The Sydney Morning Herald goes full Coral Reef Seer — predicting not just the end of the vast Great Barrier Reef, but the complete loss of the entire world’s coral reefs. That’s a quarter to a half million square kilometers of reef, gone, pfft, destructo, just like that.
The basis for the prophesy is a set of photos taken last week from one point at the southern edge of the Great Barrier Reef. Apparently, like tea leaves and chicken entrails, this spot has magical forecasting abilities.
Prophesy by Mike Foley, SMH
The photos that show nothing so far has saved the Great Barrier Reef
Australia’s climate targets must be bolstered to meet the global action needed to prevent the complete loss of the world’s coral reefs, experts warn, after the fifth mass bleaching event off Queensland’s coast since 2016.
So last year for the second year in a row, the Great Barrier Reef was recorded as having more coral cover than has ever been recorded since data started being collected in 1986.
People who actually dive on the reef to research it find it recovers from mass bleaching in as little as 18 months.
After 37 years of non-stop pollution, there are more corals than ever growing on the Great Barrier Reef.
The first coral reefs evolved 485 million years ago when the world was hotter and CO2 levels were ten times higher.
The worlds temperature has been swinging wildly for three million years. Somehow coral reefs survived this just fine but will be wiped out with another half a degree?
h/t David of Cooyal in Oz
Temperatures estimated from a stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records.
REFERENCE
L. E. Lisiecki and M. E. Raymo (2005) — A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records, Paleoceanography 20, 1003
As wind turbines are seen as talismans to ward off heat and CO2, surely the best way to save the GBR is to install as many as possible all over the reef.
They could even use the limestone from the reef to make the cement for the vast volumes of concrete required. That should magnify the intensity of the protective powers.
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Be careful what you wish for James. Orchid Energy is proposing to install 2 x 3000 MW wind ‘farms’ off the Gladstone – Capricorn Coast in Central Queensland. [See: https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/05/17/orchid-energy-unveils-10-gw-offshore-wind-plans-in-queensland/ ; https://orchidenergy.com.au/projects/ ]. They are to be sited 30-45km off the coast or smack bang in the Curtis Channel. A prime route for the annual migration of humpback whales and their calves. And of course within the GBR Marine Park and inscribed World Heritage Area. Unbelievable! Surely this proposal will be killed off once the Australian people and genuine greenies get “wind” of it. But in the stupid world we now live in – who knows?
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But Bill,
James’ idea is brilliant green.
Think of the whales he’d save!! They already know how to avoid the reef, and it’d probably absorb all those nasty vibrations which drive them to distraction.
Also, the warning lights at the top would save wayward ships from running into to the reef.
Then add a service jetty to each and you’d probably attract lots of seals to sunbake, which would surely please someone.
Cheers
Dave B
51
As always: FOLLOW THE MONEY!
20
The “imminent death of the reef” has been predicted for decades starting with the imaginary problem of the Crown of Thorns Starfish.
As I have pointed out before, warmists are “staticists” for lack of a better word. They think nature and the environment never change, are not subject to natural and periodic cycles and “always have been, always will be”.
Of course, the evidence such as record high coral cover is also “conveniently” ignored as is the fact the bleaching is normal and natural. Bleaching does not represent the death of coral but merely an alteration of the population of present occupants (expulsion of zooxanthellae which produce toxins if the water temperature is temporarily too high).
Finally, did anyone actually bother asking people who actual work or dive on the Reef about its condition, or did they decide it was dying from their desks in Canberra, Sydney and Bejing?
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And why don’t parrotfish which actually eat and destroy coral just like the Crown of Thorns starfish also get blamed for reef destruction? Is it because parrotfish are kind of cute looking and Crown of Thorns are ugly? Of course, along with “ugly” Western Civilisation, “the most evil thing in the world” according to the Left and whom they blame for alleged anthropogenic global warming leading to alleged reef destruction.
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I always thought that the infestation of the reef by the Crown of Thorns starfish was a natural occurence. Just like the migration of birds is a natural occurence. It’s cyclical and happens all the time.
The scare mongers prove yet again that “the emporer has no clothes” every time they utter this idiocy.
My favourite utterance of the last couple of years is Al Gore when he said…”the oceans are boiling!”
PFFFT!
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Just like peoples dead lawns in summer.
They recover when the conditions are right.
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It would be great if the oceans did warm off the coast the People’s Repblic of Victoriastan.
We would have our own coral reefs and could go swimming all year round instead of a few summer months
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It’s barely warm enough to swim there in summer.
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Just another made up, headline seeking drama manufactured by the fear mongering left/green/communist mob. If there is no absurd super big, outrageous drama really happening, they invent one. How anyone can believe these trashy stories is beyond me. It almost eclipses the ‘boiling oceans’ comment from last year. Meanwhile they want to deface the country with wind turbines and solar panels. How many hundreds of tonnes of steel and concrete are permanently embedded in our environment? How much fertile farmland is being polluted and lost? Oh and what happened to Turnbull’s $440 million dollars gift for the Great Barrier Reef?
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Dave, if you read the comments to Mr. Foleys article, it shows there are many, many, uneducated, unresearched believers who swallow the lot hook, line and sinker…..and dare I say it, most have never been to the reef…..Sydney aquarium is about as close as they’ve come….
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Sure, corals recolonise bleached areas, unfortunately they are not the same species or type of coral. Additionally, the colonisers are typically only one species, reducing the diversity which makes the the GBR the wonder that it is
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Bleached corals are not dead. They become unbleached as soon as the zooxanthellae return. The area doesn’t have to be recolonised.
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ok, and this hasn’t been happening for thousands, if not millions, of years, without our intervention?
what’s your point, then?
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It’s the rate of change that is important. Jo’s dated temperature proxy requires the addition of a near-vertical line to +1.5°C at t=0. Not every coral taxa can adapt to change that is that rapid.
230
This is the first thing in the children’s guide to climate change. That it is the rate of the change that is the dangerous part, too quick for evolution to adapt. Simon has been trained well.
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That really nailed him Philip- and without even arguing against what he wrote too.
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Simon didn’t say anything of substance such as EVIDENCE!
LOL!
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We need to focus on the southern zone, because its apparently unprecedented.
‘The body’s Chief Scientist Roger Beeden told the BBC that bleaching in the southern zone though, was the worst in almost 20 years, and could become “unprecedented”.
“It’s too early to say what the full consequences of this event is,” he said. “If the conditions cool, we could see a lot of what’s bleached recover.”
‘Over the past decade the reef has rebuilt itself from other mass bleaching events, severe tropical cyclones, and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, he added.’ (BBC)
40
Unprecedented with a 20 year record, suuuure…….
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Poetic license, 2004 was particularly nasty.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Heat-stress-on-the-GBR-during-austral-summers-of-2004-and-years-when-mass-coral-bleaching_fig1_335126809
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Nothing that a taxpayer-funded “research” grant and “study tour” of a tropical paradise wouldn’t fix.
50
Ha ha ha, the off the sleeve canard that has been uttered many times while ignoring this quote from the post:
How did they manage to survive the massive sea level surge for a few thousand years that should have easily drowned them……
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Mr. tommy: Imagine my surprise when two of the usual suspects showed up to make the CAGW claims that 1) bleaching is reducing diversity; and 2) it’s the rapid change. Two fine examples of CAGW claims they return to because they can’t be disproved. Must be a CAGW clearing house for claims that can’t be disproven to be recycled into comment strings across the globe.
I was worried the third mouseketeer would sleep through it, but Mr. Aye chimed in with a worthy contribution of nothing.
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‘Rate of change’, ok, how do they survive the seasons.
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And yet, just by looking at the graph, you can see multiple times that the temperature has changed by much more than that in just as short a time period.
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There’s rapid temperature change every year … known as Winter and Summer … the reef is millions of years old so it obviously isn’t bothered too much by this change.
30
Who would really know how rapid temperature and climate was more than 500yrs ago. All are some form of modern proxie or local observational documents. Back then life was short and brutal.
30
OMG you’re back again PF. Like a bad smell, I guess you never went away in the first place!
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And clueless as ever, repeating garbage about recolonised coral beds. It’s first in , first served in nature Peter and the same applies to coral regeneration.
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LOL, yet you didn’t back up your “opinion” with anything scientific because you don’t have any and you ignored the articles science paper showing they survived far larger swings in temperature than has been observed in the last few decades.
60
Windmill technology is as dead as the dodo. Coal killed it, which in turn was gravely injured by oil which has been somewhat subdued with the use of natural gas. Nuclear has dented somewhat all of the three.
We have gone from windmills to nuclear power. In sync with that, and because of that, we have gone from a state of abject poverty and a life span of 40 years to the good life we enjoy today. And no, we will never go back. It will be mass suicide.
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“And no, we will never go back. It will be mass suicide.”
True, it feels like that’s what they want, all the alphabet agencies.
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“And no, we will never go back. It will be mass suicide.”
I’m guessing you meant “would” instead of “will”. However “will” works too.
The human race as a whole will never go back to energy generation technologies that have an ERoEI ratio worse than charcoal burning. However that whole doesn’t need to include societies that believe in Gorebull Warbling. Those societies will be committing suicide.
10
A quick point on your visit to natures hidden gem: Albury – Australia’s undiscovered treasure. You have missed the perfect opportunity to go right into the Wolf’s Lair a short jump across to Canberra where you could have given the Reichsfuhrer himself:’Heinrich’ Bowen and the rest of the Canberra SS a lesson in humility and how the real world works.
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Albury was on the short list to become the nations capital I believe .
00
Contrary to popular belief, the Reef is highly adaptable and has “died” and even relocated and regrown multiple times in the past. (Not to say it is dying now.)
And how do warmists account for the fact that it must definitely have done so since about 20,000 years ago when sea levels were 118m lower during the last glacial maximum? (Assuming they actually believe that the world was different in the past.)
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You would have thought the mental pygmies who inhabit the Marxist Religion would scratch their heads and wonder about our fossil corals
How many woke theories does this story about Dorothy Hill tread on. I did not bother to find out if she has ‘First nations’ heritage or was LGBIQ etc. The fact is there was some amazing woman doing science and generally exploring the world in the 1920s & 30s.
There are fossil corals at the back door of James Cook University at what if it is still there was Plant Hill. The area was the source of limestone for the cement works, now extinct.
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Yes, The Age had the same story (paywalled) with a quote from a “reef scientist” as though one photo proves the “Science”.
And of course no reference to the great work of Jennifer Marohasy about the Great Barrier Reef
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Panic is setting in among the climate change boosters. The end is nigh for the greatest hoax ever perpetuated upon the people of the world. Nature and the lived reality is far more potent than all the crooked scientists and ignorant journalists. With the move away from inefficient renewables and back toward reliable and much cheaper base electricity generation those heavily invested in the former can see their trough drying up. Activist journalist fear being exposed as the no nothings they really are. Oh the embarrassment.
Also we have the announcement that the liar in chief, Anthony Albanese, wants to introduce penalties for politicians telling lies while campaigning. He wants to be careful but I suspect he wants to challenge Peter Dutton’s truth about nuclear power versus Bowen’s ridiculous claims. Maybe there will be a distinction between facts and feelings, the latter being sacrosanct whilst the former are negotiable. Much like the SMH report in this blog.
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Climate change data is based on FRAUD, and scientists around the world are pushing back against the narrative
Governments around the world are combating a fictional problem that is blown completely out of proportion when compared to actual issues that people face.
According to three independent scientists with the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences, (CERES) these data flaws are so severe that they render the temperature data — and the models that rely on it — useless. When data corruption is considered, the alleged “climate crisis” disappears. Alex Newman from the Epoch Times covers this corruption in great detail. Man-made activities are not to blame for these temperature changes. Policies that seek to control human activity are totalitarian in nature and based on fraud and hysteria.
“Climate activism has become the new religion of the 21st century — heretics are not welcome and not allowed to ask questions,” said CERES founder and astrophysicist Willie Soon. “But good science demands that scientists are encouraged to question the IPCC’s dogma. The supposed purity of the global temperature record is one of the most sacred dogmas of the IPCC.”
https://www.yourdestinationnow.com/2024/03/climate-change-data-is-based-on-fraud.html
Climate alarmism – the environmental equivalent of cops in helicopters chasing people on beaches during Covid.
Idiotic.
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Unfortunately Lawrie, the end has been nigh for years but those at the trough continue to prop it up – a little like Weekend at Bernies, or perhaps what we are seeing is Peter Sellers’ character’s death at the start of The Party.
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My son has the view that there will be a Nobel prize winner within the next decade for someone involved in making nuclear power appear safer. That will go hand-in-hand with the big investment funds pivoting from wind, solar and hydrogen toward more reliable and cost effective power generation. That will allow the climate scammers to save face and continue with the scam but not so financially destructive. Those still holding the WDG assets will be left high and dry as the subsidy farming is killed off.
Australia could have built three mid size nuclear power plants for the cost of Snowy 2 and those plants would actually produce energy rather than absorb energy.
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RickWill, nice thoughts but Nuclear Reactors are already safe. France relies on Nuclear power designed more than two generations ago (ie over 60 years ago) and there has been no bad incidence there. New nuclear power (4 * 1400MW) which the South Koreans have installed in the UAE recently are still safer, efficient and less relatively costly. The Chinese have nuclear power based on Thorium operating. These are safer still because they shut down automatically with no chance of atmospheric radiation. Australia has a nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney. Although over a generation old it has caused no problems. Apart from Chernobyl in Ukraine there have been less deaths from accidents with nuclear electricity generation than with any other type of generation (including wind turbines and solar). Chernobyl was caused by experimentation in a communist system by scientists and party people with no engineering skills. It had nothing to do with safe design and operation by professional engineers.
40
‘The end is nigh for the greatest hoax ever perpetuated upon the people of the world.’
Unfortunately it has been delayed by H2O in the stratosphere, even the approaching La Nina may not bring temperatures down for a couple of years. As far as the zealots are concerned its game on.
00
I blame the GBRMPA and Cook University for pandering to these dumb headlines for the sake of continued Federal Government funding. Dr Peter Ridd attempted to quell these fears with reality but was ignored by ABC and MSM for political reasons! Malcolm Turdball donated almost half a billion $$$ to the cause that was immediately frittered away on higher salaries
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This is a bargain to compared another of Malcolm’s green wet dreams – the $20 billion Snowy 2.0.
Prime Minister Turdball is the best PM Labor has ever produced.
110
About 7 tonnes of gold.
10
Dr Peter Ridd and Andrew Bolt were laughing about this delusional nonsense this week and Dr Ridd knows more about the GBR than anyone and often helps Dr Marohasy out when she asks for his advice.
So what happened to the world’s reefs during the much hotter Eemian when temps were up to 8 c warmer and SLs were 6 to 9 metres higher than today in 2024?
And Eemian co2 levels then were about 280 ppm, so we know that reducing co2 levels today will achieve NOTHING. Look up the data.
And the cost would be horrendous or many hundreds of TRILLIONs of $ and anyway China, India, Africa etc are not interested in this TOTAL WASTAGE or the idiotic OECD delusions.
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It’s very odd that anyone can claim a simultaneous bleaching across a structure which is 2300km long, stretching from the Torres Strait to Fraser Island across a few degrees in water temperature from top to bottom. And 250km wide, so very different East to West. But it bleaches all at once? That sounds like an event which can be only related to midsummer tropical sunburn from a drop in sea level, not gradual warming.
Coral lives very dangerously, trying to get near the sun which powers it, but runs the perpetual risk like Icarus of flying too close when a change in sea level leaves it dangerously exposed. As Darwin observed, coral atolls are vanished mountains where the coral reef kept growing as the mountain sank. Many are 3km tall, just to stay near the sun. It’s their whole existence, risking sunburn. Bleaching is not exactly rocket surgery.
There is absolutely zero logic in blaming bleaching on human activity. What you can blame on human activity is rent seeking research. Getting paid to fix things in paradise is a dream for most and needs billions of dollars. So I blame the Universities who specialise in grant applications. Say for autonomous reef swimming robots which inject cyanide into living things using vision and artificial intelligence. Great idea. What could go wrong?
And what did happen to Malcom and Lucy Turnbull’s private and unrequested or justified gift to themselves of $444Million (7.5tons of gold) to ‘fix’ the Great Barrier Reef? Without even a request for the money or a plan? Each year we, the taxpayer, have to fork out about $13Million just in interest on the money they were given without any accountability or explanation. The Great Reef Robbery.
So Malcolm, why do we still have bleaching? You took the money to stop the bleaching, surely? And the Crown of Thorns starfish. Where’s our money? Why wasn’t the entire reef covered in a million tons of SP50?
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As a rule, there should be no taxpayer-funded “research” grants to anywhere which is desireable for a holiday location such as an exotic tropical paradise (e.g Great Barrier Reef) or extreme adventure location (e.g. Antarctica).
I’m sick of seeing my hard-earned tax dollars being used to fund the holiday fantasies of public serpents and fake scientists.
240
And I remember US President Barack Obama bemoaning the loss to the world and his grandchildren of the Barrier Reef because of our total lack of responsibility for a reef the size of Germany. After all the aborigines did a great job until we racists turned up.
Meanwhile Barack and Joe Biden were ‘fixing’ Afghanistan. And he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. How did that work out?
And previous Vice President Al Gore also won the Nobel Peace Prize for inventing Climate Change.
Why is there no logic to all this? Everything on the planet is someone’s fault. Apparently.
270
What if everyone is a zombie and there is a human apocalypse?
50
‘Everything on the planet is someone’s fault.’
Perhaps hubris is the worst of the 7 deadly sins.
No Greek tragedy’
without Hubris, Oedipus,
… or human history.
10
Interesting. The following link shows newspaper headlines of the various predicted but unfulfilled apocalyptic events.
Back in the day, people knew of the dangers of Aesop’s Fable #210 Perry Index, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”.
Follow the money trail.
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The SMH claimed that The Great Barrier Reef would be dead by Christmas – in 1971. They are just repeating themselves.
200
A link would be useful.
40
Mike J:
I don’t have access to their archives. In you can, try the August 3, 1971.
00
Those predicting the imminent end of the planet will be right eventually. Like jokes, it’s all in the timing.
90
“They say the captain goes down with the ship, so when the world ends, will God go down with it?”
― Fall Out Boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8dOMADFzx4&ab_channel=musicmadmatt
20
Great piece. Thanks. And good question.
10
BTW Dr Kench has proven that 87% of Coral islands are growing in size or stable. Duvat etc have also checked out and duplicated other studies.
And the recent Dutch satellite study has shown more global coastal land today than 30 years ago.
And Daniel Fitzhenry the Hydrographic surveyor for NSW has used the BOM Fort Denison SL data to prove that there has been little change since 1914.
So where is their so called DANGEROUS GLOBAL WARMING or so called Climate emergency? When will we WAKE UP to their delusional nonsense and BS and fraud?
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Sadly, Prof Paul Kench’s observational science has been ‘disappeared’ from media talking points (for going against the grain of consensus™). Yet only two days ago, 12 March, NIWA announced a stunning find from the depths of the Bounty Trough, east of NZ, where marine biologists discovered more than one hundred “new species, from fish to snails, to corals and sea cucumbers … new to science [including] a new species of octocoral”.
Forget Sharknado™ and the Kraken™, here comes the latest monster from the deep: Octocoral!
It’s as if this salt-water planet is hiding secrets from experts – simply to mock their ignorance.
130
https://discernreport.com/climate-change-data-is-based-on-fraud-and-scientists-around-the-world-are-pushing-back-against-the-narrative/
And The GBR science is precisely the same! It’s being hijacked and subjugated for political purposes.
Today’s Spooner is a kick in the head for Labor and BOB. Their narrative is fading fast along with EVs and windmills etc!
“Expert warnings about the cost of Victoria’s offshore wind plans follow major setbacks with Tanya Plibersek’s veto of the Port of Hastings, and a drastically reduced Southern Ocean wind zone”.
90
Outsiders interviewed Dr Peter Ridd 11 months ago about the GBR and Crown of Thorns scare in the 1960s and yet it was NATURAL and had been a feature for thousands of years. Unbelievable but TRUE.
Dr Ridd also thinks that German voters and USA voters are growing hostile to the so called CC nonsense. See near the end of his interview. I hope he’s right and people quickly start to WAKE UP.
Dr Ridd is a joy to watch because we can see a SANE Scientist explain the Data and evidence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3Ph9QwW5-E
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And that’s why the Liberals (fake conservatives) and now the Labor faction of the Uniparty are so determined to introduce censorship legislation.
My response is at:
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/acma2023-31735-david-s-maddison.pdf
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Hats off to you sir! Thank you for a great submission. The best I could manage was to sign a petition but at least I did that!
40
Thanks Penguinite.
20
When will the climate clowns give up, the reefs imminent death has been done to death, the reef isn’t in any peril whatsoever, they’ve lost the argument so what’s their problem.
110
But this time there really is a wolf!
10
“When will the climate clowns give up,”
They will never give up, as Peter Ridd explains, their funding depends on it.
90
A bit like Hamas. The world’s most subsidized city and derelict Gaza needed to be in the news. The four people who run the place are worth $2.5Bn each and live in Qatar. It lives on an endless cycle of violence and subsidy and the entire population are human shields.
But it’s all about the money, the gifts, the billions. But all the cash creates a cycle of cruelty and cash which is the new economy.
Think of all the great Eastern cities which are now smoking ruins thanks to Islamic violence and extremism. Aleppo in Syria was one of the world’s oldest cities. St. Paul walked the streets. It has been barrel bombed out of existence and the world does not notice. And Beirut, the Paris of the East is a ruin. The fertilizer they used to make bombs ended up destroying the entire harbour and food supply.
But the international politicization and sensationalization of the weather is even worse. It’ all about the money, rivers of money.
Anyone who suggests the vast coral reefs (hundreds of them) are suddenly dying is just chasing more Climate Change.
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The huge issue with this sort of reporting, is that we have somebody who is totally incompetent and or biased writing articles which are only fit as toilet paper. And his or her editor has abandoned any principles of truth, accuracy etc and just lets this garbage go through.
The fact that this completely incorrect article (and many like it) is allowed for publication is a serious concern.
But, we now have a situation where everybody on the warmist, govt, bureaucracy, education side is lying and perpetuating the lie. And good Leftists see their mission as to perpetuate what all their leaders are saying, regardless of its accuracy or truth.
As we saw with the Soviet Union, this was able to be maintained for a surprisingly long period.
At some stage this will all have to collapse, but huge damage will have been done in the meantime.
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Shame on you for possibly misgendering the author of this “scientific” article.
Never use his or her.
Next time use “ou’s editor”!
https://uwm.edu/lgbtrc/support/gender-pronouns/
40
Here’s another old English saying “bollocks”
110
Hear hear.
60
I feel offended by the incorrect use of language. For example, it is offensive of the ‘woke’ to try to force me to use ‘they’ for a single person. It is either ‘he’ or ‘she’, or ‘it’ if really pushed. ‘They’ just sounds ignorant.
Likewise, it is ‘his’ or ‘hers’ or ‘its’; definitely not ‘their’ for a single person.
It’s time to stand up to all this wokerey; in fact, far beyond.
180
Why is coral reef alarmism only found in woke Australia?
80
But corals grow well in the hot Red Sea (32C). Of course instead of concluding that corals are adaptable, the journalists want to interfere in nature because they are so clever. Who needs ecologists or even adaptable coral when you have journalists who believe nature is stupid. I can think of another conclusion.
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The Saudi Green Initiative is Saudi Arabia’s whole-of-government approach to combat climate change.
So like Australia, a major exporter of CO2 in coal and iron ore, it’s our caring for corals which compensates.
Sure. Except it is just a pair of pollocks.
80
Those ecologists aren’t much better.
20
There is mild alarm in the US and note El Nino is implicated.
‘Florida’s Coral Reef experienced the worst coral bleaching event ever recorded during the Summer of 2023. Coinciding with an El Niño year, unusually hot waters started in mid-July, a month earlier than the typical peak heating months of August and September.’
(Florida Fish And Wildlife Conservation Commission)
00
I don’t care if the reef dies to be honest. I do because I like nature and it supports an industry of tourism. But like it made no difference that the Dodo died, ecologically it is insignificant. If the sun gets blocked by mad scientists (the new God), and ecosystem functions fail, that I care about.
But if an ecosystem dies, it’s just replaced by another because the functioning factors aren’t stopped, they always go on, just produce a different result. Think fall trees, grass grows.
92
I don’t care if the reef dies to be honest. — Then I’m sorry for you Philip. But first let me say that I have had the extreme good fortune to fish and/or snorkel the GBR for 1-3 weeks each year from 2002 – 2023. It is a magic place, especially if you have enjoyed near ‘glass-out’ days in the Swain or Capricorn – Bunker Group of coral cays and reefs. Heaven is sunset after a great day fishing while quaffing a cool white to wash down a fresh BBQ’d coral trout or red throat emperor. Put it on your bucket list if you are at all able to do so.
Yes, just as Dorothea Mackellar taught us about ‘My Country’ – the vagaries of its landscape and its climate (‘of droughts and flooding rains’) so too does this variability impact our ‘jewel-sea’. The first harbinger of impending doom for the GBR was Dr Robert Endean who lectured (harangued) my U of Q undergrad class about the dreaded COTS (Crown of Thorns Starfish) in 1960. Endean wasn’t dumb in working the system as his innumerable postgrad students enjoyed the funding largesse he attracted with this caper over ensuing years. And the GBR funding floodgates subsequently widened and opened until the chicken little bonanza of CAGW/Climate Change evolved into the monster it is today.
Actually, I first visited the Bunker Group of coral cays in the mid 1950’s. They were magic then and remain so today. Sure, we have had bleaching and massive cyclones over the GBR since that time, but just like most organisms it is resilient and persists. Not one Reef Cassandra ever reminds their audience that the GBR was dry land 6-8000 years ago. Such a short time frame for such a diverse and complex ecosystem to (re)evolve in. But you have difficulty getting that perspective through to the youth of today who seemingly are taught ‘that history began on the day they were born’. A perfect base to implant the porky of CAGW!
80
“Another Major Chinese Property Developer Is In Trouble”
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2024/03/13/another-major-chinese-property-developer-is-in-trouble-n3784659
30
The climate alarmist zealots need to keep the scam ticking along, so hence the occasional inflammatory article like this one. They need to keep the populace misinformed. Or is it disinformed? Whatever. The climate green blob saw first hand how the great COVID pandemic pysop played out and they were really jealous. I mean, the alarmists have been out there for decades with their doomsday predictions and a great chunk of the population are still skeptical. But wow, the level of COVID alarm generated by governments and private sector in such a short time was seriously impressive. 2 weeks to flatten the curve anyone? So much, that the majority of the western nations were forced to cower away for months/years in lockdowns in an “abundance of caution”. We already have the WHO talking about climate change as the next big thing in world population health. I’ve even heard the saying ” climate lockdowns” bandied about. Travel restrictions are already in place in Europe (take train instead of 2 hr plane flight), 15 minute cities and endless carbon/ nitrogen restrictions are either being discussed or implemented by a host of countries, including Australia. So, of course the corals are still dying on the GBR and it’s all caused by climate change. I read about it in the SMH- must be true.
40
With the CCP economy going over a cliff and Blackout Bowen destroying Australia’s energy sector,these climate change alarmists and I’m afraid,poor Australians are going to experience first hand what no mineral ,fossil fuel export goverment income is going to feel like. Get ready for an all mighty CRASH, yes and that includes housing.
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Uncomfortable Net Zero Truth Bombs Dropped on the BBC
Malcolm Roberts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi-AZbByHck
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Everything is based on a single idea, that fossil fuel CO2, ’emissions’ are increasing world CO2. It’s wrong. Emissions are tiny and vanish in the ocean almost immediately.
CO2 does not vary by more than 1% across the planet. No matter how much we output, it stays the same, unless the ocean surface warms a little. CO2 does not produce warming. Warming produces CO2. Reality is the opposite of “The Science”.
Our world had only 1 billion people in 1900 and now has 8 billion, all breathing out CO2. And cars and planes and computers and ships and trucks and machines which have freed the slaves. It is no surprise that CO2 ’emissions’ have gone up 3500%! The surprise is that total CO2 has only increased by a tiny 40%. And that is due to slow cyclic ocean surface warming because 98% of all free CO2 is dissolved in the vast oceans. It’s the flat beer effect, nothing more significant. And its great for us.
CO2 is very rapidly exchanged at all times with the entire ocean. This was proven in 1965 when atmospheric bomb tests doubled C14. All that double tagged CO2 is gone, so all the CO2 from 1965 is in the ocean. Radioactive C14 is close to what it has been for millenia, almost no dilution from fossil fuel.
When I heard the idea that fossil fuels were building up CO2 and that caused warming, I wondered why no one just measured it. It’s quite easy as all terrestial CO2 is radioactive at a constant level and fossil fuel CO2 is not radioactive. This is the simple basis of radio(active) carbon dating.
Consider if the 50% increase in CO2 was actually due to fossil fuels, the constant level of radioactivity in the air would drop by 33%. But it was 2.01+/–.15% in 1958 and is 3.0% today. There is almost no fossil fuel CO2 in the air except a little in rapid transit into the oceans which cover the planet.
Nett Zero is some sort of crazy accountant’s view of an equilibrium which never existed. How can we get back to 1900 and 1 billion people and no cars?
I just go mad with this idea that humans control a gas which existed long before we did and from which we are made and is in constant rapid equilibrium with the vast oceans. For some reason only Western Democracies are punishing themselves like some Medieval death cult. Have we recreated Carbon Indulgences to prevent hell fire?
And Carbon Certificates are pointless. Even NASA discovered that between 1988 and 2014, two more Brazilian rain forests grew. 14% more CO2 in the period corresponded exactly to 14% more trees.
But most importantly and no one else points this out, CO2 continued its very slow rise without a break. It certainly did not fall. So more CO2 means more trees. More trees do not mean less CO2 because it is all just replaced immediately from the ocean, within days. Forest fire CO2 from Australia just vanished into the Pacific ocean, causing massive algal blooms. You can bury all the CO2 you want, more just comes out of the ocean immediately.
And still people sit there calmly discussing shutting the whole place down because CO2 is a problem? They’re made from it. And they have no idea. All living things breathe out CO2. Fungi to whales, insects to bacteria.
When will politicians stop telling us they have a Climate Policy? How absurd is that? Politicians in charge of the weather?
King Cnut couldn’t stop the tides. And carbon credits, sequestration, wind power, solar power are absurd and wrong. The great tragedy is that $1.5Trillion a year to reduce CO2 ’emissons’. But the alleged problem is CO2, NOT emissions. And what effect has $20Trillion reducing emissions had on actual CO2? Absolutely zero.
Consider what Oppenheimer could do with $1,500,000,000,000 a year to build fusion power!
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Thanks TdeF,
Great summary.
Cheers
Dave B
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Agree with you. Compared to the usual length.
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I find it amazing, this unproven idea that we humans control CO2. CO2 has existed for all time, say in 1900. Who set the level in Roman Times? Why was it 0.025%? What determines how much CO2 is in the air and how much in the ocean. Why doesn’t it vary wildly all the time?
If you cannot answer those questions, there is no point discussing CO2 emissions. And the idea that they disturb a delicate accidental value. That’s just superstitious fear, not science.
An equilibrium system is not a billiard ball on a pencil. An equilibrium system is a pendulum which swings back trough the centre with forces, increasing forces resisting movements in either direction. The more the system is disturbed, the stronger the forces to restore the equilibrium value. That is why CO2 is so remarkably constant across the planet from pole to pole. The only way that can happen is that there is a physical equilibrium between ocean and sky. And while we are told this is rapid, 50% in 250 years is 0.2% a year from pole to pole.
In physical chemistry this equilibrium is described on Henry’s Law which describes the ratio of a dissolved gas in a liquid to the same gas in the air above the liquid. (in perfect conditions in a laboratory) Gas enters and leaves the water all the time. We know how much is in the air is determined by the concentration in the water, concentration in the air, air pressure and temperature. There is always a balance level, a proportion, a constant and predictable ratio between air and water concentrations regardless of total quantity.
Henry’s Law though it is not usable directly compute CO2 ratios across a planet. Especially in the oceans which have pressures of up to 700 atmospheres (at 7km) and wind (absorption increase as the 4th power of the wind) and waves (which churn the surface, burying air) and wave and spray/droplets.
A fish tank often needs a bubbler to maintain enough oxygen in the water in a house situation simply because there is no wind which increases the absorption. CO2 is 30x more soluble than oxygen, so it is 98% in the water, 50x more than in the air.
Also CO2 like water has a liquid phase at even a few atmospheres, as you can see from its phase diagram.
So while water exists as gas (vapour), liquid(drops, clouds, ocean) and solid (ice), CO2 has the same gas, liquid and water. Except we never see the liquid and it changes directly from gas to solid and v.v., sublimation.
This vastly increases the solubility of CO2 which gets absorbed and sinks. For this reason most CO2 is in the ocean somewhere between a liquid and a gas. And there is 50x as much in the ocean as in the atmosphere.
Finally of course if you heat the surface, CO2 comes out. That has been wilfully flipped around to argue that slightly increased CO2 is causing global heating, even ‘boiling’ oceans. That’s not true. But that’s another story.
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What’s more mind boggling than the complete rubbish article, is the comments from SMH subscribers. Not many brain cells working out there.
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Cover the GBR with wind turbines. Problem solved!
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“coral reefs .. will be wiped out with another half a degree?”
I know I have made this comment, but this is a vertical reef 2,200km from top to bottom,summer and winter.
Ocean temperature difference from the Torres Strait to Fraser island 2,000km apart North to South. I thought I could add some numbers.
Coral Sea ; #minimal. 70°F ; #average. 82°F ; #maximum. 87°F. Range 70-87F
Fraser Island – Waddy Point water temperatures peak 26 to 28°C (79 to 82°F) on around the 8th of February
minimum on about the 5th of August, in the range 21 to 23°C (70 to 73°F). Range 70-82F
So that’s a 5F/2.8C difference in summer peak water temperature from top to bottom!
How can both ends be in trouble simultaneously?
Why would a half degree temperature matter when the range is 12F/6.7C summer to winter?
A big drop in sea level on the Western Pacific is more likely to affect the whole reef at once, exposing the coral to sun bleaching.
Finally air temperature is irrelevant as the coral is underwater. If the coral is out of the water, that is the problem and we have a bleaching event which again is nothing to do with air temperature. But then you get ‘boiling oceans’. It’s all fantasy.
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“The federal government needs to commit to a 2035 target of 90 per cent below 2005 levels. Its current ambition is nowhere near enough to give the reef a fighting chance”
Clearly the Federal government really need to commit to a 100 per cent reduction in CO2. That would involve legislation banning animals, transportation, machines, cars, aircraft, factories and breathing.
Seems reasonable. Better still, everyone pays a tax on breathing, a breathing surcharge.
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Recent presentation from Mr Steven Nowakowski on the detrimental impacts of renewable energy focusing on QLD. Steven is the co-founder of Rainforest Reserves Australia. youtube link.
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I suspect that is my graphic … but I can’t really complain as I half inched it from someone else before amending it.
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