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.

(via Powerline)

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.