As of Jan. 4, a Russian research vessel was still locked in ice near Antarctica. TV news placed it 1,700 miles south of the city of Hobart in Tasmania. Civilian tourist passengers were airlifted to safety by helicopter.

Here is the fascinating fact: it is summer in Antarctica. That would be like July at the North Pole, yet Chinese and Australian ice breaker vessels have not been able to get to that research vessel. The ice they have been trying to plow through is reported to be 10 feet thick.

Yet that is outside the Antarctica circle. What if it were winter down there? Imagine how far north the ice pack would be.

How did the Russian research vessel happen to go so far south? Did its crew get taken in by all the global warming propaganda?

Having heard about all those endangered polar bears and having seen all that open sea water up north, did they assume that reports of global warming were actually true?

What an education those tourists got.

Harvey Lord, South Paris