Mainstream media desperately needs writers clever enough to look at "northeast passage" search engine results

Reopening the Northeast Passage, Thanks to Global Warming - TIME

Shunning conventional shipping routes between Asia and Europe in what appears to be the first commercial navigation via the treacherous Arctic sea-lane, Beluga, the shipping company behind the voyage, said in a statement that "we are all very proud" to have "successfully transited the legendary Northeast Passage."
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Even with global warming, the route will be viable for just a couple of months each summer, and only then by spending tens of thousands of dollars on chartering Russian icebreakers to help clear the way. What's more, cargo ships would themselves need to be "ice class": built with an extra layer of steel at roughly 15% more than the cost of a regular vessel, reckons Kamar Zaman, a director at London-based shipping consultants Drewry.

[Some debunking here]

It has been commercially exploited since 1935 when four cargo motor ships passed through the route during a single navigation season. In 1936, warships of the Baltic Fleet successfully arrived in the Far East. Russia, we are told, has invested enormous material and human resources in exploring and equipping this route. Powerful icebreakers and icebreaking cargo ships have been constructed, navigational and hydrometeorological systems established. And furthermore, up until the end of the 80s, the Arctic transportation system was self-supporting. The volume of sea traffic reached 7 million tons in 1987.