These people insist that the Arctic ocean being free of ice in boreal summer is a sign of global warming. Just wait: they'll blame all this nonsense on global warming, too.
That's the thing very few people are saying about this story: it's summertime where those people are. That's why they're doing this now; you don't want to try that kind of expedition when it's local winter, because the temperatures are prohibitively cold and the weather is just drop dead nasty and there's no sunlight.
Yet without even having to look, I know that the mainstream media is reporting this such that the average idiot can see the coverage and say, "Well, why did they go there in winter? Duh! They should have waited for summer!" (The same media that will explain the most obvious stuff in the universe if it wants the viewer to have a thorough understanding of an issue.) Why? So as not to have any deleterious effect on the populace's opinions on man-made global warming, of course.
The whole thing is pretty damned funny, though. It's not just a bunch of greenies getting stuck in ice in summer; it's the metaphor for Man's ability to fight nature that really makes me smile. These people insist that human carbon emissions are causing unnatural climate change, yet humans don't even have enough power to get one ship unstuck from the ice. The people are going to have to be taken off the ship via helicopter, and if conditions don't ease pretty soon the ship is going to suffer the fate of all icebound ships and end up with a crushed hull on the bottom of the Antarctic sea.
I don't wany any of these people to die or be injured and I hope they all get home safe, but I'm still going to laugh at them.