Cruise Liner Blues

Oils rigs are usually getting the blame for wreaking environmental havoc on the high seas, but in light of recent evens involving a certain cruise ship, I thought I would comment on the nautical polluters not frequently in the news... until someone tips it over.

There are "normal" emissions and discharges from cruise ships all time that are glossed over and
according to the EPA, cruise ships were involved in 87 confirmed illegal discharge cases in the years from 1993 to 1998. Most of these involved the accidental discharge of oil or related substances but a few cases involved large numbers of illegal discharge incidents.

What sort of "normal waste discharges" are there?

1. Black Water (sewage): A typical cruise ship generates as much as 210,000 gallons during a one-week voyage. Um, yuck.

2. Gray Water (shower, sink, and galley water): A typical cruise ship is estimated to generate up to one million gallons a week.

3. Hazardous Waste (waste from dry cleaning, photo labs, paint, and maintenance chemicals, etc.): Who's printing photos and having their clothes dry cleaned on their cruise, is what I want to know.

4. Solid Waste (food waste, plastic, paper, wood, cardboard, cans, glass, etc.): That is, all the garbage produced by the tons of people on the boat.

5. Oily Bilge Water: Cruise ships are estimated to generate up to 25,000 gallons on a one week voyage.

And then there are the air emissions. Cruise ships incinerate between 75% and 85% of garbage according to the EPA in its 2008 study, contributing to smog in coastal communities and on the ocean. Yeah, smog on the beach.They also release incinerator ash and sewage sludge -- blobs of concentrated toxins from the bottom of waste treatment facilities -- into the ocean. Who said this was okay? You can't dump it in the street but you can dump it in the water? Right. Well, according to tests in Washington and Alaska, interviews with state officials, the EPA's study, and information provided by the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary this is really the case. It's actually legal to discharge untreated sewage in most areas of the United States farther than three miles from shore, so 4 miles out is fine. So says somebody. It's not fine to me.

It was only luck that the Concordia's oil is not already spewing into the sea—the hole in the hull of the liner missed the fuel tanks by a few feet, as it ran aground off the coast of Italy. But maybe it's time to pay more attention to the rest of the cruise ships out there. They don't need to be capsizing or spewing oil to attract scrutiny.

Treat Your Lab Rats Right

The National Institutes of Health recently revised their official Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals for the first time in 16 years. This is the guide used by all laboratories who receive funding from the government to conduct their research and all labs receiving this funding must comply with the procedures described in the guide. The revised edition, however, is causing an uproar among facilities, however, because of a little change made on page 57.

The change involves the amount of space that must be allotted to a female lab mouse or rat and her babies. The revised guidelines suggest that a female be allotted for herself and her babies, a cage the size of a shoebox. Nothing extraordinary sounding, until one considers that previous guidelines allowed for two females, their litters and a male mouse or rat to occupy the same amount of space. Animal rights advocates applaud the change, feeling that this increase in allotted space not only allows for more humane conditions and natural development of the lab rat and her offspring, but also is a boon to scientific study, as increased space could mean a less stressful environment, translating to more accurate research results.

Some laboratories, however, are up in arms about the change. Consider Johns Hopkins research institute. They do a lot of research, they have a lot of rats. They have so many rats that research facilities consisting of huge warehouses containing 10,000 cages of rats are not uncommon. That's a lot of rats... and a lot of cages... and a lot of space. The concern for laboratories and research facilities like Johns Hopkins is a logistical one. More space for mama rats means room for fewer cages. In short, it'll cost the labs more money to house the same number of rats that they house now. They aren't happy about that.

In response to the apparent outrage at the changes, the writers of the guide have insisted that the new guidelines are not mandatory and that facilities needn't follow the new suggestions to maintain their government funding. What they aimed to do with the change, one writer has said, is to set a benchmark, a standard from which to work from. This placated some of those concerned about the change, but essentially rained upon the parade of those animal rights advocates who had applauded the measure. They claim that making the guidelines optional allows for abuse.

Sometimes you just can't make anyone happy.

Bringing Down the Stereotypes

Dog = loyal, friendly, playful, cuddly

Cat = independent, anti-social, agile

Llama = funny, stupid

Pig = dirty, greedy

Gazelle = graceful

Mule = stubborn

Does any of this sound familiar? It seems often our experience with animals is limited to our domestic pets and dinner plates and that we largely rely upon these stereotypes to characterize them. I suppose these function like any other stereotype, really. They're a default we depend on because we don't have an accumulation of encounters to prove otherwise. I recent class discussion had me thinking about this and, though I didn't share, these stereotypes bother me to no end.

In the same manner that one might become indignant when confronting any other unfair categorical preconception, I'm saddened that the impressions that we and our children have of animals are based upon these stereotypes, rather than upon personal experience. As convenient as these characterizations may be, given that the average American Midwesterner is unlikely to encounter a gazelle first hand in their entire lifetime, I continue to be struck by a sort of exasperation when people I meet believe these assigned characteristics to be true descriptions of an animal.

As such, I spent all three months of my summer internship at Gorman Heritage Farm trying to break down the barriers erected by these fabricated preconceptions. As a certified "sustainable agriculture intern/farm camp councilor," part of my duties involved giving tours of the farmyard, teaching visitors about the animals and supervising small children around livestock. Perhaps I shouldn't have been, but my reaction was of awe when I first realized that many of the children that came to visit the farm actually bought wholeheartedly those animal stereotypes perpetuated by cartoons, children's books and well-meaning parents. Why aren't the pigs pink? Why doesn't the cow make a "moo" sound? Why does the rooster keep crowing, even though it's the afternoon? Sigh.

Though I only spent a short amount of time with these kids on the farm, I did my very best to communicate the fact that every animal is an individual, just as every little girl or little boy is different and unique from every other little girl and little boy. And so... frequent reminders included:

-Pigs aren't dirty, they're really, really smart. And they come in lots of colors, not just pink. Well, sometimes they are dirty.

-Bunnies can bite and scratch, not matter how fluffy and cute. And here they eat alfalfa, not carrots

-Roosters crow all day every day. They stop at nighttime to sleep.

-You can pet Ringo but Don't pet George. Why? George bites and Ringo doesn't, silly!

- No. No one gets to ride Huckleberry. He doesn't like when people ride him.

-Stay away from the cat. She doesn't like people. No, you can't pet her.

- Go ahead, you can pet the chicken. She won't peck at you. And they come in all sorts of colors and eat bugs, isn't that cool!?

-Chicken eggs can be white, blue, green, brown or even pink. You can eat the duck eggs, too!

As is the way with small children, some didn't listen and were bitten by the ferocious bunnies, but most of them did and I can only hope they went home and taught their parents a thing or two...