A TINT OF HYSTERIA
NEWS of the Great Barrier Reef’s demise has indeed appeared to be premature – as predicted. Cairns- based environmental science body Tropical Water Quality Hub released exciting news this month in an email titled: Signs of recovery on bleached coral reefs.
This is no surprise to reef operators, climate change sceptics and scientists who urged everyone not to believe the hype about the Reef’s certain doom.
The TWQH said researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science went back to 14 reefs between Townsville and Cairns they surveyed at the height of this year’s bleaching event and saw “significant” recovery.
“The majority of coral colonies on the inshore reefs have regained their colour and some even appear to have developing eggs in their tissues,” said project lead Dr Line Bay.
This evidence is directly in line with the views of James Cook University’s Professor Peter Ridd, who said this year that corals were experts at adapting to changing environments and would recover – as they had done in the past.
But still, Professor Ridd was dismissed by reef doom merchants and has even been threatened with disciplinary action by JCU because of his contrary views. One hopes the university will now apologise unreservedly to Professor Ridd for its treatment of him.
All he did was urge his colleagues to not take such an absolute and alarmist view of reef health.
Hinchinbrook MP Andrew Cripps believes Ridd’s treatment was so bad that he raised it in State Parliament this month and suggested JCU’s administrative procedures should be reviewed.
“I have been offered some explanations for the actions taken by JCU against Peter Ridd, but they were most unsatisfactory to the point of being feeble,” said Mr Cripps.
Marine biologist Walter Starck has spent a lifetime studying marine ecosystems and made the same observations as Professor Ridd in a Quadrant magazine article he wrote last year. Starck is considered by naysayers as a scientific fringe dweller but anyone who challenges the alarmists is always going to be ridiculed and have their credibility questioned. While it’s still early days, news of coral recovery is fantastic for our tourism operators.
Cairns reef dive company Spirit of Freedom has also given activists reason to stand down.
Just last month, the company released a video of Ribbon Reefs, Lizard Island and Osprey Reef.
Shot by Stuart Ireland of Calypso Reef Imagery, it reveals a truly spectacular undersea paradise.
Tourists also appear on the video saying they can’t believe how beautiful the Reef is after what they’d been told about its imminent demise.
Go to vimeo. com/ 229457310 to check it out for yourself.
I can’t wait for Midnight Oil to come back to spread the good news and for my Facebook feed to be cluttered with ecstatic posts from The Greens and GetUp!
Somehow, I think I’ll be waiting a long time.
They’ll still say we must stop human- caused carbon emissions to ensure the recovery continues.
But environmental scientist Bjorn Lomborg has backed opponents of attempts to force us all to toe the man- made global warming line.
In The Australian this week he wrote that if every country honoured its emissions promises, 60 gigatonnes of carbon would be stopped from entering the atmosphere … whereas 6000 gigatonnes needs to be stopped to keep temperature rises below 2C.
Again, all the pain of high power prices and being lectured to and attacked by fanatics is for nought.
Another recent study has backed critics of laboratory tests claiming ocean acidification caused by CO2 emissions is a coral killer.
The critics say the lab tests expose corals to increased CO2 too quickly for the organisms to adapt, therefore exaggerating the results.
Now, in the Nature Communications journal, researchers say they have shown this is the case, and that coral in the wild is able to adapt to changes in ocean composition when they happen gradually.
With all this evidence, we should all be taking the reef alarmists with a grain of salt and rejecting claims that we’re all environmental vandals – especially politicians and the media.