Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Just how long do we have to wait until the Great Barrier Reef is dead? The Reef allegedly went critical in the great El-Nino of 1998. Ever since, reef scientists have been bombarding us with dire predictions and demanding billions of dollars and urgent action to “save” it.
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef ‘critical’ due to climate change
International Union for Conservation of Nature report says more than a third of world’s heritage sites are of ‘significant concern’ or ‘critical’.
The health of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the world’s most extensive coral reef ecosystem, is in a critical state and deteriorating as climate change warms the waters around it, an international conservation group said, warning that more than a third of the world’s heritage sites are similarly threatened.
The World Heritage-listed site off Australia’s northeastern coast has lost more than half its coral in the past three decades.
Coral-bleaching in 2016, 2017 and 2020 has further damaged its health and affected its animal, bird and marine population, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said in a report.
Bleaching occurs when hotter water destroys the algae upon which the coral feeds, causing it to turn white.
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Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/4/australias-great-barrier-reef-critical-due-to-climate-change
My question – what evidence is there that bleaching is bad for coral reefs? Perhaps coral bleaching is like trees dropping their leaves – a completely normal part of the natural cycle.
Great Barrier Reef death in five years is “laughable”
Daniel Bateman, The Cairns PostMay 21, 2016 5:00am
CLAIMS by a James Cook University professor that the Great Barrier Reef will be “terminal” in five years have been rubbished by one of his own colleagues.
In a scientific paper released this week, JCU’s Dr Jon Brodie and Professor Richard Pearson warned the natural wonder would be in a terminal condition within five years without a $10 billion commitment during the federal election campaign to improve water quality.
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But JCU marine geophysicist Professor Peter Ridd said his colleagues’ claims were “laughable”.
“I think the threats to the Barrier Reef are greatly exaggerated and mostly based upon science that is very poorly quality assured,’’ he said.
Latest findings by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority show 93 per cent of the natural wonder has varying levels of coral bleaching which was worse in remote parts off Cape York.
Prof Ridd said bleaching was an entirely natural event.
“It has always occurred over the millennia, and this is nothing special,’’ he said. “It’s no different to say that on the land, when in extremely dry conditions for example, eucalypt trees lose their leaves
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Read more: https://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/cairns/great-barrier-reef-death-in-five-years-is-laughable/news-story/7f0de36647f172815f55ebfd3a2e9df1
Time has vindicate Peter Ridd’s 2016 criticism of alarmist claims the reef would be terminal in 5 years. Even the most pessimistic reef scientists agree the reef is still alive enough to be worth them continuing to receive millions of dollars of research funding.
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There is a long tradition of myths of death and resurrection, the barrier reef coral myth of repeated death and return to life joins this rich collection of cultural mythology.
For example, Osiris of ancient Egypt was one of the first to be associated with the mummy wrap. When his brother, Set, cut him up into pieces after killing him, Isis, his wife, found all the pieces and wrapped his body up, enabling him to return to life.
The Sumerian deity Dumuzid has a sister Inanna who dies. Dumuzid fails to adequately mourn Inanna’s death and, when she returns from the Underworld, she allows the galla demons to drag him down to the Underworld as her replacement. Inanna later regrets this decision and decrees that Dumuzid will spend half the year in the Underworld, but the other half of the year with her, while his sister Geshtinanna stays in the Underworld in his place, thus resulting in the cycle of the seasons.
In corresponding Greek mythology the goddess Aphrodite found the infant Adonis and gave him to be raised by Persephone, the queen of the Underworld. Adonis grew into an astonishingly handsome young man, causing Aphrodite and Persephone to feud over him, with Zeus eventually decreeing that Adonis would spend one third of the year in the Underworld with Persephone, one third of the year with Aphrodite, and the final third of the year with whomever he chose. Adonis chose to spend his final third of the year with Aphrodite.
Likewise Dionysus was believed to have been born from the union of Zeus and Persephone, and to have himself represented an underworld aspect of Zeus. Many believed that he had been born twice, having been killed and reborn as the son of Zeus and the mortal Semele.
In ancient Turkey the daemon god Agdistis initially bore both male and female attributes – a non-binary god! But the trans-phobic Olympian gods, fearing Agdistis, cut off the male organ and cast it away. There grew up from it an almond-tree, and when its fruit was ripe, Nana, who was a daughter of the river-god Sangarius, picked an almond and laid it in her bosom. The almond disappeared, and she became pregnant. Nana abandoned the baby (Attis). The infant was tended by a he-goat. As Attis grew, his long-haired beauty was godlike, and his mother, Cybele, then fell in love with him. And so on …
Now to add to this we have the myth of coral trolls that lie underwater staring at the moon each night. When the world of men pollute the air with their foul engines, the trolls can no longer see the moon at night. So in grief they banish the algal cells from their mineral matrix and turn as pale as the moon, in this way entreating the skies to clear and the moon to return. The moon on due course returns but the coral trolls die. However the moon urinates into the sea fertilising new growth of the coral trolls which return to life. And so the cycle of death and rebirth of the corals continues endlessly.