Three-quarters of sampled Australian green voters believe the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is doing worse than usual, with 44% stating the coral is at a record low. Overall only 3% of all Australian voters knew that the coral was at a “record high” – the correct answer following two years of record growth that has broken all previous records. These findings are not a surprise, since the true picture on the reef has been downplayed, even hidden, by mainstream interested parties in the media and in science.
The results come from a survey carried out by the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) and is the work of coral authority Dr. Peter Ridd and science journalist Jo Nova. They note that the poor scores reflect badly on media coverage that reports every local coral bleaching event, but rarely the rapid recovery. “It’s almost as if Australians have been subject to years of misinformation,” they say. The silence on the health of the corals is “deafening”. Jo Nova has an idea why the media work so closely with the science establishment to suppress the real story: “Corals are thriving but Australians are spending half a billion dollars to save them.” As atmospheric scientist Richard Lindzen says, the climate narrative is absurd, but trillions of dollars say it is not absurd.
It can be argued that few scientific propositions are more absurd than the suggestion that the recent gentle warming spell is leading to the destruction of coral reefs around the world. In a recent report, Dr. Ridd noted that the IPCC said in 2018 “with high confidence” that corals would decline worldwide by 70-90% if temperatures rose just 0.4°C. Data on coral in many parts of the world are less reliable than for the GBR, but Ridd said it seemed that across the globe there has not been a major drop in coral cover to date.
Corals grow in waters between 24°C and 32°C, and in fact often grow quicker in higher temperatures. But they dislike sudden changes in local water temperature caused by natural weather events such as El Niño oscillations. As a result they often bleach, but the evidence suggests they rapidly return to health as natural conditions become more stable. On the GBR, conditions have been testing until recently with powerful El Niños causing rapid temperatures changes, and cyclones smashing the shallow corals. For decades, scientists and their media messengers have hyped up the temporary loss of coral to secure grants and promote political causes surrounding climate Armageddon.
It obviously worked – and is still working.
As can be seen, only 3% of Australians know the true state of the coral. Barely 10% knew coral cover was above average, while 80% thought erroneously that the situation was average or worse. Ridd and Niva note that ten years after coral cover hit a record low, half the country still doesn’t realise the reef has recovered. The “phenomenal health” of the GBR is said to be virtually unknown, yet the public are paying half a billion dollars in taxes to save it. In addition the country is “being misled into thinking that expensive low carbon policies and Net Zero targets will help protect the reef, when there is no correlation between CO2 levels and coral cover”.
The authors point some fingers at those responsible for the ignorance about the current condition of the reef among the general population. Four years ago, the State of the Climate report from the national science agency CSIRO and the national weather service the BoM noted that 30% of all coral cover across the entire GBR was lost. “This year, they told us ‘more frequent and severe coral bleaching events are likely’, but did not even mention the excellent health of the reef.” How is that reasonable, they ask. Where are the media, they also ask. “Journalists are supposed to grill professors to make sure they are providing value for taxpayers, not sensationalist, self-serving hyperbole.”
It is often found that those on the Left are more inclined to accept the ‘settled’ climate science narrative, promoting as it does the collectivist Net Zero agenda. A major recent survey in the U.S. found higher levels of belief in the suggested dominant role played by humans in altering the climate among Democrats than Republicans. Nevertheless, the proposition that humans cause all or most global warming has seen general support fall in the U.S. from 60% to 49% in just the last five years. Of course there is lack of sceptical enquiry and there is ignorance, and echo chamber greens seem to score high on both counts.
Record ignorance levels of the true state of the GBR were found among green voters. The populist right of centre One Nation voters recorded much better levels of awareness. Voters for the Liberal party seem to be marginally better informed than Labour.
The AEF results were compiled by a polling company asking 1,004 Australians about the current state of coral coverage on the GBR. The full question and suggested answers are shown in the first graph above. The poll was conducted soon after the news came out of last year’s record high coverage. The authors note that the results largely confirm an earlier similar survey of 1,007 of people in 2022. In that survey, only 7% of voters correctly said that coral cover on the GBR was “well above average”.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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The parents are right to be fearful, and this brings to mind the horrific, quite possibly racist/jihadist? murder of ice hockey player Adam Johnson by Matt Petgrave, who will no doubt play the Ethnic Free Pass card to try to get away with it. I hope the police investigators, who have just rebailed him for the third time until the end of June, will not be intimidated by any such attempts. Fortunately the whole thing was caught on video, shocking the ice hockey world, and spurring new regulations on neck guards for players.
Adam Johnson dead: Footage of NHL players incident shows twist as police investigate (foxsports.com.au)
I don’t know if the intention was to kill but that never looked like an accident to me and he must have know the damage he could cause.
I would wear a neck guard but I don’t think they should be mandatory.
“smite at their necks” Koran 47:3-4
Islam: The Politically Incorrect Truth (thereligionofpeace.com)
It has to be manslaughter at the least
UK legal definition of murder: “It involves the specific intent to cause death or serious harm, and this intent is a fundamental element that sets murder apart from manslaughter.”
The intention was there to cause death or serious harm. It was not manslaughter by “diminished responsibility” or other excuses. If you deliberately strike anyone’s neck with a sharp object, especially a blade, you know it will cause death or serious harm.
But no doubt that, even after the police have done their best to establish the truth, corrupt lawyers will get him off.
Ah thanks, I wasn’t aware of the “serious harm” part. It will be interesting to see what they do.
I wasn’t aware of it, either, until I looked it up, but I will be very surprised if his lawyers don’t get him off, despite the best efforts of the police investigators. It often happens that police spend months or even years carefully gathering evidence, but when they present it to the Crown Prosecution Service, it gets thrown out on a technicality.
Indeed there are serious safety concerns to take note of here. For instance, I read there’s been a significant increase in testicular injuries within women’s sports these last two years.😳
My 62yr old ex Finnish league ice hockey player husband wants to know where he can sign up. And why there are no trans players in the male league.
What a muddle all this is – truly the Sane vs the Insane.
I guess in general this comes from the top down, administrators at national and global level who have become more like politicians looking for approval and funding than ex-practitioners thinking honestly about the good of their sport and those who take part. Like most people in charge of anything these days they will make a show of being safety conscious so they don’t get sued or get in trouble with regulators. They will know very well how dangerous this policy is but they clearly feel any risk is outweighed by the risk of being seen as “transphobic” and probably reckon correctly that regulators and courts will back them. It comes down to someone needing to stick their neck out and take flak or worse, absent a lead from those who govern us.
Off topic, but this just in. Tragically the policeman in Germany didn’t make it. The brief piece also states the attacker was ”injured”, so some inconsistencies with reporting as I’d read he’d been killed. So how will the German government now spin this to blame the so-called ‘far-right’?
”A police officer who was left in critical condition after a mass stabbing in the German city of Mannheim on Friday has died, local authorities say.
The 29-year-old was one of six people, including anti-Islam activist Michael Stürzenberger, to be wounded by the attacker, who was detained at the scene.
The police officer was stabbed several times in the head.
Despite undergoing emergency surgery, he succumbed to his wounds on Sunday afternoon.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4nn8nl8gv3o
Something like this was bound to happen somewhere. Basically the police failed to do their job. Their priority once this piece of rubbish started to try to kill people, successfully it now transpires, was to kill the bastard and not seek to arrest those who had tried to immobilise him.
I do not wish to make light of this but this really is the worst example of ‘go woke, go broke.’
I do hope our authorities will learn the appropriate lessons from this event ie arrest the firkin offenders : JSO, BLM, Queers for Gaza and ‘from the river to the sea mob.’ Once they step out of order arrest the buggers before others are killed or seriously injured.
Not that any lessons will be learned.
Well exactly. That policeman’s life needn’t have been lost if proper policing had taken place. There were several of them, presumably there in case anything kicked off, and not one saw the events unfolding in the background. The knife-wielding maniac was even restrained and on the ground at one point. That was their chance, but where were they? Epic failure on their part, whichever angle you look at it from. This sadly sums it up, but his comrades should be feeling immense guilt over this;
”Sadly, this scene just played out in Germany. Hopefully it can be a catalyst for reversing Europe’s existential immigration crisis.”
https://x.com/QuantumFlux36/status/1797446255423156654
Does this nonsense only happen in the silly Liberal progressive western world? Are girls in China and Russia being forced to compete in physical sports against boys? ——But all over the world where this is happening it can only be stopped if those suffering from this aspect of the Progressive virus point blank refuse to participate. OK they may have put a lot of time and effort into their particular sport, but if they do not take a stand to wipe out these disgusting practices NOW then they won’t have a sport in future
The parents of any girl should withdraw them from playing hockey if they are being required to play against a genetic male.
Only by withdrawing from all sport will the assault against women and girls by the trans-lobby be stopped.
There’s a simple answer: just say no, women and girls will not participate.