Porti & ambiente — le notizie raccolte

Passengers on Quark Expeditions' Ocean Explorer ship got rocked with waves up to 40 feet on a recent cruise. (@lesleyannemurphy via Storyful) Aluxury cruiseship battled rough Pacific seas to rescue an injured sailor stranded aboard a disabled vessel far from shore, according to reports. The incident took place May 26, per CruiseHive, aboard a ship that was headingto Vancouver. The vessel, Silver Whisper, is operated by the Royal Caribbean Group-owned luxury cruise line Silversea Cruises. CRUISE SHIP ABRUPTLY CHANGES COURSE TO RESCUE PEOPLE IN DISTRESSED BOAT: 'KNEW SOMETHING' WAS UP The Silver Whisper was completing a 24-night one-way sailing from Papeete, Tahiti, when it wasalerted to an injured sailor, according to CruiseHive. The ship was reportedly too far from Hawaii and the continental United States to attempt an air rescue, prompting the Silver Whisper to divert course. Passengers aboard the Silver Whisper described rough Pacific conditions as the luxury cruise ship, seen above, diverted course to rescue an injured sailor stranded at sea.(iStock) Passengers onboard Silver Whisper posted on Facebook about the multi-hour incident. One person said the Silver Whisper rescued a man "whose vessel lost all power and communications in high winds and rough seas." CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER "We were the closest ship to him — it took 7 hours to reach him, with no exact coordinates," the Facebook user said. "A needle in a haystack.Happy to reporthe was found, is alive — with a broken shoulder, but doing well." "Many of us might miss flights due to our delay, but we saved people and one crew member is injured." One Facebook user said that there was a "twist in our journey to Vancouver." "May Day call was received bythe Coast Guardand our ship was directed to perform the rescue," the passenger said. CLICK HERE FOR MORE LIFESTYLE STORIES "Many of us might miss flights due to our delay, but we saved people and one crew member is injured," the person continued. "The mast is gone and too far out in [the] ocean for [a] helicopter. #Silversea Silver Whisper to the rescue!" The Silver Whisper reportedly spent hours searching rough waters after receiving a distress call involving a disabled vessel in the Pacific Ocean.(iStock) Another passenger claimed the waters became noticeably rougher during the rescue maneuver. "We were sent to our cabins because stabilizers had to be collapsed on rough seas," the Facebook user recalled. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP "Quite an experience." The Silver Seas' website indicates the Silver Whisper is "one of the most technically up-to-the-minute ships at sea." The Silver Whisper was reportedly the closest vessel available to assist after a distress call was issued in the Pacific Ocean.(iStock) "Revel in the pampering treatments of an expanded wellness spa, shop the hottest trends from top designers at our shipboard boutiques, and enjoy dynamic, full-scale productions in a multi-tiered show lounge," the site says. "Silver Whisper luxury cruise ship has it all." TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ Fox News Digital reached out toRoyal Caribbeanfor additional comment. Andrea Margolis is a lifestyle writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. Readers can follow her on X at@andreamargsor send story tips toandrea.margolis@fox.com.

Ship-to-ship refueling with liquefied natural gas happened for the first time at the Port of Seattle in early May and again on May 17, 2026. (Photo by Tom Banse) This article was first published byPost Alley. Early this month, a mobile floating gas station of sorts pulled up alongside the towering cruise ship Star Princess at Seattle’s Pier 91 terminal. For the next eight hours, the refueling crew made news by pumping a large volume of super-cooled natural gas into the bowels of the cruise liner. Thenewest cruise ship operated by Princess Cruises is the first oceangoing vessel to be refueled in Seattle with liquefied natural gas (LNG). It could be the start of a new way of fueling the Alaska cruise ships that operate out of Seattle and Vancouver all summer. “I’m just delighted to see there’s no smoke coming out of the cruise ship. We’re plugged in. We’re burning the cleanest gas you can right now,” Port of Seattle Commissioner Fred Felleman said while observing from an adjacent pier. “Right now, this is about as good as it gets in the industry.” The steadily-growing fleet of mammoth cruise ships that ply the Inside Passage has a sizable carbon footprint – ship fuel being the biggest single component. Cruise line executives acknowledge that they need to do their part to soften the environmental impact. The major cruise lines in the Alaska market, through their trade association, have committed to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from ship operations by 2050. The challenge until now has been finding an alternative fuel that is cost-competitive and available at scale locally. Felleman said the Port of Seattle is striving to be the “greenest” cruise homeport. The gleaming floating palace over his shoulder demonstrated a fuel technology that the maritime industry appears to be coalescing around to improve air quality in port communities such as Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver. But the lengthy transition is accompanied by some sniping and griping. The super-chilled natural gas arrives on a specialized small-scale tanker ship from British Columbia in a multiday journey that underscores the novelty of the alternative marine fuel. Vancouver-basedSeaspan Energyacquired three refueling tankers (commonly called bunkering vessels) from a Chinese shipyard to offer ship-to-ship LNG refueling along the West Coast. “We’ve been held to a very high standard, not only in the construction of these vessels, not only in the crewing and the credentials of the people operating on these vessels, but in the actual play-by-play operations,” said Seaspan Energy President Harly Penner duringan online roundtablehosted by the Port of Seattle. “We’re going to make sure it’s done safely.” Penner appeared to anticipate LNG’s detractors who portray the fuel as acutely risky if spilled, due to its very low temperature. Critics also worry about the wide, devastating impact if an LNG cargo ignited, which Penner said has never happened during ship-to-ship refueling elsewhere in the world. The U.S. Coast Guard and Seattle Fire Department reviewed and were satisfied with Seaspan’s LNG bunkering plans. A Star Princess passenger postedthe safety instructionsapplicable to passengers on board. The cruise line handout told people assigned to staterooms overlooking the Seaspan tanker to stay off their balconies during the refueling operation and that smoking in the Star Bar would be forbidden while fueling was underway. A Port of Seattle police boat also kept watch a couple hundred yards off the stern of the cruise ship, which has a 4,300-passenger capacity. Overall, Port of Seattle officials appear to be giving a tempered welcome to LNG as they celebrate what is anticipated to be the busiest Alaska cruise season in port history. Maritime Division Managing Director Stephanie Jones Stebbins said the port is interested because of the “tremendous” reduction in air pollutants, such as diesel particulates and harmful sulfur and nitrogen oxides. But port staff pointedly avoided claiming a global warming mitigation benefit and also told elected commissioners that there are no plans to invest in local infrastructure to supply LNG from shore. “We know LNG is ultimately a fossil fuel. We view it as a transition fuel,” Jones Stebbins said. “We are looking beyond that to renewable fuels – options like green methanol, renewable natural gas, ammonia, drop-in synthetic fuels, electrification.” Shipping line TOTE Maritime converted two large cargo ships on the Tacoma-Anchorage circuit to LNG propulsion in 2022. The ships refuel from an adjacent Puget Sound Energy liquefaction and LNG storage facility that remains controversial in Tacoma and has so far failed to attract other marine users. Climate protection campaigners and some political conservatives take issue with the maritime industry’s fuel transition, but for very different reasons. The environmental groupSeattle Cruise Control urged the Portof Seattle to reject LNG-powered ships. The group labels LNG as a “false promise” because activists calculate the carbon footprint of natural gas from “well to wake” to be as bad or worse for the climate than traditional marine fuels. (The math varies in the industry, and some like Penner claim a positive greenhouse gas benefit.) “The use of LNG will continue harming the climate, lock in obsolete technology, and delay the necessary transition to zero-emissions fuels,” Seattle Cruise Control co-founder Elizabeth Burton said in an email. Conservative voices, meanwhile, including at the highest levels of the Trump administration, are pushing back on maritime decarbonization because of the potential pass-through costs to consumers. “Popular fuel alternatives, such as liquefied natural gas and hydrogen, require double to more than triple the tank size of oil. In an industry that monetizes every square foot of space, it’s a costly gamble for regulation that may not come to pass,” wroteopinion columnist Kate Farmerin the Wall Street Journallast month. Princess Cruises spokesperson Negin Kamali described LNG as “the best readily available fuel that significantly reduces direct greenhouse gas and other emissions and particulate matter now.” Notably, the cruise line barely mentions the dual-fuel capability ofits newest vesselin marketing and advertising. The Love Boat’s other amenities get all the love – such as the restaurants, stage shows and luxury staterooms. This summer, Star Princess is scheduled to refuel with LNG in Seattle every other weekend. Kamali said that should be sufficient to operate the big ship on LNG throughout the season. When LNG is unavailable, Star Princess’ engines burn traditional marine gas oil. Star Princess was mistakenly credited by a port and a chamber of commerce in southeast Alaska as the first LNG-powered cruise ship to visit the Last Frontier. That title actually belongs to Silver Nova, which was refueled by Seaspan withLNG in Vancouverbefore an Alaska sailing last year in May. The dual-fuel luxury liner is being relocated to the Mediterranean for this summer by its operator, Silversea Cruises. A demonstration last summer in Seattle involving another cruise line, Holland America, showed the multiple challenges and cost barriers involved with decarbonizing large ship operations. For this project, Holland America and the port teamed up to refuel the cruise liner Eurodam with renewable diesel made from vegetable oil. A port memo described the three refuelings as a bit cumbersome, but ultimately successful from an operational point of view. However, the biofuel netted out to triple the cost of conventional low-sulfur marine fuel. So, the bottom line was that the experiment would not be repeated until biofuel costs come down and availability improves. Bud Darr, CEO of the trade groupCruise Lines International Association, said it takes “an awful lot of courage” for ship owners to spend as much as $2 billion on new dual-fuel cruise ships designed to burn various kinds of climate-friendly fuel that cannot be procured today. Darr said there is not much uptake on methanol because the industry is still waiting for bio- or synthetic forms of the fuel to become available at scale. Darr said “the safety case” for carbon-free ammonia is not strong enough to work as cruise ship fuel because of the high toxicity of the gas were it to leak. That basically leaves LNG as the preferred alternative marine fuel, Darr said during the Port of Seattle’s industry roundtable in April. He said no ship owners had told him that the fossil fuel LNG was their final answer. “Really, we’re looking to progress from the fossil form of LNG,” Darr said, “on to a renewable version of that.” Commissioner Felleman is also zeroing in on renewable natural gas as the way to have a thriving cruise industry and protect the climate.Renewable natural gas – aka RNG or bio-LNG – is most commonly derived around here from the breakdown of landfill waste, municipal sewage or feedlot cow manure.Felleman said he is encouraged that the steep price premium for RNG is slowly coming down. Other branches of government are trying to spur greater supply with carbon credits. “The fastest way to make progress with the existing and growing fleet of vessels is to incentivize the use of alternative fuels,” Fellman said. Post Alley launched in June 2019 as part of a new, Seattle-based writers’ collective aimed at helping fill gaps in local journalism and exploring new ways of delivering quality reporting and commentary.Learn more about the publication here. Correspondent Tom Banse is an Olympia-based reporter with more than three decades of experience covering Washington and Oregon state government, public policy, business and breaking news stories. Most of his career was spent with public radio's Northwest News Network, but now in semi-retirement his work is appearing on other outlets.

Rush to develop fossil fuel infrastructure in Canada collides with laws meant to protect endangered species Environmental groups in Canada fear endangered orcas could become a casualty of Mark Carney’s push for a new oil pipeline, as the rush to develop fossil fuel infrastructure collides with laws meant to protect threatened species. The decades-long tragedy of the critically endangered southern residentorcashas become emblematic of an ecosystem in crisis. But fishermen, whale-watching companies and the marine transport industry have long feuded over who bears the most blame. The southern resident orcas can only survive on a diet of chinook salmon, a species that itself is in steep decline. While there were more than 200 orcas at the beginning of the 20th century, nowadays only about 70 swim the waters between British Columbia and Washington state. Environmental groups have raised the alarm over increased ship traffic along the south-west coast of British Columbia – the result of a busyTrans Mountain oil pipelinethat terminates near Vancouver and a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal further north. On Friday, Carney announced plans for a new oil pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific coast, with construction expected to begin by fall of 2027. And a new policy discussion paper has raised fears that in pursuit of the project, the federal government might bypass legal protections for the orca. The document, titledGetting Major Projects Built in Canada, called the process for building mines, ports, airports, pipelines “slow, expensive, and confusing”, and suggested a number of changes to existing rules to fix this issue. But one part of the paper, which proposes exempting major projects from the “jeopardy test for species at risk” has caught the eye of environmental advocates. Part of Canada’s endangered species legislationforces regulators to ask whether a project would jeopardize the survival or recovery of a protected species. “In practical terms, this provision is intended to prevent projects from pushing endangered species into extinction. Weakening this safeguard has direct implications for southern resident killer whales and their protection under [the Species at Risk Act],” said Misty MacDuffee, a biologist at Raincoast Conservation Foundation. “As the federal government has acknowledged in its imminent threat determination, these whales face extinction under the existing conditions.” The proposed changes are open to public comment until 9 June. The development,first reported by the Toronto Star, promptedthe federal governmentto respond that the reporting “could not be further from the truth”. The transport minister, Steven MacKinnon, pointed to recent investments by his government to protect at-risk whale populations, including C$91.3m to address other threats to the southern resident orca population. The government is also changing the laws around how much distance ships must give the whales, raising it from 200 metres to 1,000 metres to minimize physical and acoustic disturbance from vessel traffic. “We would not take any actions that would undermine these important strategies and substantial investments. Our approach to assessments isn’t about cutting corners, but improving coordination, efficiency, and long-term planning resulting in faster decisions, without weakening oversight or standards,” he wrote in a statement. But critics says that while the government has made key promises to protect whales, they also appear to be looking for a carve-out by exempting projects of national interest from stringent reviews where endangered species might be affected. After the new pipeline deal was confirmed, environmental groups swiftly condemned the agreement. “Recovery [of the orca population] requires improvements in habitat quality, including reductions in underwater noise and disturbance. Weakening the protective provisions of [endangered species laws] to enable projects that worsen these conditions would push southern residents closer to extinction,” said MacDuffee. Environmental law charity Ecojustice said the move “jeopardiz[ed]” Canada’s ability to protect whale habitats. “No project that threatens the extinction of iconic southern resident killer whales and puts communities’ health at risk could be ‘nation building’. Increasing tanker traffic in the already busy Salish Sea ups the risk of small and large oil spills and will also increase ocean noise – pushing the critically endangered southern resident killer whales further towards extinction. Expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline has overwhelmed the modest noise reductions put in place to protect whales from pre-pipeline expansion levels of shipping noise,” director Margot Venton said in a statement. “Experts have been unable to find a way to offset the noise from increasing tanker traffic. These whales cannot handle any more tankers in their habitat.”In the past, threatened or endangered species have delayed construction of major projects. When the government was trying to build the TransMountain pipeline, a rare species of humming bird temporarily halted work. But the effectiveness of Canada’s species at risk laws has also been called into question, especially when the requirements clash with lucrative industries. Successive environment ministers have declined to designate chinook salmon as a species at risk – largely over the implications such a decision would have for the fishing industry. Nature Canada, one of the country’s oldest conservations groups, said it was calling on supporters to urgently contact lawmakers to vote against any fast-tracked legislation, warning it could lead to zones of “environmental lawlessness”. “The effort to redefine environmental responsibility as mere ‘red tape’ is dangerously short-sighted,” Akaash Maharaj, director of policy at Nature Canada, said in a statement. “Nature is not an impediment to economic development; environmental assessment is the ‘credit check’ before we write the loan. It is due diligence, fiduciary responsibility, and the only way to build prosperity that endures.”