Unlabeled vessel draws attention after surfacing in peaceful village harbor: 'Somebody with a lot of money'

A photo of a giant yacht docked in Portofino is getting a lot of attention online, but not necessarily for good reason.

In a post in a popular yacht Reddit thread, one user shared a picture of the massive vessel and asked if anyone knew who owned it. The yacht was flying a Maltese flag, which usually means it's registered offshore. But instead of figuring out whose yacht it is, the post consists of comments either claiming it as theirs jokingly or calling out the wastefulness behind these large boats.

No matter who owns it, the bigger problem is the huge environmental cost tied to vessels like this. According to reports, the world's largest 300 yachts pump out about 285,000 tons of carbon pollution every year — that's roughly equal to the pollution of about 61,957 typical passenger cars, based on U.S. EPA estimates that one car releases around five tons of carbon annually.

And that's just pollution. Yachts also use massive amounts of fuel, fresh water, and other resources, while sometimes damaging marine ecosystems just by cruising through them.

Even just renting a yacht like this does damage. Listings on Charter World show that ships like this one, which some believe is the Resilience, can cost around $650,000 a week to charter — before you add food, fuel, or tips for the crew. That's a lot of money (and resources) for just a handful of people to enjoy.

There are cleaner options starting to pop up, like Silent-Yachts, a company building luxury boats that run mostly on solar power. Groups like SeaLegacy are also pushing to protect the oceans from pollution and overuse. These are the businesses that will better our experience both on vacation and on the planet in general.

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"Somebody with a lot of money obtained at the expense of people working for subsistence wages or slave labor," one person wrote.

"I asked all my coworkers at McDonalds. It's not any of us," another joked.

"Imagine holding the power to change lives in the palm of your hands and you make this choice with your resources," one commenter said.

People are connecting luxury lifestyles with real environmental impacts now, and more people are paying attention to what happens when the ultra-rich prioritize assets over the environment.