Martha Stewart left a sour taste in some critics’ mouths with an Instagram post on Tuesday that showed her drinking a cocktail made with ice she suggested was from an iceberg during a cruise around Greenland.
Following the backlash to the lifestyle magnate’s pictures, a spokesperson for the cruise line Swan Hellenic told HuffPost it was suspending its practice of bringing “small fragments of floating ice on board” to be examined by guests.
In a statement on Wednesday, the representative said the company never authorized “any invasive acquisition that does not fully respect the polar environment in accordance with our own strict rules and rigorous industry standards.”
“Regardless, we understand this can appear insensitive to the climate crisis and therefore, we will be suspending this practice with immediate effect on all ships in the Swan Hellenic fleet,” the spokesperson added.
Stewart faced a barrage of criticism over her post, which she captioned: “We actually captured a small iceberg for our cocktails tonight.”
She also shared photos of a large chunk of ice on display on the vessel.
It’s unclear whether her drink actually included ice from the piece of floating iceberg that was brought aboard, or whether she was just being tongue-in-cheek with her comment. A representative for Stewart did not immediately return HuffPost’s request for comment.
“I generally love Martha and the excesses of her life because she’s about beautiful gardens, homes, and food, but wealthy white people drinking their iceberg cocktails while the planet is in flames is a bit tone-deaf,” one person commented on her post.
Added another: “Martha the ice caps are melting don’t put them in your drink.”
“You should have left the ice right where it was. You have heard of global warming haven’t you,” wrote a third.
Glaciologists played down any possible environmental impact, though.
“It is not like she went to a glacier and carved a piece of ice off it,” Eric Rignot, a professor at the University of California at Irvine, told The Washington Post. “Icebergs float at sea already and slowly melt. Whether they melt in the ocean or in your glass does not make a difference.”
Stewart could instead have spotlighted “the beauty of the place and how sad it is to know that it is melting away,” Rignot said.
Ian Allison, a professor at the University of Tasmania, said the impact would actually be “zero (or at least no greater than the beating of butterflies’ wings in the Amazon).”
“Popping a bit of ice into a drink is no worse than taking a glass of water from a river,” Allison told the Post.