UK: Times adverts on "climate change" inaccurate

Wrong.

Last year, The Times ran a series of advertisements showing a ship passing through icy waters and claiming:

“Climate change has allowed the Northeast Passage to be used as a commercial shipping route for the first time.”

Unfortunately, it isn’t true, as The Register points out:

In fact, the North East Passage opened in 1934, and was opened to overseas traffic after the fall of the Soviet Union. Modern technology, specifically radar, has permitted a safer passage in recent years.

The UK Advertising Standards Authority received 29 complaints, and slapped down The Times, which agreed to change the wording:

“Climate change has allowed the Northeast passage to be more accessible as a viable commercial shipping route.”

Just another in a long line of examples of climate change spin, and a rare occasion on which it has been actually called out.

Read it here.

PS. This was an informal ruling, so unfortunately there is no adjudication on the ASA web site (although you can find the details here, under the Informal Resolved Cases tab)