11 Jan Speaking Truth to Power

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Testimony submitted on behalf of friends of Seattle Cruise Control at Port of Seattle Commission meetings 2019-present

January 10, 2023

Spending tens of millions of dollars on shore power at Pier 66 is tantamount to making a bad situation a little less worse. Surely the decision will hearten residents and workers downtown who will breathe cleaner air when ships plug into the devices. 

However those “sunk costs” are certain to prejudice future decision-makers, later in this decade or the next, who may wisely seek to curtail cruise traffic. When they acknowledge the investment you made in shore power in 2023, they may be less inclined to reduce Seattle’s dependence on this unhealthy and unnecessary industry. 

In fact, installing and enforcing shore power is foremost an expensive public relations exercise. You will convince Seattle residents that you are doing something to counteract the harms of cruise. But although shore power will reduce toxic exhaust in port, ships plugging into shore power downtown will only be averting a minor amount of their total greenhouse gas emissions. Energy consumed in port only accounts for a small fraction of the power used by these mega-ships, which burn 35 to 50 gallons of dirty bunker fuel per mile traveled, all the way to Alaska and back. 

Moreover, small ports in Alaska lack the electrical capacity to provide shore power, so their residents will still bear the health burden when the ships burn dirty fuels while berthed. 

Even if all cruise ships in Seattle used shore power, taking advantage of that costly infrastructure would only reduce overall cruise greenhouse gases by single-digit percentages. 

You can still reconsider funneling substantial finances into shore power; instead you can examine other ways to reduce and eventually eliminate the multiple harms of cruise.

Peggy J. Printz

Seattle

***

Dear Commissioners:

Happy New Year.  My comments are related to the harms of cruising. It is 2023, almost a third of the way through the decade scientists have told us is critical to avoid the worst of the climate related catastrophes. It should be crystal clear that catastrophes are already happening due to global warming and all that brings, as well as air and water pollution, deforestation and the increasing loss of biodiversity. Here in Puget Sound we’ve had heat domes and wildfire smoke for the last few years that won’t resolve without concerted action. By all of us. The last week of 2022 homes in the South Park neighborhood of Seattle were flooded due to the heavy rains and “King” tides associated with sea level rise.

Public officials have a specific responsibility to take appropriate action to protect the health and safety of the communities in which they have power and jurisdiction. It is short sighted to consider the financial revenue from the cruise industry as the most important factor in evaluating the impacts of the cruise industry. By working to increase tourism and cruising, the Port is sealing the fate of our community’s health, the health and future of our ecosystem, and the melting of the Alaskan glaciers tourists are so anxious to see. 

The Clean Shipping Act introduced in 2022 by Rep. Lowenthal of California, is a move in the right direction. The measure sets the carbon intensity standards for fuels used by ships calling at U.S. ports, including eliminating carbon by 2040.This legislation should be in your legislative agenda if you’re serious about environmental sustainability and yet it isn’t. Why not? 

For the Port to continue the cruise business as usual is depressing and disheartening. I believe each one of you agrees we are in a climate crisis. Why are you not acting in accordance with your own understanding? 

The Port can begin by limiting and capping the number of cruises this season, and not renewing leases. You can put your efforts towards developing businesses and industries that are not dependent on fossil fuels.

Commissioner Cho, as the new President, be a leader, for all the people!

Thank you, Iris Antman

Dec. 13, 2022. (In person) Good afternoon Commissioners and Port staff, my name is Jordan Van Voast. As a member of Seattle Cruise Control, I am here once again to express my deep concern that given the fossil fuel dependent cruise industry’s harmful impacts to air and marine environments, worker exploitation and the accelerating climate emergency, the Port of Seattle is failing in its mandate to promote the public good. We urge you to immediately begin phasing out partnerships with the cruise industry rather than continuing to expand it.

The economic benefit from cruise revenue at the Port is not worth the many harms[1] it creates.  Cruising is a non-essential human activity and you deceive yourselves if you think the Green Corridor is a satisfactory response to greenhouse gas emissions, or that it will ameliorate the multiple other harms of cruise. COP27 makes clear that the Paris target of 1.5 degrees is no longer achievable, but still  we  must  act. Every fraction of a degree we limit global temperature rise means a huge reduction in suffering.

******

It is widely acknowledged that most voters in King County don’t pay much attention to the Port Commission, despite the Commissions’ power to influence policy in the region. Last month, 70% of King County voters approved Charter Amendment 1,[2] shifting several County elections to even years when voter turnout almost doubles on average. On odd election years, when Port elections are held, voter turnout averages around 47%.[3]  How can you claim to be promoting the public good when you don’t have a majority of eligible voters participating in elections?

Please visit our website at seattlecruisecontrol.org, think about the issues we’ve raised for the past three years and ask yourself, “What is in the best interests of the public?” Thank you.

[1] https://seattlecruisecontrol.org/green-corridor-is-a-greenwash/

[2] https://aqua.kingcounty.gov/elections/2022/nov-general/results.pdf

[3] https://www.shorelineareanews.com/2022/11/king-county-council-chair-applauds.html

Testimony for Dec. 13, 2022 – Iris

Good afternoon Port Commissioners and staff, my name is Iris Antman. I’m with Seattle Cruise Control and here to talk about the increasing harms of the cruise industry.

As our climate continues to deteriorate with GHG emissions rising, the goal of increasing cruise tourism denies reality. The plan to solicit expanded cruise business from Asian and African markets may sound sexy, but using resources in this way is a waste of resources. 

The Port operates with economic expansion as its primary goal. On a small planet with finite resources which are being depleted and destroyed before our eyes, this goal is no longer responsible. The Port prides itself on environmental sustainability but the measures it has taken have not decreased GHG emissions, nor had a substantive effect on the harmful practices of the cruise industry. The green cruise corridor is an idea for the future with plans for voluntary participation and goals set for 2050. By then, Seattle’s waterfront could be underwater. It’s 50 years too late.

The Port needs to limit, decrease and end cruising, a non-essential activity for those with means at the expense of all who are struggling to survive, in our community, our country and around the globe.

Turn your attention to developing truly green enterprises here at the Port, ones that help develop 21st century communities, like building wind turbines. It’s time for us all to wake up and address the climate crisis on our doorsteps. Please.

Dec. 13, 2022 – Pat McKee

Good afternoon, Commissioners and staff –

Pleased to learn the Port of Seattle was represented at COP 27 last month. Surprised though, to see a Commissioner tweeting from Egypt that the Port already has a green cruise corridor in the North Pacific. Feels a little premature: not only does no such thing exist, there’s not even agreement with our purported cruise line partners on what such a thing is intended to be – only that it’s a can we’re kicking way down the road to 2050.

First of all, the Port’s website notwithstanding, cruise lines are not our partners. They’re basically tenants, right? We’re involved in a series of business transactions with them, all non-essential, meaningful only for the 5000 jobs and 900 million dollars we’re told they generate. We don’t need partners who pay workers as little as $2 an hour, who dump billions of gallons of sewage into neighboring waters, who are recognized around the world as climate heating polluters and corporate criminals. Cruise companies have shown they’re going to do whatever they’re allowed to get away with. Ideally, this is where you all step in.

Because the Port’s actual partners are the citizens of King County and Washington. Our families live and work here; we elect commissioners, based on our estimation of their ability to serve our common interests. 

I want to urge the Port to start representing these actual partners. What could we do in 2023 to begin curbing the deadly impacts of this non-essential industry while preserving those 5000 jobs? We could stop digging the hole deeper, for a start – address the so called insatiable appetite for cruise by capping Seattle sailings at 2019 levels. Impose cruise ship speed limits to increase fuel efficiency. Demand an expansion of sewage no-discharge zones. Restore on board monitors. Initiate a clear eyed public acknowledgement and assessment of the real effects and inequities of cruise, at home and in the global south. And then, we can get to work envisioning alternatives to cruise, and designing policies to encourage those.

Commissioners, there’s a lot to do; you know the stakes, and the urgency of action. Your partners are depending on you.

Thank you. Happy holidays. Let’s get started in 2023!

November 7, 2022 Dear Port of Seattle Commissioners, Executive Director Metruck, and Staff,

My name is Jordan Van Voast. Thank you for your sincere efforts to build prosperity for the region.  In my training as an acupuncturist, I work to help people balance their life energies, which is why I am writing – to counsel balance. A few weeks ago, world population exceeded eight billion people for the first time, almost triple what it was when I was born.  Developing countries look to America as a model for standard of living. But I ask, how many planets would that require, for all 8 billion people to have an American standard of living? Do we need cruise ships for eight billion people? An international airport in every corner of King County to accommodate eight billion people? It sounds absurd – yes, but the concept of unlimited growth on a finite planet is just that – absurd.

At the opening of COP 27, Secretary General Guterres told the summit “Cooperate or perish” specifically mentioning the U.S. and China. If the U.S. economy – of which the Port of Seattle plays a role in – doesn’t prioritize dramatically reducing its emissions now, instead participating in plans to continue studying decarbonization that may take decades to bear fruit, or participates in industry co-sponsored schemes such as the Green Corridor, allowing cruise tourism and air travel to expand, do you think developing countries will view our commitment to equity favorably? No, of course not. International tensions will continue to rise. Refugee populations will swell due to climate disasters causing humanitarian crises. Wars over increasingly scarce energy and food will intensify.  Another world war triggered by emotionally vulnerable world leaders amidst dangerous games of brinkmanship is never out of the question. Only this time, the consequences due to nuclear proliferation would be global and horrific. We need to change our strategy for prosperity.

The fall rains have arrived and there is snow in the Cascade foothills. It’s easy to forget about the month of wildfire smoke we all endured, especially if we work in an office or have a nice home with air conditioning and high-quality filters. Not everyone is so fortunate. The human mind can only handle so much dissonance and beyond a certain point, we can deny anything that causes too much existential stress.  Anyone in business or politics today learned in school and professional life that most people think first about money and although we profess to follow science, notions of equity, and a range of other factors – cognitive dissonance tends to favor the money over the rest.

Political leaders have an unrealistic faith that technology can save us from ecological catastrophe.  Economic prosperity is narrowly defined, and profit horizons are only contemplated for the short term. Gaia  – the Greek name for Mother Earth – is a living entity represented by the interconnected nature of all living things on this planet, of which humans are only one strand in the web of life (Chief Seattle). She will have the final say on the legitimacy of our economic development models.

I urge you to read the critique of the Green Corridor which Seattle Cruise Control has shared with you and follow the climate science. Please stop promoting non-essential air and cruise tourism. The short term monetary gains to our region will only end up as dust and smoke in the eyes and mouths of the children of the future.

Respectfully, Jordan Van Voast, L.Ac. Seattle, WA

Sept. 26, 2022. (Jordan Van Voast). It was 81 degrees at Sea-Tac Airport yesterday afternoon, breaking another heat record for all time high temperature. Normal high temperature at this time of the year is somewhere in the mid 60s.  But these aren’t normal times anymore and to the extent we forget that, we are in dangerous denial. Post tropical storm Fiona just slammed Atlantic Canada with historic destruction. Three quarters of a million people in Puerto Rico are still without power. Gulf coast Florida is looking down the barrel of a major hurricane right now. Our oceans are warming rapidly, creating more powerful hurricanes linked to the burning of fossil fuels. Wildfires are burning across the U.S, Mexico, and western Canada north to the Arctic Circle.  Wildfire smoke invades our region with increasing regularity. Our summers are hotter and longer, and winters are shorter. Meanwhile, the Port of Seattle is incredibly pretending that cruise ship business is good for our collective future because it is an economic engine for our region.  People who actually grow food know that you can’t eat money, and agriculture depends upon a stable climate which is disappearing in our life time. When will you acknowledge that we are in an emergency and that you have a responsibility to transition away from this non-essential business instead of continuing to invest in an unsustainable future.

August 9th, 2022

Iris Antman

Good afternoon, my name is Iris Antman. The Port does a good job evaluating the benefits of its cruise business, tracking the revenue and the jobs and businesses it supports. But we have not seen commensurate attention paid to the costs of the risks and harm cruising causes.

For example, financial harm like the cost of healthcare for port community populations who suffer disproportionate exposure to air pollution from not only the cruise ships but also the jets bringing tourists to Seattle to take cruises. The cost of missed school days for children living in those communities. The cost of worker’s lost income due to illness and premature death related to air and water pollution. Not to mention the costs associated with the stress of dealing with health and financial problems. 

Economists talk about ‘the social cost of carbon’ in an attempt to measure, in dollars, the long term damage done by a ton of carbon dioxide emissions in a given year as well as the dollar figure for damages avoided by emission reductions.

The social cost of carbon relates not only to climate, but also to community health, air and water pollution, ecosystem and marine life health, and the workers and tourists exposed to emissions.

We can not and should not ignore the social, health and economic factors adversely affected by continuing cruise business as usual. In working to expand the cruise sector, the Port is endorsing adding greater amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere worsening global warming. Do you really want to do this?  To be fair, you must measure and report not only cruise benefits but also the costs of the harm that cruising causes.

Please, do not ignore the gravity of the clear and present danger of the climate crisis. Do not expand cruising, do not extend leases. Use your energy, creativity and intelligence to develop and support 21st century enterprises on our waterfront, enterprises that do not contribute to the destruction of the environment on which we depend for life.

Thank you.

August 9th, 2022 – Pat McKee

Good afternoon commissioners –

I want to call your attention to H.R. 8336, the Clean Shipping Act, introduced last month by Congressman Alan Lowenthal and co-sponsored by Congresswoman Nanette Barragán; they represent the districts containing the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles respectively – together the two ports comprise the busiest shipping facility in the Western Hemisphere.

The bill would clean up the shipping industry, which produces more emissions than all but five individual countries in the world – protecting the health of port communities, addressing environmental injustice, and providing solutions to the climate crisis. 

The bill directs the EPA to do the following:

Set progressively tighter carbon intensity standards for shipping consistent with a 1.5° Celsius decarbonization pathway: GHG reductions of 20 percent by 2027, 45 percent by 2030, 80 percent by 2035, and 100 percent by 2040, relative to the 2024 emissions baseline. 

(These are called benchmarks; they’re used as a means of ensuring progress toward an ultimate goal – and they are, incidentally, conspicuously absent from the so called Green Cruise Corridor proposal recently laid out by the Port of Seattle.)

By 2030, require all ships at-berth or at-anchor in U.S. ports to emit zero GHG emissions and zero air pollutant emissions. 

(This doesn’t mean voluntary compliance, and it doesn’t apply only to ships whose owners deign to invest in shore power technology, which as far as I can tell is the Port of Seattle’s position.)

We keep hearing the Port Commission’s expressions of concern – the Port is between a rock and a hard place, forced to choose between protecting the Salish Sea and the planet and ensuring revenue and job producing Port business. But hey – problem solved. Come on, Seattle – we can let the Feds level the playing field for us, applying a standard all U.S. ports will have to meet. 

To this end I encourage the port to direct its lobbying entity to endorse and support the Clean Shipping Act; maybe even redirect the hundreds of thousands of dollars budgeted for Cruise Promotion over the next few years.

Thank you.

Testimony for Port Commission Meeting 7/12/22

Iris Antman

Good afternoon. My name is Iris Antman. I’m a member of Seattle Cruise Control. I’m here to ask you to consider the part that cruise in Seattle plays in the larger context of global warming.

Cruising is an important economic driver in Seattle. I acknowledge that it’s not a small thing for you to look at the harm it causes.  I applaud you for your efforts such as shore power, scrubbers, solar panels on bldg roofs to address adverse effects.I Most recently you’ve embarked on the Green Corridor project. It’s clear that you’re aware of the problems we’re facing and that you’re trying to address them. I applaud you for these important efforts.  And, at the same time, I feel it is essential for you to go further and consider a reduction in the number of cruises altogether. 

We know the present and potential future effects of global warming are devastating and will make large areas of the planet uninhabitable. I don’t need to remind you of what this means for our children and grandchildren and the kind of world they’re likely to be living in. I believe the level of decrease in fossil fuels needed requires a reduction and a phasing out of cruising in its current form. Analyses of the IPCC reports are clear that future technologies aside such as carbon capture and clean hydrogen fuel, not available at scale for decades if ever, are not a replacement for ending fossil fuel use now. We cannot continue to emit more GHGs and believe that in 20 or 30 years we’ll be able to halt the damage we’re doing now that will be irreversible.

I’m asking you to hold your loved ones in mind while you contemplate our warming planet. I’m asking you to decrease cruising using your leases and berthing agreements as you’ve suggested. I believe there are other ways the Port can do business besides cruising. And I believe that once you’re ready to face the current reality of climate crisis and its main cause, you can come up with brilliant ideas to create meaningful change.

We need you, and I’m asking you to act bravely and do the right thing.

Thank you.

June 28, 2022. Good afternoon Commissioners, My name is Jordan Van Voast. On Sunday, I stood at the entrance to the plaza at Terminal 66 where passengers were arriving to board a cruise ship bound for Alaska. Sweat from the intense sun rolled down my back as I offered literature to passengers filing in with their luggage. Our demeanor and the import of our words was to wish them a happy cruise, but to encourage them to make it their last, filling in the gaps of knowledge that many have regarding the many harmful aspects of the cruise ship industry.

We are in a climate emergency. Our first heat wave of 2022 resulted in only mildly unpleasant temperatures –near 90 degrees in my Seattle neighborhood, but a grim reminder of one year ago when the Pacific Northwest experienced epic heat and widespread suffering and death to humans and sea creatures, climaxing with a freak 121 degree heat dome and wildfire event at Lytton, British Columbia.

Despite our smiles, friendly demeanor and a colorful artistic performance by Extinction Rebellion’s Red Rebels, most passengers marched quickly past our street theater and outreach, refusing to openly acknowledge our presence. One might surmise a bit of willful ignorance. But children are ever open minded. “I do this for your future”, I told one child of perhaps ten years of age who took the flyer from my outstretched hand with an air of curiosity and subtle hint of a smile.

Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross, a pioneer in the field of near death, outlined the 5 steps of grief in her book “On Death and Dying”. The first step, where our world is stuck – is denial. Climate scientists have been giving us the same clear prognosis for a half century. Our fossil fuel use is a terminal cancer that is quickly metastasizing. We need to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions now, not in 2050, or else our world faces catastrophic warming with climate disasters, suffering, death, and perhaps extinction in the not-too-distant future. And yet this Commission and the Port continues to swallow the opiate pills of capitalism that deny the clear and apparent danger our world faces in order to squeeze a few more dollars of profit. Seattle Cruise Control recently submitted to the Commission a point-by-point refutation of the Green Corridor and have posted an op-Ed on our website.

Please act now to lead with the common good and the public trust that the Commission is sworn to uphold. Please make meaningful steps now to phase out cruise ships. Time is running out. Thank you.

Cartoon by Bob Mankoff:Business man standing at podium at a meeting with shareholders.  “And so, while the end of the world scenario will be rife with unimaginable horrors, we believe that the pre-end period will be filled with unprecedented opportunities for profit”

June 28, 2022.

Iris Antman

Good afternoon, my name is Iris Antman and I’m a member of Seattle Cruise Control. 

I appreciate your comments about Pride, Juneteenth, the Roe vs. Wade reversal and how in each of these events, POC and other minorities are disproportionately affected and I agree with your sentiments. So I find it even more incredible not to mention disappointing and discouraging that you’re unwilling to honestly and seriously address the biggest crisis in front of us, that of global warming caused by fossil fuel burning. And that you’re not willing to wake up from the dream of cruising being good for Seattle.

Cruising is a relic of market capitalism that is destroying public and environmental health and the very viability of life on earth. It is a non-essential activity And you’re aiming to increase cruise tourism from countries around the world which will exponentially increase air traffic as well.

The ‘green corridor’ project has been promoted as a sustainable path forward. However, this project is counting on technology not yet in existence and probably won’t be developed or at scale for decades; not to mention the idea of voluntary participation by cruise companies. 

You are in positions of power and you must seriously and emphatically address global warming, the result of fossil fuel burning.

 If we continue on the present course, with little tweaks here and there, and promises of things to come decades from now you are squandering your responsibility. We can no longer think economic growth is more important than survival of the species and that’s what we’re looking at. Business as usual will assure that large areas of the earth will potentially be uninhabitable by the end of the century.

We will see water and food scarcity, increasingly frequent catastrophic weather events costing billions of dollars, migrations of millions of refugees threatening global security, and the loss of biodiversity affecting food systems and thus our very ability to survive.

We need big change NOW. We want an end to cruise in Seattle. You can be part of the solution, creatively developing regenerative, renewable forward looking businesses and industries that can grow and support new jobs on our waterfront. This is 2022, we’re out of time. It is your job and duty, and you have the power to innovate and help create a liveable future.

Thank you.

May 24, 2022

Written comment from Elizabeth:

Port staff and the Executive Director have recently promoted the idea that cruising is safe, that Covid is no longer an issue.

For example, at the March 22nd Port Commission meeting, the memo for Item 11C, Cruise Season Update, stated:

            “Cruise vessels have sailed safely for some time not only in Seattle in 2021 but throughout the world.”

And in his opening remarks at the May 10th Cruise Study Session, the Port’s Executive Director said:

“We demonstrate that we can protect the health and safety of passengers and crew, with strong COVID protocols and partnerships with local health authorities. Early on, we embraced the vision and goal that cruise would return stronger and safer, and that has been the case.”

But this story of safe cruising is false. It is directly contradicted by numerous, easily accessible sources, including the CDC, the Miami Herald, the Associated Press, and the Seattle Times.

During the months preceding the March 22nd Commission meeting, for example, the Miami Herald, the Maritime Executive, and cruise expert and maritime attorney Jim Walker of Cruise Law News all published accounts of Caribbean cruises with numerous Covid cases on board; of multiple ships denied entry at Caribbean ports due to onboard illness; and of thousands of infected crew members housed at sea on “plague ships”  with inadequate medical care (references below).

And on May 4th, just days before the Director’s “safe cruising” comment at the Cruise Study Session, an Associated Press article ran nationwide, including in the Seattle Times, describing how Covid was wreaking havoc on the Carnival Spirit as it arrived in Seattle.

A related article in the Seattle Times, also published May 4th, revealed that the Carnival Spirit was not unique: the majority of cruise ships in the United States had Covid cases, and ship protocols to care for affected passengers were wholly inadequate. From the Seattle Times article:

Of the 92 cruise ships operating in U.S. waters, 76 have reported at least one COVID case among passengers or crew members, according to the CDC’s cruises dashboard. Carnival has 22 cruises operating; all but four have positive cases. 

…some passengers on the 16-day voyage said there were more than 100 cases aboard and that the outbreak “overwhelmed” the crew, according to media and social media accounts.

“They didn’t have enough staff to handle the emergency that was happening, period,” passenger Darren Sieferston told KING 5. “They were overwhelmed and they didn’t have a backup course in how to handle about 200 people affected with COVID. We all suffered.”

From the AP article:

Passengers tell KING 5 they waited hours for meals, weren’t properly isolated and couldn’t get a hold of medical staff.

“We couldn’t call anybody…Basically, we sat in the room, you call and it would ring, ring, ring, and ring all day long” said Sieferston.

All of these facts were publicly available before the Port statements about safe cruises were made on March 22 and May 10. 

Are false statements like those cited above, particularly on important matters of public health, just “business as usual” for the Port? Are Port announcements not fact checked? Are the staff and the executive director getting their information solely from cruise companies? Who is responsible for making sure Port statements made in public are true? 

Cruise passengers and crew, whether sick or well, are all impacted by Covid cases onboard, and are not served by the Port covering up the situation. Potential cruise customers, trying to assess the risks of taking a cruise, are misled into believing that the risks are lower than they actually are. Residents of every port city these ships visit need to know that they are at risk, so they can take appropriate precautions. In fact, cruise ship stops in Alaska – Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Hoonah, and Sitka – currently have some of the highest Covid rates in the whole state.

False statements like these undermine the credibility of the Port, and are at odds with its repeated claims of being transparent and accountable. 

Commissioners can’t do their jobs responsibly if the information they get from staff exaggerates the safety and benefits of cruise while obscuring or ignoring its dangers and harms. 

The Port has a special relationship to the media: reporters turn to the Port for information about cruise, and generally publish what the Port tells them. The Port abuses this privileged position by promulgating falsehoods.

This situation requires action. As the primary representatives of the public interest at the Port, commissioners have the responsibility of assuring that staff prioritize truth and the interests of the public rather than the interests of cruise companies.

This is a serious matter. I would appreciate a response.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Burton

References:

CDC Dashboard for cruises (as of May 22nd, shows that of the 90 ships opting in to voluntary CDC COVID-19 program, 80 are code orange, meaning that there are enough cases of COVID to trigger a CDC investigation)

AP article carried nationwide on May 4th, 2022: Carnival Cruise Ship passengers say COVID overwhelmed ship

Seattle cruise industry’s comeback from COVID marred by outbreak, Seattle Times, May 4, 2022

Cruise ships stops in Alaska have high Covid rates: Alaska Department of Health & Social Services COVID dashboard; scroll down to see current 7-Day average. Here’s the dashboard for May 18th:

Articles detailing Covid outbreaks on Caribbean cruises:

From maritime attorney Jim Walker’s blog, cruiselawnews.com:

Reports from the Miami Herald:

Cruise Ships Turned Away due to Covid

More recent reports: 

May 10, 2022. Good afternoon Commissioners. My name is Jordan Van Voast. The Port of Seattle’s cruise ship business has a massive carbon footprint when one actually counts the flight miles and ship emissions outside our airshed. That’s not going to significantly change in the next decade with shore power, kelp forests, or solar panels. The climate emergency is here now and we have a responsibility to act.

A Tibetan monk living in India wrote to me yesterday about the impact of the record heat wave there. “Dear Jordan la, Tashi delek!  The hot weather is creating huge problems. Many monks have contracted dengue fever and also the heat makes it difficult to attend class or study.  Older monks cannot go outside.  I get headaches very often. Wells are running dry and water must be delivered in tanker trucks from the river. If the monsoon rains don’t come soon, we will face huge problems due to water shortage. I think these warning signs tell us we must take better care of this earth.  I hope you can speak to the elected officials and make them aware of the climate problems we are experiencing now. With love and prayers, Lobsang Tashi.

India and Pakistan have been in the grips of record heat for the last month and it is about to get worse. Crop failures, water shortages, heat induced illness and death are all increasing. “This heatwave is definitely unprecedented,” said Dr. Chandni Singh, IPCC Lead Author and Senior Researcher at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements. “This is what climate experts predicted and it will have cascading impacts on health.” 

How can we justify the huge carbon footprint of the non-essential cruise industry promoted by the Port when South Asia and many other places in the world are becoming unlivable due to a climate emergency which is principally caused by the lifestyles in the Global North and the failure of our leaders to end business as usual? Where is the equity in that? Thank you. 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/02/asia/india-pakistan-heatwave-climate-intl-hnk/index.html
India and Pakistan’s brutal heat wave poised to resurge

May 10, 2022

From Iris Antman

Good afternoon Commissioners. My name is Iris Antman and I’m with Seattle Cruise Control.

During the Study Session this morning, it was reiterated by Comm. Calkins and agreed to by other Comm. that even if cruise in Seattle ended tomorrow it would only go elsewhere. That may be true, but detrimental activities by others don’t condone those same actions committed here. 

The goal of zero emissions by 2050 is a worthy goal, but its operationalization flies in the face of the increasing numbers of cruise sailings and air flights into and out of Seattle. Cruise ships use dirty bunker fuels, airplanes use fossil fuels. So how are we going to get to zero emissions by 2050 if we increase these health and climate destroying activities. 

While it may be true that cruise represents only 18% of maritime emissions versus the 70% from cargo shipping, those numbers don’t factor in the air miles, garbage and sewage of 5,000 passengers and 1500 crew on a cruise ship versus the zero passengers and 20 or 30 crew on a freighter. 

Seattle Cruise Control is asking for a transition to a cruise free Salish Sea. The scientists are telling us we need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels – not in 10 or 20 years or by 2050, but now. Cruising is a non-essential luxury pastime, engaged in by people with means, to the detriment of the masses of people who are struggling just to survive. 

As Port Commissioners, you hold the power to set a courageous example of climate leadership for others to follow. Be the greenest Port. Life on Earth is not a zero sum game. We all lose everything if we keep procrastinating on addressing the unfolding drastic consequences of extractive and exploitative industries which are essential for cruising to continue.And until we have environmentally friendly fuels cruising will be emblematic of our out of touch connection with life and health. 

Until we have real sustainable fuels cruising will be emblematic of our out of touch connection with life and health. It is time to downsize our consumer lifestyles. 

We are asking for a paradigm shift, not for tweaking around the edges but rather for making big changes. Thank you.

May 10, 2022 – Pat McKee

Good afternoon, commissioners. 

I watched last meeting’s public comment with interest. There were pro cruise comments from the former chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party and a corporate attorney, and they could have been reading from the same playbook – clearly the Cruise lobby is employing the strict talking point discipline the tobacco lobby and the oil lobby did before them. When they mention Cruise tourism they precede it with the adjective sustainable, so it feels like they’re talking about something that already exists – sustainable cruise tourism! 

But sustainable has an actual definition. In the simplest terms it means  meeting our needs without ruining the prospects of our children and grandchildren. 

By this definition, no aspect of cruise tourism is sustainable, from environmental damage to public health impact to labor conditions to perversion of local economies in Alaska (and Seattle). You all are trying to make sense of this yourselves, trying to balance rosy economic projections with tragic, if painstakingly externalized, costs. 

Is there money in it? There must be, for somebody. We know the Mayor is heralding the return of cruise and the Port is trolling worldwide to run up the numbers, numbers not only of shipboard passengers but of jet flights into and out of Sea Tac.

But what are we doing, really; what essential service is the Port of Seattle promoting? We’re setting a couple of marine oil burning Vegas casinos afloat in the Salish Sea every day, that’s all. Their sewers and engine wastes drain into the open ocean while their exhaust systems expel particulate matter that sickens kids and melts arctic ice. A single summer of Alaska cruise produces green house gases equal to a third of the annual output of the entire city of Seattle.

The planet is already feeling the effects of climate cooking – more in the global south than in the fortunate geography of mountains and fjords we call home. Even here, though, we lived through the heat dome (except for the ones who didn’t – mostly poor), our starving resident orcas number in the mere dozens, our grand children won’t ever know there were once glaciers just across the water.

Commissioners – the UN is telling us 2050 is too late. Doing the right thing will be a challenge for everyone; let’s start now, untangling our futures from cruise.

April 26, 2022

Written comment:

Seattle Cruise Control appreciated hearing Commissioner Cho’s perspective on cruise, expressed during the last Commission meeting, and we also appreciate the benefits of expanding workforce training for the next generation.

However, we are concerned that Commissioner Cho’s conviction that the Port is successfully mitigating the environmental harms of cruise is profoundly ill-informed. The following is a partial list of serious environmental harms for which the Port’s mitigation is currently wholly ineffective. 

  • Greenhouse gas emissions: Shore power eliminates a trivial amount of the greenhouse gasses emitted by Seattle’s cruise ships; currently, less than one-half of one percent. Once shore power is available and fully utilized at all of Seattle’s cruise berths, this might rise to one and one-quarter percent. 
  • Air pollution: scrubbers reduce sulfur emissions, but result in billions of gallons of warm, acidic, toxic wastewater being dumped into the ocean. 
  • Water pollution: the Port restricts dumping in Puget Sound, but as soon as the ships cross the Canadian border, they dump close to 4 billion gallons of scrubber waste, sewage, bilge water, and greywater directly into Canadian waters each year. 
  • Interference with whales’ echolocation due to underwater noise; ship strikes of whales: not mitigated
  • Anti-fouling contamination of marine ecosystems: not mitigated

There are also non-environmental harms that the Port does not mitigate, including exploitative, unhealthy, and dangerous working conditions for crew, a high rate of onboard sexual assaults, and continued spread of Covid-19.  

This is only a partial list. Academic researchers from around the world have compiled a comprehensive summary of cruise tourism’s harms to the environment and to human health, based on over 150 peer-reviewed articles; we urge all Commissioners and Port staff working on cruise to familiarize themselves with this: Environmental and human health impacts of cruise tourism: A review, by Lloret et al. 

In light of these numerous, significant, and hard-to-mitigate harms, we would like to see the Port use the upcoming Cruise Study Session as an opportunity to take a realistic look at the trade-offs the Port is making by continuing to promote and expand cruise. 

Cruise lines are able to make huge profits because they burn the cheapest and dirtiest fossil fuel, and because they fly flags of convenience, allowing them to exploit and underpay their workers, and avoid paying U.S. taxes. The Port’s workforce development program is currently the direct beneficiary of these practices, which violate the Port’s Century Agenda values of environmental stewardship and equity.

We hope this information is helpful, and we hope that instead of continuing and furthering your dependence on cruise, you will devote substantial resources into developing different, more sustainable, just, and equitable revenue sources, to benefit our youth, our region, and our world.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Burton, PhD

on behalf of Seattle Cruise Control

References:

Shore power currently eliminates less than one-half of one percent of Seattle’s cruise GHG emissions: calculations posted on Greenhouse Gas Emissions on Seattle Cruise Control website.

Four billion gallons of water pollution in Canadian waters and description of scrubber wastewater: from Regulating the West Coast Cruise Industry: Canada at the Low Water Mark, by Stand.earth and West Coast Environmental Law, p. 8. A reported 31 billion litres dumped during the entire Alaska cruise season is equivalent to 8.2 billion gallons. Seattle hosts a little less than half of Alaskan cruises, hence responsible for approximately 4 billion gallons.

Underwater noise, ship strikes, anti-fouling contamination, exploitative working conditions, sexual assaults: from Lloret et al.

Still spreading Covid-19: some recent articles:

From maritime attorney Jim Walker’s blog, cruiselawnews.com:

Reports from the Miami Herald:

Cruise Ships Turned Away due to Covid

More recent reports: 

—-Spoken comment:

Good afternoon, I’m Elizabeth Burton.

Your international marketing staff recently gave a presentation about promoting Seattle’s cruises in Europe and the U.K. Commissioners excitedly asked if these efforts could be expanded to Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

There seems to be no awareness that every one of these tens of thousands of flights accelerates the climate crisis. There are no zero-emissions inter-continental flights. The emissions from just one of these flights exceeds the annual amount per capita that would be compatible with a livable climate. 

This is an equity issue. For example, as you consider Africa as a potential source of new cruise customers, consider the latest IPCC report: “By 2030, about 250 million people may experience high water stress in Africa, with up to 700 million people displaced as a result.” This is half the population of the continent.

More from the report: Most African countries will enter unprecedented high temperature climates earlier in this century than generally wealthier, higher latitude countries. Climate change poses a significant threat to African marine and freshwater fisheries, which provide the main source of protein for ~30% of Africa’s population and support the livelihoods of 12.3 million people.

There are similar horrors happening throughout the world, and everywhere, they hit the most vulnerable and marginalized communities first and hardest. Right now, over a billion people in India and Pakistan are experiencing multiple days of extreme heat, rising as high as 120 degrees.

Your cruise operations have a global impact, and your commitment to equity needs to reflect that fact. 

The very money that you are using to create job training for vulnerable communities here at home comes from activities that are devastating vulnerable communities the world over.

April 12, 2022

Good afternoon Commissioners, My name is Jordan Van Voast.  For two and a half years Seattle Cruise Control has been amplifying voices from the IPCC, climate scientists, and front-line communities, but business as usual is still the norm. This Commission continues to promote and fund cruise tourism, despite statements to the contrary.

Many years ago, I left my job in corporate America to live on a small island. I was searching for answers because I knew modern global culture was Koyaanisqatsi[1]  – dangerously out of balance. 

Native people from many different tribes speak about prophecy –  that unless we learn to live in harmony with natural laws and within ecological limits, we will destroy this world. Are we heeding their teachings or just glibly repeating land acknowledgments?

The cruise ship business model is an ecological and societal wrecking ball. In order to restore balance each one of us needs to make a courageous stand for sustainable and compassionate stewardship of our world. But first, we need to fully acknowledge the gravity of the problem and that requires listening to voices outside the echo chamber of capitalism which puts profit above all else. 

Seattle Cruise Control suggests that at your upcoming Cruise Study Session you include experts on the economic, social, and ecological impacts of cruise – people like Dr. Martha Honey, Ph.D. and Dr. Ross Klein, Ph.D who could widen your perspectives and allow for a diversity of voices to be heard. Please stop greenwashing cruise which is an unsustainable business model for our region and the world. Countless lives and the web of life itself are at stake and we are running out of time. Thank you.

[1] Koyaanisqatsi from the Hopi language meaning “life out of balance”, also the title of a movie in 1982 which depicted the apocalyptic collision between urban life, technology, and the environment.

Port Testimony: Counting GHG Emissions – 4/12/22

Hi, I’m Elizabeth Burton; I have a PhD in mathematics, and I want to talk about counting greenhouse gas emissions from Seattle’s cruise ships.

I understand that the Port is not required to report emissions for ships once they leave our local airshed. But I do not understand how Commissioners can make responsible decisions about cruise – whether to increase it or decrease it – without knowing its total climate impact.

I’ve calculated cruise emissions for the entire journey to Alaska and back, using ship call records from the Port’s 2019 season, and an online carbon calculator supported by respectable sources. My total estimate was about 1.1 million tons for the whole journey; this is about 20 times larger than the Port’s estimate of 59,000 tons for the emissions just in our local airshed. 

These two numbers are actually consistent. Our airshed corresponds to about 5% of the total distance traveled by the ships, and your number is about 5% of my number.

What this means is that you’re making decisions about cruise while ignoring 95% of its contribution to the climate crisis. 

It also means that you are wildly overestimating how much shore power can reduce ships’ contribution to climate change. Your website says that “about 25% of a cruise ship’s total emissions in Puget Sound can be avoided by plugging into shore power.” This 25% reduction within Puget Sound translates into only a 1-¼ % reduction when the whole journey is considered.

The climate doesn’t care what numbers show up in your report. The climate responds to what goes into the atmosphere.

I’d like to respectfully remind you that you work for the public; you don’t work for the cruise companies, and you don’t work for the travel industry. If the activities you promote result in great public harm, you need to be aware of it.

Thank you.

Robin Briggs

My name is Robin Briggs, and I live in King County. 

After the recent IPCC report came out, I saw a headline that read “Earth on track to be unlivable, see story on page A3”. All humans will die if we don’t change our behavior, but somehow that does not go on page 1 with stories that merit our full attention, it ends up buried in the back pages. As many people are, and as I am guessing most of you are, I am concerned about the climate, and I don’t think we should be ignoring it. Wildfires cause smoke, which is really bad for all of us, but last year wildfires actually came into the urban core in Portland, and people had to evacuate. How long before they come here? We’re in the middle of a 1200-year drought in California, where much of our food is grown. We are beginning to experience what is coming if we do nothing.

So we have that on the one hand – “Earth on track to be unlivable”. And on the other hand we have cruise ship sailings at an all-time high. Cruise ships cause a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. And, frankly, they are not a necessary activity. We don’t need them the way we need clean air, food, concrete and steel. Why are we having so many sailings, and why would we think that is good? We need to make choices – cut back or decarbonize. If cruise can’t or won’t decarbonize, let’s have fewer sailings while they figure it out. But growing it as a business? That’s not good for the region, and it’s not good for the planet either.

March 22,2022

Testimony to Port Commission March 22, 2022

Good afternoon, my name is Iris Antman. I’m here as a member of Seattle Cruise Control. I’m happy to see the procedures proposed for safe cruising in light of Covid, referenced in agenda item 8h. I hope that the Cruise companies have signed on to these procedures.

Maybe more importantly than Covid, is the fact, undisputed by 100% of climate scientists,  that unprecedented global warming is primarily due to fossil fuel burning resulting in climate effects some of which have gone over some tipping points such as the melting of Arctic ice, and reached other tipping points that have the probability of making the earth uninhabitable for life as we know it before the end of this century.

Just yesterday the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed that U.S. companies should be required to disclose a range of climate-related risks and GHG emissions. The companies would be required to disclose Scope 1, 2, AND Scope 3 emissions.

This is MAJOR, a government oversight agency trying to wake us up to what we as a society have been largely ignoring. 

The pandemic pause gave us a chance to rethink how we do business, but we have wasted that opportunity, as evidenced by our celebrating even more cruising this year over the 2019 levels. I find it so disheartening that the Port continues to turn away from the reality that fossil fuel burning (and the cruise ships use the dirtiest of fossil fuels) is causing climate catastrophe believing that the Seattle cruise industries’ economic returns ‘trumps’ the harm it causes.

Most people who take cruises don’t understand the multiple harms of this activity, but you do, and it is your responsibility to stand up and do the right thing and to quote Executive Director Metruck ‘move in the right direction’, for our children, grandchildren and for all living beings, Cruising and even more cruising is not the right direction.

Thank you. 

Elizabeth Burton:

Good afternoon, I’m Elizabeth Burton, commenting on Item 11c, the update on this year’s cruise season.

I’m concerned about passengers contracting COVID during their cruise and then spreading it in Seattle when they disembark, since they are not tested for COVID when they disembark at the end of their trip. Masks are now optional on cruises, and the current subvariant of COVID, BA.2, is even more transmissible than the original omicron variant.

The Item 11c memo implies things are OK because ships typically stop in Victoria the day before they end their voyage in Seattle, and unlike in the U.S., Transport Canada does require disembarking passengers to be tested. What’s not clear is: what happens to passengers who test positive for COVID when they arrive in VIctoria? Presumably, they have to stay on the ship, rather than going into the city, but that does nothing to make Seattle’s situation safer. I hope you’ll look into this.

Even more disturbing is the claim on the Memo for Item 11c: “Cruise vessels have sailed safely for some time not only out of Seattle in 2021, but throughout the world.”

That statement is not true. The current cruise season in the Caribbean has been a public health disaster. As reported by Florida maritime attorney Jim Walker,` in January of this year, Royal Caribbean – one of the cruise lines who will be coming to Seattle –  had 435 crew members infected with Covid-19 from just four ships over the course of just one week.

Further, over the past 3 months, news reports revealed that Royal Caribbean housed, at sea, thousands of Covid-19 infected crew members on four “plague ships;” ships that carried no paying customers. On one of these ships, there were only two doctors and four nurses for over 1,500 sick crew members.

In the Caribbean, many ships have been denied entry to their destination ports because of the illness on board.

I ask you to live up to your stated value of transparency and stop glossing over egregious safety issues.

Thank you.

March 8, 2022

Public comment. March 8, 2023.

Port of Seattle Commission meeting

Good afternoon Director Metruck, Commissioners and Port staff. My name is Jordan Van Voast. I commend the Port of Seattle for its solidarity statement with Ukraine. War is a tragedy everywhere, and we all must do whatever we can to heal the roots of conflict.

Which brings me to yachts and cruise ships.  The Biden administration and Europe have targeted mega yachts owned by billionaires for their connection to Putin. What about yachts owned by Western billionaires, some of which have an annual carbon footprint[1] several times that of a Boeing 747.  Why not confiscate and ban all super-yachts due to their war on the planet?[2]  

The Port of Seattle plans 296 cruise ship sailings this year.  We are told – with little evidence – that these bring wonderful benefits to the local economy, though studies[3] have repeatedly shown that these benefits are usually overstated. The recently completed Lloret study[4] summarizing 40 years of peer-reviewed articles on the harms of cruise tourism had this to say:

“Overall, we can conclude that cruise tourism is a maritime activity causing major impacts on the environment and human health and wellbeing, with most likely small and doubtful local economic benefits when negative externalities are monitored and disclosed.”

Cruiseis the most environmentally harmful[5] sector of the travel industry. We are almost out of time to avert ecological catastrophe.     Plans need to be made for a just transition so that affected workers and businesses can adapt to a business model that doesn’t destroy the ecosystem or adversely impact human lives.  I’d like to acknowledge and thank Commissioner Hasegawa for recently stating that “cruise as a regional benefit is debatable”. There needs to be a deeper discussion of cruise’s costs as well as its benefits. We need to ramp up plans for a just transition, not celebrating record numbers of cruise passengers and a correspondingly huge increase in greenhouse gases. Thank you.

[1] https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-footprint-billionaires-2650552617.html?fbclid=IwAR2I5RShrsR0xysdjupyNNjLIR_6Ipd0Xv0VUkh4gDV_H6X0VdVJvHDaz-E

 [2] The Port of Seattle promotes superyachts in their business model. See: https://www.portseattle.org/maritime/superyachts

 [3] https://www.pressherald.com/2018/06/11/long-touted-economic-benefits-of-cruise-ships-far-overstated/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330139423_Overstating_Cruise_Passenger_Spending_Sources_of_Error_in_Cruise_Industry_Studies_of_Economic_Impact
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/ttracanada_2018_conference/8/
Cruise Ships Often Represent the Worst of Capitalism

 [4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X21010134

 [5] https://www.geekyexplorer.com/cruise-ship-pollution/

 Testimony for Port Commission Meeting March 8, 2022

Good afternoon, my name is Iris Antman and I’m a member of Seattle Cruise Control.

The Port’s moniker of the greenest Port in the U.S. wears thin with the announcement of 2022’s cruise schedule and the increase from about 200 sailings in 2019 to about 300 for this year.This is astonishing and flies in the face of the dire predictions reported in last month’s U.N’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which clearly stated that the indicators of the climate crisis are worsening quickly. 

Though the Port says that “Cruise is a critical part of our local and regional economy….”,we won’t have a local economy if we continue business as usual. It is time to confront this business as usual mentality if we are to avoid a complete unraveling of global society and economics within this century. Many of us at this meeting will die before the worst effects of the climate crisis hits Seattle, but what about our children and grandchildren? They will have to deal with droughts, heat, wildfires and flooding, leading to food scarcity, climate migrants, war, and environmental devastation. We cannot reverse the trajectory we’re on; but, we can slow it down and possibly avoid the worst consequences. However, if you continue to ignore reality and pretend non-essential cruising is a viable business, if you continue pretending everything is okay and we should just get back to normal, history will not be kind to you. Your kids and grandkids will not understand why you chose the easy path and not the one that hopes to ensure a livable future for them.

I realize these are not necessarily analogous situations, even so, I must say, that if you can stand with Ukraine and express such sincere and heartfelt concern with the gravitas it deserves, why cannot we not come together to do what needs to be done around the climate crisis to save our planet and all beings? 

Thank you.

Testimony for Port Commission 1/25/22

Good afternoon Commissioners, my name is Jordan Van Voast. If reports are true[1] and you’ve finally cancelled the third cruise terminal, I offer sincere thanks.  Our group, Seattle Cruise Control has a mission and vision that eventually you will cancel the other two cruise ship terminals.[2] I urge you to be courageous and help the people of our region to look up[3] and grasp the reality that if we continue to burn fossil fuels for non-essential travel, there’s little hope for making the really difficult reductions in emissions necessary to prevent catastrophic climate warming.  Cutting out global cruise travel is low hanging fruit in the race to save a livable world for our children and 90% of species on the planet.[4] Climate scientists calculate that we need to cut our total global greenhouse gas emissions in half in the next 8 years, from 60 gigatons[5] annually, to 30 gigatons[6]. Global emission pathways based on current policies will lead to at least 3 degrees Celsius of warming. We’ve already experienced 1 degree of warming in the last century and a half and the effects are deadly and disproportionately felt by Black and Brown people in the Global South. If the Port is serious about its equity commitments, this inconvenient truth needs to be faced and rectified.  If the Port is serious about aligning with climate science, it needs to work with the state legislature to revise its authorizing charter so that economic expansion isn’t blindly tied to the fossil fuel intensive travel industry.  The Port’s mission is essentially to bring prosperity to the workers and people of the region. I believe there are many ways to achieve this outside of the traditional paradigm of internal combustion engines, but it will require all of us to heal our individual and collective trauma[7] so that our minds can work together creatively and imaginatively.  Thank you.

[1] https://www.kuow.org/stories/how-the-port-of-seattle-is-whittling-away-at-supply-chain-backlogs

[2] https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/01/21/third-cruise-terminal-cancelled-activists-call-on-port-of-seattle-to-phase-out-cruise-ships/

[3] The 2021 film, “Don’t Look Up” parodies mainstream media in its trivialization and denial of the climate crisis and modern techno culture for its fixation on profit rather than true solutions: https://www.netflix.com/title/81252357

[4] The data and reflective inspiration for this comment derives from a presentation by Kritee Kanko, PhD., a climate scientist and Zen priest in the following YouTube video: https://youtu.be/fWT8sfhDO8E

[5] (CO2 equivalents) – note that many website conflate CO2 emissions with total greenhouse gas emissions, which include other gases such as methane.

[6] Ibid.

[7]  https://youtu.be/fWT8sfhDO8E

Good afternoon, my name is Iris Antman, a member of Seattle Cruise Control.

We understand from a KUOW report by Josh McNichols quoting Chair Calkins, that the Port has taken a third cruise ship terminal at T46 off the table. Seattle Cruise Control celebrates this decision and supports the Port doing the right thing, and we hope, possibly naively, that our two years of opposing testimony played some part in that decision. 

We’re now asking you to consider not renewing cruise leases as they come up, and to begin  limiting the number of cruises from Seattle. First because Covid continues to be a significant factor affecting every part of our society. While cruise ships make a big show of Covid testing before passengers embark, there’s no testing before disembarkation. The CDC reported a few weeks ago that Covid cases had increased 30-fold in just two weeks.

We don’t know what the Covid situation will be in April but cruise company owners are not taking appropriate measures now to protect the health of their passengers and crew, or the impacts upon communities. For them, it’s always profit over people.

And second, let’s look at the bigger picture. It’s 2022, eight years from the date the IPCC set target goals for substantial reductions in GHG emissions in order to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees C. We’re already at 1.1-1.2 degrees warming, and we’ve seen the devastating extreme weather events around the planet and here at home. Continuing our present business models flies in the face of realistically meeting these goals. Now is the time to begin developing new systems using clean energy to develop industries and businesses that truly support environmental sustainability and that lift up the health, safety and welfare of our community. You are in a unique position to begin making these life affirming changes. Please take this charge to heart.

Thank you. 

Testimony for Port Commission Meeting January 4, 2002

Good afternoon and sincere congratulations to the new Commissioners. My name is Jordan Van Voast and I’ve voted for all 5 of you since 2019. I appeal to you as a supporter, a fellow citizen and advocate for a world that future generations of sentient beings can thrive in. Perhaps some of you have seen the movie “Don’t Look Up” on Netflix. If not, I recommend it for its artistic portrayal of the disconnect between science and culture in responding to apocalyptic threats – which is exactly what we are facing now.  The climate crisis is here and it intersects with every other social, economic, racial and environmental problem of our time.

The Tourism Recovery Initiative is a perfect example of this disconnect. Climate scientists have warned us that exceeding 1.5 degrees risks setting in motion dangerous planetary feedback loops, and that we are likely to cross that threshold in perhaps just 8 years. Current data shows us that global greenhouse emissions continue to rise, not fall, and yet this executive memo  effuses about “gateways of choice”, “sensible travel options”,  and digital ad campaigns designed to put even more people on planes and cruise ships, as if we all live in a magical alternate reality.  Building another airport or a 3rd cruise ship terminal are incompatible with a healthy future. Where is the plan to acknowledge the full impact of the Port’s Scope 3 emissions? Will you try to exploit the economic opportunity of the moment, like in the movie when the delusional billionaire schemes to mine the comet, or will you look up from your spread sheets and realize that we have everything right now and that it’s time to act based on the science? Thank you.

(January 4, 2022 – continued)

Good afternoon, my name is Iris Antman. Congratulations to our two new Commissioners, and a happy new year to all of you.

It’s disappointing to all of us that Omicron has slowed down returning to more open interactions with our families and communities. In spite of it, we are moving forward in our lives and work and in our understanding about how the world is changing; therefore, how we live and work and play, and do business must change as well.

One of your agenda items today is Environmental Sustainability.

As a member of Seattle Cruise Control, I have testified in opposition to a third cruise ship terminal at T46 for the past two years as it is in clear opposition to environmental sustainability. Covid 19 put the project on temporary hold; we understand that the Port will be making a final determination about this project over the next three months.

I am imploring you to terminate this project for good. I know it is tempting and seductive to think about bigger and more, more tourists, more business, more travel, more cruising, more money, but with that comes more greenhouse gas emissions, worsening environmental degradation, poorer public health outcomes, an increase in extreme weather events, and a burgeoning homeless population, which now numbers more than 40,000 people in King County. Some may think there’s no connection between the homeless population and cruising but there is.

Cruising means more tourists, therefore, more hotels built, decreased housing for locals, more expensive rent, more evictions, more homelessness. Everything is connected. The Ports two mandates are economic expansion and environmental sustainability. You cannot sacrifice the latter for the former, because the former will implode Seattle’s ability to function and sustain itself. If you truly care about the people and their health in Seattle, and our mandate to decrease GHG emissions, the decision on T46 is clear. Please cancel the third cruise ship terminal project.

Thank you.

11.9.21 Public Comment Port of Seattle: 

Good afternoon Commissioners and Executive Director Metruck, My name is Jordan Van Voast. Thank you for your good words recognizing Native American Heritage Month. Next, I want to congratulate the newly elected Commissioners and thank Commissioners Steinbrueck and Bowman for your public service. I realize that your jobs aren’t easy. I believe that all of us are motivated by the same goal to leave a better world for our children, stop the destruction of nature, and find a lasting peace and happiness. It’s not easy to change habitual ways of doing things, but I ask in all sincerity, what is it going to be required before you admit that planning for more cruise passengers and more air travel in 2022 is not compatible with limiting climate warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius? 

Accounting tricks like ignoring Scope 3 emissions in climate targets or relying upon not yet invented technologies do not allow us to escape the reality that increasing emissions now only delays a more painful reckoning our children will have to face.  Sadly, fossil fuel companies have sent more than 500 lobbyists to COP26, more than any single country – we can’t wait for world leaders. It’s up to us and to you. I claim no moral high ground here, or special credentials that might compel you to listen to me. I drive a car a few times a week and buy stuff on Amazon.  But I am trying to be honest about my impact and do what I can to live simply so that others may simply live. Individual change is important, but we cannot hope to avert climate catastrophe without institutional change as well. Your influence, as Commissioners and senior staff members of the Port, has a huge influence on policy and with it, a moral responsibility. May our children inherit a livable world. Thank you 

Testimony for Port Commission meeting Oct. 26, 2021

Iris Antman

Good afternoon. My name is Iris Antman and I’m here to speak about your emission reduction goals. 

The  new goal for Scope 1 & 2 emissions of ‘net-zero or better by 2040’ is not adequate; it  is based on wishful thinking, rather than on the reality of what physics tells us is necessary. Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, says “any (net) zero goal must be paired with a commitment to annual reductions leading steadily to this goal year by year, and binding plans across all levels of government to achieve those annual targets.”  Do you have annual reduction goals? What are your plans for working with other governmental entities? Kalmus continues, “Net-Zero” is wishful thinking because it assumes a knock-out technological breakthrough on carbon capture that is nowhere on the horizon” and, saying ‘net-zero’ is like a magical thinking term, used as a friendlier way of denying the climate crisis that exists now.  Kalmus and others like Canada’s Seth Klein, a public policy researcher, are calling for society to shift into emergency mode with a WWII herculean effort to tackle the climate crisis. Yet we hear that the Port is excited for a return in 2022 to cruising comparable to 2019 levels. 

The goal for Scope 3 emissions is even worse. Carbon neutral means allowing continued carbon emissions with a promise of offsetting those emissions elsewhere, a strategy that has not been shown to be effective, nor does it decrease the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

This is incompatible with environmental sustainability. We all know this, yet you continue on as if it isn’t true. As elected Port Commissioners your duty is to serve the public, and it pains me to say this but I think you’re acting in bad faith. We need to make real and bold changes in how we live. Please end non-essential pleasure cruising. Thank you.

Peggy J. Printz

A week ago I listened in to your Zero Emissions Cruise meeting – when Commissioners and staff discussed a worthy but currently unavailable possibility: cruise ships using not-yet-invented renewable marine fuels, or cruising in not-yet-built wind or battery powered vessels. You talked about motivating cruise companies toward zero emissions with carrots and sticks. Please continue this vital discussion. Seattle and the Alaska ports should get together to set deadlines, as Norway has done: only zero-emissions vessels will be allowed in its World Heritage fjords starting January 1, 2026, and only zero-emissions vessels will be allowed in any of its fjords starting in 2030.

Burning fossil fuel is just one major way these sea monster ships damage the oceans, the air and the ports where they call. Add to that the waste, the tens of thousands of passenger flights, the protective hull coating that poisons marine life. 

Switching to zero emissions is a laudable first step toward limiting cruise ships’ toxic presence in our waters.

Please complement your zero emissions plans by officially cancelling the proposed third cruise terminal at T46 entirely, rather than leaving it on “indefinite postponement”.

Thank you.

Elizabeth Burton

Good afternoon, Commissioners and Port Staff. My name is Elizabeth Burton.

For the last year and a half, the Port’s website, spokespeople, and commissioners have repeatedly claimed that the Port has met its climate goals ten years early. This claim is based on projects that reduce scope 1 & 2 emissions; it ignores entirely the fact that scope 3 emissions dwarf scopes 1 & 2, and that the Port is not at all on track to meet its scope 3 climate goals. Claiming that you’ve met your climate goals 10 years early, with no acknowledgement that there are larger, more significant climate goals you’re not meeting, keeps both the media and the public in the dark about the magnitude of your runaway scope 3 emissions: it hides the harm that they do, and shields you from pressure to reduce them. It is also the opposite of transparency and accountability, two values that are enshrined in your Century Agenda. Going forward, I ask that you be more honest about your climate work, and refrain from this kind of misleading spin.

I also ask that you take responsibility for the 90% of scope 3 emissions that you are currently ignoring: those emitted outside our airshed. A recent legal analysis of the Paris Agreement shows that, contrary to industry claims, there is no legal basis for excluding international shipping and aviation emissions from parties’ obligation to reduce emissions. 

The analysis found that no state should discharge responsibility for monitoring or controlling international shipping or aviation emissions to the IMO or the ICAO.

Under the Paris Agreement, emission reduction plans must be economy-wide, and must serve the central aim of the Agreement, which is to limit global temperature increase. Therefore, action must be taken on all emissions that affect climate.

Thank you.

Jordan Van Voast

Good afternoon Port Commissioners and Director Metruck, my name is Jordan Van Voast. I am a volunteer with the group Seattle Cruise Control, but I speak as an individual today about the Port of Seattle’s new climate goals.  In short, these goals woefully fail to address the scope of the climate emergency.  Whether it’s achieving “Net Zero on Scope 1 and 2 by 2040” or , “Carbon Neutral” on Scope 3 by 2050, these targets out 20 and 30 years are not going to prevent emissions from continuing to rise now and that’s what we need a plan for. With every bunker fuel burning cruise ship pulling away from Seattle’s harbor and the hundreds of thousands of air travelers who come here to board a cruise, any hope of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial baseline slips further over the horizon.  The lives of millions of people and billions of animals and marine species are on the line. And it gets exponentially worse every moment we delay with false solutions[1]. Days ago, hundreds died in India and Nepal due to record breaking late monsoon rains and flooding. Does anyone even remember the heat dome of 2021?[2] What next?

While net zero is still a better goal than carbon neutral, both are rooted in a deep denial of the severity of the crisis we are in and the apocalyptic future that our children may face.  To avert this crisis, we need to confront our denial, reign in our magical thinking and reduce all non-essential emissions now, not setting targets for 30 years away that depend upon technologies that aren’t available. Cruising is a non-essential business with a gigantic emissions and ecological footprint and it needs to end. Thank you.

Neal Anderson

My name is Neal Anderson and i’ve been reading about the port’s decision to reduce emissions by using renewable natural gas (also known as RNG) for space heating at the airport.

That sounds very encouraging since this RNG would come from landfill gas so it’s not adding new carbon to the system like burning fossil gas does.

The problem is that, if you look at the overall market for natural gas, there’s just not enough RNG available to come anywhere close to replacing what we currently use. In 2018 the legislature commissioned a study to evaluate this and it showed that at most it could replace 3-5% of our total gas consumption.

As one of the early adopters and an agency with a lot of purchasing power, the port can fully convert to RNG. But given the very limited supply, as the rest of the state decarbonizes that option won’t be available and everyone else is going to be switching to electric heat pumps. As this happens, the airport will be one of the only facilities left burning gas, and this decision is going to look increasingly short-sighted and archaic. 

I was just at the grand opening ceremony for the Climate Pledge Arena last week and it was an incredible event. The governor, the mayor, and the CEO of amazon were all there congratulating them for creating a true zero-emissions facility. You can bet that none of them will be showing up for the ribbon cutting when you flip the switch and start burning RNG. They all understand that RNG is a dead-end on the way to decarbonization and large RNG projects like this one are ultimately going to be an embarrassment that they won’t want to be associated with.

I understand the temptation to switch to RNG. It’s a quick way to get emissions down and meet your immediate targets. But landfill gas isn’t a sustainable solution that we can base our long-term energy supply on. As everyone else switches to renewable-sourced electricity for heating, the pipeline leading into the airport will become a stranded asset and a constant reminder that we went with the expedient solution, not the right one.

Stacy Oaks

My name is Stacy Oaks, and like others speaking today, I want to address the 

New climate goals for the Port of Seattle. Let me first say that I hope the wishes of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition are respected and prioritized.

I wish to say “Thank You” for taking the initiative to strengthen your targets and I’m here to demand you do more.

We know that the majority of emissions come from scope 3, aka ships and airplanes, yet there are no detailed or concrete plans on how the Port will reduce these, even as overall Port emissions continue to rise. In contrast, there are plans in motion around an expanded or additional airport, there are plans for an additional cruise terminal that a pandemic put on pause but this Commission has so far refused to put to rest for good. How do we have capacity for these plans but not for plans that provide healthier conditions for near port communities? Not for plans that address fossil fuels use and a planet that will be too hot and too harsh for our children and grandchildren to survive?

Commissioner Felleman said earlier this year “there is an insatiable demand for cruise”. Why does the demand for cheap destructive tourism outweigh the demand of near port communities to breathe air that doesn’t give them cancer? To have 5 minutes of peace from the thunder of jets that bring stress, high blood pressure and heart disease?

Why does the demand for cheap destructive travel outweigh the demand that my granddaughter simply survive?

Why are the demands of scientists, climate activists, doctors, youth, and people of faith dismissed to make a few bucks today at the expense of our future?

We need real plans, with benchmarks, that are based on the crisis we face, not what polluters are willing to agree with.

Robin Briggs (written testimony)

Subject: Scope 3 MIA in Port Emissions Inventory

I am writing to ask for improvements in how the Port of Seattle calculates its greenhouse gas emissions, specifically its scope 3 emissions. Scope 3 emissions for maritime counts only emissions within the immediate area – only as far as Point No Point. The emissions should include half the round trip, so it should count either the trip from the home port to Seattle, or from Seattle back to the home port. Counting only what is emitted in the Sound ignores the bulk of the emissions. It’s like sweeping it under the rug. 

The Scope 3 emissions for aviation are in a more dire strait — “Coming Soon!” according to your website. It’s been coming soon for quite awhile. Somehow King County managed to count the emissions from Seatac Airport, why can’t the Port of Seattle? If the Port wants to be a trusted entity, it needs to engage in an open, transparent process, and report the emissions, how the emissions were calculated, and what steps the Port can take to reduce them.

I appreciate the work the Port has done to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions. The Port needs to step up to the plate and address the scope 3 emissions as well. I have grown children, and I am concerned about the climate not just for their sake, but for my own. Climate change is happening now, it is coming faster than anticipated, and the consequences are more severe. Please don’t pretend the Port doesn’t have scope 3 emissions. Report them, and then together as a community we can figure out what to do next.

Thanks very much for your attention to this matter, and for your public service.

Robin Briggs

Testimony for Port Commission meeting Oct. 12, 2021 

Jordan Van Voast

Good afternoon commissioners, my name is Jordan Van Voast.Thank you for your good words in your opening statements regarding indigenous people’s day, and focusing awareness on the plight of the orcas. As the 2021 cruise season draws to a close, we’ve lost at least two more Southern Resident orcas, the climate emergency continues to accelerate with wildfires growing in both size and intensity.  Atlantic hurricanes, global floods, and droughts continue to worsen and many in the working class are feeling the pinch of a COVID economy.  This Commission, like any publicly elected body, has a moral responsibility to protect the common good, and yet it continues to support the cruise industry’s climate wrecking, public health endangering, water and air polluting business model while the web of life unravels in all corners of the globe including here, in the Salish Sea. Furthermore, it disregards the rights of nature, promoting a cruise industry with far reaching harm on our planet, that millions of species depend upon for life. Yes, you can claim to be following your century old charter and relevant environmental statutes, but it is not enough. We are losing this opportunity to heal the planet via clever fictions we tell ourselves….that we can have zero-emission ships long after it will matter, or that we need to keep hot dog and ice cream vendors along the waterfront in business instead of encouraging a just transition.  What we really need is a liveable planet. I’d like to close with a few moments of silence as we listen to the voices of those beings who have never had a seat at the table. Played orca audio from:  https://vimeo.com/247054367 for approx. 30 seconds.

Stacy Oaks

Thank you, my name is Stacy Oaks 

First, a reminder-

A budget is a moral document.

And a crisis demands action.

It’s all well and good to be creating better emissions targets, but are we backing those targets up with concrete plans of how to get there? With a budget that funds the actions needed at the scale the crisis demands?  

Are we committing to the targets with the Port of Seattle acting as one body with clear purpose or is the Port working on a goal with one hand only to destroy or make useless all that work with the actions of the other hand?

Boasting of meeting 2030 climate goals early to an unwitting public audience while the truth of the matter is that overall emissions are rising. Hiding behind landlord status to escape responsibility for the emissions of ships and airplanes, yet landlords hold the power to charge tenants for damages, to not renew leases, to enact codes of conduct, to limit the number of tenants. Instead, the battle cry is

Expand the airport!

Expand cargo!

Expand cruise!

These expansion conquests cannot exist in the same reality as wanting to be the greenest port in North America, with reducing the health impacts and noise pollution for near port communities, with playing a role in regional orca recovery.

All the mitigation efforts available cannot outweigh the impacts of the fossil fuels used in the airline flights we already have, yet we excitedly talk of expansion, of more.

Shore power, solar powered elevators, using grey water twice, and switching fuels for debunked solutions like LNG cannot excuse adding any additional cruise ship sailings in the Salish Sea. The utter madness of being in an existential crisis largely caused by fossil fuels yet promoting a form of leisure tourism that uses 30-50 gallons of fuel for every single mile traveled is astounding. On top of the fossil fuel damage, this industry dumps countless tons of sewage, garbage and engine waste into our waterways–yet the same Port, the same Commission embracing this destruction, talks of orca recovery efforts, the beauty of the pacific northwest and being a leader on climate concerns.

When you put too much air, too much expansion in a balloon it pops, leaving you with nothing but a mess. Please stop expanding all greenhouse gas intensive operations before it’s too late.

Iris Antman

Good afternoon Commissioners and Port staff. My name is Iris Antman and I’m speaking in favor of a cruise free Salish Sea. This year’s shortened cruise season is coming to an end and many people are relieved by this. Cruise ships truly are sea monsters. I am heartbroken by the lack of understanding or care for the world that continues to facilitate this kind of vacationing and traveling.

I understand people want to see the incredible beauty of the Alaskan glaciers, but the act of cruising there in these massive oil fueled ships is part of the cause of glacial melting. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

The climate crisis is at Code Red for humanity and all other living beings. I would like for us to take a moment of silence in honor of the Orcas, salmon, and people who have died this year as a result of cruise ship travel.

ABOUT 50 SECONDS SILENCE

Research on wind and electricity to power large ships is underway. I’m asking you to stop cruising until new technology is available to power ships. GHG emissions and global warming are killing the planet. What will it take for you to face this reality and make the hard choices that are needed? Please, do the right thing. 

Thank you.

Testimony for Port Commission meeting September 28, 2021

Iris Antman

Good afternoon Port Commissioners and staff. My name is Iris Antman and I’m here to speak in favor of ending cruising in Seattle’s waters.

Last week we learned about Cappuccino a 35 year old male Orca in K-pod

presumed dead after marine biologists observed him ailing and alone near Vancouver Island and no sightings of him since late July. The exact cause of Cappuccino’s death is unknown, but scientists say and I quote:”…what is certain is that there’s been no net-increase in this endangered population since the 1980s. Insufficient Chinook salmon is a major factor in the lack of successful pregnancies, and malnutrition makes them susceptible to disease, and the impacts from pollution, noise and disturbance.”

And yesterday we read about Marina, the elder matriarch of the Orcas, also presumed dead. The Orca population is down to 72 individuals. 

In your current budget you cite the inexorable march of climate change as if there’s no way to slow it down or stop it or reverse it. However, it is human activities that are causing and driving climate change. Please don’t ignore these facts and pretend that cruising, a non essential activity, continues to make sense. Cruising with its GHG emissions and toxins polluting the water and air directly affects the health of people in port communities and the health of marine life. It is killing people, salmon and Orcas. There are other ways for people to vacation and travel, ways that are not so massively destructive.

As Port Commissioners you have the power and the moral obligation to do whatever you can to help slow and stop climate change. It’s time for you to take a stand and end cruising in Seattle. Call off next season. I’m pleased to hear about a new committee on developing eco-tourism. This must by definition preclude cruising.

Business as usual and its impacts are killing us. We are out of time.

Thank you.

September 14, 2021

Good afternoon Port Commissioners and staff, my name is Iris Antman. 

I’m here to talk about the harms of the cruising industry. As I’m sure you know, it rained in Greenland a few weeks ago for the first time in recorded history. The floods, fires, droughts, and extreme heat in the U.S. have destroyed lives, homes and communities. Extreme weather events are now a part of the daily news cycle. It’s no longer impolite to say that these weather events are due to global warming and massive climate change due to human activity, first and foremost the burning of fossil fuels. In fact, it’s impolite to ignore these facts which are  destroying our planet’s ability to sustain life.

Resuming cruising, a fossil fuel intensive industry, as if business as usual continues to make sense, is a tone deaf reaction to these facts.

We understand jobs and business are essential parts of our social and economic web. But without a livable planet, the web unravels. The way we work and play, must change to reflect the realities of the world as it is, not how it used to be or how we wish it still was. 

We know what we need to do; we have the knowledge, skills, and tools to do it; what we’re lacking is courage and creativity.

As Port Commissioners, you have the power to reset how the Port carries out its mandates for environmental stewardship and economic expansion. These mandates need to be reimagined at a fundamental level. Economic growth must become economic evolution, we must develop and incorporate at all levels new ways of living and making a living. If Seattle, the U.S., and the world is to meet our climate goals of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, enormous changes are needed, now. Please, do your job. Make this Seattle’s final cruising season.

Thank you.  

Testimony for Port Commission – August 10, 2021

Good afternoon, my name is Iris Antman. You may recognize my name as I’ve been testifying periodically since Jan of 2020, initially to oppose T46, and currently to voice opposition to the cruising industry as a whole. I understand the cruise industry is a big money maker for the Port and helpful to small businesses and providing jobs. And this is important. Economic expansion is one of the Port’s missions. But the other mission is environmental stewardship. 

I’m sure you’ve all seen and read at least the highlights of the 6th report from the U.N. IPCC. It’s devastating. And the accuracy of this body of work is undeniable by looking at the first report published in 1990, which stated that if business as usual continues, global temperatures will rise about 1 degree C by 2025. Well business as usual has continued and the temperature has risen about 1.1 degree C, and it’s only 2021. Also undisputed in the report is that the climate crisis is human caused, the main cause of which is the burning of fossil fuels.

So, how can the Port continue to promote a non-essential leisure activity to be enjoyed by the few at the expense of the many? The irony of destroying Alaska’s beauty by cruising to see it, cannot be lost on you. By Thursday and Friday of this week it’ll be close to 100 degrees in Seattle. Cruise ships have an oversized contribution to global warming.

Pres. Felleman’s comments on the IPCC report and what steps the Port might take to help mitigate the Port’s climate impacts without seriously looking at the harm of cruising ignores the elephant in the room and as far as I can understand represents an attitude of cynical hypocrisy.

Please, it’s time to end non-essential leisure cruising. Be courageous, be creative, brainstorm other economic ventures, ones that minimize and end the burning of fossil fuels.

Thank you.


Port Testimony for July 27th, 2021

Good afternoon, my name is Iris Antman. I’m a member of Seattle Cruise Control, a group opposing any expansion of cruising in Seattle and working towards a cruise free Salish sea. It’s possible that cruising was once a good idea but that time is over. We know the great harm that cruising does to the environment, climate and local health so to hear words about ‘returning to normal’ is very discouraging. Shore power is great but accounts for less than 1% of the pollution cruise ships are responsible for. 

The insatiable appetite for cruising Pres. Felleman spoke about recently is a description of materialistic consumerism run amuck. It’s foolhardy to ignore what these ships represent and what they contribute to the destruction of our environment. With 7.4 billion people on the planet, we can no longer pretend it’s okay to do whatever we want for our pleasure and comfort – especially if we’re willing to look at how our pleasure comes at the expense of others’ lives, literally. Pres. Felleman pointed to this when reading the statement from the recent international Climate Meeting in Europe.

When Jeff Bezos returned from his 10 minute flight to space he said, the view of the earth from space showed him how thin our atmosphere is. I find it stunning that he needed to spend

5.5 billion dollars to learn what most of us already know. We must change the paradigm. Cruising is not an innocent activity, it is killing us. Pres. Felleman said he’s willing to work on these issues but feels environmental and other groups aren’t giving him any ideas to work with. Here’s an idea: decrease the number of cruise ships by 30% every year while working to advance other business activity at the Port that doesn’t cause the harm cruising does. Another idea: Permanently scrap any plan for a cruise ship terminal at T46.

Please do not turn away from this. Thank you

Testimony to Port Commission for July 13, 2021

Good afternoon. My name is Iris Antman and I’m a member of Seattle Cruise Control, a group  formed to oppose a third cruise ship terminal at T46. Due to Covid that project was paused, though we have little doubt that the Port hopes to restart it as soon as possible. As evidence is the misguided restarting of cruising to Alaska later this month. I understand that the Port’s business model is economic expansion, but its other mission of environmental sustainability is largely forgotten in the push to restart and expand the cruising business in Seattle.

I don’t know how the Port can realign its economic interests away from cruising while continuing to provide jobs and support local businesses. That’s a huge challenge that  should be front and center in your work, instead of continuing to support the cruising industry which as currently configured is helping to destroy our health and environment. Ignoring this is denial and negligence of the highest order. You can state your understanding about the human driven causes of the climate crisis and take refuge in solar panels and shore power which doesn’t yet exist at T66 where the Norwegain Encore is currently docked and won’t for two more years, but ignoring the overwhelming contributions to air and water pollution and GHG emissions of cruise ships is denying the realities of the problems we all are facing.

There is a difference between cargo shipping and luxury cruising.

It’s time to take responsibility for and action to mitigate the harm that cruise ships cause. I understand that people WANT to cruise, but it’s no longer a tenable activity. When some engage in and facilitate life destroying activities en masse, they are destroying the lives of others less fortunate. What will you say to your children and grandchildren when they ask you what actions you took as a Port Commissioner to address the climate crisis in 2021 when there remained some hope to avoid the worst of the worse consequences? Thank you.

Iris Antman 5/25/21

Good afternoon Commissioners, my name is Iris Antman and I’m with Seattle Cruise Control here to comment on your announcement of restarting Seattle to Alaska cruises in July. We understand that your mission is to provide economic growth to our region, and to promote environmental sustainability, and we appreciate the efforts you’ve made including shore power and solar panels. These improvements help but represent a fraction of the total GHG emissions from cruising and air travel.

We understand that after a year of staying at home people want to travel and after a year of economic downturn due to the pandemic the Port wants to return to business as usual.

What we don’t understand is how you and cruisers can deliberately turn away from the enormity of the climate crisis. Maybe the casual cruiser hasn’t thought about the negative climate impacts, and does not yet understand them, but you certainly do. I’m not going to speak to the air and water pollution, or the noise pollution or the negative impact on local communities, or the flagrant disregard of fair labor practices for crew on ships, or the flags of convenience cruise ships sail under to avoid paying taxes in local jurisdictions. 

What I will speak to is the spiritual crisis we are facing – where ‘business as usual’ continues to guide the principle of profit over people at the expense of all of our lives. Even if cruising in the time of Covid is safe (and that’s debatable) – it is no longer ethical or moral. The end of responsible fossil fuel use is here. You can continue to ignore this reality at the peril of our world, or you can turn towards the real work that’s needed to transform how we live and play together on this one small blue planet. Please, take this seriously, and begin the work of changing how and why you do business. I do not think it’s hyperbole to say that, if your daily work and decisions are not made with wise discernment, with love and care for yourselves and for all of us, it will lead to our destruction.

Thank you.

Iris Antman, 6/22/21

Good afternoon, my name is Iris Antman and I’m a member of Seattle Cruise Control, a group whose original purpose was to oppose cruise ship expansion to T46. During our work over the past 1 ½ years in my learning about the Port’s mission and about the cruise business, it has become overwhelmingly clear that the cruise industry is an extremely dirty and harmful industry for several reasons, including its fuel contributing greatly to local air and water pollution, harm to marine life, negative effect to large segments of local communities, unfair crew labor practices, tax evasion in local jurisdictions, and the oversize impact on global warming as a consequence of GHG emissions.

You will get some local business owners here in Seattle and in Alaska that tout the benefits but they are not the majority of folks who will suffer from the negative consequences. And as the Port happily and blithely advertises the restart of cruising, I find it disappointing and unconscionable that it continues to ignore the impact of this non-essential leisure activity on people and places that are, in many cases, just struggling to survive.

Just because some people WANT to cruise to Alaska doesn’t mean they should. Everything we do has an impact on everything else, and behaving as if our actions are only about ourselves, our comfort, and our enjoyment is the epitome of materialistic consumer culture, the culture that is destroying our planet and increasing climate refugees. According to the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees 20 million people worldwide are being displaced every year due to climate change and its devastating impacts. This number will only increase if bold measures aren’t taken to substantially decrease the causes of global warming. It’s time to wake up, Commissioners, and rethink your business and your responsibility. Thank you.

6/22/21

Jordan Van Voast (written testimony and plan to speak):

Good afternoon Commissioners and Port Staff, My name is Jordan Van Voast. I am a member of the group Seattle Cruise Control, a parent, and an advocate for those who can’t be here, including other species of living beings, who have just as much of a right to a sustainable ecology (including climate) as human beings.

The heat dome that has smashed temperature records across the western U.S. is about to take up residence here in Washington state, with 3 days above 90 degrees predicted next week. Scientists have long predicted the effects of our global economy’s reliance on the burning of fossil fuels, and because their intellectual training does not allow them to engage in rationalizing strategies which deny the immediacy of the climate emergency, climatologists are increasingly suffering from eco-anxiety disorders.

In the Seattle area, it is common to see people with yard signs that say: “In this home we believe in science.” But do we really believe in science or are we so wedded to fairy tales of economic growth and recovery that we are willing to rationalize the supposed benefits of the cruise ship business model, downplaying the climate emissions, air and water pollution, marine noise, overtourism, tax evasion, and abusive labor practices, instead of urgently strategizing a just transition away from this toxic industry.

With three of you facing challengers in the August 3rd primary election, of course, the voters will have their say in which path we choose, though it is my sincere wish that instead of prioritizing your own self interest to gain reelection, you will use the privilege and public trust of being in a position of leadership to face the reality of the climate emergency and start building a truly sustainable future now, before it is too late for our children.

Recently I read a glowing update on the Port website filed under “Countdown to Cruise” which highlighted the benefits of the cruise industry to the Huna Tlingit.[i]

As a white person who has benefited from racism and colonialism, it is not my place to criticize the sovereign rights of indigenous communities as they make decisions on how to generate revenue to meet the very real survival needs of their people. However, I would point out that historically, white colonial power structures have frequently employed a shameful tactic of dividing native communities by promising benefits to those within the tribe who are willing to accept such benefits, negotiating business deals for resources such as trees/forests, gas pipeline corridors, docking privileges for cruise ships, etc. This is the reality of disaster capitalism which forces indigenous communities and working class people everywhere, to participate in a dying economic paradigm because no alternatives exist.  Until there are alternative business opportunities for tribes and real progress on reparations (financial and land), should we be surprised when some choose to accept a cut of the profits of capitalist enterprises like cruise? Celebrating that as an implied endorsement of our world view, our economics, our consumption habits, is only a sign of our ignorance of indigenous spirituality which exists even in the collective unconscious of white people.

[i] Communities in Alaska also face severe economic hardship without a typical cruise season. For example, several vessels that depart from the Port of Seattle stop in Alaska at Icy Strait Point, a privately owned historical town and cruise ship destination owned by the Huna Tlingit. All profits derived from Icy Strait Point benefit the Huna Tlingit people as well as the community of Hoonah. The local community benefits directly from the dollars spent, through employment opportunities with preference for local hire, and entrepreneurship opportunities from the establishment of tourism in Hoonah, sales tax, and head tax.

 12/8/20

Jordan Van Voast

Good afternoon Commissioners, Director Metruck, and Staff members, My name is Jordan Van Voast and I am a settler here on Duwamish land. In acknowledging the first people, I remind myself to be humble, to think far into the past and future, with an intention to care for the land, air, water, and wellbeing of all life, because we are all connected. To fully appreciate this I make a daily practice of stepping back from the materialistic mindset and personal profit and touch the circle of life.

With the elections behind us, there is a collective urge to get back to business as usual. I am here to remind you – again – of the folly in this thinking. Mother Earth has a knee on her neck, and she is crying out “I can’t breathe”. November was the warmest month on record according to the EU, and 2020 is on track to be the warmest year. Resource consumption by the global North, which includes our flight and cruise, isn’t sustainable. People in the global south are dying due to our choices. The United States currently has the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the world, and recent attempts to restart cruising resulted in predictable disease outbreaks. 

In closing, I share the words of Pope Francis: “At this time we can note the rise of a false or superficial ecology which bolsters complacency and a cheerful recklessness. As often occurs in periods of deep crisis which require bold decisions, we are tempted to think that what is happening is not entirely clear. Superficially, apart from a few obvious signs of pollution and deterioration, things do not look that serious, and the planet could continue as it is for some time. Such evasiveness serves as a license to carry on with our present lifestyles and models of production and consumption. This is the way human beings contrive to feed their self-destructive vices: trying not to see them, not to acknowledge them, delaying the important decisions and pretending that nothing will happen.” Thank you.

11/17/20

Stacy Oaks

My name is Stacy Oaks, I’m an organizer with 350 Seattle and a member of Seattle Cruise Control. My thoughts about the budget are this:

A budget is a moral document.

Priorities and concerns given a piece of the pie, a percentage of our time and resources.

What we decide to spend our money on, and what we decide not to fund- these things tell us in certified writing what an agency, a family, a business, or a governments real priorities are. It puts our money where our mouth is, so to speak.

It’s easy to say we care about something, but if there is no allocation of resources to back it up, how deeply do we really care, how hard are we really trying? 

The Century Agenda states priorities of reducing emissions, and aspirations of being “the greenest port in n America”,

Does this budget back that up? 

When we fund the expansion of fossil fuel intensive activities, at this critical time, we are spitting in the face of science, causing irreparable harm to our youth and future generations, and showing our true colors.

A budget is a moral document. 

Commerce without morality will harm the house it resides in.

The century agenda states equity is a priority. How much is in the budget for correcting the pollution and health impact disparities that exist in communities closest to the port? Is that amount anywhere near = to the damage inflicted? 

If not, maybe we’re lacking an understanding of what the word equity actually means. We have $ to expand but not so much to restore- what does that tell us? You know, cleaning up a mess usually takes more energy than it does to make it, meaningful steps toward equity can create both jobs and a healthier port community.

Hiding behind “jobs, jobs, jobs” as the reason we need to expand the industries and activities literally killing us, as if there isn’t plenty of work involved in cleaning up our waters, & increasing the health and populations of marine life–this is a dangerous lie. 

It’s a lie that we can’t have jobs and address the climate crisis, and address our public health crisis, –we’re just not funding them.

A budget is a moral document.

11/10/20

Jordan Van Voast

Good afternoon Councilmembers and Executive Director Metruck, My name is Jordan Van Voast and I am a member of the group Seattle Cruise Control.

While the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our next President and Vice President offers a measure of hope for reversing the damage of the last 4 years, let us not forget for an instant that we are in the Age of the Anthropocene.  Climate catastrophe is unfolding, slowly, but inexorably, day by day. With each square mile of melting tundra and Arctic ice, each new hurricane and mega-fire, each wave of global climate refugees and political upheaval, each new pandemic, we can either wake up to the unprecedented impacts of human society, or settle back into denial of the damage we do to the Earth, and ourselves.  Life as we know it will not survive much longer, regardless of what we do now. We must face this truth.

I sincerely applaud the Port’s efforts to address the climate emergency through its varied initiatives, but I also caution you not to see the climate emergency as a problem we can overcome through mere technology or political calculus that alters the climate math.  As Einstein said, “problems can never be solved by the way of thinking that first created them”.  Capitalism, which sees the planet as a resource to be exploited and used, and even protected, but something separate and external, rather than an extension of our own mind, body, and spirit, is at the core of our collective ignorance. We need to transcend our materialistic viewpoint and adopt one more in alignment with an indigenous understanding of sacredness in order to make our work and priorities clear.

Promoting giant cruise ships, especially during a global pandemic is no longer in alignment with the common good. Thank you.

10/13/20

Iris Antman

At this time when the T46 project is on pause and the CDC’s no sail order is in place until at least Oct. 31, and with the upcoming election causing concerns for a safe and fair election process, and with the return of Seattle’s fall rains and clean air, it is almost understandable to let the perils of our climate emergency fade from view.  The course of the pandemic continues to present serious challenges for the health and safety of Seattle citizens, and people all over the world. 

I understand the gravity of the economic hit the city and the Port have taken because of Covid, and the wish to return to cruising as soon as possible. But in the dark of the coming months of Fall and Winter, you have an opportunity to consider what kind of Port you want to be and how you can truly earn the moniker of the Greenest Port. A month or two ago Seattle Cruise Control submitted to you the document entitled Principles of Responsible Cruise Tourism written by the Global Cruise Activist Network of which SCC is a member. Have you read it and considered these principles?

We are asking that you and I’m quoting from the document “delay their return to operations until they (the cruise industry) address these principles by publishing detailed plans with explicit commitment, benchmarks, and timelines that commit each company to implementing specific levels of performance and complicance over time.”

The document continues, and I quote, “We oppose the return of a “business-as-usual” cruise ship industry. Until these common sense policies are collectively adopted, effectively implemented, and consistently monitored, the cruise industry will remain complicit in putting passengers, crew, communities, and the planet at risk. “

I’m actually asking you this, will you read this document with serious consideration and work with the cruise companies to hold them accountable? I am holding you accountable to do this. Thank you.

9/22/20

Jordan Van Voast

Good afternoon Commissioners and Exec. Director Metruck, 

My name is Jordan Van Voast and I am a licensed acupuncturist and member of Seattle Cruise Control. 2020 is on track to be the warmest year on record. This summer’s historic wildfire season, with megafires still burning in California, Oregon, and Washington, have thus far killed at least 37 people, burned six million acres, and blanketed hundreds of thousands of square miles with a plume of thick toxic smoke that was tracked as far as Europe, 5000 miles away. Health experts recommended everyone to stay indoors for 11 days, but even with high quality indoor air filters, many of my clients reported negative effects. How many people living unsheltered died or are still ill from the smoke? Nobody tracks those numbers so we will never know. These fires are a direct consequence of human caused climate change and the impacts are always going to be inequitable.

I find it disheartening that at your recent economic recovery summit with industry, according to one of our members who listened in, very little of substance was mentioned regarding how the climate emergency must be factored in to any discussion of economic recovery. Instead we heard the same tired refrain of how cruise is an economic engine for the region. As we enter the Anthropocene, when actions of decision makers like yourselves will determine whether human civilization will survive another generation or two, I urge you to listen to the cries of Mother Earth. We need a lot fewer engines now, and a lot more trees. Please use your imagination and act boldly, beginning with addressing our region’s unhealthy addiction to the cruise industry. Let the ships go to other Ports if that’s how it needs to happen.  The important thing is to exercise leadership now, while we still have a little time left. I wouldn’t be speaking to you if I didn’t have confidence that all of you have the capacity to do the right thing. Thank you.

Iris Antman

Last Saturday, I went outside for the first time in 11 days. To my joy and relief the air was filled with the fragrance of the 25 yr old Katsura Tree in my yard which in late summer and Fall offers the combined scent of burnt vanilla and grape. Truly wonderful. For the prior 11 days I couldn’t go outside because of the unhealthy air in our region and much of the west coast, due to the massive wildfires in CA, OR and WA.

People in OR lost their lives, animals, property, businesses, everything. Most of these people are of limited means, often without insurance. Imagine yourself in their shoes!

The intensifying fires are due in large part to the warming of our atmosphere as a result of GHG emissions. The connection between carbon emissions, global warming, air and water  pollution, ecological degradation and devastation is no longer in question. And too, the emergence of the novel coronavirus causing the Covid-19 global pandemic and the resulting economic devastation is a part of our human centric, disrespectful approach of  ignoring the complex and very real connection between all living systems and non living systems on our planet, and our outdated belief that the Earth is here for us to commodify and use up.

I understand your job is to help our region recover economically and at your economic recovery conference last week this was clearly stated. As soon as cruising can resume, the POS is ready, and surely will push for the T46 project to resume, and maybe even extend the cruising season. However, I submit to you this is short sighted and shows a disregard and disdain for our community, specifically those people living on the margins, as they are disproportionately affected by pollution and lack of resources. 

Tourism resulting in increased carbon emissions is no longer something to be regarded as normal and desirable. Economic recovery must be reimagined. This is your job, not ignoring the clear reality of climate change in our backyards and working to return to business as usual.

9/8/20

Jordan Van Voast

Good afternoon Commissioners and ED Metruck.

My name is Jordan Van Voast and I am a member of the group, Seattle Cruise Control which continues to urge the Port of Seattle to abandon once and for all its plan for a 3rd cruise ship terminal at T46.  

On September 2nd, the newly formed Global Cruise Activist Network held a press conference on Zoom with over 100 activists and journalists attending from around the world, including several from Seattle. The presenters formally introduced the Principles of Responsible Cruise Tourism, a set of 12 conditions for cruise operators to demonstrate compliance with before resuming operations.

I urge the Commissioners and Port staff to read through these Principles which I have attached to my comments and adopt them in earnest before inviting cruise corporations to return to Seattle. This document is necessarily a compromise and represents a bare minimum of conditions that needs to be met in order to insure the health, safety, and economic vitality of people and planet. There are many of us, both locally and internationally, who believe that the cruise industry as a whole needs to be downsized in order to rationally address the urgency of climate targets, as well as global public health challenges.  Please focus on economic development which does not compromise these values and priorities.

Thank you

(attachment: Principles of Responsible Cruise Tourism)

Iris Antman

While gardening over the weekend I heard the beautiful wistful blasts of ships horns from Puget Sound carrying all the way to my backyard in Columbia City. I was reminded of the significance of Seattle’s maritime history.

While some of the projects the Port is doing are great, such as restoring 40 acres of Duwamish River waterfront and providing job training to POC and women through your apprentice programs, I am concerned about the goals in the Century Agenda, of expanding jet traffic and big ship cruising. These goals are clearly in opposition with those of environmental stewardship.

Two years ago the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report told the world we had 12 years to address the climate emergency, largely caused by increasing GHG emissions. So far we’ve made scant progress. With ten years to go before irreversible and catastrophic effects from global warming are locked in, GHG emissions continue to rise. You have the unique opportunity to directly address this overarching problem. Building a third cruise ship terminal at T46 when the pandemic eases and cruising restarts, is irresponsible, unethical, and immoral. I understand the project is on pause at this time.

As Port Commissioners, you carry the ethical and moral responsibilities of making critically important decisions at this unique time in our history. Please, be on the right side of history on this matter too: be courageous, and creatively and in community with the Duwamish people and other locals, find ways to use T46 that are forward looking, and use 21st century ideas, technology and resources to really make our Port the best and the greenest. This is the right thing to do. 

8/11/20

Jordan Van Voast

Good afternoon Commissioners, Executive Director Metruck, and Port Staff, my name is Jordan Van Voast.

About two weeks ago, the last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic collapsed, losing more than 40% of its area in just two days at the end of July. The shelf’s area shrank by about 80 square kilometers. By comparison, the island of Manhattan in covers roughly 60 square kilometers.  As a child playing at the seashore, or walking through the woods, it never occurred to me that humanity was entering the Anthropocene Extinction era, where perhaps 90% of life disappears forever in a relatively short period of time. But that is undeniably what is happening according to an overwhelming majority of scientists.

One Sunday earlier this month, I paddled twenty miles along the southwest coast of San Juan Island. We passed a rookery of critically endangered Stellar sea lions (at an appropriate distance), saw two eagles, one great blue heron, a few harbor porpoise, some seals, but zero orca or other whales, and no sign of salmon. Our oceans are dying and it’s not as simple as a few dams on the Columbia River, but part of a much broader pattern of how humans, through our collective choices, have changed the biosphere over the past few centuries.  

Wearing a mask in public is seen as a responsible action to save lives and prevent harm. Dismantling the non-essential cruise ship industry, with its many adverse impacts to the climate, the global environment, public health, coastal communities and workers, should similarly be viewed as an appropriate response to the emergent threat of ecological collapse. The climate emergency is already killing people in vulnerable front line communities, particularly in the global south and our choices in the first world, particularly by government decision makers, makes us complicit. The industry is non-essential and there are other ways to stimulate economic activity in a sustainable manner.

Please cancel the T46 project and shrink the cruise industry in Seattle.  Be a true leader for Port cities around the world by initiating a rapid response to the climate emergency. 

Iris Antman

I’d like to thank you for withdrawing the RFP for the third cruise ship terminal and therefore halting the project for now. As a member of Seattle Cruise Control I’d like to think our group had an impact on this decision but that would be naive. I understand the decision was made because of the pandemic and the order from the CDC to halt cruising for now. 

The Port of Seattle is a vital part of our city, historically, economically and socially and Commissioners have an opportunity to shine for making bold and courageous decisions that reflect the reality of the climate emergency. We have offered detailed testimony on the adverse effects on public health, marine life health, air and water pollution, labor practices, port communities, and the global warming effects of massive GHG emissions from these ships.

Ignoring all of this is very 20th century.

Additionally, another way of understanding our oppostiion to expanding cruising and our wish for the industry to shrink, is to look directly at the industry itself and the way it does business: its poor treatment of workers and port of call cities, its history of illegal waste dumping and its corporate structures to avoid paying taxes. Enabling these corporate players to continue with their unethical practices is complicity. We must do better, you must do better. Not only should you scrap the plan for T46 permanently, but you should work with the industry to demand they clean up their act in huge and meaningful ways. If they are not willing to do this, it is time for the Port to say no to cruising and turn to other ideas for an alive and vibrant 21st century Seattle waterfront.

7/28/20

Iris Antman

Good afternoon, my name is Iris Antman, thank you for taking my comments.

I understand that this is the time of the year that you are working on your 20-21 budget. So it’s critically important that you consider canceling T46. Covid-19 has temporarily halted cruise tourism, but with your emphasis on cruising as a boon for economic growth and expansion, maybe even more so now to help in an economic recovery, we are concerned about your future plans. I did hear ED Metruck say the T46 project is on hold, but not that it is canceled.

This is a unique time, with the convergence of the pandemic and economic unraveling, social unrest due to systemic racism, ongoing systemic sexism and misogyny, and the biggest elephant in the room, the climate crisis, which exacerbates everything else. This time is also a unique opportunity.

We must stand up for marginalized communities who are hardest hit by environmental and climate degradation. We must stand up for our children and grandchildren, for the water, the air, for our marine life, and for the glaciers in Alaska which melt ever more quickly because 5,000 person cruising cities come into their ports belching the dirtiest of fuels. We’re not on track to meet any of the goals Seattle nor the IPCC have set for GHG emissions reductions. Our climate is crashing, you know this.

The Port and the Commission have a duty to recognize this is a turning point, a time when our decisions have huge consequences for our city, our region, and the world. We do not need and we do not want more cruising. As we move through the pandemic, we cannot return to business as usual. Tourism can not continue to be a sacred cow and the economic savior of our community. The paradigm must change. Do not expand cruising. Find other uses for T46, ones that enhance local communities and community health, and the health of our climate and environment.

Please wake up to the reality and do the right thing.

Cancel T46 for good.

7/14/20

Jordan Van Voast

Good afternoon Commissioners, my name is Jordan Van Voast and a member of the group Seattle Cruise Control. My comments are in regards to the T46 project. On June 20th, it was 100 degrees above the Arctic Circle. On Sunday, it was 128 degrees in Death Valley California. Temperature records in 2020 continue to fall and climate experts are now saying there is a 90% chance that 2020 will be the warmest year ever. With wildfire season just around the corner, people suffering from COVID-19 will face new health challenges. 

There are at least a dozen reasons why this Commission would be wise to cancel the T46 cruise ship project now and if you need to refresh your memory, you can go to our website at seattlecruisecontrol.org. Without minimizing the COVID-19 public health emergency, the economic crisis, or institutional racism – the climate emergency exacerbates all of these, and dwarfs all of these. 

There is no way that a giant cruise ship cannot have a giant carbon footprint with existing technology. And the climate emergency is moving much more rapidly than the technology is.  We need to develop an economy that stops colonizing future generations as expendable, and that means stopping the promotion of industries like cruise which are an ecological blight on the planet. Asking the cruise industry to clean up its act and become a good corporate citizen might have merit if we had more time. The cruise industry is facing severe financial pressure now and it’s unrealistic to expect them to prioritize zero carbon ships any time soon. This is a non-essential industry.  Please cancel T46 and consider ways to adapt the Port’s mission to a world facing multiple crises. 

Thank you

6/23/2020

Dr. Dan Jaffe 

Hello, my name is Dan Jaffe, I’m a professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of Washington. I’ve been a teacher and a researcher for over 25 years; have more than 150 scientific papers and research studies funded by NASA, NSF, NOAA, etc., etc.  

OK! So I want to address the proposal to add an additional cruise ship port at Terminal 46, and I’m going to do that by just making a small number of points. First, I would say the global cruise ship industry is really an environmental disaster on many fronts, including air pollution, greenhouse gases, resource use, water pollution, and now, adding to that list, is COVID, on cruise ships. It’s really difficult to see how the cruise ship industry can suddenly become a green and sustainable industry.

Specifically, regarding air pollution, I know the Port has been working to get more ships to connect to shore power, and this is a useful development, but it really depends on whether it’s being used or not. At present, we really don’t have any idea how many ships actually use shore power. And so I want to ask if the Port has this data, because I’ve not been able to find it.

But of course, once a ship leaves port, it switches back to diesel fuel of some type, or bunker fuel. And the Puget Sound is not an open ocean, where pollution can disperse. And, many times, I’ve been out on the Sound, and you can look out and see a brown haze across the Sound, that sits right above the water level. Now, this isn’t from any one ship, but it’s from all of the tankers, the cruise ships, and the other large vessels in the Sound.  So while shore power is a good development, it is not sufficient to ensure good air quality in Puget Sound.

And finally, I would note that we have almost no data on air quality near Pioneer Square, where this terminal is proposed. Given this is one of the busiest spots in the state of Washington, the number of people who live and transit to this area, it seems like a huge information hole. So I would encourage the Port, before you decide to impose this type of environmental burden on the residents, it’s critical to get some data on the air quality in that area. 

Thank you for considering my comments.

Dr. Heather Price

Hi, I’m Dr. Heather Price; I’m an atmospheric chemist. My PhD focus was on air pollution, and my post-doctoral research focused on climate science, with the UW Program on Climate Change, and also with a group at Harvard. 

So, our Port has been a world leader in addressing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, but even with that, our Port is still not doing enough to meet the IPCC recommendations for limiting global warming to 1.5 C or 2.7 F, that’s recommended by science.  To address the climate crisis requires us to completely end our reliance on fossil fuels by 2050, and that’s within the time of a 30-year mortgage. The current Century Agenda goals will make the climate crisis worse.

We need to be intentional, and we really need to think about equity, for where we choose to burn our fossil fuels and emit greenhouse gases. The Port, right now, is consulting with health experts for the COVID crisis, and I would strongly recommend that the Port does the same regarding the climate crisis and its rewriting of the Century Agenda, to consult with climate scientists. There’s a number at University of Washington that I’m happy to recommend. 

The other thing is, with our intentionality: the climate crisis is already underway, and already impacting our communities, particularly harming communities of color here in Washington state. Cruise ships are not essential. Cruise ships are unnecessary emissions, that disproportionately harm communities of color, both locally and around the world, through climate impacts. Climate is an equity and justice issue at its roots, and, equity often feels like oppression to the privileged. 

We in Washington state have the privilege to choose where we want to emit our greenhouse gases and where we burn our fossil fuels, and we need to make those decisions based on science. So I encourage you to please, think about equity, and to consult with science, when you are making these decisions. Thank you.

David Kipnis

My name is David Kipnis, Good afternoon to all and true what a potentially historic time to be gathered.  We are at a crossroads where the narrative  “systemic change” is now recognized as what is needed most and institutions are finally engaged in long overdue policy review and change. Thank you for your attention to this. 

However, similar to the social justice movement, environmentally we are also at a turning point. Like police violence against black and brown people, even though brave and concerned citizens continually sound the alarm, both social and environmental injustices keep piling up. Regarding the cruise industry, it provides riches to a few CEOS and investors, true temporary pleasure to customers, but offers menial jobs, and leaves environmental carnage and poor air quality to everyone else on the planet.  The injustices of this industry keep piling up and the industry continues to be sought after federally and locally.

Why is this Port Commission so set on expanding the cruise industry? Who does it benefit, and most importantly what are the directives of the Port’s mission and Century Agenda that drives you toward the pursuit of this socially and environmentally unjust industry. Isn’t there a connection between inequality and the promotion of the Cruise industry?  The Port has mentioned that it is seriously committed to environmental justice and social equity and plans to join the current systemic analysis. This needs to go beyond the analysis of the police service but needs to rewrite all  outdated colonial mandates that exist. These mandates look, feel and smell like policies that prioritize an economic agenda which disproportionately profits the predominantly white elite. Apparently this precisely will  be addressed by your change team and I look forward to track the outcomes of their work.

 Personally I am unable to see how the port commission can make systemic change and continue with T46 expansion. Now is the right time to cancel the T46 Cruise ship expansion project and rethink how this space can be used as an investment that creates such gains as green jobs and training, affordable housing, quality health care, education,  and a sustainable future to all people in Seattle. To me this will involve a deep analysis of the priorities in both the port’s mission and Century Agenda and we look for the direct changes to these priorities.  

——————————————–

6/09/2020

Iris Antman:

Good afternoon, my name is Iris Antman. Thank you for taking my comments.

In a recent letter I received from Pete Mills, in response to receiving my signed petition

opposing the third cruise ship terminal project, he cited the precedent-setting environmental accomplishments the Port has achieved at Terminals 66 and 91. He also said the work on the third cruise terminal was paused and the EIS process stopped. That was welcome news.

However, I’m asking you to go further and scrap the project completely. By all measures, Seattle is not on track to meet the GHG emissions reductions goals set forth in either our city’s own Climate Action Plan nor in the goals set forth by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. So how can you consider a project that will greatly increase GHG emissions?

At this unique time in our history with the convergence of the consequences of ongoing

systemic racism, the Covid-19 pandemic, increasing economic and social disparities, we cannot forget that the climate crisis is not only worsening but it is the greatest threat we face, and one that intersects with and exacerbates all of the other crises.

It is unconscionable to continue to contemplate this project, not only for the negative effects related to air and water pollution, community health, ecological destruction, endangerment of sea life, and hastening the melting of Alaskan glaciers, but for continuing to support an industry that has proven itself to be a bad player. The cruise industry not only neglected the health and well being of its passengers, but equally as important of its own crew. Tens of thousands of crew members continue to be stranded on ships unable to dock with crew members unable to return home. The Covid pandemic has forced us to see the profound interconnection of all of us and given us a unique opportunity to pause and reevaluate our priorities.

We cannot return to business as usual. That time is past.

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4/28/2020

Neal Anderson

Hi, my name is Neal Anderson and i’m here with 350 Seattle in opposition to the proposed T46 cruise ship terminal.

One of the lessons we’ve learned from the coronavirus is that when scientists warn of a serious emerging threat, it’s not good enough to wait until we see the impacts to start doing something about it. The World Health Organization first started warning about it as early as November, and declared it a Public Health Emergency in January. Yet we didn’t start locking down until March, two weeks after people in this state started dying from it. If we had taken steps to flatten the curve before the virus already had a foothold, thousands of lives could’ve been saved.

Of course anyone can look back and say what we should’ve done in hindsight. But now it seems that we’re about to make a similar mistake. Scientists have been saying for years that climate change is a dangerous and growing threat. And last November 11,000 of the leading climate scientists from around the world signed onto a letter stating that the Earth is now facing a climate emergency, and that we have to drastically start reducing our carbon emissions immediately. For some sectors this can done using technologies that already exist. Coal plants can be retired and replaced with renewables. Cars can be replaced with electric vehicles. But for large ships there’s not a good alternative right now or coming in the near future. They can’t be electrified, biofuels aren’t available at nearly the scale we would need, and liquified natural gas still has a huge carbon footprint. It seems unthinkable that such a large, profitable industry would just disappear, but as we’ve seen, when an emergency finally hits our shores, we’re forced to take drastic action that we wouldn’t have considered possible before. When we all collectively realize that climate change is an existential threat that we can’t ignore anymore, a luxury pastime that’s a huge source of emissions and can’t be decarbonized will be one of the first things to go, and we’ll be stuck with a 100 million dollar stranded asset because again we didn’t listen to what the scientists were saying. Let’s not make that mistake again by building this terminal.

Thank you

Peggy Printz

It’s time to confirm that the Port should no longer entertain the idea of constructing a cruise ship terminal at Terminal 46 – whether in the fourth quarter of 2020 any time in the future. 

In the short term, spending half a million dollars mothballing efforts to develop the terminal is both short-sighted and wasteful.

Beyond the current pandemic, investing over one hundred of millions of taxpayer funds in this reckless project will encounter huge public disapproval. Not only are the mega ships incubators for deadly disease, but also they are vectors for toxic discharges and greenhouse gas emissions. Seattle does not need the extra revenue from this non essential luxury industry.

Please acknowledge that Seattle will be better served by utilizing Terminal 46 as a cargo port, a public park or a maritime academy. Thank you.

Iris Antman

  • Hello, my name is Iris Antman. I am speaking in opposition to the T46 third cruise ship terminal. Our future depends on what we do today. We know we cannot meet our greenhouse gas reduction goals while expanding fossil fuel intensive tourism practices like giant cruise ships. 
  • Even with the Port’s plan to have shore plug in power and other environmentally helpful measures we cannot ignore the far greater negative consequences which include more air pollution, water pollution, increased glacial melting in Alaska, and potential species extinction. Besides the climate and environmental impacts, the low wage jobs and poor working conditions on the ships, the already proven difficulty containing onboard illness and the over tourism problems at dock including decreased housing stock and unaffordable housing costs for poorer city residents illuminate the negative aspects of this industry. 
  • We understand that jobs and businesses are at stake here
     including many small businesses in Seattle and around the state, we are not anti jobs; but we should not sacrifice the harder questions to solve which I see as making our economy and society more equitable for all. Cruising is a luxury clear and simple, and supporting this, by definition, takes resources and life itself away from the poorer and more vulnerable among us. I’m sure all the interests involved in our tourism sector are itching to get back to business but it is clearly unwise to return to business as usual. We are asking you to take this moment, during the COVID-19 crisis that has forced us all to slow down, and use your intelligence, creativity and your hearts in working together to change direction. Please do not build a third cruise ship terminal. Thank you.

Jordan Van Voast

Good afternoon and thank you Commissioners for hearing my comment. I’d like to address your equity statements as they relate to the Port’s cruise business, but first, a critical update from our Mother: Earth Day has passed and our future has never been more uncertain. Last week, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that 2020 will be the warmest year ever. The Southwest is already seeing triple digit temperatures and it’s only April.  The oceans are at record high temperatures, even without El Niño and the hurricane and wildfire seasons are right around the corner.  

COVID has given us an opportunity to reassess our priorities. We’ve seen lately that the Earth can heal itself from the burning of fossil fuels if we give it a chance instead of continuing to expand non-essential industries like cruise. We need to radically reduce emissions. Shelving the T46 project is a step in the right direction, but if one looks beyond short term economic market speculation and adopts a progressive climate based lens, a wise response would see you cancel the T46 cruise project now. I note in your Attachment 7B, some thoughtful words:

“The Port commits to values of equity, justice and inclusion 

, crisis response should “…account for the needs of all people. 

“The response cannot just band-aid the immediate damage or put things back to the way they were before…

If one adopts the widest possible equity lens which includes the global impacts of carbon emissions, air pollution, sea level rise, drought, famine, hurricanes, harm to marine life, and industry labor abuses, there is no justifiable logic for the Port of Seattle to consider expanding cruise.  A recovery plan that truly considers the principles of equity – not just for human society, but for all life on the planet – would shrink cruise, and not put a band aid on it while waiting for it to recover. 

Please cancel the T46 project.

Jordan Van Voast – written comment:

Good afternoon and thank you Commissioners for hearing my comment. I’d like to address your equity statements in the attachments for this meeting, specifically as it relates to the Port’s cruise business, but first, a critical update from our Mother Earth: Earth Day has passed and our future has never been more uncertain. Last week, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that 2020 will be the warmest year ever. The Southwest is already seeing triple digit temperatures and it’s still only April.  The oceans are at record high temperatures, even without El Niño and the hurricane and wildfire seasons are right around the corner.  

COVID-19 has given us an opportunity to reassess our priorities. We’ve seen lately that the Earth can heal itself from the burning of fossil fuels if we give it a chance instead of continuing to expand non-essential industries like cruise. We need to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Shelving the T46 project is a step in the right direction, but if one looks beyond short term economic market speculation and adopts a progressive climate based lens, a wise response would see you cancel the T46 cruise expansion project now. I note in your Attachment 7B, “Equity in Port of Seattle COVID-19 Response”, some thoughtful words:

“The Port commits to values of equity, justice and inclusion in the COVID-19 crisis response, from immediate response to longer-term recovery. In developing recovery plans, the Port will ensure that principles of equity, justice, inclusion, transparency, and accountability are embraced. The Port will engage communities who are most impacted to understand their needs. The Port shall consider its fiscal, legal and equity responsibilities in all decisions made when applying these principles. These efforts shall also follow the Port’s principles of supporting regional economic vitality, environmental stewardship, equity and inclusion.”

and these quotes from an NAACP equity manual:

Recognizing these inequities, crisis response should “…account for the needs of all people. Emergency response and relief practices must benefit everyone while also accounting for the specific needs of vulnerable populations.”

“The response cannot just band-aid the immediate damage or put things back to the way they were before…efforts must advance a long term vision for our communities that puts justice at the core.

I am inspired by reading these statements, but how will you implement them? If one adopts the widest possible equity lens which includes the global impacts of carbon emissions, air pollution, sea level rising, drought, famine and other weather related disturbances, labor abuses in the cruise industry, harm to marine life including the southern resident orcas on the verge of extinction,  there is no justifiable logic for the Port of Seattle to consider expanding its cruise business.  A recovery plan that truly considers the principles of equity – not just for human society, but for all life on the planet – would figure out how to shrink cruise, and not put a band aid on it while waiting for the cruise business to recover. Equity asks of us that we look holistically at all living beings and habitats affected by our decisions and make a just transition that not only takes care of workers, but also takes care of our shared world. Equity requires that we acknowledge that the climate emergency and the COVID-19 pandemic have a tragic similarity in that the impacts of these crises are disproportionately felt by marginalized frontline communities. 

We need to ask ourselves – what significance is meeting the Port’s emissions targets 10 years early when scope 3 emissions are excluded from those targets? Scope 3 encompasses emissions that occur after a cruise ship leaves port, or after a plane takes off and dwarfs those of heating buildings and operating equipment at terminals, by some estimates at least a hundredfold. Who is accounting for Scope 3 at present? Only the planet it seems, and the billions of lives hanging in the balance. This is not equity, and it won’t halt the climate emergency.

Now is a time to build a more peaceful and compassionate world that protects nature and people. As the fossil fuel divestment movement has proven, it makes good financial sense to engage in a just transition away from industries like cruise which create widespread harm with no lasting benefit.  Not a single cruise ship is operating at the time of this writing and life goes on. People are in their gardens, or walking and biking on closed streets, breathing cleaner air, smiling at people they would normally never see from inside a car or office building.  There are abundant positive alternatives when we think beyond putting things back the way they were before.

The human species is incredibly adaptive. We’ve been through ice ages, plagues, world wars, 9-11, and now COVID. But the climate emergency is different and demands that we make an unprecedented effort of global cooperation if future generations are to inherit a livable world. We simply cannot afford expanding such a polluting industry as cruise. We all want to get back to normal, except normal was already a crisis. 

Please cancel the T46 project. Go deeper with your equity analysis and use your mandate to champion the protection of our world rather than the promotion of unnecessary travel which is destroying it. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Jordan Van Voast, L.Ac.


David Kipnis

In Reference to Steinbeck’s Earth Day Memo where he states the “ we must be the change”

I won’t review the clear but well documented evidence that neither climate activists nor you the port commission can influence the cruise industry to make the type of changes needed to protect Seattle and the Northwest from toxic exposure.  We/ you cannot depend on the cruise ship industry to become a green enough industry. We /you must be the advocates for the type of change that protects this region from harm, yes we/ you “alone” must create the change we want.  There is much documentation that during this time of crisis, that suggests again the cruise industry acted with irreverence to the health of humans as it has so often has in the past. There will never be a cruise industry committed to the health of our region.      But…maybe it’s just this odd CO2 reduced time that has gotten inside my head, but I can envision a Seattle port commission that is fully committed to the health of our region. You may say “of course we do this already”, while it is clear you have developed programs which have contributed to local business success, it is clear that your commitment to the cruise industry takes your commitment to job creation too far.  Especially since so many people today have expressed ways in which money could be well spent otherwise.  When I review the ports century agenda I envision a century agenda that intentionally lists as its first, not final strategy, Be the greenest, and most energy-efficient port in North America, and a mission statement which promotes environmentally responsibility and quality of life together first as the catalyst for economic decisions. This subtle shift realigns the commissions priorities but does not leave economic concerns astray, it only puts our greatest asset first, the health of our region and its people. This shift places these priorities as basis for which other decisions are made. After all, hasn’t the current health crisis made it clear that the primary role of government to protect the health of its people has for years been a low priority. I don’t know how one goes about the shift of the century agenda or the ports mission, but moving forward my ask is to make this simple moral shift to the ports century agenda and mission statement- as it is the only action that will allow us to work together to truly “be the change.”

Elizabeth Burton 4-28-2020

Good afternoon, I’m Dr. Elizabeth Burton. 

My comments relate to your impending decision on when to allow cruise ships to return to Seattle.

I’m concerned that industry pressure may already be distorting the work of the Centers for Disease Control, forcing them to prioritize business interests over public health. Within hours of issuing a sailing ban to keep ships docked until August, the CDC was forced to cut it by 20 days, so that it now ends in July.  At the time, a senior CDC official wrote to staff: “Sorry to do this, but the Office of the Vice President has instructed us to pull the No Sail Order Extension from the website immediately.” They were also forced to delete a message that the ban might be extended.

Meanwhile, the cruise industry is already advertising cruising in the United States for May and June. Please note that this would be illegal; it’s long before even this abridged no-sail order expires.

It is not reassuring that Micky Arison, chairman of the board of Carnival Corporation, is a good friend of Donald Trump’s, and is one of the business leaders advising Trump on how to restart the economy.

Carnival’s executives have claimed that cruise ships don’t spread the disease any more than it would spread in other venues. However, this claim is contradicted by at least two CDC officials.

[It’s important to note that scores of ships continued to sail even after early outbreaks of CoViD-19  on other vessels; these ships helped to seed the virus around the world.]

[Over 2,500 cruise passengers and crew have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least 65 have died. The disease has affected roughly one in every five ships in the global fleet.]

I am not reassured by plans to  pre-screen cruise passengers before they board, since it has been definitively established that people can have, and spread, CoViD-19 while being asymptomatic.

Your website states that your top priority is the health, safety, and well-being of your community. I will remind you that these are not the top priorities of the cruise industry. Please keep that in mind when you make your decision.

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4/14/2020

Laura Gibbons

 I see in today’s Action Item 6f that “There are several capital improvement program projects proposed to occur at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport over the next five years that would require civil design support services.”

I oppose any capital improvements that are intended to accommodate increased aviation. It is well-established that if we want to have a livable planet, we need to decrease carbon emissions. There is currently no way we can meet emissions targets while increasing aviation.

The only viable option is less air travel, not more. That should be the focus of your planning. 

Thank you.

Anne Kroeker

My name is Anne Kroeker, I am a resident of Des Moines-Redondo Beach, a member of Quiet Skies Puget Sound and on the 350 Seattle Aviation Team.  I thank you for hearing public comment today, during these unusual times of dealing with a health crisis affecting our economic status quo and the need to continue to social distance.  So, keeping our democratic processes alive is critical and appreciated.

I wish to address the issue of air cargo operations and how they adversely affect not only the communities under and around the flight paths but the future world as air pollution and carbon output from fossil fuels grows.

Last week, the Port put out a news brief on how “Air Cargo Services Support the Post-CoVID Economy”, highlighting how people and businesses are able to continue as usual, with air cargo,  and in fact, increase their use of air transport.

(not spoken) (from the air cargo news brief):

“Statistics through February 2020 show the airport’s cargo tonnage is up 4.5 percent. In particular, domestic freight has risen 10.5 percent.”

While it is important to continue to serve the community especially under crisis conditions – the federal government has defined commerce through the airport as essential – is it essential to support the on-demand wishes of the elite population who can afford the cost of items ordered for air travel, but don’t pay for the cost of the subsidized jet fuel nor the health risks to those under the airplane paths?  And is it responsible to continue to allow the inestimable health risks posed to those who are still flying and moving around during the virus spread, and bringing it anew to afflicted or as yet unafflicted communities, all in the name of supporting the economy and air-related jobs?

Neither does it include the continuing risks to our future sustainable life, since a temporary slowdown in pollution does not abate the global warming in process nor will it as long as we continue our unabated use of fossil fuels.

In fact, the current numbers of deaths from CoVID19 are about the same as the number of lives saved in China, during their pandemic shutdown.   Air pollution – from fossil fuels just as jets and planes produce – kills more than 7 million people globally per year.  And exposure to air pollution increases the risk of people getting CoVID-19, which means specifically, the people who live under the long and low flight paths out of Seattle.  As the air cargo usage increases, so do the ill effects of the continuing deadly pollution.

(not spoken):

In addition, companies such as Fed-Ex, with their older, more polluting and louder planes have no incentive to limit their pollution.  Companies such as Air Transport International have no problem running their loud and low flights over the local communities in the middle of the night – often more than one.  While the Port of Seattle is serving the one portion of the population, why are they not also serving the communities bearing the brunt of the adverse effects of the operations?  If the Port can laud and encourage these air cargo companies to continue and expand as they wish, why can they not discourage their bad practices and even become a port to serve more than air and shipping?

And as always, the Port incorrectly characterizes their services as “economic engines”, as in “for years, air cargo services at SEA Airport have been an economic engine that supports the region’s economy”.   Public agencies are not engines, they are servers, and the service provided at the Port of Seattle is vastly one-sided and targeted to the industries and individuals in the region who have the most money and privilege.

Back to the recent news brief.  Please do not continue your news as if we still live the 1950’s.  We know that we need to change our business as usual ways and as we cannot do it all at once, we can take this opportunity of unique interruption to start that process.  And at the very least, that process could include acknowledging that there is a recognition of the inequity and adverse effects of fossil fuel usage.

Thank you for allowing me to speak at your meeting today.

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2/11/2020

Annemarie Dooley, MD, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility

It’s nice to see the Commissioners who stood with me at Sea-Tac and the governor last month, to support the Clean Fuel Standard. Building a new cruise ship terminal would not promote the use of cleaner fuels. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: heavy fuels that cruise ships use are rich in sulphur and ash-forming metals, and the particles don’t just settle on the Port — they go into Seattle and the surrounding communities. Nitrous oxide and small particulate matter retard lung growth, increase heart and lung disease, and in some cases, cause early death. In fact, small particulate matter is the biggest environmental risk factor for early death. 

The arguments that I’ve heard for the terminal are mainly economic in nature, and, while we put a dollar value on tourism and maritime jobs, our market economy places no value on the health of its citizens; on increased health costs imposed on those least able to afford it, from hospital visits, ER visits, asthma medications, and days lost due to illness.

I am going to see these patients. So do the family medicine doctor you saw here before me, and the cancer doctor behind me who takes care of veterans.

And while plugging in these vessels reduces some of the emissions, a lot of the emissions are when they’re docking, maneuvering, and in open sea.  The Port does not live in isolation. Increased emissions have been shown to come with increased passengers. And all those flights into Seattle — a U.W. study showed last month — increase the level of ultra fine particles in the communities surrounding Seattle.

Now, I’m not against the Port expanding, but that expansion should not come at the expense of the health of our citizens.

Ultimately, that decision-making lies with you, but your decisions will affect the health of all of us.

Thank you. 

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1/28/2020

Jordan VanVoast

Good afternoon friends, One winter’s evening on the Salish sea, I heard orcas coming down from the north.  It was pitch black out, with barely a breath of wind.  I couldn’t even see the water as I launched my kayak.  Soon, the pod was breathing all around me. I saw nothing with my eyes but I didn’t need to. In their presence, ego separation melted away. My heart awakened to something bigger than I had ever known in the colonized, materialistic confines of American thought.  Another time, a grey whale swam underneath me and looked up at me with her gigantic eye. She spoke to me that night in a dream: “You must do whatever you can to save the oceans and the world from disaster.”  She, like many, could not be here today so I speak on their behalf. The five of you Commissioners have a pivotal decision to make. You can chase the illusion of economic progress and happiness measured in dollars and cents and vote for a global sized theme park for cruise ships that will continue to kill the magical abundance and diversity of nature. Or, you can reflect deeply on the truth….that the harmful impacts of more giant cruise ships are too great for the climate emergency we face, or for Mother Earth to bear.  Let us learn to live in connection with all life, listening, not dominating, being humble, compassionate, truthful. Looking seven generations into the future when making decisions of great consequence. Please cancel the T46 project. We are all related.  

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12/10/2019

Jordan Van Voast

Good afternoon Commissioners.  

I urge you to acknowledge the climate emergency and stop the terminal 46 cruise ship expansion.  A couple of points: First – one of the arguments in favor of expanding cruise business is that if Seattle doesn’t do it, another city will pick up the business and we’ll lose. If we’re going to stop the climate emergency from passing ecological tipping points, we need to set aside this zero-sum game mentality.  If the Port takes a stand and says no more cruise ships based on the science and data of the huge environmental foot print of the cruise industry – we win, because right then and there we’ve begun a process that might save a livable world for our grandchildren. Instead of locking ourselves into a competitive model of human society, let’s cooperate with other Ports to limit cruise traffic. This is non-essential luxury travel and we need to start cutting emissions somewhere. Limiting cruises should be a no-brainer.

Second – this body is supposed to not merely consider the desires of the Chamber of Commerce, but what is in the best interests of all citizens of King County and the climate emergency should be our highest priority.

Third, group think psychology makes it difficult to question long held economic assumptions regarding unlimited growth, but I urge you to examine the fallacies of business as usual. Nobody will be going on cruises in ten years if the climate emergency proceeds unchecked.  When we’ve poisoned the air with smokestacks, polluted the oceans and bays with sewage and bilge water illegally pumped overboard, when we’ve stressed the last orca to extinction from engine noise, when all living beings are refugees in survival mode, then we will realize that we cannot eat money.  

Elizabeth Burton

Good afternoon, Commissioners. I’m Dr. Elizabeth Burton; I’m a PhD mathematician, and I work with several climate action groups. 

I recently watched the video of your March 12th, 2019 meeting, where you approved building a new cruise terminal at T46. 

I’m here to give voice to two facts that were not mentioned at the meeting:  the cruise industry destroys the climate, and you need to weigh the economic gains of cruising against the economic losses that climate change is already inflicting on our state.

This year, Seattle had 1.2 million cruise passengers, 80 – 90% of whom flew in from elsewhere. Using online carbon calculators, it’s easy to show that in 2019, Seattle’s cruise industry emitted 2.7 million tons of carbon dioxide. 

Not to worry! 🙂 Our “green” port is electrifying its infrastructure. According to the Port, in 2019, “shore power use avoided 2,700 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.”  I’d like to point out that that represents one-tenth of one percent of the total emissions.

At the March 12th meeting, you celebrated the almost $900 million that the cruise industry brought to Washington state businesses.  Please consider: in 2015, a warm winter brought record-low snowpack to our state. Due to resulting low water supplies, Eastern Washington farmers sustained a $700 million loss. Our fisheries and shellfish harvests were hurt by warming ocean water. Water scarcity and large wildfires also negatively affected hydropower, drinking water, air quality, salmon, and recreation. 

This kind of extreme weather event is on track to become the norm.  You need to ask yourselves if hotels are more important than agriculture and fisheries.

No matter how fervently you love Orcas and glaciers and nature, by expanding the cruise industry, you are directly contributing to climate breakdown, and its resulting human suffering and economic losses. I’m asking you to take your blinders off; the world needs your courage. 

You have the power to say “no” to expanding this destructive industry. Please use it. 

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11/12/2019

Jordan Van Voast

Good morning. Good morning commissioners. My name is Jordan Van Voast. I’d like to begin by acknowledging that we are here on unceded Duwamish territory. I’ve been volunteering in the field of public health for the past 15 years, mainly in disaster response, which is why I am here. We’re facing a global disaster.  The third cruise ship terminal may look good from where you sit. The short term revenue boost will likely please a few of your constituents, but what will it look like in 50 years when the Seattle waterfront is under a few meters of water?  When our grandchildren are trying to survive in a world with 500 parts per million CO2? When the climate emergency makes every other crisis in our world exponentially worse?

That world is rapidly approaching and we won’t stop it with individual actions like electric cars, or solar panels, or going vegan. Although individual response is really important, it’s meaningless unless bodies like this act responsibly to perform their civic duty and act towards the common good of all life.  Even if you dismiss the moral arguments which consider the sacred obligation we have to care for our shared planet, not just for humans but all life including cetaceans who are increasingly threatened by prop noise, ship strikes and sewage. It is my understanding that this Commission has climate sustainability guidelines. I urge you to take strong action in line with that obligation and your sustainability guidelines and reconsider the climate and other negative impacts of the terminal 46 expansion. Thank you. 

Jan von Lehe

12:28  I’m a volunteer with 350 Seattle, and I’m here to talk about influence.

12:35  A concern that cruise expansion will be more influenced by the cruise ship operators, and the financial bottom line, than influenced by the IPCC scientists.

12:49  Your Century Agenda greenhouse gas targets, scope 3, are areas where the port can influence the greenhouse gas reduction; however, in our September meeting with the Maritime leadership, there was no clear plan on how the Port was going to meet that target.

13:06  The Port could decide against expansion, which would be wonderful for the environment, but short of that, we would ask that you strengthen your influence, by requiring

13:18 that all of the short-listed proposals require that we stop using heavy fuel oil;

13:27 that we commit to low-carbon, zero emissions; 

13:30 that we commit to free, prior, and informed consent by the Indigenous Peoples.

13:36 The financial bottom line shouldn’t be our priority.

13:39  Rather, given this acute climate emergency, the Port should demonstrate its public responsibility to strongly influence greenhouse gas reduction, all through the cruise ships cruising up to Alaska and back. 

14:11  Stacy Oaks

14:17 As we begin, I would just like to acknowledge that we stand on the land of the Duwamish People, people who have, and continue to care for this land and water since time immemorial.

14:28 We’re here today to deliver a letter signed by almost two dozen organizations opposing the Port of Seattle’s proposed Terminal 46 cruise ship terminal, due to the risk of significant climate disruption, marine pollution, and public health impacts, from cruise ship emissions.

14:45 Expanding port infrastructure to support more cruise ships of ever-increasing size in incompatible with the climate leadership that this State, and the Port, states that they’re striving towards.

14:57 The maritime sector produces more climate pollution than many major countries, including Canada, Germany, Brazil, South Korea, and Mexico.

15:06 Cruise ships as they exist today are the antithesis of decarbonization.  These massive vessels are floating cities, and are almost wholly fueled with one of the dirtiest fossil fuels on earth — heavy fuel oil. Heavy fuel oil is a waste product of the world’s oil refineries, and cruise ships use a lot of fuel!

15:24 Coverting air pollution into ocean pollution with open-loop scrubbers is also not a solution.

15:30 Further, at a time when vessel traffic noise is crippling the ability of critically endangered Southern Resident Killer Orca whales to hunt salmon, and the pollutants have bioaccumulated up the food web, damaging their ability to survive and reproduce, mega-ship traffic into their habitat could well push these iconic animals to the brink of extinction.

15:49 We know that ship exhaust from all types pose serious health risks to humans.

15:55 The new terminal wold be situated next to a sports stadium, affecting those players.

15:59 In addition, cruise ships emit, on average, three times the amount of climate-disrupting, health-damaging black carbon particulate pollution as their cargo ship counterparts.

16:07 I want to reiterate some of the points that Jan just made, about what we would need to do, if we’re going to seriously consider putting in another cruise ship terminal.

16:15 We need to make sure that we’re using the best oil; the best fuel that we currently have

16:21 We need to make sure that we’re operating below key whale frequencies.

16:25 and again, following free, prior, and informed consent.

16:30 We hope that you put these things above financial gain.

19:30 Mary Paterson

19:31 Hello, everybody, I’m Mary Paterson with 350 Seattle, in the Keep It In The Ground Workgroup….it’s an honor to be here amongst my fellow organizers, amongst people from Labor, with whom someday we hope to work together, and to be on Duwamish land; they’re still here.

19:53 I’m here to offer the equity case against the proposed new terminal for cruise ships.

19:59 My question is: Is the Port Commission just trying to paint lipstick on a pig —

 20:05  — no offense meant, but I’m going to follow the metaphor a little bit — by building a supposedly “green” terminal for cruise ships?

20:15 Is it enough for the ships to plug into port, and not pollute directly to our communities, while, when they leave port, they will revert to their practices of spewing black carbon into the air, and polluting the water with scrubber effluent, greywater, and treated sewage?

20:35 Is it equitable for the Port to make money on “clean, green Seattle,” only to enable these ships burning heavy fuel oil to offload their byproducts on less wealthy towns and cities along the British Columbia and Alaska coast?

20:52  Back to the pig for a moment…

20:55  Real equity happens when we are accountable for the whole lifecycle of any fuel, whether it’s liquified natural gas, or heavy fuel oil. 

21:03   And so the Port has to consider, and be accountable for, where the oil or gas is extracted, and who is harmed by that, and what is harmed by that;

21:13  and how it’s transported, whether by 100-car-plus unit trains, or by pipelines, that we know leak routinely, and pollute water, air, land, around communities.

21:35 And the other point to consider about this whole lifecycle, when you make your calculations about the port, is the whole issue of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls phenomenon, that is better and better understood, along  pipeline routes.

21:48 Lastly, to conclude: the just transition that we all envision will not happen by painting lipstick on a pig.  We’ve got to look at the whole pig.

21:59 In this case, work for a fossil-fuel-free shipping industry, even cruise-line industry, and *then* build a green terminal for them.

Guila Muir

22:29 I come to this selfishly, as an open-water swimmer. I got involved with environmental issues because I totally immerse myself year-round in the Salish Sea, and have become extremely aware, not only of the pollutants in there, but also of the sound issues, that I can hear, even as a swimmer, and cannot believe how loud they must be to our ocean mammals out there.

22:54 I’m against the building of the new terminal 

22:57 Currently, cruise ships release one billion gallons of sewage into the ocean each year (that according to Cruise Ship Report Card).

23:09 If cruise shipping continues, by 2050, we can expect 250%, an increase (this is according to a Europa study) in climate pollution

23:31 We rarely think of the cruise passengers themselves, but they experience 60 times and more of the pollutants than folks on land, and those pollutants can be dispersed, and are dispersed to people off the ship, as well.

23:48 So environmental consciousness, and just plan old common sense demands four things:

23:54  If this terminal moves forward, 

One is: we must switch current fleets to proven hybrid technologies.

24:01 The second point is: it’s essential to commit to low-carbon, zero-emission battery or hydrogen fuel cells propulsion systems, in any new ships

24:15 Three: Cruise ships need to operate below whale-related decibel frequencies, in migration or feeding habitats

24:22  And lastly, it’s essential to demonstrate a commitment to free, prior, informed consent of Indigenous Peoples, and suspend Terminal 46 selection; issue a revised RFQ.

Jim Ace

25:02 This morning, in your inbox, you received a letter from organizations, expressing our concern and opposition to the proposed cruise ship terminal, as well as a document making a case against the terminal.  We hope you enjoy those documents, and we look forward to talking with you more about the content of them.

25:21  To be clear, we don’t oppose commerce. We don’t oppose business. We don’t oppose good, living wage jobs. And we don’t even necessarily oppose all cruise ships. 

25:35  What we do oppose is business-as-usual commerce that pollutes our air, water, and climate.

25:40  What we do oppose are industries that contribute massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.

25:46  What we oppose are corporations that violate environmental laws, like Carnival Corporation, that currently uses Terminal 91.

25:56 What we oppose are cruise ships that burn the dirtiest, cheapest fuel available: heavy fuel oil, and convert the air pollution to water pollution, and contribute to ocean acidification.

26:07 We oppose the expansion of Terminal 46 as a cruise ship terminal.

26:15 We ask that the Port Commission suspend the selection process; suspend the SEPA review; to disqualify any consortiums that include environmental criminals, including Carnival Corporation; 

26:30 and we suggest publishing a revised RFQ.  Really, starting over, from scratch, would be the most appropriate step. 

…

26:59  A city enjoying the financial benefits of a cruise ship terminal, and then exporting the costs onto the rest of the world, and our future, is an equity issue, and we ask you to consider that.

Dr. Elizabeth Burton

27:22 I’m speaking on behalf of People for Climate Action – Seattle; we have chapters throughout King County, over 500 members, countywide.

27:31 Along with 16 cities in King County, the Port is a member of the King County – Cities Climate Collaboration (K4C).  Goals of K4C include reducing greenhouse gas emissions, countywide, by 25% by 2020; 50% by 2030; and 80% by 2050, compared to a 2007 baseline.

27:54 At the moment, not a single K4C jurisdiction in on track to meet its 2020 goal.

28:00 It’s not rocket science to see that opening a new cruise ship terminal is antithetical to meeting these goals.

28:10 Most people fly into Seattle to go onto their ships, so when a 4,000-passenger cruise ship takes a journey, that’s up to 4,000 people flying in, and 4,000 people flying out. 

28:24 So the airplane greenhouse gas emissions need to be considered, along with the noise, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions of the ship itself.

…

28:48 I’ve recently looked at your website; I’m sorry to say I was appalled to read the Port’s Century Agenda, which involves, among other things, a goal of doubling the number of international flights and destinations; doubling the economic value of cruise ship traffic.

29:07 Creating more jobs that are dependent on a climate-destroying industry is not a direction we should be going.

29:14 You are not serving the people of Seattle and the people of the world by going in this direction. 

29:20 We need to stop business as usual.  

Heather McAuliffe

29:43:  …I’m here to talk about T46

29:47 First of all, I would completely agree with the earlier speaker that the review period deadline should be extended…

30:21  Pedicabs should have really convenient access for passengers, to reduce reliance on vehicles that burn gas.

30:33 Primarily, I’m concerned about the addition of air pollution…there are plans to electrify the waterfront, and that ships can’t be compelled to tie up to the online electricity.  Why can’t they be compelled to do that?

31:00 I’m also concerned about the proximity of the project to the tunnel building; the south exit of the 99 tunnel…

31:19 All of the exhaust from the tunnel is vented from the exits and from the tunnel stacks, and none of it is scrubbed.  

31:48 I’m also concerned about the proximity of the terminal to the Duwamish, which we are all trying to heal.

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