The climate scaremongers: Great Barrier Reef refuses to play the game

CLIMATE scaremongers love their icons. You know, polar bears, the Amazon rainforest and so on, all supposedly about to be extinguished by global warming.

One such icon is Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR) which runs for 1,400 miles off the coast of Queensland. For years, we have been assured that global warming had already killed most of it off, and Sir David Attenborough announced in 2016 that it would disappear within just a few decades.

Yet recent official surveys show that the reef is actually in rude health and coral cover has reached record levels for the second consecutive year.

https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2022/08/Ridd-Record-Coral-GBR.pdf

The data is so embarrassing for the climate establishment that they have actively suppressed news of it. However Dr Peter Ridd, former head of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia, has published a scientific paper revealing the truth.

There is actually nothing startling about his findings, as local diving businesses who take tourists down to the reef have been saying for a while that the coral quickly recovered from the bleaching events of a few years ago.

In theory, warmer water can result in coral bleaching. When water is too warm, corals expel the algae living in their tissues, causing the structure to turn white. These algae are the coral’s primary food source and give them their colour. While corals can survive a bleaching event, they are under more stress and therefore vulnerable.

Warmer seas are not the only cause of bleaching: in January 2010, cold water round the Florida Keys caused a coral bleaching event that resulted in some coral death. It is probably hurricanes which cause the most damage, through wave activity. It was one such hurricane that killed off a large chunk of the reef in 2011. There is no evidence that hurricanes are becoming more common in the region.

Other natural phenomena impact the coral: low cloud cover/more sunshine warm the seas noticeably, while lower sea levels leave the reef more exposed to the sun. Both of these meteorological events are tied into the El Niño/La Niña cycles in the Pacific Ocean, and have nothing to do with climate change. Rising sea levels, of course, will be highly beneficial for coral reefs!

The data shows quite clearly that every time there is a bleaching event, the coral quickly recovers. This should not come as a surprise, given that coral reefs have been around for an estimated 40million years, and survived all sorts of climate change. Given that scientists have been monitoring the reef only since the 1980s, they cannot say whether there were many other bleaching events in the past, or that there is anything remotely unusual about what is happening now.

So why is the climate establishment so reluctant to publicise the good news about the Great Barrier Reef?

The root cause is money. As with climate science worldwide, the marine science institutions in Australia are extremely well-funded but there is no money for anybody off-message. Dr Peter Ridd, one of Australia’s leading experts on the GBR, caused a rumpus a few years ago, when he exposed the shoddy work and lack of quality assurance of his colleagues. For telling the truth, he was fired by James Cook University.

The corruption continues. According to the Guardian, despite the increase in coral, ‘the window is closing fast’. 

Keep that gravy train rolling!

The Lynmouth floods of 1952

THIS week marks the 70^th anniversary of the Lynmouth flood in Devon, one of the worst natural disasters to hit Britain in recent history.

It happened on August 15, 1952, after nine inches of rain fell in 24 hours. The East and West Lyn rivers which converge in Lynmouth were swollen even before the storm, and after the downpour torrents of water surged down from Exmoor. Uprooted trees formed dams behind bridges, creating walls of water that sent huge boulders hurtling into the village.

In all, 34 people in Lynmouth and surrounding hamlets were killed, and 39 buildings collapsed. The army was drafted in to help with the clear-up. I would thoroughly recommend watching the short British Pathe film footage taken at the time – see here.

Even 1,200 years ago they knew about the potential dangers posed by the combined Rivers Lyn. In the Anglo-Saxon tongue, the name Lynmouth meant ‘town on the torrent’.

As you would expect, the Met Office report at the time was measured, factual and dispassionate:

What a contrast to the politicised Met Office of today, whose main concern is to link every bit of bad weather to climate change and to advocate for changes in our lifestyles.

It is not just the Met Office, of course. A recent BBC report on the Kentucky floods stated, without any basis in fact: ‘Scientists say climate change is triggering more extreme weather events like the Kentucky flooding. Kentucky, like other parts of the world, has seen the impact of more frequent extreme weather events. Bill Haneberg, a climate expert and the state’s geologist, said this rainfall event is “extraordinary” for Kentucky. He added that the increases in the amount of rainfall over the years are consistent with what experts have predicted for the region – that Kentucky’s climate would become hotter and wetter due to climate change.’

It is the worst kind of climate porn, and insulting to those who have suffered to be told that their own use of fossil fuels is to blame. Little wonder that the emotionally vulnerable young of today suffer from eco-anxiety.

The British Pathe film includes a visit and speech by Harold Macmillan, then Housing Minister. He struck precisely the right note, offering sympathy and most all help. Shamefully, politicians today use similar disasters to sell their climate agenda.