From THE DAILY SCEPTIC
It might be wondered why climate catastrophising clots bother with coral and in particular the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). For years as GBR coral cover hit new record highs, it let them down all the time. A bout of temporary natural ‘bleaching’ in 2024 gave a little Armageddon hope with the Guardian reporting last year that GBR coral may reach a “tipping point” where it cannot recover fast enough between “major catastrophic events”. But it’s back to disappointment this year with the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) observing in its latest 2025–26 report that hard coral cover remained stable or increased across much of the GBR, “demonstrating the capacity of many reefs to withstand and recover from disturbances when stress is limited and conditions are favourable”.
It’s called Nature. Who knew that corals that have been around for hundreds of millions of years can survive slight changes in water temperature, surface storms and attack from other creatures in the sea. Apparently not King Klot himself, George Monbiot of the Guardian, who told us in June 1999 that: “The imminent total destruction of the world’s coral reefs is not a scare story but a fact”.
The dramatic bleaching that has always affected coral is a classic ‘look out of the window’ trope. These days it seems to be the only argument left for Net Zero promoting fanatics to explain natural events, weather and complex atmospheric science. It is of course anti-scientific junk, easily debunked, and reliant for its effect on emotional, gullible and politically motivated messengers. It is the poster explanation for the ‘post-truth’ world of settled climate science. Who cares about understanding detailed science about underwater coral, when children and adults need scaring about upcoming ecological collapse. Carry on munching meat and flying to Fuengirola and the polar bears, bees, penguins, moths, coral get it (all other soon-to-be-extinct species are available if required).
It doesn’t help when the scientists clamber on board the Net Zero gravy train. Last year, Dr Mike Emslie, who leads long-term reef monitoring at AIMS, told the Guardian that: “It has been a pretty sobering year of surveys with the biggest impacts I have seen in the 30-plus years I have been doing this… This volatility is very likely a sign of an unstable system”. Who knows what depths of despair the estimable Emslie would have plunged if he was not commenting on 2024–25 figures that showed coral was at its fourth highest level since detailed observations began in the 1980s.
The AIMS no longer compiles a graphic representation of overall coral growth for the entire GBR, a gap filled by the reef scientist Dr Peter Ridd, as shown below.
As can be seen, 2025–26 coral cover remained at remarkably healthy levels with an upward tick resuming the growth path of recent times. Headline you are unlikely to see in mainstream media: ‘Five years of record coral levels on Great Barrier Reef points to robust healthy ecosystem’.
The AIMS divides the Reef into three separate zones: northern, central and southern. In the north, the region-wide average hard coral cover increased from 30% last year to 35.1%. The AIMS notes that this is a rise of 16.7% relative to 2022–25 and coral cover is said to remain above the long-term average of 27%. In the central area, coral cover was boosted from 28.6% to 31.6%, well above the long-term average of 20%. In the cooler waters of the south, where growth is often more constrained, the hard coral cover was stable within the margin of error, although the current level of 26.4% remains below the long-term average of 29.3%. Despite 2025–26 summer sea surface temperatures remaining 0.7°C – 1.1°C above average across the Reef, numerous surveys showed low levels of bleaching across the entire area.
Net Zero activists blame coral bleaching on spikes in seawater surface temperature – ‘marine heatwaves’ is the common term – that are caused as humans release carbon dioxide by using hydrocarbons. Of course, there is no proof of a direct connection since it is impossible to measure and attribute a cause to such micro natural variations that occur all the time. In fact, supposed human-induced changes in water temperature are a particularly unconvincing argument for ecosystem collapse since tropical coral grows happily in waters between 24°C and 32°C. It hardly helps the argument that coral growth is often more vigorous in the warmer waters around the equator.
Natural bleaching is not rare at the GBR, with events occurring in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022, 2024 and 2025. Needless to say, alarmist Monbiot-inspired column inches show upward spikes at the same time. Writing in the Australian last year, Peter Ridd noted that the Reef was still doing fine despite suffering six allegedly cataclysmic coral bleaching events in the last decade. “There should be no coral at all if those reports were true”, he added.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.
