If You Can't Save It, Sell It

At last something positive is being done about the state of the Arctic. The difficulties caused by melting ice, habitat loss and likely international squabbles about ownership are all tediously well-known by now; but a holiday company called Crystal Cruises is nevertheless taking a healthy entrepreneurial approach and exploiting the region for the amusement of wealthy idiots. The cruise liner Crystal Serenity will transport a thousand tourists from Alaska to New York via the Northwest Passage, offering a casino, six restaurants and a cinema for when boredom sets in with snowy scenery and guided tours of an exotic ecosystem, or whatever is left of it. For the benefit of any Republicans aboard, the company's website makes clear that the Arctic is not the same as the Mediterranean and is also subtly different from the Caribbean; it is to be hoped that such educative measures will offset the damage done by further human intrusion into the wilderness, at least until Crystal Cruises have accumulated a suitable profit.