What happens when you mix snorkeling, an economics lesson, and marine fuel regulations? A splashy new episode of the SeaBank Chronicles in which SEACC and the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust team up to deliver the solution to a more sustainable cruise industry.
If you haven’t yet listened to ASFT’s SeaBank Chronicles, it’s a short podcast that delivers regional ecosystem science, but with a twist: an immersive soundscape woven with music and audio effects. A cross between radio theater and a science lesson, this podcast places you in the starring role of a groundtruthing adventurer, guided by a trusty radio operator (that’s me).
In the 7-minute episode “Cruising Toward a Pollution Solution,” SEACC wanted to address the question: how can Southeast have a vibrant visitor industry and pollution-free skies and waters?
Logbook 2, Transmission 1: Cruising Toward a Pollution Solution
In this episode, you’ll combine a snorkeling excursion in SeaBank waters with an immersive economics lesson on negative externalities. While floating amid the sounds of seagulls and bell buoys, encounter phytoplankton and other inhabitants of the marine food web—along with the realities of aquatic pollution like PAHs, sulfates, nitrates, and heavy metals released by cruise ships that use open-loop scrubber technology. Luckily, your pack contains a dry towel plus a pollution solution with room for both the economic benefits of tourism and a healthy Southeast Alaska environment. It’s all about a switch from low-quality heavy fuel oil to cleaner-burning marine gas oil, which any vessel employing a marine scrubber can easily do 100% of the time.
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I immediately imagined listeners swimming among the plankton, joining this essential layer of the food web as it crosses paths with a cruise ship scrubber—a technology that “scrubs” toxic sulfates, heavy metals, and PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) from smokestack emissions. While scrubbers might sound like a step forward, vessels in Southeast don’t responsibly dispose of dirty washwater that accumulates, but are allowed to simply dump it straight into our pristine seas. Get ready to pull on a wetsuit.
I also wanted to explore the concept of “negative externalities” because this economics term really hit home when I encountered it a few years ago in ASFT’s annual SeaBank Ecosystem Report. In a nutshell, a negative externality is a consequence of producing a good or service that falls on the shoulders of a third party.
In Southeast, for example, cruise companies aren’t held responsible for the pollution that vessels emit when burning cheap Heavy Fuel Oils or HFOs. Instead, the costs of pollution are externalized to the surrounding environment where plants, animals, and people are forced to pay—either in clean-up efforts, illness, or even death. Meanwhile, cruise companies reap higher profits by saving money on their fuel bill.
There are some lighthearted moments in the episode, too. You’ll be treated to a variety of intriguing sounds—seabirds, lapping water, dings, glugs, the ruffling pages of a textbook. And I always include music, especially evocative instrumentals that convey awe, concern, mystery, or celebration. My hope is that every SeaBank Chronicles episode is a 7-minute feast for the ears as well as a source of factual information.
As I finished the script for “Cruising Toward a Pollution Solution,” I found myself impressed with SEACC’s no-nonsense approach to cruise ship pollution. While the cruise industry is important to Southeast Alaska’s economy, citizens can both acknowledge this fact and demand that companies change the way vessels operate—first and foremost, by switching from dirty HFOs to cleaner-burning marine gas oil. That’s the real pollution solution.
And now, it’s time to sit back and put on your headset. Your radio operator is standing by with another SeaBank Chronicles transmission.
Beth Short-Rhoads produces and hosts The SeaBank Chronicles, a 7-minute science and mystery podcast from the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust. ASFT empowers citizens and policymakers with its data-rich SeaBank Ecosystem Report, an annual survey of the economic, social, and cultural wealth held by the lands and waters of Southeast Alaska.
