I read with dismay today that one of my favorite bands, the Indigo Girls, will be contributing to the pollution of Florida's coastal waters. The Girls will be playing an Olivia Cruise Line ship, The Zuiderdam, while it is docked at Key West this April 4th. According to the San Francisco Business Times archives, which will not allow linkage, Olivia partners with Holland America and Norwegian among other matchups.
I'd prefer to believe The Girls aren't aware of the pollution caused in our waters by cruise ships, despite laws limiting same. If they took a minute to check out the website for Oceana or the Surfrider Foundation (among others), they would discover exactly what the industry their appearance will be supporting is doing to our waters, our coastlines and our way of life.
Apparently k.d. Lang didn't. Neither did Meg Christian. Ditto Margaret Cho and Kate Clinton.
Is supporting a gay-owned business more important than the environmentally responsible causes these women support and propound at their concerts and appearances?
Again, I choose to believe these remarkable, politically pro-active women didn't do their homework. Or maybe their managers failed to fully inform them of the massive pollution of our (all of our) air and waters caused by the discharge (legal and otherwise) of grey-water, bilge dumping and diesel exhaust by cruise ships, not to mention other nasty items like dry-cleaning fluids from the shipboard cleaners. I refuse to believe that they don't care.
Cruises are fun. I've even seen pictures! I'm bettings there are some who would even say that cruises are enough fun that the damage they cause to the local environments is worth it. But ask the residents of Key West how they feel about it. Or, instead, read about it here. Or just ignore it. There's plenty of water, right? The ocean is self-cleaning, right?
It only took me a few minutes to Google pages of links to cruise ship pollution references-Key West and everywhere else cruises sail. Why not take some time to do the same? Or check out Amazon.com.
Read. learn. Know. So I can listen to your music without feeling hypocritical.
Article comments
1 - Sandra
This is not exactly the article I submitted. There are lengthy redactions which quoted and identified sources as well as describing exactly what kinds of pollution is caused by the cruise ship industry. I note a Google ad for cruises dead in the middle of an anti-cruise article.
Oh, Blogcritics, I smell sellout.
2 - Sandra
Whoops, page-loading issues. NO redactions (I take it back, I take it back!)but, hey, isn't that Google ad a little misplaced?
3 - Eric Olsen
nothing has been done to the article Sandra, and Google AdSense automatically generates ads based upon keywords in the text, the ad appears automatically in the middle of the post