Opinion: The worst people on earth are taking a cruise through the Northwest Passage
CBC Radio | Posted: August 26, 2016 6:59 PM | Last Updated: August 26, 2016
A cruise ship recently set sail from Alaska on a journey across the Northwest Passage.
Over the course of its 32-day long journey, Crystal Serenity will cross the once-frozen path between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
The historic journey has been promoted by the cruise company as a rare opportunity for adventure; it does after all mark the opening of one of the Earth's last frontiers.
But that is exactly why Will Oremus worries about the cruise.
It is also an abomination, a massive, diesel-burning, waste-dumping, ice-destroying, golf-ball-smacking middle finger to what remains of the planet, courtesy of precisely 1,089 of its richest and most destructive inhabitants. And it's all made possible by runaway climate change, the existential global crisis that these same people and their ilk have disproportionately helped to create.
Click the play button above to hear the full audio essay by Will Oremus.