Climate in Trouble: SuperYachts to the Rescue

Joe Fassler in the New York Times:

Worldwide, more than 5,500 private vessels clock in about 100 feet or longer, the size at which a yacht becomes a superyacht. This fleet pollutes as much as entire nations: The 300 biggest boats alone emit 315,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year, based on their likely usage — about as much as Burundi’s more than 10 million inhabitants. Indeed, a 200-foot vessel burns 132 gallons of diesel fuel an hour standing still and can guzzle 2,200 gallons just to travel 100 nautical miles.
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There’s a lesson here: Hugely disproportionate per capita emissions get people angry. And they should. When billionaires squander our shared supply of resources on ridiculous boats or cushy chartered flights, it shortens the span of time available for the rest of us before the effects of warming become truly devastating. In this light, superyachts and private planes start to look less like extravagance and more like theft.

US Superyachts.com:

We at the U.S. Superyacht Association, and the yachting industry at large, are well aware that alternatives to fossil fuels and combating climate change are necessary. In fact, we agree with Fassler’s assertion that disproportionate emissions make people angry. However, further asserting that an entire lifestyle should be shamed out of existence is not the solution. It will only serve to eliminate millions of dollars of economic impact for a host of businesses outside of yachting, including the small businesses in many Times readers’ own neighborhoods, plus put thousands of highly skilled welders, engineers, and more on the unemployment line—some of the last manufacturing craftspeople left in America. Equally important, his assertion that “superpolluting yachts and jets don’t just worsen climate change; they lessen the chance that we will work together to fix it” overlooks the facts that owners, shipyards, naval architects, and suppliers are all indeed working together to fix it.

A superyacht supports millions of dollars of salaries outside of yachting. The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show (FLIBS), the world’s largest in-water boat show featuring hundreds of superyachts, generates significantly higher annual economic impact than the Super Bowl. Cities nationwide seek to host the Super Bowl because the NFL pledges an extraordinary economic impact of $300 million to $500 million. An independent study of FLIBS’ economic impact in 2021, the most recent data available, reveals that it contributed $1.79 billion to Florida’s economy. Within that figure, an average of $241 per day came from 49,000+ out-of-town visitors spending on hotels, restaurants, retail,
and local transportation. Additionally, FLIBS generated nearly $86 million in state and local taxes in Florida, $24.5 million alone in Broward County.