The latest data on the Great Barrier Reef shows record-high amounts of coral. There has been more coral in each of the past six years than in any of the previous 35 years since records began.
We were told that climate change caused six “devastating” hot water bleaching events in the past decade, but now we have very healthy levels of coral. And the types of coral that are genuinely more sensitive to hot water – the plate and staghorn coral – have ended up strongly proliferating. How did all that coral supposedly die from hot water, and despite taking a decade to regrow, end up in record amounts?
The answer, of course, is because there was no devastation. This outcome shows that doom-science institutions are untrustworthy and invent adversity to justify calls for more funding.
State and federal governments shovel about $400m each year to the science and management organisations to “save” the reef. And that cost is the tip of the iceberg.
Generations of schoolchildren have been told our national icon is doomed. And this bad science is behind a raft of laws and regulations hammering farmers along the Queensland coast because farmers are blamed for supposedly killing the reef too.
Something needs to be done to review and monitor advice of those scientific institutions that have a vested interest in exaggerating adverse effects of human actions.
With the help of some agricultural organisations, I have been leading a campaign called Check the Science.
This seeks science audits that would be carried out in Queensland by the new Productivity Commission. The Queensland agriculture minister has acknowledged the problem with science integrity.
Few could argue against some science checking that might cost a small fraction of the direct costs to the government of funding scientific institutions and the even greater regulatory costs imposed on farmers and others.
But LNP Premier David Crisafulli rejected this course and instead handed the untrustworthy science institutions another $330m.
The government cannot even use the fact that the Great Barrier Reef has record amounts of coral to muster the courage to do
some science checks when the establishment scientific institutions had been claiming the reef was doomed.
At the national level, things look far more encouraging.
There is a growing realisation that some of our science institutions are racked with groupthink, and driven by ideology and naked self-interest to keep their funding flowing.
The reef has supposedly been on its last legs since the 1960s and people are starting to wake up.
In the meantime, rejoice that our national treasure is doing fine.
