A group of 40 protestors from the local Extinction Rebellion group in Cornwall UK took to the sea to protest the environmental impact of cruise liners.
The activists, calling themselves Ocean Rebellion, targeted a privately-owned / residential cruise ship currently docked in Falmouth Harbour (England). They surrounded MS The World in boats and projected slogans onto the hull, including “Sort your ship out!” and “#F**kthisship”.
Local residents say the cruise vessel has been pumping out tonnes of pollution since MS The World docked there in May 2020.
The World is the first residential cruise vessel with hundreds of privately-owned apartments. The liner is usually home to multi-millionaires who permanently sail around the world voting on itineraries and which destination to call next.
Currently, the "floating building" is empty aside from most of its crew and has been sheltering in Falmouth UK over the last few months due to the pandemic.
According to a spokesperson for the group “the fuel this ship burns is 100 times more polluting than the fuel we allow on roads. This is having a huge environmental impact not just on the oceans and their ecosystems but on air quality in the coastal communities visited by these ships.”
While idling in the cruise port, the ship produces emissions equivalent to 1018 trucks every day, Ocean Rebellion said adding that each apartment onboard has "a hundred times more emissions than the average European land-based equivalent. That’s 380,309kg CO2 per year - that’s the weight of a Boeing 747 airplane.”
The group pledged an “escalation of activities” in the near future to protect common ocean heritage.