Coral numbers on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have “exploded” in recent years despite highly publicised episodes of bleaching, according to a recently published report from the distinguished scientist Dr. Peter Ridd. Almost constant scares are raised by activist scientists and journalists about bleaching events including a nonsense story recently published by the Daily Mail and Reuters that suggested the GBR was in danger of disappearing. Ridd notes that the impact of bleaching is “routinely exaggerated by the media and some science organisations”. He goes on to state that all 3,000 individual reefs in the world’s largest reef system have excellent coral. “Not a single reef or even a single species of reef life has been lost since British settlement,” he adds.
Coral loss on the GBR and elsewhere is one of the great poster scares used by climate alarmists to promote the collectivist Net Zero agenda. Every bleaching event, when corals expel algae in response to natural and localised spikes in water temperatures, is used to forecast catastrophe. Peter Ridd has been studying coral at the GBR for 40 years and is almost a lone voice in calling out what is a major scientific scandal. “The public is being deceived about the reef. How this occurred is a serious issue for the reef-science community which has embraced emotion, ideology and raw self-interest to maintain funding.”
Ridd goes on to note that Australia spends $500 million each year to “save the reef”, but this money could be much better spent on genuine environmental problems such as control of invasive weeds and feral animals, or restoring indigenous fire practices into forests and range land. The GBR is observed to be “one of the most pristine ecosystems in Australia”. It has no feral animals or invasive plants, “unlike virtually any other Australian ecosystem”.
Mainstream attempts to catastrophise natural events at the GBR have suffered a few setbacks of late with record levels of coral being declared in the last two years. Coral alarmism was understandably dropped from the headlines for a short while but the hysterics have been out in force recently with another outbreak of bleaching reported. The graph below compiled by Ridd shows the recent sensational coral growth at the GBR with a note of recent bleaching events that are, needless to say, often portrayed in Armageddon terms.
Despite the GBR experiencing four supposedly devastating bleaching events between 2016 and 2022, there has never been more coral in the modern record than in 2022-23, Ridd points out. Quite how the Daily Mail and Reuters can publish their drivel about the GBR being on the “cusp of the worst bleaching event in history” is a mystery, unless, perhaps, they define history as starting sometime around lunchtime last Tuesday.
Ridd goes back a little further in his GBR researches, stating that there has been no decline in the rate of growth of coral going back to 1570. Alas, there is no publicly available information taken from coral growth rings since 2005, “despite this being the period of most interest”, and he suggests this is scandalous. Interestingly, there had been no slowing of growth between 1860 and 1960 when agricultural production and pesticide use started. It is a common eco scare to suggest the GBR is being badly affected by the run off from fertiliser and pesticides, but Ridd finds that agricultural pesticides are generally in such low concentrations “that they cannot be measured even with the most sensitive of instruments”. Much of the GBR is a long way from land and there is massive flushing of water from the Pacific Ocean. Sediment and run-off from farms are said to have “negligible impact” on the GBR.
Ridd also considers claims that coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass meadows and freshwater wetlands are seriously degraded, degradation said to negatively impact the GBR. “There is limited evidence that that these linkages are significant,” states Ridd. “In addition we should note that of these ecosystems, mangroves are in excellent condition, and seagrass meadows are still widespread and generally healthy despite fluctuating greatly due to cyclones and floods,” he adds.
Dr. Peter Ridd is a man on a mission to bring sanity to the science and debate over corals, and the GBR in particular. He was fired from his professorial post at Queensland-based James Cook University in 2018 for “uncollegiate” behaviour. As the Guardian has observed, Ridd was sacked “for breaches of the university’s code of conduct relating to public commentary about the GBR”. In other words, he was punished for rocking the boat on the ‘settled’ narrative surrounding the doomed ‘send more money immediately’ reef. He is only too keen to test his work in public, and he throws down the gauntlet to the controlling scientific elite. Rather than ignoring the data and hoping nobody will notice, “I challenge them to a public science duel – any time any place,” he says.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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I expect they will find a way to look like they have squared the circle. I doubt Starmer et al truly believe there is a “climate emergency”.
Maybe they’ll build a dedicated interconnect from Norway, and then claim it’s Norway’s emissions and not ours!
But just as likely it could be Qatar or UAE as the interconnect!
Plant some trees….somewhere.
They aren’t being honest about what they want with all this AI. I suspect they want a surveillance state. Why not build a nuclear power station right next to the data centre?
From my limited experience, “AI” tools might provide limited productivity gains in specific applications, provided it is used by people who know what they are doing. Other than that I suspect it will produce mediocre rubbish. But surveillance is probably something it could help with, especially if it didn’t need to be that accurate – after all, if you are trying to control people you don’t need to worry too much about pissing people off.
Oi! Keir! You’re an imbecile! And Edward Miliwat belongs in a lunatic asylum.
For an economy to grow it does not need AI but it does need…
…drum roll…
USABLE FORMS OF CHEAP ABUNDANT ENERGY!
(Hint hint, solar panels and windmills provide neither cheap nor abundant forms of energy)
Net Zero Will Never Add Up
My money are on the government will spend huge amounts on contracts with these companies (otherwise, why would they build these energy hungry data centres in the country that has the highest energy costs?) for solutions that are supposed to increase efficiency/productivity but will do so rather modestly and instead of getting rid of those that do sh*t all day or their jobs become obsolete, they’ll increase their numbers with “specialists” in using/managing the implemented solutions.
Since the environmental impact of granting planning for a new coal mine or oil well must now include the down-stream consequences of consuming the hydrocarbon output I presume there are planning consent challenges waiting in the wings claiming that the environmental impact of generating the necessary power for these datacentres has been overlooked? In particular on the basis that diverting ‘renewable’ power to these projects causes more hydrocarbon power to be demanded for existing industry and domestic use.
Easy solution: introduce power rationing for the general public, and tell them it’s their way of “doing their bit” to combat climate change. Plenty of sheeples will swallow it hook, line and sinker.
There is already one from Norway, which is just now delivering just over 1 GW, and it all depends how they do the sums to do things like cross balancing their use with the available import from wherever. Maybe it could take ownership of something else that qualifies to be net zero over a period of time – say Hinkley Point C if it runs short of cash.
Is this data cnre expected to have its own power station, or will it rely on the national grid?
delete
It will require the whole of Cornwall to become a solar panel.
“effort to drive economic growth with a surge of AI data centre developments” Could we just keep our old economy producing food, electricity and houses. The stuff that keeps us alive.
I’d rather have a steelworks.
I am deeply suspicious about the “need” for a hyperscale data centre in Blyth, or anywhere else.
What massive amount of data do they expect to be accumulating and for what purposes? I very much doubt that it will be of any benefit to Joe Public.
Sadly, the Uk has noone in office fighting for the rights of the taxpayer. You are in a hopeless situation.buckle up.
The trick of NetZero is the whole ludicrous illogical farcical sham show is to resoundingly demonstrate the infeasibility of the prospect whilst leaving the only ‘logical’ solution apparent: nuclear power generation. That is the obvious solution to the conundrum assuming you believe the core premise of CO2 emissions driving catastrophic global climate warming/change. The environmental lobby will demand it, switched about face, black is white, up is down. They’ll love their own servitude.