Still, I did not pay much attention. Guys should have been smarter. And then the words 'cruiseship' and 'tourists' are not exactly things that capture my imagination.
How else would you want me to pay attention to, e.g., this?
Just some fellas with way too much money who got fooled into embarking on what looks rather like a dipshit tramp steamer than a 'cruiseship', bound for the Antarctic no less.
And then I picked up that, after an attempt to reach them with a Chinese icebreaker had failed, the people on board had been rescued by helicopter.
And this is what the run of the mill coverage of that endeavour looks like:
Still some tourists huh, rescued from just some ship that got, alas, stuck in the ice?
Then today I finally got acquainted with the REAL STORY. And after having read it, it dawned on me just WHY we heard repeated ad nauseam that the whole undertaking was simply some Club Med variant in Antarctica: the ship in question was not a 'cruiseship'. It was a ship of FOOLS.
Global Warming Fools.
There's a lot of coverage from bloggers, NOT from the MSM of course, and I found this article by American Thinker's Thomas Lifson among the best:
SHIP OF WARMIST FOOLS.
"Warmist dupes and true believers in the media are having a very hard time with the hilarious spectacle of a ship of literal fools who were so deluded by the warmist cult as to believe it was safe to venture into the Antarctic waters in a vessel that was not an icebreaker. The "scientific expedition" was intended to document the comparative paucity of ice in the area first explored by Douglas Mawson a century ago. As nearly everyone connected to the media on the planet now knows, the Spirit of Mawson voyage, as the organizers dubbed their chartered Russian ship the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, became stuck in ice and needed rescue. Adding to the comedy, the Chinese icebreaker that rescued them is now itself stuck in the ice that was supposed to be melting.
But because the media are themselves mostly committed to protecting the warmist cult from skeptics, an astonishing 98% of media reports neglect to mention the purpose of voyage, instead calling the passengers "tourists" and other such non-incriminating descriptors. Mike Ciandella writes for the Media Research Institute:
The Russian ship, Akademic Shokalskiy, was stranded in the ice while on a climate change research expedition, yet nearly 98 percent of network news reports about the stranded researchers failed to mention their mission at all. Forty out of 41 stories (97.5 percent) on the network morning and evening news shows since Dec. 25 failed to mention climate change had anything to do with the expedition.
In fact, rather than point out the mission was to find evidence of climate change, the networks often referred to the stranded people as "passengers," "trackers" and even "tourists," without a word about climate change or global warming.
Chris Turney, the expedition's leader, is a professor of climate change at the University of New South Wales. According to Turney's personal website, the purpose of the expedition is to "discover and communicate the environmental changes taking place in the south."
Ignoring this key element of the voyage is in effect lying. Yet it is pervasive, a demonstration of operating as propaganda organs in furtherance of a cult that has failed to deliver the doomsday upon which it is premised.
Yet, in this age of social media and alternative news sources, the media cofferdam has been so unsuccessful that true believers are driven to distraction. Witness MSNBC's Chris Hayes: Charlie Spearling of the Washington Examiner describes his on-air near-meltdown (pardon the pun):
"The right wing had a field day, pointing and laughing at the global warming believers, who just to be clear, are only a group of scientists risking their lives for no monetary gain and little glory in order to help save the planet," he said defensively.
Actually they aren't just a "group of scientists." Many are wealthy eco-tourists, paying handsomely for the opportunity to brag to their friends about their dedication to reversing the pending inferno. Pierre Gosselin notes:
What made the expedition even more dubious is that Turney and his team brought on paying tourists in what appears to have been an attempt to help defray the expedition's costs and to be a source of cheap labor. According to the AAE website, the expedition was costed at US$1.5 million, which included the charter of the Akademik Shokalskiy to access the remote locations. "The site berths on board are available for purchase." Prices start at $8000!
The expedition brought with it 4 journalists, 26 paying tourists.
Here it seems that the obvious risks and hazards of bringing tourists to the world's harshest environment in a budget-priced vessel unable to handle ice-breaking may have been brushed aside, or at least played down. Was this reckless on the part of the expedition? That Antarctica is a harsh environment was in fact known to expedition leader Chris Turney: Bild online here quotes Turney: "In the Antarctic the conditions are so extreme that you can never make forecasts." Is this an environment you'd want to bring unfamiliar tourists in - on a vessel that cannot even break ice?
As an expedition to Antarctica is nothing less than an extreme adventure in every sense, employing guides who are highly trained professionals would seem a must when tourists are involved. Scientists are not tour guides. Many of the passengers were there for the very first time and had zero experience with the region's conditions. It seems reckless to me.
I don't wish these fools ill, and hope that a second rescue will free them and their Chinese rescuers. The carbon footprint they and their rescuers are generating is troubling, IF you believe the gospel of warmism. But they may have embarked upon a classic tragedy, the kind that is dependent on hubris."
And how does the Belgian paradigm of quality journalism, the De Standaard newspaper, cover the affair? I just checked it out on Google and I may be wrong, but the last article they seem to have posted was article dated 31 December, by DS editor Jozef Leysen:
'SINGING EXPEDITION MEMBERS: 'WE ARE STUCK ON ANTARCTICA'.
Celebrating New Year's Eve on a stranded ship, stuck in the sea. Not really an attractive prospect. But members of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition can appreciate the humour of it. They don't lose hope and sing a jolly song on YouTube. 'it's great to do science on Antarctica', they sing. 'lots of snow and ice, lots of pincguins, which is great fun'. Furthermore they sing about the resuce attempts, a Chinese helicopter which flew over and the French who tried to save them.'
Here you can watch the global warming idiots live:
Memo to Jozef Leysen: congrats loser, your lame piece which misses the point COM-PLE-TE-LY must be about the most gullible, factless, pointless, sloppy and to-tal-ly superfluous item currently on the web regarding the Akademik Shokalskiy.
If this is quality journalism then Kate Upton is a rocket scientist.
Speaking of Kate Upton....
Well, it appears even she couldn't melt all that ice.
Still, if I'd have to rely on scientific advice regarding Antarctica, I can just as well listen to her - prolly better - than to Prof Chris Turney.
MFBB.
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