Climate Fear-Mongering Fail: Great Barrier Reef Sees Third Record Year Of Coral Growth

Climate Fear-Mongering Fail: Great Barrier Reef Sees Third Record Year Of Coral Growth

Chris Morrison

Massive increases in coral across the Australian Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have been reported for 2023-24 making it the third record year in a row of heavy growth. 

Across almost all parts of the 1,500 mile long reef, from the warmer northern waters to the cooler conditions in the south, coral is now at its highest level since detailed observations began. 

The inconvenient news has been ignored in mainstream media which, curiously, have focused on a non-story in Nature that claimed “climate change” poses an “existential threat” to the GBR.

“The science tells us that the GBR is in danger – and we should be guided by the science,” Professor Helen McGregor from the University of Wollongong told Victoria Gill of BBC News.

The existential threat is “now realised” reported the Guardian.

Travelling back from the reality inhabited by the Guardian, it can be reported that last year’s gains were eye-catchingly large. On the Northern GBR, hard coral cover leapt from 35.8% to 39.5%, in the central area it rose from 30.7% to 34%, while in the south it went from 34% to 39.1%. The report is the result of monitoring of hard coral cover reefs from August 2023 to June 2024 by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The percentage of hard coral cover is a standard measurement of reef conditions used by scientists and is said to provide a simple and robust measure of reef health. Similar reports have been published by the AIMS over the last 38 years.

Not everyone goes along with the coral fear-mongering. The distinguished scientist Dr. Peter Ridd has studied the GBR for 40 years and notes that coral numbers have “exploded” in recent years. He says that all 3,000 reefs in the world’s largest system have excellent coral. “Not a single reef or even a single species of reef life has been lost since British settlement,” he reports. The impact of bleaching is “routinely exaggerated by the media and some scientific organisations”. In his view, the public is being deceived about the reef. “How this occurred is a serious issue for the reef-science community which has embraced emotion, ideology and raw self-interest to maintain funding,” he observes.