SHOOT: You know what they say. The bigger they are, the more likely they are to sink. And then there's, what Kunstler refers to as 'the much-repeated aphorism [that] has circulated around the Web that civilizations build their most extreme monuments at the very moment of collapse.' There you have it.
ON NOVEMBER 30th champagne will be broken over the bow of the world's largest cruise ship. At 225,000 gross tonnes, Oasis of the Seas, one of two identical ships recently built for Royal Caribbean cruises, is 70,000 tonnes more and 21 metres longer than the previous record holder, Freedom of the Seas. By contrast, the Titanic, built by White Star Line nearly a century ago and at the time the largest steam ship ever, measured 269 metres and was less than a fifth of the size of today’s behemoths. The new ship cost Royal Caribbean around $1 billion and has 20 restaurants, 17 bars and lounges, a walk through mock-up of New York’s Central Park and two rock-climbing walls. The ships were planned long before the global downturn: it remains to be seen whether passenger demand for cruise ships will remain strong.
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clipped from www.economist.com
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