Global news outlets ran headlines earlier this year that the Great Barrier Reef was suffering a sixth mass bleaching event, many with a picture from John Brewer Reef
Jennifer Marohasy
From The Guardian, by Graham Readfern, claiming John Brewer Reef as the centre of mass coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef,
‘More than half of the living coral cover that we can see from the air is severely bleached…’ CNN.com quotes an Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) coral biologist.
‘From the air’, we are told the state of the corals under the water. But what can anyone see of life under the water, from flying past in the air?
In my new film Bleached Colourful I show you the beauty and diversity that is Pixie Reef, and also John Brewer Reef, and also the corals fringing Heron Island from under the water. Pixie Reef and John Brewer Reef have been categorised as severely bleached and with major bleaching, respectively, based on aerial surveys. Based on fly-bys.
While John Brewer reef was reportedly suffering from major coral bleaching in March 2022, under the water many of the corals were popping pink. Photograph by Jennifer Marohasy.
When something is bleached, by definition it has lost its colour – by exposure to sunlight or, in the case of corals, by expelling their symbiotic algae.
To be clear, in early 2022, John Brewer reef was described as the centre of a sixth mass coral bleaching.
The map accompanying claims made by both Neil Cantin from AIMS and David Wachenfeld from GBRMPA that 90% of the Great Barrier Reef was badly bleached. No photographs or video from the flybys has been made available.
Yet when I went to see the corals at John Brewer reef, 40 nautical miles offshore from Townsville, and after I got in, and under the water, I was surprised to see so many of them pink. In fact, I had never seen a more beautiful coral reef, perhaps because I really like the colour pink.
My first three dives on 10th April were with underwater photographer Leonard Lim, and he took the most extraordinary photographs.
It is unusual to find pink corals at the Great Barrier Reef. Most corals, at reefs all around the world, are beige in colour. It is often the fish that really give a coral reef its colour and movement.
At John Brewer Reef early in 2022, the corals had changed colour. Many of them were now devoid of their symbiotic algae, yet they had become more colourful. They were bleached colourful!
This is not the only contradiction when it comes to the state of the Great Barrier Reef. Issues of coral cover and how to best survey the different habitats at the one reef are discussed in my new film, Bleached Colourful.
It was filmed and edited by Stuart Ireland who has more than 30 years diving Heron Island, Pixie Reef and more recently he has been documenting the state of the corals at John Brewer Reef.
The screening of Bleached Colourful will be in Perth on 1st December followed by a Q&A session. As well as answering questions, I will tell you about the corals that I saw during my most recent trip back to John Brewer reef that was just a couple of weeks ago.
The footage from that late October 2022 visit will be incorporated into a next cut of Bleached Colourful, that I hope to submit to a film festival next year, in 2023. So, the screening of this film in Perth on 1st December is very much a test screening, and I am going to be listening carefully to feedback from the audience.
Jen with the owner of Adrenalin Snorkel and Dive, Paul Crocombe just a couple of weeks ago at John Brewer reef that was reportedly at the centre of the most recent mass coral bleaching.
After the screening of Bleached Colourful that is still a work in progress, and the Q&A there will be intermission and then the chance to watch Finding Porites. That film first premiered in the Majestic Theatre at Pomona on World Ocean Day last year.
Finding Porites chronicles an adventure to Myrmidon Reef that is the most magical place with crystal clear waters, giant clams, and even bigger corals.
Remember Myrmidon! The coral reef that is beyond the Great Barrier Reef proper that I visited with Shaun, Rob, Dennis, Wizzy and, of course, Stuart filmed it all. That was back in late 2020.
This film, that also stars Peter Ridd, explains how The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) once cored the massive Porites corals to report an annual growth rate for the entire Great Barrier Reef. AIMS haven’t reported on this since 2005, you can read more here.
Porites corals do have annual growth rings, like tree rings, and so they are time capsules of the ocean’s climate history, which is our climate history.
The oldest core dates to the year 1572, with 450 years of climate history.
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‘We’re not in a climate crisis’: David Frost joins think tank that disputes global heating
Former Brexit minister David Frost has joined a controversial think tank that denies global heating is a problem, declaring: “We’re not in a climate emergency.”
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) – founded by ex-Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson – has faced calls for it to be stripped of charitable status because of its policy stance.
But Lord Frost, a key figure on the Tory right, said the organisation provided an “objective view” of climate change, as he also suggested the drive for net zero is unachievable.
“One of the things we most need is open debate, full and frank debate,” the former Boris Johnson ally told the TV station GB News.
“The GWPF has been very good at promoting that, over a decade and more, given an objective view of what is going on – and I very much want to be a part of that.”
The backbencher also called for fracking to go ahead, after Rishi Sunak reimposed a ban, and said Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng “should have stuck to their guns” instead of U-turning on the disastrous mini-Budget.
“In my view we’re not in a climate emergency or a climate crisis in the very hysterical way some people want to suggest,” Lord Frost said.
The comments come amid criticism of Rishi Sunak for a “vacuum of leadership” over climate change, as his claim to be “at the forefront” of global efforts to avert disaster was ridiculed.
The prime minister initially refused to attend the Cop27 summit and the UK was criticised for being among 165 countries that have failed to beef-up promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Sunak has also sent Alok Sharma, the respected Cop26 president, into exile, sacking from both his cabinet and his government.
The GWPF was launched in 2009 by Lord Lawson, who has called global heating a “non-existent problem” and “quasi-religious hysteria, based on ignorance”.
In the interview, Lord Frost said: “We do have a problem. And the way to tackle that is to adapt and to be serious about the kind of energy supplies we are trying to develop.
“But my worry is that we’re rushing this, trying to do too much too quickly – the technologies aren’t yet available and we’re running into problems.”
He pointed to the Ukraine war and added: “We are facing the prospects of, at least, severe strain on our energy supplies this winter.
“People are focusing on what really matters – which isn’t just carbon emissions, but will the lights stay on, do we have security of supply, and can we afford our energy?”
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Wind lobby concedes its 'cheap-energy' pledge was a big mistake
Renewable-energy producers have long touted the promise of cheap electricity, an assurance that’s helped them eat into the dominance of fossil fuels. But the pledge has gone too far, according to the world’s biggest wind-turbine maker.
Manufacturers such as Vestas Wind Systems A/S are seeing losses pile up as orders collapse at a time when they should be capitalizing on the turmoil in natural-gas markets. To blame -- at least in part -- is the industry’s insistence that clean electricity can only get cheaper, according to Henrik Andersen, chief executive officer of the Danish wind giant.
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“It made some people make the wrong assumption that energy and electricity should become free,” Andersen said in an interview in London. “We created the perception to some extent. So we are to blame for it. That was a mistake.”
While wind-power costs have steadily declined, to the point where many people concluded prices would eventually hit zero, technological advances can only go so far. Now the industry needs to charge more so that it can deliver the massive scale-up needed for countries to achieve ambitious climate goals.
Soaring commodity costs and supply-chain bottlenecks have wiped out profits for much of the wind industry this year. Vestas expects its profit margin to be around -5% in 2022.
“The output from the turbine has never been more valuable,” Andersen said. “But we are losing money in manufacturing a turbine.” Vestas has raised prices more than 30% in the past year to help stem losses.
To be sure, wind power remains competitive with other energy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove up prices for fossil fuels. But government auctions for new wind farms put pressure on companies to keep prices low, while costly and lengthy processes to gain planning permission continue to inhibit growth.
Permitting in Europe is the “overriding biggest challenge,” Andersen said. While long-term targets for the electricity sector are set in the nations’ capitals, the actual approvals for individual projects are made on a local level in offices that are often understaffed and under-resourced.
“You have actually right now delegated your defense and energy policy furthest away from where it needs to be,” the CEO said. “You cannot run energy and defense policy in the municipalities.”
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Net Zero? The hypocrisy of the religious clergy
It is a rootless age when 100 of the leaders of various Christian and other churches in Oceania can pen an open letter to Prime Minister Albanese demanding Australia stop ‘approving new coal and gas projects’.
This is not an area where they have any expertise, unlike morality. Whether from a practical or moral angle, this open letter is wrong.
Australia needs to produce more gas for its own use, and more gas and coal for the world’s use.
To deny that is to destroy any chance of a pivot to a low-carbon economy and to deny the role fossil fuels play outside the power grid, producing fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and other necessities.
Ceasing the approval of new coal and gas projects would be a real death sentence on millions in the developing and developed world.
Take the practical first.
The official Australian Energy Markets Operator (AEMO) plan is for Australian power generation to transition from a mix that is currently 53 per cent coal, 19 per cent gas and 27 per cent renewable to 98 per cent renewable plus storage and gas backup.
Most of this under the federal government’s promises is to happen within the next 8 years.
How is this to work? Let’s look at exhibit one, the state of South Australia which is the furthest state along the road to decarbonisation, bar Tasmania, which is a one-off because of its extensive, and unique hydro capacity.
South Australia is 61 per cent renewable on average, and has been reported as high as 92 per cent for short periods of time, but if it weren’t for the gas-fired backbone, and interconnectors to Victoria, it wouldn’t function as a grid. Renewable energy is unreliable, so it requires grid-scale storage and/or flexible, on-demand back-up.
On the storage side, as far as the grid is concerned, batteries are almost entirely absent. Despite boasting the largest battery in the country at Hornsdale, SA only deploys about 0.75 per cent of its electricity from batteries according to the AEMO Data Dashboard.
The only currently viable form of larger-scale storage is pumped hydro. In 2019 there were four potential pumped hydro schemes in SA vying for ARENA funding of $40 million.
Now there is only one, a project at Baroota with a potential capacity of 250 MW (10 per cent of total state peak demand) and total discharge potential of 2 GWh (5 per cent of South Australia’s daily requirement). It was supposed to start construction in 2022, but as yet there is no sign of it, so perhaps it also has been shelved.
In the absence of pumped hydro, the only way of keeping the lights on in South Australia is gas, which currently supplies 38 per cent, the same amount it supplied in 2014-15, although it has been as high as 53 per cent in 2012-13 and 52 per cent in 2017-18.
It’s possible it could reduce further with the building of more renewables, but not by much without storage.
There are already so many renewables in the system that on days like Wednesday of this week when the sun is shining and the wind blowing, they can be 95 per cent of output.
In fact, that day there was actually more power being generated than the grid could use, so the price of electricity was negative at -$48.21 (14:14 GMT-10:00).
When power is so cheap you can’t give it away most of the time there would be no profit in building more of it.
These factors are recognised in the 2022 AEMO Integrated System Plan which projects a need for 10 GW of gas-peaking capacity in 2050 (p11) supplying overall around 2 per cent of energy demand (p38). In 30 years, the gas to fuel this capacity probably won’t come from any wells in existence today, it will come from new wells the government must approve.
So the clerics who demand the end of approvals to new gas projects want to sabotage the market operator’s thoughtful scheme to get to Net Zero. Because they know better, or because they know nothing? What is the morality behind this tinkering?
Australia also has a role to play in ensuring Europe doesn’t freeze to death because of the lack of Russian gas. Europe uses 400 billion cubic metres of gas per annum, of which Russia supplied approximately 160 bcm.
To replace Russian output to Europe we need to increase total internationally tradable production by 16 per cent. Australia, as the 5th largest exporter with 9 per cent of total volume, has a moral obligation to do more than its part because we have the scale to make a difference, along with the USA, Qatar, Norway, and Canada, the other big exporters. Otherwise, people will die from cold and starvation, and Europe will have to rely on activating mothballed coal-fired power plants, and burning forests, as it is now doing, to keep its citizens alive.
How many deaths do our churchmen want on their conscience? What is the point of their plea if it leads to increased emissions?
They might retort that climate change is killing people today, but the evidence is that many more lives rely on reliable energy for a prolonged life, and to deal with the challenges of climate, than any change in the climate currently threatens.
Does God value hypothetical lives in the future more than he values real lives in the present?
They also fail to take account of the other 50 per cent of oil and gas – the 50 per cent that goes to make plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilisers, and other useful substances like bitumen.
Without plastics to provide the lightweight components that reduce energy consumption the low carbon future is even more difficult. Without pharmaceuticals managing health becomes harder and life shorter. Famine in Sri Lanka shows exactly where absence of fertiliser leads. And without bitumen where will we drive our Teslas?
If churchmen and women want to make a statement about Net Zero, then let them start at home before lecturing the rest of us.
Most lead comfortable middle-class lives with tax-sheltered above-average incomes (an Anglican priest in Brisbane earns around $104,000 after tax, equivalent to $140,000 before tax). They have mostly working spouses, second cars, overseas sabbaticals, and often holiday homes.
As a consequence, their carbon footprint is much larger than the average.
Rather than signing open letters telling the government what to do, they should concentrate on their daytime job. The Bible has some good advice for situations like this.
‘And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me remove the speck from your eye”; and look, a plank is in your own eye?’ Matt: 7:4-5
Without a proper understanding of the practicalities, there is no way to make moral pronouncements. God might work in mysterious ways, but he only works within the physical world that he has made, and it has limitations.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/11/net-zero-the-hypocrisy-of-the-religious-clerisy/
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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