to me. Working on it this week is sad in a way because so much of it reminds me of Billie. And he was the reason for writing it in the first place, as he brought so much joy to our lives (hey, I love my niece and nephews, but...). Also, when I showed fellow cartoonists some drawings from the book way backin 2011, it had a lot of resonance. So I want to put it out in the world before it's too late.
And that's where we get to the next thing that happened this week…
Head to the archive to read more here.
This is an extract of my Illustrated Epistle, which goes out in the middle of the month. It is a behind-the-scenes look at the life of a cartoonist (specifically, mine). I'd love it if you signed up at the bottom of this page, or here:
http://eepurl.com/cCOOeD
Reasons to Be Cheerful - Using Dictation to Prevent Repetitive Strain Injury Can Be Entertaining
My Mac translates my dictation (Click to see options for using this image)
I get repetitive strain injury when I type too much and so I have switched to dictating when I can. I'm dictating this right now. The Mac is pretty good at deciphering my speech, But sometimes its mistakes can be very entertaining.
(Well I didn't didn't even need to edit that. Looks I spoke too soon. I better stop dictating now.)
Living in New Zealand: An Overnight Tramp to Spurs Hut Near Fairlie in Canterbury
An easy overnight hike to Spurs hut in Canterbury. This DOC hut is basic and you need to take water and possibly firewood.
Opuha River looking pristine
The boyf and I don’t like hiking in bad weather, or the dark, so we took the opportunity to do an overnight tramp in Canterbury before the days get too short, or rainy. It’s just over 3 hours in our 1975 land rover to the start of the trail to Spurs Hut, near Fairlie.
The track isn’t very demanding, except for having to pick your way over streams that have been peppered with cow shit (unfortunately the cattle are able to walk through the tributaries and the Opuha River itself. There’s no way I’d swim in Opuha lake knowing this. See earlier post).
Hiking beside the Opuha River looking for trout and not finding any
With our stopping to take pictures and look at the river (no trout), it took about 3 hours to get to the hut. It was a sweet little hut with 4 bunks and a wood burner (but no wood and no rainwater collection).
Spurs Hut in Canterbury (Click to see options for using the image)
A long drop toilet near the DOC Spurs hut
We woke to find ice inside the hut and on our washing up
Spurs Hut seems to be used a lot by hunters and some of the idiots who use it think it’s fine to leave their rubbish. I packed some of it out, but didn’t have room for it all.
Bogan evidence bag
It was pretty walking out in the frost.
It only took an hour and 45 minutes to hike back out, which left us plenty of time to stop for a great coffee in the Farm Barn and a bit of lunch and second hand shopping in Methven before we drove though the Canterbury Plains and home.
