Bystander sparks debate after sharing image of luxury yacht's unusual design: 'The most ugly yacht on the water'

A group of Redditors dedicated to admiring yachts found themselves scratching their heads over the peculiar design of one craft.

One person shared a photo of the boat in question, which had eye-catching irregularly shaped window cutouts on several decks.

"What's the name and [whose] is it?" they asked. "SS Fugly," one person joked in response.

Others quickly found the boat's name and owner. One linked to the details page on Superyacht Fan, which publishes information about superyachts around the world. It identified the craft as the Artefact, owned by Mike Lazaridis, the BlackBerry co-founder who is worth $600 million.

The Artefact, according to Superyacht Fan, is 263 feet long, boasting six guest cabins and 12 crew cabins. It was purchased for $150 million and takes $10-15 million to operate annually.

But its impressive size and cost didn't win the love of Redditors. One person called it "the most ugly yacht on the water."

And, as others pointed out, yachts such as this are ugly in more ways than one. There has been growing resentment over the materialism of the world's uber-wealthy — not just because they create flagrant displays of wealth inequality, but also because of the waste and environmental pollution they generate.

The International Energy Agency calculated that the world's top 1% of super-emitting people generate carbon footprints over 1,000 times bigger than the world's poorest 1%. Much of this is attributable to the ways that the wealthy live and travel — i.e., largely and expensively.

"The damage is done by those with a lot of money and the cost is borne by those with very little money," Stefan Gössling, a researcher at Sweden's Linnaeus University, told PBS.

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Jonathan Westin, director of Climate Organizing Hub, emphasized the point, saying, "They are clinging to their private jets and oil profits while regular people see increasing floods, hurricanes and wildfires." And indeed, all three have increased if hurricanes are categorized as "major hurricanes."

On average, each private flight generates more carbon pollution in two hours than the IEA's estimate of the average person's yearly 4.7 tons of pollutants, per a study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

And in an era in which the everyday consumer is being called upon to reduce their consumption and spend responsibly in order to cut down on their own pollutive footprint, many demand that the wealthiest among us do the same.

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