Fox Nation Punks Itself with Global Warming "News" Story

Jeeze, Fox Nation ran this story yesterday, and I've yet to see any other outlet pick it up. You would think that a thing like this would have been more widely reported…

Famed global warming activist James Schneider and a journalist friend were both found frozen to death on Saturday, about 90 miles from South Pole Station, by the pilot of a ski plane practicing emergency evacuation procedures.

Oh, wow. That's really sad to hear. Thank you, Fox Nation, for bringing this sorrowful and somewhat suspiciously ironic story to light. But what was this famous activist whom I've never heard of doing down there in the first place?

One friend of Prof. Schneider told ecoEnquirer that he had been planning a trip to an ice sheet to film the devastation brought on by global warming. His wife, Linda, said that she had heard him discussing the trip with his environmental activist friends, but she assumed that he was talking about the Greenland ice sheet, a much smaller ice sheet than Antarctica.

"He kept talking about when they 'get down to chili', and I thought they were talking about the order in which they would consume their food supplies", Mrs. Schneider recounted. "I had no idea they were talking about Chile, the country from which you usually fly or sail in order to reach Antarctica."

Oh, wow. That's really… kind of pretty unbelievable. I don't wanna not trust you, Fox Nation, just because you're Fox Nation, but, um… I'm gonna check with Snopes on this one…

The above-referenced ironic tale of a global warming activist's freezing to death in Antarctica was presented on the Fox Nation web site as a straightforward news story on 29 March 2010. However, the original source for the story (which is linked from the Fox site) was a 2006 article from ecoEnquirer.com, a satirical site featuring spoof articles such as "Court Orders Fisherman to Apologize to Eagle" and "Penguins 'Fed Up' with Media Attention."

You know what they say, Fox Nation. The best April Fools jokes are the ones you play on yourself. (Do they say that? I don't know, maybe.)

Update: It seems that Fox Nation accidentally deleted this highly important news story from their site. Whoops! Don't worry, Fox Nation. Google kept a cached version of the page for you. (Thanks for the heads up, siskita and KT.)

Hillary Clinton: Tourism in Anarctica Is Simply Out of Control

Ah, bummer. Looks like you're gonna have to cancel your long-awaited summer vacation, watching penguins huddle for warmth and dodging dangerously underfed polar bears in the coldest place on Earth…

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for tighter controls over tourism and other forms of pollution in Antarctica Monday, arguing for greater global cooperation to help preserve the continent's environmental and scientific research value.

Addressing a joint session of the Arctic Council and the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, Clinton said the Obama administration is concerned about the growing popularity of tourism in the southern polar region.

I suppose, you can always go with your fallback plan: that cute little cottage in the Atacama desert. (Bring a water bottle.)