Global Warming (Photo credit: mirjoran)
The expedition/tour headed up by Australian global-warming prophet, perfesser Chris Turney, has had to bunch it. The purpose of the trip was to conduct "research" to measure the impact of man-made global warming on the Antarctic, as well as to "educate" their passengers about these impacts. Instead, of course, their ship became trapped by thick summer irony, and efforts by Chinese, Australian, and French icebreakers to free them have failed.
Now that effort has been ditched, with experts admitting the ice is just too thick. Instead the crew have built an icy helipad, with plans afoot to rescue the 74-strong team by helicopter.
Fortunately for them, the Chinese icebreaker has a chopper. It is, however, too heavy to land on the Australian icebreaker's helipad, and so presumably the "scientists" and their passengers - along with their ship's crew - will have to be stuffed onto the Chinese ship.
Perfesser Turney continues to maintain that the ice is melting; the mark of a good disciple is to never let a few facts (such as his current predicament) stand in the way of the One True Dogma. Perhaps he should stay aboard his ship, as the melting ice will surely refloat it.
