By Cliff Reece
CORAL REEFS AND POLAR BEARS ARE IN NO DANGER DESPITE CLIMATE ACTIVISTS’ CLAIMS
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Locations
As can be seen in the map above, corals choose to live and thrive in the warmest of Earth’s waters between 30° north and 30° south latitudes
Corals have existed continuously for at least the past 60 million years.
The primary reasons for coral bleaching events, which vary significantly depending on the time and location, include sediment and fertilizer pollution from nearby coastal lands, chemicals found in sunscreen (oxybenzone), fertilizer and nitrogen loading from agriculture, and cold temperature events.
The argument that corals are being destroyed by man-created carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is easily disproven by the available data. Coral survived, and even thrived, when global temperatures were significantly higher than they are today.
Short-term strong heat waves or cold snaps can cause bleaching events, but such events have occurred many times in history, including long before humans started producing substantial amounts of carbon dioxide emissions.
Moreover, studies show coral can and do adapt genetically, and that they are growing increasingly poleward as earth experiences gradual long-term global warming.
Further, history shows that cold snaps can harm corals much more than warm spells.
In 2010, lower-than-usual ocean temperatures off the coast of Florida killed more corals than any warm-water event, destroying more than 40 percent of reef-building corals.
According to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, “The majority of reef building corals are found within tropical and subtropical waters.”
Additionally, many of the stories concerning coral bleaching are not accurate and/or overestimate the problem.
For example, climate activists like to target the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) documented that 22 percent of the GBR experienced bleaching recently, not 93 percent as the mainstream media reported.
AIMS wrote, “After a series of severe and widespread disturbances over the last decade, the Great Barrier Reef is currently in a recovery window with coral cover rising in all three regions.”
The AIMS 2022 report on the GBR contained more good news, “Continued coral recovery leads to 36-year highs across two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef “
These findings correlate with a study by Dr Peter Ridd that revealed that not only are the coral recovering, the number of healthy corals is now at an all-time high.
Dr Peter Ridd was a former Professor at James Cook University in Queensland until he was dismissed by them in 2018 after he made critical comments about the research conducted at the University.
In an email to a journalist, he said the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority “is grossly misusing some scientific ‘data’ to make the case that the Great Barrier Reef is greatly damaged”.
He also said that scientific organisations were “quite happy to spin a story for their own purposes, in this case to demonstrate that there is massive damage to the Great Barrier Reef.
Peter is now with the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) where he can state the truth within his area of expertise without fear of censure or dismissal.
In ‘Climate Change: The Facts’, published by the Institute of Public Affairs, Ridd said that given “the serious problems with quality assurance in many areas of science, and possibly more so for Great Barrier Reef policy science” that “we can be sceptical of claims the Great Barrier Reef is in peril.”
Recently, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek had the audacity to claim that the recovery of coral on the GBR was almost entirely due to her active involvement and especially her decision to stop a coal-mining project.
Ms Plibersek announced the government would block a coal project due to concerns it would pollute the Great Barrier Reef.
IPA Fellow Peter Ridd responded by saying that her comments on the Great Barrier Reef were “completely deceptive” with coral in the reef thriving.
“The public will get utterly the wrong impression and people like a lot of my friends and relatives who work in coal mines will look at that and think ‘these guys are not serious about facts and the truth’,” he told Sky News.
Polar bear populations have increased dramatically during recent decades, despite the modest global warming that has occurred over the same period.
The estimated polar bear population has quadrupled since 1950, rising from 10,000 bears in 1950 to 39,000 bears today.
Polar bears evolved between 6 million years ago and 350,000 years ago, and they survived and even thrived, in much warmer climates than what we’re seeing today.
Climate activists claim that even a modest amount of warming would reduce Arctic ice and food availability by so much that it would push polar bears to extinction.
The evidence suggests this is false. Polar bears evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago and have thrived under much warmer climatic conditions than those that exist today, including during the Mid-Holocene Warm Period, which lasted for 2,000 years and occurred between 5,000 to 7,000 years ago.
After dropping to a low of 10,000 bears in 1950, during the middle of a global cooling period, polar bear numbers have quadrupled to as many as 39,000 today. Further, polar bear experts, such as Dr. Susan Crockford, have documented at length how polar bear populations have managed to increase despite a modestly warming world.
Contrary to the many dire claims made by climate activists about polar bears, proof of declining polar bear populations essentially vanishes when all of the available data are considered.
As with much that passes for ‘science’ in today’s world, these two examples of deliberately falsified claims demonstrate that we need to distrust practically everything claimed by government/university climate scientists as well as radical left-wing climate activists and people/organisations who have a vested financial and/or political interest in deceiving us.
The Greens or the ‘Watermelon Party’ as they should be called (green on the outside but red inside) are the most obvious example…… Marxist to the core!
Not surprisingly, left-wing media entities such as the ABC/SBS, the Guardian newspaper and Nine Network newspapers Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age have been found sadly lacking when it comes to climate issues.
Sky News and The Epoch Times can usually be trusted to provide factual commentary.
Many thanks to The Heartland Institute’s ‘Climate at a Glance’ website for much of the technical material included in this article.
Further information can also be viewed on the CO2 Coalition website (https://co2coalition.org) and The Saltbush Club website (https://saltbushclub.com).
Cliff Reece is the retired Principal of consulting firm Crisis Risk Management, former Executive Director/CEO of the National Safety Council of Australia (NSW/ACT) and divisional manager with KPMG.
Originally published at: https://richardsonpost.com/cliff-reece/33819/global-warming-lies-exposed/
I have just visited Western Greenland, the Canadian archipelago, the N W Passage and Alaska, and the Innuit villages we visited are allowed by the government to shoot 50 polar bears per year, hardly something one would expect if the bears were in danger of disappearing due to global warming? I also listened to a talk by one of the environmental guides on our trip who said that reported polar bear numbers depended on who did the counting and why. If grants were needed, then surveys managed to somehow arrive at low numbers, but if they were not then a more realistic and reliable figure would result.