From WUWT on October 7th: The surprising real story about this year’s Northeast passage transit: The media botched it
One newspaper is making the most of this “first ever event”, according to a story in the UK Register:
The Times has liberally papered London underground carriages with a fascinating new ad campaign. One poster shows a ship navigating some treacherous icy waters, with the accompanying copy reading:
Climate change has allowed the Northeast Passage to be used as a commercial shipping route for the first time.
The Times advertisment
Impressive – if only it were true.
In fact it wasn’t, and now the Times has been forced to recant:
From The Register
An advertising campaign touting the depth and quality of the Times newspaper’s environment coverage has been slapped by an industry watchdog for inaccuracy. The paper has agreed to modify the advertisements, which are based on a false climate change claim.
The Times ads claimed that global warming had caused the North East shipping passage, the icy Arctic route which in summer links Russia’s European ports to the Bering Strait, to be opened for the first time. In fact, the North East Passage opened in 1934, and was opened to overseas traffic after the fall of the Soviet Union. Modern technology, specifically radar, has permitted a safer passage in recent years.
Read the entire story here at The Register
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Hu McCulloch (04:36:44) :
In fact, the North East Passage opened in 1934, and was opened to overseas traffic after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Register article provides no source for this claim. I have no reason to doubt it, but can someone provide a link with more detail?
Hu McCulloch (04:44:37) :
In answer to my question, the Wikipedia Northeast Passage article does confirm commercial use of the NEP from 1935 to the end of the Soviet era. Wiki isn’t authoritative, but at least this is a start.
I found this short history of the NE passage last year when the claim of unprecedented access came up in warmist propaganda.
http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol03/tnm_3_2_1-17.pdf
It includes numbers for tonnage for length of season and tonnage shipped from 1934 thru 1987.
Here are comments I made regarding the BBC’s treatment of the story, in WUWT’s Oct. 7 thread on the topic, “The surprising real story about this year’s northeast passage transit: The media botched it”, here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/07/the-surprising-real-story-about-this-years-northeast-passage-transit/
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From the story I read two days ago they were assisted by two nuclear-powered icebreakers, not one. Other points:
All these Beluga company vessels were built specially reinforced against ice. They thus, presumably, cost more than ordinary vessels and have less cargo capacity.
It would be risky to have sent ordinary vessels through the route in company with them currently, since ordinary hulls and propellers would likely get dented and dinged by small ice debris left in the wake of an icebreaker.
The two Beluga vessels that transited the Passage made their voyage because they were delivering heavy equipment from a manufacturer in Asia to a Siberian port. They then continued westwards to their homeport in Europe. They were not doing so because the NE passage to Europe is shorter and more economical.
They had to wait in port in Asia (paying crew’s wages and port fees) for weeks before they got the green light from the Russians that the coast was the clearest it was going to get, and that their icebreakers were available. And speed was reduced during the portion of the voyage that required the icebreakers to clear a path ahead. These factors mean the route is not nearly economical yet for ordinary shipping.
The Passage will only be as open as it was for a couple of weeks. Thereafter traversal will get harder. There’s only a brief open window at present.
The BBC story didn’t mention that arctic ice extent has risen over the last two years. It spoke exclusively of a declining long-term trend and implied, by the choice of persons it quoted, that ice extent would continue to retreat until the Passage is open year-round:
“The steady rise in temperatures over the last 20 years has seen the ice thin and retreat substantially. This means that the passage may soon become navigable for most of the year. Dr Peter Wadhams, of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, UK, said that the long sought dream of a North East shipping route “could become reality in as little as 10 years time”. … Dr Wadhams said that satellite images showed arctic sea ice receding towards the North Pole at a rate of 5% per decade.”
Al Gore’s Holy Ghost (05:30:44) : To pay your salary, as all newspapers are broke, they have to sold its principles and convictions to the bankers who sponsor “global warming” worldwide, so they are not noble institutions.
Up to now it seems funny but when desperate mobs of the unemployed or affected by green policies set your office in fire it will not.
A month ago the Times published this claim:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6945249.ece
The problem is that on the same day the BBC published an article retracting that very claim:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8442255.stm
I wrote to the Times Environment editor to remind them of the mistake but received not even an automated reply.
Anthony: In case you have not seen this……..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1241049/BBC-announces-review-science-coverage-month-revealed-ignored-Climategate-leaked-emails.html
HereticFringe (07:48:09) :
“I just saw on the news that London is getting slammed by global warming, with lots of it on the ground and many businesses shut down.”
If you could select any part of the UK for a good slammin’ you couldn’t do better than London, the seat of parliament. It might focus a few minds on a thorny little matter of energy policy, now that OfGen admit they got their costing figures wrong in an earlier report. Apparently they “only” predicted a doubling of energy costs by 2020, to £2,000 per household. They have now acknowledged that the true figure will be closer to £5,000.
No doubt Brown will remain firm, pacing the cabinet office, shouting orders to “shoot all deserters and saboteurs.”
The BBC naval gazes:
On the subject of media bias and misrepresentation, the BBC is now under investigation by – you guessed it – the BBC!
The BBC trust is reviewing the “accuracy and impartiality” of its coverage of science – and in particular – global warming, delivered by the Corporation. Read here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/06/bbc-trust-science-impartiality-review
And also here:
http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/537053.php
It is said to take 11 months – just enough time for it to reshape its editorial line…
“An advertising campaign touting the depth and quality of the Times newspaper’s environment coverage…”
Being a complete fabrication, it seems quite appropriate to its stated purpose, no?
Northwest passage
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9A05E6DB113AE733A25753C1A9649D946497D6CF
With Nelson’s telescope, mayhap.
sHx (09:28:58) : Please tell them that the UN’s IPCC theory on global warming it is contradicted by UN’s FAO, here:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/
08/11/2003 10:27a.m. 241,945 y2787e08.pdf
Tell them to download this PDF and look at the graph on page 50, there it is depicted a forecast of temperatures´anomalies to the year 2010.
Typo: To the year 2100 (thanks!)
Somebody smart with video making should have reproduced the ASA polar bear ad, but with one falling polar bear for each person who traveled to copenhagen, at the end showing many square miles of polar bear several feet deep.
As AGW vanishes into the dust bin of history, I wonder if stations like the discovery channel will go bankrupt. They have thousands of wonderful programs, but at the end of each and every program, no matter what the subject matter of the program is they always have the last 5 minutes dedicated to how global warming is destroying whatever it is the show was about. They will have to pay an army of people to edit out the last 5 minutes of every program.
Jones, you bungled it:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e08.pdf
DirkH (11:04:11) : Thanks!
Mario Nelson (04:44:05) : “I just read today in the Times that the film Avatar will save the planet!”
I read the article. Looks to me like the author is poking fun at the heavy-handed eco-propaganda of the film.
Piers Corby says:
It’s not a cold
SNAP –
It will go
ON & ON
It waspredicted
by WeatherAction
6 months ago
Full chapter and verse on this appeared at the time on Richard North’s forensic blog, eureferendum: http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/09/triumph-for-propaganda.html
Richard is currently hard on the heels of Rajendra Pachauri and his financial dealings, check for a daily progress report.
http://www.eureferendum.blogspot.com/
Last weekend there was a bad storm over the Canadian maritimes and a storm surge did heavy damage to seaside cottages in northeastern New Brunswick. On Canadian news Global TV news, the Kevin Neuman news report, Kevin reported the surge was a result of rising sea levels from the melting Arctic.
So you Brits aren’t the only ones standing on the podium with I will say, dumb news.
climategatestuff (06:41:56) :
“Nope, the website of the British Fascist party should not get more coverage, regardless of the subject matter”.
————————
Think you should be more concerned with the global fascist dictatorship the international banking elites are attempting to implement through the UN and its spawn: IPCC (climate), WHO (health scares), IMF/World Bank (financial terrorism), etc.. Corruption everywhere. Really, don’t mean to be rude, but concentrate on the bigger problem – the little guys standing up for their own countries will be crushed under the fascist boot just as surely as all ‘enemies of the planet’ , when and if these people have their way.
They’ll probably have a ‘special place’ for WUWT readers. Only joking!
And what you’re talking about: “should not get more coverage” sounds like censorship to me.
And here’s another e.g., of Greenie comeuppance:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/anti-whaling-speedboat-wrecked-in-collision-with-whalers/
Sea
PredatorShepherd’s anti-whaling speed-boat looked a lot more scarry than she was dangerous, as they discovered to their own dismay.(another link to the video in case the other goes away)
-laughs maniacally-
oh, the times…
The NE passage opened for commercial shipping in 1934 and until recently only due to the assistance of Russian icebreakers. So it was open, but with a pretty serious caveat. The Times is guilty of being ignorant of this fact. [snip] the NE passage has only been ice free on occasion and in the summer until recently i.e. in the last few years. Dodgy Geezer, did you make these details clear in your complaint? It’s not at all clear from your comments if you did. If so, maybe this is why you’re left underwhelmed by the “retraction”.
Brits – do us all a favor and round up all your Greenie Elites and take them to the London Towers and get some of those old torture mechanisms operating again. It would produce some real Green Jobs that would be of great benefit to humanity.
There is a competition at the moment that allows you to vote for the best new words of the year in the Macquarie Dictionary:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/6643072/search-for-noob-word-of-the-year/
I note “climate change deniers” feature. But so also does media punking which is tricking the media into believing a false story. There is no doubt who easily wins the academy award as media punk of the decade but it seems that we obviously need a new word for the media tricking the public into believing a false story (on global warming?).