CHICKEN LITTLE PROPAGANDA DRESSED UP AS SCIENCE

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The Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO have delivered their ­biennial dose of depression about the climate, but their report ignores a slew of positive environmental changes. Article by PETER RIDD in The Weekend Australian Sunday 27th November 2022.

The latest report should ring alarm bells – but not just about climate. Is this an excellent tool of propaganda, or is it a scientific statement?

The climate has warmed by 1.5C and there is barely a single benefit according to climate change experts – but is it all ­disaster?

It is often said, “if it is too good to be true, it probably is” and you are being conned. What about too bad to be true? Can a gently warming climate have no significant benefits at all? The only marginally encouraging part of the report is about northern Australia. There might have been a slight reduction in cyclone numbers, and there has been a bit more rain in recent decades.

Apart from that, the report reads like the Book of Exodus – one disaster after another. Only the frogs and boils are missing. But it is significant that the period when Egyptians were building pyramids, which was hotter than today’s climate, is often called the Holocene Climatic Optimum. The word “optimum” was an indication that scientists working in the era before climate alarmism could see some advantage of a warmer climate.

A sure sign that the report tries too hard to find disaster is when it discusses coral bleaching and the Great Barrier Reef. It stresses that there have been four bleaching events in the past six years, which it implies were devastating. But for some reason, the report fails to mention that this year the reef recorded its highest amount of coral since records began in 1985.

This proves that all the hype about coral loss from bleaching was greatly exaggerated. But the report writers were obviously ­untroubled by the contradictory evidence. They ignored it.

The northern and central Great Barrier Reef have recorded their highest amount of coral cover since the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) began monitoring 36 years ago.

And they also ignore the fact that corals grow about 15 percent faster for every degree temperature rise, and that almost all the corals on the reef also live in much warmer water near the equator. We should expect better coral, and it should extend further south. That is not too bad, is it?

Why doesn’t the report mention that the extra CO2 in the atmosphere improves the water utilization efficiency of dryland plants, which occupy most of Australia, and that this has caused plants to thrive? According to NASA satellites, there is a “greening” of Australia of at least 10 percent. Overall, the world has seen the area of green leaves expand by the equivalent of twice the area of the United States in just 35 years.

In a changing climate, there will be winners and losers, and it might be that the net effect is a major problem. But if the report writers will not even mention the good bits, how can we have any confidence in its findings?

We should all worry about whether groupthink has taken hold of the BOM and CSIRO.

We should worry when the BOM says it has recently adjusted all the temperature records reducing the temperatures a century ago by up to a degree. Can we have any confidence they did this with good scientific reason?

And we should worry about the BOM’s claims that the fire seasons are now much worse than in 1950. Why is all the information on huge bushfires before 1950 ignored – like the devastating 1851 Victorian bushfire and the 1939 fires? It is not like there is no data before 1950.

Did they ignore that data for a good reason? Is this similar to the US fire statistics, which are often reported by authorities as having a major increase in fire acreage burnt since the early 60s, but fail to mention that there was almost 10 times more acreage burnt in the “dust-bowl” period in the 1930s?

In the next decades, Australian governments plan to spend hundreds of billions attempting to prevent climate change. Before we do that, maybe we could spend a few million doing an audit of BOM and CSIRO reports.

Maybe we would find that adapting to a changing climate is by far the best way to proceed. We might even find that some of what we have been told is wrong.

Why will the conservative parties not commit to an audit? Who would argue against a bit of checking of the science, when the Great Barrier Reef statistics prove scientists got something badly wrong?

And the latest report is a sure sign that the BOM and CSIRO are drifting into political advocacy rather than science, observation, and objective prediction.

Peter Ridd is an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.

This is further evidence we are in the “end times” and that God’s truth and judgement have been thrown off.

CLIMATE CHANGE ALARMISTS NEED TO SEE THIS

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Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is doing well, in fact great. But the popular media won’t report this good news, but here is what a knowledgeable expert on the reef has to say. Dr. Peter Ridd a geophysicist, physical oceanographer, and inventor — has worked on the Great Barrier Reef since 1984 and has written over 100 scientific publications. Now an adjunct fellow at The Institute of Public Affairs, he was fired in 2018 from teaching at Australia’s James Cook University after criticizing exaggerations about reef damage. Dr. Ridd is also a member of the CO2 Coalition of Arlington, Virginia.  

The Great Barrier Reef is made up of approximately 3,000 reefs covering an area nearly the size of California off Australia’s eastern coast. The condition of its coral is frequently referenced as an indicator of the reef’s health, regularly in the context of the supposed damage global warming is doing to the planet. 

The reef now has more coral than any time since records began in 1986, according to the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). There is roughly 20 percent more coral on the GBR than last year, which itself equaled a previous record year. All three major regions of the reef now have excellent coral cover and AIMS states that two regions are at record-breaking high levels.  

As of the latest 2022 survey of the GBR, coral covered 34 percent of the seabed, double the lowest coverage recorded in 2012. There are many types of ecosystems on reefs other than coral – 34% is a remarkably high number. 

This coral health exists despite four supposedly massively destructive and unprecedented bleaching events striking parts of the reef since 2016 – all allegedly due to climate change and one as recently as this year. Coral reefs typically take five to 10 years to recover from major damage, so how can GBR be enjoying such good health this soon? Is it possible that reef-science institutions exaggerated the damage in the first place to advance the global warming narrative? Perhaps. 

However, 36 years of AIMS data show that large amounts of coral occasionally die — usually from cyclones, hot-water bleaching, or starfish plagues — but that recovery is often fast. For example, the Cooktown region suffered a moderate coral loss after a 2016 bleaching event but had recovered by 2021. By far, the biggest loss of coral was after Cyclone Hamish smashed the southern half of the reef in 2009. Recovery was largely complete by 2016. 

These marine events, which have been going on for millennia, are akin to terrestrial bushfires from which the land quickly recuperates. However, untrustworthy institutions of science and other climate alarmists use them to foster hysteria over a climate that has vacillated between warmth and cold for as long as they have been observed.

These same purveyors of hyperbole then ignore or downplay news of the reef’s convalescence. For example, last year’s good news of coral coverage matching previous records was dismissed by claims that only the fast-growing coral had recovered. Poppycock! It is these species — staghorn and plate coral — that are most delicate and susceptible to damage and most obvious in their recovery. 

 

Staghorn and plate coral — are most delicate and susceptible to damage and most obvious in their recovery.

The exceptional news this year is that almost every region of the reef is doing extremely well. For so much of the reef’s coral to be this healthy at the same time is very unusual. Normally, a large chunk of the reef is recovering from a major cyclone that drags down the average. So when the reef’s overall coverage is at today’s level of more than thirty percent of the area, the GBR’s health is indeed good. 

This overall health is only apparent if the condition of the entire reef is reported. For whatever reason, AIMS stopped in 2017 averaging regional data to provide a composite view of the reef’s condition. I had to do that calculation for recent years myself to get a complete picture. Is this another instance of obscuring positive data? 

Those who would play down the news of exceptional reef health should consider the unnecessary emotional damage being inflicted on children worried about their future. Elementary school students in America speak of their premature demise because of a faux climate emergency. A 2019 Australian survey reported that “around half of the residents, tourists and tourist operators surveyed, and almost one-quarter of fishers, report significant Reef Grief.” 

God’s amazing creation has exceptional recuperative powers that provide further proof of intelligent design not evolution by random chance.