The Reef Ain't Dead

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by StuM

Don't blindly accept Puddleduck's assertion . You are starting from a false premise.

I was referring to the severe event in the northern section a few years ago which Ridd had the problems with. Not the aerial survey one which I'm a bit skeptical of.

[AndieKay]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Professor Peter Ridd lost his job at the James Cook University because he criticised the quality of some of the research papers being published on damage to the Great Barrier Reel by the so called climate change. The matter went before the courts which found in Ridd’s favour. It has now found it’s way into the political sphere and is the subject of a Senate enquiry.

Since the parent parliament to the Australian chose to lop the head of an intransigent sovereign most sensible folks figure it unwise to mess about with parliaments. Consequently many of the facts being uncovered are probably both truthful and very interesting.

It was revealed by the Head of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) that contrary to the alarmist THE REEF IS DEAD headlines that only 3 percent of the inshore reefs is affected by pesticides and sediment and that the other 97 percent mostly 50 to 100 kilometeres offshore wher the majority of the reef is situated is totally unaffected.

Some corrals live for hundreds of years and like trees form annual growth rings the characteristics of which reliably infer coral health. These naturally occurring records show no slowing of corral growth in the 100 years to 2005 that agriculture has been practiced in Australia. There are no reliable records since 2005 as AIMS claimed corral growth rates collapsed between 1990 and 2005 because of global warming however this amazingly coincides with a change of methodology with the data between 1990 and 2005 (We’re just going to have to make this sort of thing a criminal offense with long gaol sentences for the perpetrators, they result in vast wastage of tax payer funds. BOM has also adjusted the historical temperature records down twice to allow a sequence of record high temperatures to be recorded) and under duress AIMS has agreed to update the data.

To it’s credit AIMS has recently instituted an opposing team approach to the evaluation of studies on the reef rather than depending on peer review, which is proving to be a very poor quality control process . One team argues for and one against the hypothesis contained in a body of research and if done diligently and rigorously this might provide the public with more accurate and objective information (I've got my fingers crossed on this one. Whilst we are remarkably free of material corruption in Australia we are exceptionally good at corrupting or perverting any process devised by mankind)

So, if you want to visit Australia and dive on healthy reef, apparently it ain't all dead and when this stupid covid panic this dies down you're all welcome.

I stopped reading at "so called climate change".

If you want people to listen, maybe not start with a term that colours you post with idiotic political view points that go against the vast majority of the scientific evidence.

Climate change is very real and that is true regardless of how inconvenient it is to your politics.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by lestersails

The answer to your question is obvious. Spend the time to learn about the methods of a field and read a broad and representative range of scientific publications from reputable outlets (e.g., Science, Nature, PNAS, Physical Letters). Most of us can't read primary literature outside of our own field (if one is scientifically trained) so focus instead on review articles. Doesn't matter what the newspapers and media say.

I do but even the outlets you suggest tend to be dominated by agendas and having done enough research myself, I see manipulation all the time. Also, people who do this tend to get labeled deniers.

Problem is policy is built around what the media reports. As you say, most people don't have easy access to the underlying research but only the media summary which are easy to manipulate to support the agenda. Read enough articles claiming the world is coming to an end and people start believing it.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by AndieKay

I stopped reading at "so called climate change".

If you want people to listen, maybe not start with a term that colours you post with idiotic political view points that go against the vast majority of the scientific evidence.

Climate change is very real and that is true regardless of how inconvenient it is to your politics.

But I suppose you are fine with the opposing point of view manipulating their terminology to push their agenda.

First it was "global cooling", then "global warming" then when they couldn't get a consistent answer, they went with the more ambiguous "climate change".

Using "climate change" just as much colors your post as coming from a political angle and also creates the same difficulty in convincing others you are right...especially when you state it as indisputable truth that is not allowed to be questioned.

[seandepagnier]

I remember years ago visiting suwarrow atoll in the south pacific. The reef there was incredible and there were lots of sharks.

After a few days some other cruisers showed up, then more and more. Eventually a dozen or so. When this happened they started chatting about "deep water horizon" and how "the ocean can take it".

It soon became evident that in their former working lives these people had worked as big bankers, airline pilots and other jobs that all have huge consumption levels without benefiting very many people. They had no solar panels on their boats instead running a generator to burn 10 liters every day no matter what. When I asked about solar panels they said it would devalue the boat to install them so it was a bad idea and people in the future will have to figure out something else, but it's not their problem.

These same cruisers used outboards to power their dinghy to go less than 500 meters in one of the most pristine reefs remaining in the world rather than simply row and they left visible slick in the water doing this. They sanded fiberglass dust into the reef.

Then the same cruisers continued with racist comments against the native people of their country (australian) and other negative comments toward germans and how "they lost the war" and he loved repeating that phrase even though it was more than 65 years in the past.

I am there also in disbelief as at the time I have few resources and still I am rowing my dingy, cooking food for the potluck using solar and I also sailed in and out of the atoll which is possible for any of the boats to do without much difficulty, but none of them even tried. Instead they dieseled in and out every one of them, most of them I never even saw a sail as they did not raise one until they were out of sight (if they did at all) despite trade wind conditions.

What did I learn? That the majority of cruisers are incredibly privileged but also incredibly selfish, and the same sentiment is repeated all over the forum, especially in this thread.

I think this title "the reef ain't dead" is like saying "the sky ain't red" . How about using a reputable source's title:

"The Great Barrier Reef likely just experienced its most widespread bleaching event on record"

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

I do but even the outlets you suggest tend to be dominated by agendas and having done enough research myself, I see manipulation all the time.

Complete nonsense. You are yourself violating one of the fundamental rules of science - data selection. Some scientific papers have been shown to not be valid or reproducible. The number is actually quite small and those are exposed to be invalid by the scientific process itself. It works.
The point you seem to want to ignore is that climate change is supported by an overwhelming amount of the data. That there might be a paper here or there that has shown to be invalid has nothing to do with that. You are just distorting the science to grind a political axe.

[aqfishing]

Originally Posted by AndieKay

I stopped reading at "so called climate change".

If you want people to listen, maybe not start with a term that colours you post with idiotic political view points that go against the vast majority of the scientific evidence.

Climate change is very real and that is true regardless of how inconvenient it is to your politics.

The majority of scientists also thought the earth was flat!

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

I do but even the outlets you suggest tend to be dominated by agendas and having done enough research myself, I see manipulation all the time. Also, people who do this tend to get labeled deniers.

Problem is policy is built around what the media reports. As you say, most people don't have easy access to the underlying research but only the media summary which are easy to manipulate to support the agenda. Read enough articles claiming the world is coming to an end and people start believing it.

What "agenda"? Be specific.


(I would have thought that "not wallowing around or suffocating in our own filth" or "not sticking our kids and grandkids with a big cleanup and a hotter world" were enough to serve as the agenda, but apparently not.)

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

The majority of scientists also thought the earth was flat!

No, they didn't. This is historical nonsense made up by people averse to facts - historical or scientific.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

The majority of scientists also thought the earth was flat!

In the minds of ideologues, myths die hard, no matter how often they are refuted.
“With extraordinarily few exceptions, no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Earth was flat," historian Jeffrey Burton Russell wrote in 1997.
"A round Earth appears at least as early as the sixth century B.C. with Pythagoras, who was followed by Aristotle, Euclid, and Aristarchus, among others in observing that the earth was a sphere."
By the first century A.D., "the sphericity of the earth was accepted by all educated Greeks and Romans."
➥ Myth of the Flat Earth

[Rob_P]

Originally Posted by lestersails

Your highlighting the flat earth model is great - it deflates your entire argument. That model was shown to be incorrect by Plato in 330 BC - just as the scientific empirical model and foundations of logical thinking were being developed. The stories about Columbus defying scientific consensus that the earth was flat are fictional. Flat earth was the 'consensus' of people who were ignorant of empirical evidence and could not think logically. Sound familiar?
It was never a consensus of scientists or people who thought scientifically. Were there some crackpots who persisted in believing it? Sure, there always are.
Please speak for yourself when you state that we are ignorant over the reasons why the earth is different. Entirely possible that you are so. I am not.

This is why I don't like to engage in this type of discussion.

You got to "flat earth" and stopped reading because you thought you knew what I'd said. Unfortunately, you're wrong in your assumption.

All of the things I highlighted were at one time thought to be "true" due to "consensus". That all of them have been proven to be false is a product of evidence, not belief.

Today's climate change theory is based on "belief" and consensus agreement rather than evidence. This is because scientists don't have enough facts to make the statements they're making and are extrapolating based on insufficient data. Data that has also been tampered with multiple times. As such the data set itself is flawed and any conclusions drawn from it cannot stand not matter how many people agree that they're true.

In the end, consensus is not fact. It is nothing more than an agreement to agree. Human history is filled with consensus. Most of which turned out to be wrong.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Rob_P

All of the things I highlighted were at one time thought to be "true" due to "consensus". That all of them have been proven to be false is a product of evidence, not belief.

There's a world of difference between what the great medieval unwashed believed, and what a preponderance of scientists still think is true, based on evidence and modelling.

Today's climate change theory is based on "belief" and consensus agreement rather than evidence. This is because scientists don't have enough facts to make the statements they're making and are extrapolating based on insufficient data. Data that has also been tampered with multiple times. As such the data set itself is flawed and any conclusions drawn from it cannot stand not matter how many people agree that they're true.

You have no basis for drawing that conclusion, other than the noise that a bunch of skeptic sites have put out.

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by Rob_P

Today's climate change theory is based on "belief" and consensus agreement rather than evidence.

This statement belies a fundamental misunderstanding of the scientific process, conflating it with opinions and beliefs. If I hypothesize anthropomorphic climate change I make a prediction about something that I should observe, say in a core sample of a Greenland ice sheet. I go to Greenland, collect the core and ask if what I predicted was borne out. If it is observed, that is then support for my hypothesis.

Science is about making a hypothesis that is refutable by experimental evidence. If the evidence is inconsistent with the hypothesis, that weakens or disproves it. It is a refutable assertion. It tests an idea against objective, measurable reality. There is precious little evidence that is contradictory to the anthropogenic climate change model and loads that is consistent. It is a body of experimental evidence from refutable hypotheses that leads to a scientific consensus, not beliefs.

You have beliefs that are not going to change, come h*** or high water. They are not refutable. You are free to hold them, no one can tell you not to. But you don't have any standing to assert that your irrefutable beliefs are as valid as consensus based on scientific evidence. Just ain't so.

[barnakiel]

Perhaps the statement 'majority of scientists believed that ...' is a bit of an overstatement (but much rather it is an unintended inaccuracy by a fellow poster).


We tend to forget, that up to a point, knowledge was mostly stored, processed and also created by religious people, NOT by scientists. It used to be monks, priests and popes that were the most educated people around (well read, speaking languages, traveling, etc.).


And those monks, priests and popes not only back then, but many of them still today, know that the Earth is flat.


It does not matter what scientists believed in, for scientists were a margin. Clergy were the mainstream source of information, and they said it was flat. And so, it was.


God gave us Earth to populate it and to pollute it (Genesis, but I do not recall now which LP). God gave us animals to eat them. And the reef. I just do not know why HE gave us the reef. Probably to wreck our boats on.


Most people today do not care about science either. Most people believe in gods, and keep on polluting.


I do not need no science to know it. I do not need no Buddha to teach it to me. I can see it with my own eyes. Sans gods and sans scientists.


b.

[barnakiel]

And, freaking hell, when you say 'there is no proof' - you betray your armchair pedigree. Move the bum, sail some. Perhaps then you will stop repeating your no proof mantra.


b.