Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Having failed to stir interest in the Great Barrier Reef during the recent cliffhanger Australian Federal Election, reef scientists are now demanding that the government must choose which parts of the Great Barrier Reef they want to save.
Great Barrier Reef: government must choose which parts to save, says expert
Professor Hugh Possingham says authorities must confront prospect that some parts of reef are doomed and focus on what to preserve.
Governments must decide which parts of the Great Barrier Reef they most want to save and confront the prospect that some of it may be doomed, an expert on conservation modelling has warned.
University of Queensland professor Hugh Possingham said agencies, including the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, needed to make tough decisions about which parts of the natural wonder are most worth preserving “rather than trying to save everything”.
Possingham said the looming “triple whammy” of global warming’s impact on the reef – warmer seas, more acidity and more cyclones – meant time was running out and “triage” priorities were needed.
“We should be identifying the most resilient places – the ones most likely to be able to deal with all these assaults from outside and focusing our attention on them rather than trying to save everything,” he said.
“We need to focus on the bits we can definitely save.”
Possingham, a former Rhodes scholar who is described by the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute as “the global leader in mathematical modelling and decision science for nature conservation”, conceded it could be “suicide” for politicians to talk of abandoning some parts of the reef over others.
…
Possingham said while he welcomed the presence of climate sceptics, it would be “catastrophic” to delay action until the full consequences of how global climate change will play out and coral reefs would evolve were known.
“The person who creates the burden of proof has always got the upper hand because it’s almost impossible to prove anything entirely when we’re talking about large landscapes and seascapes over long periods of time,” he said.
…
Given Coral originated 540 million years ago, has survived numerous catastrophic extinction events such as the Permian-Triassic Extinction, which killed around 96% of all marine species, and has effortlessly survived hundreds of millions of years of abrupt natural changes in global temperature, I would suggest the burden of proof is on marine scientists to demonstrate why a few degrees gentle anthropogenic warming is such a threat, even if that warming actually occurs.
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What is ” ‘decision science’ for nature conservation'”? Not to mention ‘conservation modelling’. Where do you start with this idiocy? Triage for the ‘triple whammy’ to the GBR! Good grief! So that’s what a Rhodes Scholarship can do for you.
What’s ‘triple whammy’ in Latin?
“Triplici whammy”..
This is going to be a big problem. I live in one of the GBR coal ports, near a big river mouth (full of phosphates. The problem is that the reef is not dying! It’s thriving.
The scientists are going to be angry. I just hope they don’t lobby to do something stupid and damage the reef with some silly proposal.
True, there was high mortality on part of the reef, the bit that pokes into the equatorial region, the media went with the reef is dying, overall loss was not significant and that would be replaced within a year with growth.
As some local tourism people have said, the greenies only want to see damaged parts, which is the vast minority of the reef, while the rest will flourish in the warmth as life does in general
Reefs are living systems. Life spreads out as far as it can until it is living in places that are not supportive of it all the time. The ecosystem of every organism has areas where the individuals are racing to evolve before the variability of local conditions kills them off. That’s why there are different species of coral and symbiotic algae.Different ones fit a different band of conditions.
NAILED IT!
It is worse than we thought! Spanish Hogfish are invading because it is so warm.
/stock photo is from the Atlantic 😀
LOL… +1
And there’s a lot of hogwash invading the GBR as well.
g
It’s only “anthropogenic warming” of the oceans in the models when they factor in the “missing heat”. And its never “gentle” either, but a man-made disaster.
This is much better:
“Given Coral originated 540 million years ago, has survived numerous catastrophic extinction events such as the Permian-Triassic Extinction, which killed around 96% of all marine species, and has effortlessly survived hundreds of millions of years of abrupt natural changes in global temperature, I would suggest the burden of proof is on marine scientists to demonstrate why a few degrees gentle NATURAL warming is such a threat, even if that warming actually occurs.”
The cora; that forms the reef may well have evolved 450 million years ago and actually be far more robust than green alarmists will ever admit but that is not the potential extinction that is play here. That extinction is the end of the gravy train that feeds and breeds CAGW alarmism and all its many many tributaries including the one that flows from Canberra via Brisbane to the tropical alarmism hot spot in Big Green Eco Education on North Queensland
Yes. It’s like I keep saying about the space aliens. I shouldn’t have to show definitively that they are here, and pose a significant threat to humanity. The burden of proof is too great a hurdle, and the threat is an enormous one. I mean, we’re talking about a planet-wide alien presence, over many decades. We need to act now, before it’s too late!
If your doorbell rings, ignore the flickering lights, all your clocks spinning backward, and don’t open the door, Bruce.
If (when) we get another glaciation the entire reef will be gone when sea level drops 400 feet. The reef as it is today only exists due to global warming.
What needs to happen is the Australian government needs to get a prediction out of this guy about which part of the GBR can’t be saved, then leave it to its fate.
Then tell him in five years, if nothing bad has actually happened to that section of the reef, they will fire him and charge him with fraud.
See how doomed he think the reef is then.
There’s been a lot on the Internet lately about the die-off of starfish, which leads to a proliferation of sea urchins, which are decimating Pacific kelp beds. Nothing in that might be affecting the coral, except what may be affecting the starfish (a normally non-fatal densovirus) might be related to the causative factor of coral polyp mortality.
One possibility is the highly sensitive poisons being spewed our from Fukushima. Since Japan clamped down on dissemination of that data, measurements have been bubbling in the background that are truly scary. Can starfish die of be distantly related to coral mortality?
Interesting point. It seems to me that with the oceans it’s usually something really not very obvious for a lot of these die offs. Of course whatever ends up being the real cause is always global warming related somehow.
Other way around. Some reef damage is caused by infestations of Crown of Thorns starfish.
Which sea urchins prey on.
g
All we have to do to stop the bleaching events is to stop the El Ninos. Simple.
Australia can just build a big dam at the equator of the Pacific about 500 kms long (going south to north) and about 500 metres deep. Or one could stop the Trade Winds, stop the Earth’s rotation, remove the atmosphere, accelerate continental drift of Australia northeasterly etc.
Mexican official says they can’t pay for no 500 km dam & a wall on their northern border at the same time, but certainly want to bid for the deeper excavation contract. (OK, not true)
triage?
triage??
triage???!!!
“an expert in conservation modelling”
I think that says it all don’t you? Not an expert in marine reef science, not an expert in marine biology, heck not even the word scientist was used…..a conservation modeler.
And what the heck is “decision science?” I decide what is science and squawk my decisions to justify a paycheck? Or to get my name into the media because I have a grant approval pending?
Pahleeze.
Go back to your clean, sterile lab environment dude and let the “dirty”(i.e. field) scientists do the real stuff.
Nice one, Jenn 🙂 But … does he have an actual lab or is it an office with a computer or three.
I used to model stuff when I was 9 or 10 years old. You could buy these really nice Airfix plastic kits of Spitfires and ME109s and all sorts of exciting things. They came with cards of transfers that you could soak off in water and float onto the assembled model. That made the models real and authentic. It was best to paint the models before you put the transfers on. I think that my models were more accurate than his.
Never got into models myself…..although…..
I once put together a mouse skeleton from owl pellets (extra credit that I didn’t really need, but was curious to see if I could do it)…I have to say that although I got a few bones wrong and some were missing, it was more accurate than this guy could ever make a model.
Can they just set up gigantic water chillers that can directionally spew cold water to specific parts of the reef?
These so-called scientists just need to leave the reef alone. It has been going a lot longer than the human race and may outlive us at the rate we are going. Both of us survived the Holocene warming period just fine when it was a lot warmer than now.
Like Sir Lancelot, the misguided Guardian comes to the rescue of a princess, who is not in danger.
The other Python bit that comes to mind is the ‘Silly Walk’ sketch.
“It’s not…it’s not really silly at all, is it?”
“No! But I feel that with a government great it could be a lot more silly!”
‘government grant’.. @ur momisugly#$% spellcheckerrrr!!!!
No! She *DOES* wanted to be “saved”…and the last line says it all!
Should be fun, though. Somehow you just know that the areas of reef the politicians choose to ‘protect’ will quickly wither and die, while somewhere they dismiss as ‘dead’ will flourish as never before …
It wouldn’t surprise me if parts of the reef are actually destroyed — by too many tourists and/or poaching. Should it happen I hope climate change doesn’t get undeserved blame.
The other Python bit that comes to mind is the ‘Silly Walk’ sketch.
“It’s not…it’s not really silly at all, is it?”
“No! But I feel that with a government great it could be a lot more silly!”
The original:
https://youtu.be/WB1xHPrTOCE
The Ozzies should move the Great Barrier Reef to Antarctica where it will be safe from Global Warming.
Too Expensive you say? Not by half! Just stick a 10 cent postage stamp on the Reef, and mail it to Canberra, with a return address of South Pole, Antarctica. The Ozzie Posties will return it to the South Pole, Postage Due.
That can’t happen, the postage rate has gone up to $1.
Professor Hugh Possingham says authorities must confront prospect that some parts of reef are doomed and focus on what to preserve.
====
start with the doomed parts professor
The “Crown of Thorns” death threat didn’t pan out for these money grubbers, so they roll out another one … such is sustainability paradigm.
To save it, just leave it alone. It is human activity that appears to cause the worst damage. Pollution, over-fishing, mechanical damage, etc. Look at the marine parks of Cuba, which are basically off-limits. Diving is permitted, but for only a few divers a day, and no fishing of any significance. They’re in beautiful condition. http://oceandoctor.org/gardens/ Perhaps the Great Barrier Reef has been studied and explored too much?
Hhere.. I’ve been arguing that one with the trolls for a while now and they all ignore the science, fail to see the relevance of coral surviving extinction events including meteor impacts and a general geologic existence in a more warmer acidic ocean than today could possibly mean coral is a whole lot sturdier than those fretting about our mild bout of warming…
Hmmm…..So…The Hypothesis has been stated. It has been supported by other littler hypothesis that have often been shown to be exaggerated or in error. (Plus a very fractured Hockey Stick that few seem to want to hold onto anymore.)
Add to that the cracked (I’m being kind.) foundation of the Climate Models used like a crystal ball to unfailingly support The Hypothesis and the skeptics have “the burden of proof”?!?!?
Sheesh!
PS “The person who creates the burden of proof has always got the upper hand because it’s almost impossible to prove anything entirely when we’re talking about large landscapes and seascapes over long periods of time,”
In other words, “We don’t have to prove a d*mn thing. We just have to make the claim that ‘Man did this and we have to control Man NOW!'”
It’s identical to “the big lie”!
The dear old thing has been through quite a bit including Ice Ages but zounds the latest iteration is only about 10000 years old and survived the RWP and MWP. It even put up with rising sea levels. Wow!!!
Hung Possum, as other ‘brilliant mathematical modelers’, should realize that dexterity in the development of complex mathematical models that normal mortal have no hope of understanding, does not necessarily predispose him to ‘learned’ commentary as to what really happens in the real world. Perhaps the occasional visit to the GBR would help him bridge this gap in perception.
One ponders as to what prompted this former Rhodes scholar to seek attention and have his opinions published by The Guardian. Is his funding drying up?
Asp, do you think it could it be that Hung Possum has genuine concerns about potential extinction? Extinction in this case being the prospect of warming gravy train grants being turned off!
Everybody has to eat!
Give us the money or your reef will die!
Except that the threats of warming, acidification and storms is BS. The temperature trend on the Great Barrier Reef over the past three decades has been flat and temps are lower than in the Coral Triangle region where corals reach their global peak of biodiversity. A million measurements of oceanic pH over the past century shows no trend in acidification and the incidence of severe tropical cyclones on the Barrier Reef over the past century is less than in the preceding one. These are verifiable facts.
For the past half-century “experts” have told us the GBR is threatened with immanent destruction. Are they liars, fools or experts? You decide.