Reef in no trouble at all, says expert in an interview recorded by the Institute of Public Affairs. Dismissed university Professor Peter Ridd, a marine geophysicist at James Cook University, made the following comments about the Great Barrier Reef:
“When you bury down to the data about that bleaching event in 2016, at the extreme 8% died. That sounds like a lot, but when you consider the whole southern part of the Great Barrier Reef between 2011 and 2016 there was a 250% increase in the amount of coral, the coral can recover from the 8% within a year.”
“If you look at the coral cover records, which have been going on in a quality way since 1985, there is about the same amount of coral as there was is in 1985. It goes up and down, mostly with cyclones, a little bit with bleaching.”
“My view on climate change and the effect on the reef is that of all the ecosystems in the world the reef is best able to adapt to increasing climates, whether that’s natural or whether that’s anthropogenic. Half a degree temperature change doesn’t cause mass bleaching events. These are entirely natural things. They occur whenever you have a hot year. You get a hot year, your grass dies, there are forest fires, it recovers, it’s been going on since time immemorial.”
He went to comment about coral reefs in general:
“If you actually look at temperature versus coral growth rate, the higher the temperature the better the coral growth rate, so the best coral in the world is in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, where the coral grows almost twice as fast as it does in many parts of the Great Barrier Reef. So, the general rule is the hotter the better.”
“If you want to see rubbish coral go to Sydney Harbour. There are corals in Sydney Harbour, but they are total rubbish. If you want to see even worse corals go to Scotland. There are corals in Scotland. You may be interested to know those freezing corals in Scotland are supposedly being killed by climate change, when obviously for corals, especially in Scotland, a little bit of warm water is going to be a good thing.”
In 2018 Professor Peter Ridd, a marine geophysicist at James Cook University in Queensland was fired after questioning claims made by academics and journalists about the state of the Great Barrier Reef. He See our report Climate on Trial in Queensland here. He has since taken the University to court for wrongful dismissal, and has won his case. The university is refusing to reinstate him.
A video of the interview is available on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WbGVAo1hyQ
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Evidence News vol. 19, No. 15
25 September 2019
Creation Research Australia