This is the latest piece by freelance journalist Chris Morrison, who we’ve just appointed our Environment Editor. Chris started in financial journalism in the late 1970s and for nearly 20 years ran a company – Evandale Publishing – that he set up himself and eventually sold.
An 1871 dataset of sea temperatures across the Great Barrier Reef in Australia has been compared to recent measurements logged at the same reef areas. No differences in temperature were found by Dr. Bill Johnson, leading him to conclude: “Alarming claims that the East Australian Current has warmed due to global warming are therefore without foundation.”
The 1871 temperatures were taken by the SS Governor Blackall steamship on a voyage around the Australian east coast to observe a total eclipse of the sun in the north of the continent. Hourly measurements were made between 6am and 6pm every day in the voyage from Port Stanley, north of Sydney, to Cape York and repeated on the journey back. Dr. Johnson, a former research scientist at the New South Wales Department of Natural Resources, allowed for the considerable seasonal variations in temperature across the reef but concluded that nothing much had changed. He said there was no evidence that the system regulating temperature had broken down “or is likely to break down in the future”.
Needless to say, such stories do not tend to appear in the media, most of which is firmly wedded to the notion that human-caused global warming is destroying the coral reefs around the world. In October 2020, the BBC reported that the Great Barrier Reef had lost half of its coral since 1995, citing a report that said it was due to “warmer seas driven by climate change”. But Professor Peter Ridd, who has spent 40 years observing the reef, noted recently that it was in robust good health. Coral growth rates have if anything “increased over the last 100 years”. The graph below, compiled by Ridd from Australian Institute of Marine Science records, illustrates recent growth.
Agence France-Presse‘s award-winning reporter Marlow Hood recently quoted a University of Leeds paper that said coral reefs anchoring a quarter of marine wildlife will “most likely” be wiped out, even if the rise in global warming from pre-industrial times is capped at 1.5°C – which amounts to future warming of just 0.4°C, as 1.1°C has already occurred since 1820. Mr. Hood describes himself on his twitter feed as the “Herald of the Anthropocene” and was recently given €100,000 by the Spanish bank BBVA , which is heavily involved in Net Zero finance. In his commendation, Mr Hood was praised for his ability to “synthesize complex scientific models and studies and explain them in simple terms”. Certainly, Mr Hood went to the heart of the Leeds paper by further reporting that with an increase of 2°C, reef mortality “would be 100%”. This finding is said to have come from a “new generation of climate models”.
Corals have long occupied an exalted place in the climate tablets of doom. Their demise is commonly projected from the natural bleaching that occurs when they expel symbiotic algae, suggested to occur in reaction to sudden changes in water temperature. However, most bleaching – which also appears to have an important evolutionary function – occurs around weather oscillations, such as the El Niño event. These happen on a regular basis and once localised conditions have been stabilised, the coral usually recovers. Tropical coral thrives in temperatures between about 24°C and 32°C and sometimes grows quicker in warmer waters. Any change in long term global temperatures is unlikely to be a threat and certainly not one as small as 0.4°C. In any case, according to Dr. Johnson’s discoveries, there hasn’t been any change in such conditions on the Great Barrier Reef for at least 150 years.
A more practical threat to coral reefs is the less discussed practice of blowing them up and using them for building materials, jewellery, calcium health supplements and marine aquarium decorations. According to Big Blue Ocean Cleanup, an environmental non-profit organisation, this trade is worth $375 billion a year. This is an astonishing sum. Across the Pacific, Blue Ocean identifies two techniques of destruction. The first is small-scale mining using crowbars and sledgehammers to break off the coral branches. The second involves the use of dynamite.
Needless to say, this has an enormous impact on the surrounding eco-system, killing marine life and leaving a barren ocean behind. Indiscriminate destruction also causes sand erosion and removes coastal protection. Ironically, much of the coral has been used to build airports and resorts in places like the Maldives to house tourists who come to marvel at the reefs.
Coral reefs need protecting. It is not a good idea to drench them in untreated sewage, douse them with toxic chemicals, smash up their habitat with reckless fishing or rearrange the ocean floor with high explosives. But this is relatively mundane environmental housekeeping work. It is a world away from using unproven science statements and climate models to spout ‘save the planet’ rhetoric and push for an unrealistic control-and-distribute Net Zero project.
In the run up to COP26, one of Prince William’s £1 million “Earthshot” gifts was handed to a small Bahamian company called Coral Vita that says it grows coral to replant in the ocean. Writing in the Spectator Australia, the biologist Jennifer Marohasy noted that the Australian government permitted the mining every year of 200 tonnes of coral from the Great Barrier Reef. At the same time, $1 billion Australian dollars was provided to save the ‘dying’ reef. Some of this money, she noted, will be used to replant corals.
She added: “[T]here will be jobs for scuba divers, and it will be filmed by underwater videographers, marine scientists will collect data around the programme and boats will be chartered. There will be money for almost everyone who wants to participate – if they are vaccinated, believe in human-caused climate change and believe the Great Barrier Reef is dying.”
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
It’s funny how it takes something happening to your immediate family which acts as a wake-up call when for years you’ve ignored the much worse plight of women and men who’ve suffered as a result of the policies you support. Suddenly this Green Party minister isn’t so pro-immigration anymore;
”Agricultural Minister Cem Özdemir, of the far-left Green Party, has sparked a fierce debate in Germany after calling for the country to rethink its migration policy and claims his daughter is being sexually harassed by men with a “migration background.”
Özdemir did not just make the comments offhand during an interview, but actually wrote them out in a guest column for FAZ, writing that his daughter, who is graduating from school next year, faces harassment from migrants and men with a migration background.
“When she is out and about in the city, she or her friends are often unpleasantly stared at or sexualized by men with a migrant background,” he wrote.
The father writes that his daughter has developed a “thick skin” due to these attacks, “but I can feel how it bothers her,” he wrote, adding “how disappointed she is that the underlying issues are not addressed more openly: the patriarchal structures and the role of women in many Islamic countries.”
Not only is his party known as one of the most pro-open borders parties in Germany, but Özdemir himself is of Turkish origin.
“We need to know who is in the country. We need to ensure that only those who are allowed to be here are in the country,” he demanded. He said that he now takes issue with Germany’s asylum policy.
Apparently, his daughter suffering from Germany’s open borders policy due to some sexual harassment is enough for him to “rethink” asylum policy. Meanwhile, thousands of women have been violently raped, sexually assaulted, and outright assaulted since 2016 in ever-increasing numbers, mainly due to policies such as those advanced by his party.
Remix News has covered this topic in-depth and has showcased videos that are far worse than anything Özdemir claims his daughter has experienced.”
https://rmx.news/article/shock-germanys-green-party-agricultural-minister-says-his-daughter-is-sexually-harassed-by-men-with-a-migrant-background/
From my perspective, 2the patriarchal structures and the role of women in many Islamic countries.” are completely irrelevant to me. If that is how they want to live, then let them. I am only bothered about how we live.
Superior intelligence is knowing something before it happens rather than after it has happened. Cem Özdemir should have known what would happen with open borders and especially when underpinned with multi-culturalism.
I wonder how many teachers are Leftards and of the ”refugees welcome” type, because they’re at the coal face and seeing the effects of uncontrolled migration from cultures with incompatible values that refuse to assimilate first hand. You read similar accounts from various European countries. This is Belgium;
”The subject is extremely sensitive. As proof, the people who agreed to testify requested anonymity. “ The slightest misstep can be misinterpreted. I don’t want my child’s throat to be slit ,” confides Alicia, a principal. “ We’re at the point where teachers no longer dare to talk about certain things. There are subjects that have become taboo.”
For several years, teachers have witnessed a rejection of scientific, historical and commonly accepted concepts: infinity in mathematics, the theory of evolution, secularism, gender equality, the human body… are said to be in contradiction with the values of Islam. “I only hear ‘It’s haram’ in class (Editor’s note: “It’s forbidden” in Arabic),” says Maud, a history teacher for 39 years. “ Some students tell me that I don’t have the right to talk about Islam, that I’m not qualified to talk about religion.”
The university is not spared from the phenomenon. Recently, the rector of the VUB warned about the impact of religion on Muslim students: refusal to support the principles of the democratic rule of law, to wear short sleeves in the health sector, occupation of rooms to pray without authorization, etc.
“It’s violent what we sometimes hear. At the time of the attacks, students applauded in the classrooms, I found on the board the name of the Tunisian who carried out the shooting that killed two Swedes. Some support the behavior of Afghans towards women ,” continues Alicia, who was called racist by a father after making a remark to his daughter because she was wearing the abaya, forbidden in the school rules. “ I find myself having to explain how we live in Belgium, which is not my role.” When she was a teacher, she also had to face parents who refused to put their child in her home because she is blonde with blue eyes and saw pressure from older children who checked that the younger ones were doing Ramadan.
Refusal to listen to certain teachings can go as far as threats and harassment. Four years ago, Bernadette, an economics teacher, experienced this. “ Several Albanian students asked me if I had my husband’s permission to work. Once, I threw a student out because he was disrupting the class. Five of them waited for me after class near my car and one of them pulled out a knife. I don’t know what would have happened to me if the sports teacher hadn’t appeared ,” she sighs. “ Before and after school, I cried. The following year, I refused to go back.” Religious education teachers are not spared either.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has added fuel to the fire. “ There is a lack of knowledge and prejudice. As soon as it comes to Jews and Israel, everything is blown out of proportion, everything is manipulated because they know nothing about it. When I wanted to explain how the State of Israel was created, I was accused of proselytizing and a student flew into an uncontrollable rage. There is no longer any way to have an objective discourse ,” notes Maud, who saw a dozen Muslim students refuse the school trip to Fort Breendonk last year. “ They are taught to hate Jews from a very young age. It is anti-Zionism as they say and not anti-Semitism.”
Unlike France, French-speaking Belgium does not have figures on radical behaviour by students linked to religious facts. At the end of 2023, Flanders looked into the issue and found that the number of reports, comments and radical behaviour by students had increased from three or four per year in 2019 to three or four per day in 2023.”
https://www.fdesouche.com/2024/09/30/soutien-aux-terroristes-menaces-avec-un-couteau-refus-de-visiter-un-camp-de-concentration-des-professeurs-belges-temoignent-de-la-radicalisation-des-eleves-musulmans/
Reform are not real conservatives or serious people, says Badenoch
‘They want a big state’
Their leader said he “admired” Putin “as a political operator because he’s managed to take control of running Russia”
This is how Putin managed to take control of running Russia:
Poison and assassination
Official documents obtained by the Insider confirm Navalny was poisoned in prison
‘A collection of files at The Insider’s disposal contains two versions of a document signed by Russian investigator Alexander Varapaev……..convict A.A. Navalny lay down on the floor and began to complain of sharp pain in the abdominal area; he started reflexive ejection of his stomach contents, had convulsions, and lost consciousness, which was immediately reported to the medical staff of the correctional facility…..The symptoms described by Varapaev are consistent with those that would have been expected had Navalny been poisoned…….“in the last minutes before his death, [Alexei] complained of acute pain in his stomach.’
‘According to ER doctor Alexander Polupan, who treated Navalny in Omsk City Hospital No. 1 after the Novichok poisoning in 2020, the symptoms observed by medical professionals in the case of Navalny’s death in prison in 2024 do not fit with the officially declared diagnosis:
Other doctors of various types interviewed by The Insider agree with Polupan’s conclusions.’
Any politician who is still capable of ‘admiring’ Putin, for whatever reason, is not fit for any public office whatsoever…….
Where is the evidence that these are real documents? Navalny simply weasn’t ever a threat to Putin, his role in Russian politics has been grossly inflated by the Western intelligence agencies and their client MSM.
‘The Insider has obtained access to hundreds of official documents related to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death in the Polar Wolf penal colony in the Russian Far North on Feb. 16, 2024. Officially, Navalny’s death was attributed to natural causes, and Russia’s Investigative Committee stated in July that the case “does not have a criminal nature.” However, the contents of the documents in The Insider’s possession demonstrate that Russian authorities consistently removed references to symptoms Navalny was documented to have been suffering — symptoms that did not fit with the Russian state’s official cause of death. As medical experts confirm, these symptoms clearly indicate that Navalny was poisoned.’
The insider article shows copies of some of the documents.
Those who dispute their veracity should state any grounds they might have for adopting that position and take it up with ‘The Insider’.
I am sorry to say this but it is for the promoter of conspiracy theories to offer more proof than the fact that some journalist says these are copies of the real genuine documents. Don’t you realise how silly that sounds.
Real documents are what we call ‘real documents’.
If someone does not believe those documents to be, in fact, real despite photographic evidence to the contrary but can offer no reason for suggesting that they are not real, they are either just being dotty, quite normal on here, or are simply idle uninformed bigots too lazy to even look at the photographs of the very documents whose veracity they question.
Idle uninformed bigotry is an extremely unattractive combination……..
I see you are addressing this comment to Munro. Spot on about bigotry.
As I say, lazy, uninformed bigotry, particularly when accompanied by silly pettiness, is a very bad look indeed.
The CJ Hopkins conviction in Germany is really stunning.
Germans should be ashamed of their country. Deeply ashamed.
True, and is Reiner Fuellmich still in custody (famous for his Corona Trial and weekly discussions)?
But UK should also be ashamed of holding Julian Assange for how many years?
Indeed it should.
“Badenoch quit her job instead of taking maternity leave
Kemi amply demonstrating that she cannot conceive of peoples situations other than her own. Another self-centred loser…
Bang on! I used to like Kemi but not now
Taking aim a reform voters is an insult to them, as the so called opposition she should be aiming at Labour not reform, bollicks to her, tories are finished!
“Alarming details of bone cancer said to have hit the late Queen”
“The disease develops when cells in or near a bone develop DNA change that cause them to rapidly divide and multiply too rapidly.”
I take it she was up to date with all her vaccines and boosters?
Shame, she may have out aged her mother otherwise!