Dr. Bill Johnston

Thanks Sterling Burnett and Anthony Watts for your excellent overviews of my recent research on sea surface temperature along the Great Barrier Reef (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/03/29/sorry-wapo-there-is-no-evidence-bleaching-threatens-a-great-barrier-reef-tipping-point/; https://climaterealism.com/2021/08/despite-claims-of-great-barrier-reef-decline-due-to-global-warming-no-temperature-change-in-150-years/).

Although the BomWatch frontstory captures the main messages, the full report is available here: 

I have also examined sea level trends at Townsville and Cooktown and extensively investigated temperatures measured by weather stations at Gladstone, Rockhampton, Townsville and Cairns. There is more to come, but each detailed investigation takes several months to complete.

On close examination, much of the ‘science’ about coral bleaching reported in top-shelf Journals repeatedly use the same data or the same tired studies that use the same data to develop a mantra that in the light of empirical data fails the test of reality. By using visions of dying reefs to thieve ever more money from Australian taxpayers, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies has built an elaborate castle-in-the-air. With their over-paid executives and boards, and being interwoven into government policy, they and their partner organizations have become too wealthy, too unaccountable, and therefore far too costly for the services they provide.

Based on reviewing hundreds of papers, much of their research is questionable, flag-waving, poorly thought-out, done using biased visual techniques and inappropriate statistical methods. Furthermore, it pays them handsomely to have WWF and pretend scientists at the Climate Council, the one-sided The Conversation and even the Australian Academy of Science (otherwise known as The Australian Academy of Drama Queens https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2021/04/the-australian-academy-of-drama-queens/) onside and backing their causes. The ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies is not a genuine unbiased research establishment where views are debated out in the open for the public good. Instead, they filter and massage every word and sack people expressing common-sense, refreshingly contrary views like Dr Peter Ridd.

Imagine joining the dots between bleaching somewhere sometime and a coal fired power station in the New South Wales Hunter Valley or India, or the phalanx of private jets flying to Davos. Reef science has little to do with the Reef and much to do with political wrangling and virtue signaling. Contrast for example Donald Trump at Davos in 2020.

with the embarrassing and pathetic essay read by Australia’s Prime Minister Morrison in 2022.

Under the Australian Constitution, Reef science is a state matter that belongs to Queensland. However, having it declared by UNESCO in 1981 turned it into a political football and the Canberra-based begging-bowl now in clear view. Protected by Labor’s ‘mean-girls’ including former Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong, and green-Liberals including Morrison,

the current Australian Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley is too weak to do anything about it. Instead of demanding an audit of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and allied institutions including CSIRO, The Bureau of Meteorology, James Cook University and the University of Queensland, just the other day the Prime Minister gave them another A$Billion over 10-years to continue to beat the drum.

The Reef 2050 Plan Independent Expert Panel headed by Professor Ian Chubb is part of the problem and should have been disbanded years ago. The 17-member Reef 2050 Advisory Committee which includes WWF with their agenda of closing down agriculture should be next. As there is no warming and they serve no useful purpose, and GBRMPA’s ‘reef managers’ only flap-about, dish-out money and write press- reports, what is the use of plans, targets and ‘investments’, when the real goal is destruction of Australia’s electricity network and the replacement of agriculture in central Queensland with woody-weeds under the auspices of ‘carbon farming’? Of the main Australian political parties, it is only The Nationals who are positioned to rise to the challenge and instigate positive change. However, with a federal election due in May and the Labor Party waiting to continue where Penny Wong left off, they are dragging their feet.

All we can do at https://www.bomwatch.com.au/ is to continue to expose the top-down rot that has taken hold of Australia’s science institutions in the hope that people will take notice. After all, it only takes one good person to build the first snowball, two to get it rolling and as it gathers speed, the rest should demand that Minister Ley and former Minister Wong take action on behalf of taxpayers, or seek less destructive careers than being Ministers and Ministers-in-waiting.

Dr. Bill Johnston

via Watts Up With That?

April 6, 2022

Fake Warming Along the Great Barrier Reef