CNN ‘Invents Sailboats’ In Climate Alarmism Article, Hilarity Ensues
“Giant kites could pull cargo ships across the ocean – and slash their carbon emissions”
Step aside, Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan; sit down, U.S.S. Constitution and the Mayflower; and hold CNN’s beer kite-surfers the world over.
CNN has an unintentionally hilariously stupid piece out on a “new” way to save energy on the open seas: “giant kites.” I kid you not. Apparently, they are blissfully unaware that even the largest ship ever made at the time, the Titanic, had freaking sails to make use of good winds on the high seas.
Giant kites could pull cargo ships across the ocean – and slash their carbon emissions https://t.co/AkxJPXlh5J
— CNN (@CNN) June 30, 2023
Some responses are taking this title and image seriously.
Are you kidding with that graphic? That’s a windsail that can pull a 250 lb man. A typical cargo ship weighs 150,000 tons. Clipper ships, the fastest sailing cargo vessels before the advent of steam, were 800 tons. They averaged 6-8 kts. Who the hell came up with this idea? pic.twitter.com/huEOkiGhnR
— BearFlagFan (@BearFlagFan) June 30, 2023
This is exactly what I was thinking. The biggest question of all is how long it would take to sail across the ocean using this method on a freaking cargo ship and they conveniently left that information out.
— Danielle Bradley-Allen (@DanielleA34203) July 1, 2023
Ane we're back to 18th century trade routes. Progress. pic.twitter.com/dl6hlLy3i9
— Lawrence M Coyne (@Coyne1Lawrence) June 30, 2023
This only seems important if one
accepts the false premise
that carbon emissions are pollution.— Chris (@ChrizDDv3) June 30, 2023
But let’s be honest, hardly anyone really cares what the article says, including me, it’s the hilarious title they chose along with the image that is worth the price of skipping a click on the CNN piece.
The responses are priceless.
There's no need to reinvent the wheel pic.twitter.com/KCwLBoD3O5
— Metatron (@MetatronX77) June 30, 2023
I've come up with a rendering of what this could even possibly look like
Reminder this is speculative and likely couldn't work in real life pic.twitter.com/lk0mN24NTx
— ᵞⁱᵏᵉˢ (@TrueBeefSupreme) July 1, 2023
No… they fart. Way more dangerous and pollutey than combustion engines.
— LostLola (@LostLola1) June 30, 2023
And we could live in caves instead of houses! It'll be like civilization never happened!
— Fuzzy Slippers (@fuzislippers) June 30, 2023
The climate communists want to take us back to the 17th century. pic.twitter.com/5XbVAo4Ahk
— Shawn Quinn (@ShawnQuinn83) June 30, 2023
Next…Roman slave galleys!
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) June 30, 2023
🤣🤣
— Ultra Grateful Calvin 🇺🇸🐶🏒 🎶 (@shoveitjack) June 30, 2023
Instead of "giant kites," we could use another word like "sails"! Think of the possibilities. You absolute clowns.
— Fuzzy Slippers (@fuzislippers) June 30, 2023
I think their called sail boats. Now let’s talk about replacing the automobile with buggies pulled by animals.
— Big Fish (@BigFish3000) June 30, 2023
Overly complicated, expensive and less effective ones yes.
— Shadz (@Shadzey1) June 30, 2023
Damn, so I guess my Amazon package and other goods will cheaper, but will take 5-8 months to get here. I love the fact we’re going back in time instead of progressing. FFS.
— Midwest Ordnance (@realMWO) July 1, 2023
— RaeSM (@RaeSM3) June 30, 2023
And my absolute favorite:
I've heard Elon Tusk is going to produce them.
— ℙ𝕖𝕟𝕟𝕪 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕥𝕤 (@SumDumHoe) June 30, 2023
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Comments
Was it CNN or Babylon Bee?
Not a bad idea – if your ship is in the middle ages.
The ultimate goal has got to be the death of Western Civilization. There’s no other possible outcome if they Left has it’s way on everything it wants.
The best part is that the “elites” think they will live in the same world they do now . . . it just won’t exist for all the people who make it so. How’s that really going to work out when they have destroyed human civilization? Who is going to defend them?
Exactly. When you piss off the producers and they start withdrawing skill the wheels stop. Labor is limitless but skill is a finite resource. A mountain can be moved by a million men, but only one can tell you where to lift; and when.
In recent years we saw the margins n reserves exceeded enough that it touched the nomenklatura. They did not handle it well.
If Amazon Prime starts taking 80 days, I’m cancelling.
The on-line religious paraphernalia sites will take 40 days and 40 nights.
That would rain on my parade.
Umm, yeah. That’s going to be a problem.
Next lets do hurricane, cyclone, and typhoon avoidance/survival.
Get with the program. Using wind like this is a major advance over using 1,000 year old windmill technology to generate electricity.
Fuzzy, the Titanic did not have sails. It had masts, but masts aren’t just for sails, and were used for several purposes on early 20th Century steam ships that were not related to powering the ship (with sails). It can be plainly seen that these masts did not have yardarms or booms for sails (some had boom cranes that looked like sail booms), nor the necessary lines and tackle. Masts were used primarily (on large ocean liners) to suspend the long antenna wires that were necessary for their radio telephones. They were also used to support lines from which signal flags could be flown, and some had crow’s nests (at least until the advent of radar on civilian ships).
The Titanic had two masts, which, had they flown sails, would have been entirely unable to power the ship. Earlier ocean liners powered by steam that had backup masts and sails, had four or five masts (with yardarms, booms, and all the line and tackle necessary to hoist and control sails) and they were much smaller and lighter ships. The idea that the Titanic could sail using two masts is ludicrous. Two masts with enough sail area to merely get the Titanic moving would have involved so much wind power that the masts would have simply snapped.
Perhaps Fuzzy was thinking of The Great Eastern, a huge ship for its day which used both steam engines and supplementary sails.
https://www.shippingwondersoftheworld.com/great-eastern.html
“The dimensions of the Great Eastern sound imposing even when compared with many modern liners, except for such mammoths as the Normandie and the Queen Mary. The ship displaced 27,384 tons (gross tonnage 18,914), and her length on the upper deck was 692 feet.”
“On her trials the Great Eastern, using her paddles only, achieved a speed of 7¼ knots. Four boilers, each weighing 50 tons and holding 40 tons of water, supplied steam to the paddle engines which indicated 3,411 horse-power.”
“In the days of the Great Eastern men had not learned to put their trust in steam alone. So this ship was provided with sails. Six masts carried a spread of 6,500 square yards of canvas – white wings to the extent of nearly one and a half acres.”
Hey. we should expect kites for ships to work as well as windmills to power the grid. What’s the problem?
But the sails are synthetic/carbon fiber…oops… that means petroleum products. Back to hemp and canvas maties!
On some types of cargo ships auxiliary sails world make sense to reduce fuel consumption. Not giant kites which are mechanically complicated.
For container ships- just about no way to put sails on without making loading and unloading more difficult.
But on a large oil tanker? Square sails that can be mechanically deployed and furled to use when the wind is astern would make sense. Provided they could be added cheaply. Same with other bulk carriers.
And as an oh, by the way, dhows are still used in the Mideast. It was really funny watching the crew on a dhow loading a Mercedes on one for transit from Jebel Ali to India. I presume India since the dhow was Indian. Pushing it across planks and boards… I was actually surprised they didn’t end up sinking the Mercedes. I hope there was an actual crane where they unloaded it…
Imagine trying to dodge that kite through the forests of huge offshore wind turbines being established around the world just praying that the wind doesn’t shift a point or two.
Gives the phrase ‘go fly a kite’ new breath.
There would have been one good point to sails…. the proverbial “slow boat from China” would have had Covid done and gone by debarkation.
It’s CNN’s new take on an old joke, namely:
Q: What did socialists use to power their ships before sails?
A: Diesel engines!
Heard from a reliable source that CNN had prepared two more pieces on the use of wind power to reduce polluting emissions. One, an in depth look at wind powered airplanes with sail thrust augmented by battery powered fans and second with a similar application for large trucks and cars.
These forward looking and life saving measures are being championed in the House of Representatives by Hank Johnson, ( D -GA) and the full force of The Squad. From the public sector, the entire cast of The View has thrown their considerable weight behind this ambitious and laudable effort to save the Planet!
“…considerable weight…” indeed.
And Hank “Capsize” Johnson. Well done, Mr. Buffalo!
Here’s a thought: we have lots of illegals, and they are allegedly good at swimming, so we can use them to pull ships across the ocean to earn their green cards.
Two birds, one stone.
Since emissions from international shipping are such a big concern for the left perhaps they will now be willing to join with the populist right and call for reshoring of domestic manufacturing?
One fool proof way to eliminate the emissions resulting from the international shipments of goods between Nations is to make our own stuff here in the USA.
Darn! If ships have to travel the trade lanes again does this mean sharks are going to follow them like history tells us? Don’t fall overboard!
Amazing. How smart men who spend their lives on the sea haven’t considered this option and a thousand other is beyond me.
Is the CNN newsroom just a middle school film project at this point? I had idea of replacing chain saws with jedi light sabers when we had the task of spit balling time saving inventions of future back in middle school if they need ideas for their next story.
“just a middle school film project”
Exactly so. They’ve lived their padded lives doing homework; pseudo-problems contrived to be solvable with the chapter. They’ve been forever told they are clever, and obviously they are: their homework is always right, understood to be from the praise of their curators, and the mutually reinforcing hot takes from their peers’ common ignorance.
Like the captain of that permanent submersible; confident in their engineeringg, they know their math is right. That works until something outside your model leaks in.
Soon we will discover that CNN’s Science Reporter’s actual degree is in “Science STUDIES.”
“Psssssst! Hey, buddy! wanna buy some… ‘steam?’ You never had a high like this’ll give ya!”