Ever since the sandwich-board prophet George Monbiot told readers of the Guardian in 1999 that all coral in the Indian Ocean could die within the year, the fate of the world’s coral reefs has been a poster scare for climate Armageddon enthusiasts. The story has had to be nuanced slightly in recent times following news that coral has been at record levels for the last two years on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Even more careful handling of this global warming scare now seems likely. This is because a group of scientists has published dramatic new evidence showing that coral has demonstrated an “innate ecological resilience to climate change” in recent years. It was found that the heat tolerance of coral can change over time leading to less dangerous bleaching over multiple generations.
While these findings are a welcome dose of science reality, none of them should be a cause for surprise. Tropical coral has been around for hundreds of millions of years, and has survived many changes in global temperature. It thrives happily in waters from 24°C to 32°C, and in fact often grows more quickly in warmer waters nearer the equator. Bleaching can occur when local water temperatures spike for a short time and coral expels symbiotic algae. It is becoming increasingly obvious that this is a natural and recurring process, and the recent experience on the GBR suggests recovery can be very fast.
In a paper published by Nature in May, the seven scientists, drawn from a number of ecology fields, looked at recent records at a remote Pacific coral reef system called Palau. Over a 40-year period it was found that the heat tolerance of coral can change, with individual reefs showing higher bleaching resistance in later thermal events. The researchers suggest a growing heat tolerance for coral of 0.1°C a decade. “Genetic adaptation can improve species heat stress resistance over multiple generations through natural selection, increasing the frequency of genes that provide higher heat resistance and improve overall fitness,” they observe.
This is valuable and useful work, but it was published in a major climate science journal, so the usual windbag political message is obligatory. The results are said to indicate a “potential ecological resilience” to climate change, “but still highlight the need for reducing carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement commitments to preserve coral reefs”.
Professor Peter Ridd has studied the GBR for over 40 years and is recognised in sceptical science circles as a coral authority. From his own observations he has concluded that bleaching is a largely natural event. Furthermore, he observes: “An uncharitable observer might conclude that periodic mass coral mortality events, which are largely completely natural, are exploited by some organisations with an ideological agenda and a financial interest.” He added that this included “many scientific organisations”.
Perhaps to no great surprise, the coral scare featured as one of the five climate “tipping points” in a recent study funded by the Bezos Earth Fund that attracted worldwide headlines. Timed to coincide with COP28, it painted a picture of a world careering towards disaster in the next decade with five natural systems said to be at risk of crossing ‘tipping points’ that could cause catastrophic global changes. One of the ‘tipping points’ identified was the “degradation of warm-water coral reefs”, something that could materialise in the coming decades, “and at lower levels of global warming than previously thought”. The main author, Professor Tim Lenton, is a green political activist of long-standing, and is Head of Geography at the University of Exeter. Inevitably, the political messaging is part of the package. The Lenton group calls for laws to phase out fossil fuel and land-use emissions, and “Government mandates” in other high emissions sectors. In other words, drastic reductions in meat and dairy, massive cuts in food production by restricting nitrogen fertilisers, and dystopian cuts in personal transport, building materials and home heating.
So-called climate ‘tipping points’, which are little more than the product of opinions fed into computer models, made a number of highly publicised appearances at COP28. Britain’s supposed constitutional-neutral monarch, King Charles, claimed that “we are seeing alarming tipping points being reached”. In the absence of much long-term global warming these days, this political sloganising scares the young and impressionable and complements the ‘join the dots’ of recent bad weather anomalies. Needless to say, both scare tactics are bereft of any plausible scientific validation.
Meanwhile, curiously missing from discussions at COP28 was the damage done to coral by human activities, most notably the mining of reefs by many Pacific islanders. The same ‘nothing-to-do-with-me, guv’ islanders, it might be noted, asking the developed world for financial handouts to protect them from climate change. In the past, the reefs have been used for cheap construction materials to build ports, airports and resort developments. Diversity of ocean life is lost, and islands often left less protected from storm waves that can flow directly to the shorelines.
First in line for climate damage handouts is the Maldives, a particularly bad mining offender. In a recent essay written by a group of scientists and economists, it is noted that the growth of tourism in the Maldives saw GDP rising from one of the lowest in the world in the 1970s to the level of upper-middle income countries in the 2010s. “While coral reefs are a major factor in the Maldives’ appeal as a tourist destination, coral mining has resulted in massive degradation of shallow reef-flat areas, with important negative impacts on coastal protection,” they noted.
It is not immediately clear why taxpayers in countries with a similar upper-middle income GDP should bail out the ecological depredations of countries like the Maldives. But we can be fairly certain that this tricky dilemma will not be considered at COP29 next year, as the collecting plate for climate ‘reparations’ is passed around.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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A small point, but it sounds as if the actual research shows more temperature resistance, but the explanation in terms of genetic evolution is a mere assumption. It takes a lot more work to find genes than measure coral, and a different category of scientist.
Certainly selection of resistant strains is a possibility, but there’s also every chance that corals have activated epigenetic mechanisms already programmed in to deal with climate change.
The difference is, of course, that the latter would demonstrate that climate change is not extraordinary, but routine, in the long-term.
Perhaps the research shows that corals are adaptable and that they are not suddenly adapting, as the only reason for pushing that is to re-enforce the idea that there is unprecedented change at the moment. Corals have been around for 500 million years and looking at the graphic below they have survived temperatures 10C above what they are now and with CO2 above 3,000 ppm. In addition the GBR is only about 8,000 years old in it’s current location because as resilient as corals are they would have had to survive a couple of hundred feet above see level before the Holocene began. Perhaps nature is far from fragile.
As is often the case on anything remotely to do with climate or energy we see the corruption of science. Almost all of climate change science is funded by government. But imagine if it were funded by fossil fuel companies. Every single report or claim about the climate would be dismissed out of hand and it would be said that this was science in support of fossil fuel profits to protect those industries. But what makes people think governments have no agenda? Ofcourse they do.—– So if it is the case that governments have an agenda (called Sustainable Development) and that they are the ones funding all of the science, should that science not be scrutinised and not just blindly accepted? ——There was this old saying—-“Never buy medicine from the same doctor who diagnosed your malady” ————There is clear conflict of interest. The same is true in the climate and energy issue. It clearly benefits the government agenda of sustainable development that there is a climate crisis, because without one there would be no need at all for any of things they want to do regarding energy use. We are supposed to believe that a report by scientists funded by coal or gas companies is not to be trusted but reports by government funded scientists are all sweetness and light and should be considered some kind of ultimate truth. —-CAUTION. ——–Do you really need a heat pump, a smart meter, a turbine, a solar panel, an electric car etc which will cost us all big sums of money and lower living standards? Well maybe we should first check if storms floods droughts wild fires and sea levels are all getting worse. ——Lo and behold none of them are. There is no real empirical evidence that the CO2 humans produce is causing or will cause dangerous changes to climate in the future either, and the idea that these things will happen is based entirely on the output from speculative climate models. But models full of assumptions are not science. We all need to try and differentiate between “science” and “official science”. The former being the genuine search for truth regardless of where that leads, and the latter being the search for excuses in support of clear political goals regarding the earths wealth and resources.
Excellent post
Why thanks Mr Hux. ———Or should I say Mr. Mrs Miss, Them, They, Hux (tee hee)——-It is always amusing when activists claim all of this is about “science”. yet it does not come from a scientific body. It comes from a political one called the UN IPCC, whose final conclusions are all political. ——Once it is political then we should all be having our say and giving our opinion and this idea that we “are not scientists” is what you expect from those with clear political goals. Whenever you hear “All scientists agree” you know you are being played
Oil and gas companies are likely to be more believable as they have to be capable of extreme engineering which is not possible if you want to cheat nature. They are likely to know more about the real world than someone that is running computer models. Here are a few quotes on this subject from Richard Feynman:
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong, ”
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
“We live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television-words, books, and so on-are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.” (1966)
Thanks, but as I am sure you agree, believing things is irrelevant. Believing things makes people do some really silly stuff. Like supergluing themselves to the road. It is important not to believe things but to know them, and if you don’t know it is perfectly fine to admit that. ——–The trouble with issues like climate is that governments cannot wait until there is more knowledge. They need to act NOW, and distort reality, manufacture crisis, manipulate data and wheel out computer models in lieu of any empirical evidence.
You can’t stop Pacific islanders from mining the reefs because it would be imperialist and racist. It’s their heritage and their right. Everyone apart from the English has a heritage they are allowed to be proud of remember.
Yes so they are free to chop down whatever they want and then our UN lackey politicians will take taxpayers money and send it to them so they can “fight climate change” ——One excellent example of eco socialism in action. —–Climate is the excuse for every left wing cause, and our country will be even more invaded by illegal aliens fleeing a climate crisis for which no evidence exists.
Funny how that Saudi chap at COP28 (was he Saudi? Something like that), living in a part of the world that will supposedly be burned alive by climate change, is having no part in giving up oil and gas. Really strange. But he’ll happily take our “reparations” I suppose.
I suppose I would take daft peoples money as well.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-scaremongers-the-wildlife-trusts-go-woke/
The Wildlife Trusts with combined membership of 870,000. That’s an awful lot of sadly misguided people.
Climate Change and tipping points only happen in rich Western Countries where NGOs and fake charities and tax deductible donations are made by billionaires. In every country that has banned these NGOs and fake charities, they do not have a climate change problem. In the West, it has become a trillion pound per year business. This is largely funded with your tax dollars. What a scam they have going.