Always of interest what catches the BBC eye and what doesn’t.
Here they report that the Great barrier Reef is in trouble….mainly from climate change:
Australia Great Barrier Reef outlook ‘poor and deteriorating’
The outlook for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is poor despite conservation efforts, with further deterioration expected in coming years, a report says.
The bleak forecast came in a five-yearly report released by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
Climate change remained the biggest threat to the site, the report said.
But poor water quality from land-based run-off, coastal development and fishing also posed challenges, it said.
Contrast the attention paid to climate change in that report with the reluctance to mention it in the BBC report on this story:
From the Times July 3rd:
‘Dont’ blame climate change for loss of coral’
A misplaced focus on the impact of climate change has delayed vital work to save vanishing coral reefs in the Caribbean, a leading scientist said.
The main reasons why the area covered by live coral has more than halved since the 1970s are overfishing and coastal pollution, according to Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of the global marine programme at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The BBC in its report on ‘The most detailed, careful study of its kind that’s ever been done.’ took a different tack and decided not to mention the inconvenient claim that climate change had little to do with the reef destruction…..
Caribbean coral reefs ‘could vanish in 20 years’
This BBC report managed to completely ignore the explicit statements in a study from the International Union for Conservation of Nature which had 90 experts run an analysis of 35,000 surveys of Caribbean reefs from the last 40 years and found that you can’t blame climate change for loss of coral…..it had been a ‘convenient truth’ to blame climate change as it allowed local governments in the Caribbean to avoid taking difficult measures to deal with overfishing, pollution, the impact of tourism and sewage, and soil erosion.
Climate change has not been the main determining factor when assessing what causes damage to the Caribbean reefs….the main factors were pollution, overfishing and overpopulation…..ocean warming played a very minor, if any, role in reef loss, but its future effects shouldn’t ignored.
From despair to repair: Dramatic decline of Caribbean corals can be reversed
If these factors were addressed it was found that the reefs recovered…therefore proving climate change was not the cause of reefs disappearing….climate change is still occuring and yet the reefs recover from almost total lifelessness.
The BBC report whilst managing to avoid mentioning the analysis that stated quite clearly that climate change was not the main factor does manage to fit in this comment of their own:
Conservationists say that warming ocean temperatures are also driving some of the losses.
As temperatures rise, corals lose the tiny algae that live in their tissues, causing them to turn white – a process known as coral bleaching.
A more honest report comes from Forbes which reports both that previous damage had little to nothing to do with climate but also that climate change may pose a threat in future:
Solved! The Mystery Of The Disappearing Coral Reefs
The report says the consequences of global warming “pale in comparison to the introduction of the unidentified pathogen that caused the die-off of Diadema antillarum”.
“The threats of climate change and ocean acidification loom increasingly ominously for the future, but local stressors including an explosion in tourism, overfishing, and the resulting increase in macroalgae [seaweed] have been the major drivers of the catastrophic decline of Caribbean corals,” says the report, edited by Jeremy Jackson, Mary Donovan, Katie Cramer and Vivian Lam.
Just curious that the BBC weeded out the negative statements about climate change that other news outlets picked up on…is this just another example of the BBC ‘managing perceptions’ in its attempt to persuade us of the dangers of climate change?
The BBC censors the science, scientists and scientific debate, but Corals don’t tell you much about atmospheric physics, albedo and solar activity.
The Coral is in the water. Cold water absorbs more CO2, yet the idiots say warm water causes the problems even though the coral seems to prefer the tropical zone.
I hope that the word ‘overfishing’ is remembered here, because every time the EU attempts to protect fishing grounds by limiting the amount of fish which can be taken, there’s an outcry, and calls to leave the EU for ‘taking away peoples livelihood.
Fishermen are amazingly short sighted, they would if they could take every last fish from the sea if they could make a penny more without thought to tomorrow. If you believe and accept this report, then it’s absolute proof of that, and it’s not the only one. American fishermen ruined the Grand Banks, and now there are hardly any cod there to fish.
Japanese fishermen are particularly bad for this, taking fish regardless of whether they are edible or not.
Reports like this are a double edged sword if you accept overfishing is an issue then you can’t change your mind, to fit the story when it appears later on.
Policy based on objective studies by disinterested parties; couldn’t agree more.
And the ‘disinterested parties’ would be….?
Sorry Mate – total nonsense. Cornish, Norfolk, Scottish waters were never overfished. No fisherman would destroy his own livelihood. BUT Spanish ships fishing off Scotland – now that is a different matter entirely – why would they not take every fish they can? The EUSSR is entirely responsible for the situation.
Not true! We know that is exactly what fishermen have done given the chance .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery
Now you might dispute Wkipedia, but there are plenty of other sources.
You can’t have it both ways either. If overfishing doesn’t happen then the great barrier reef hasn’t been damaged by it!
The other areas you mention were of course overfished, because fishermen were taking fish faster than they were being replaced. Overfishing does not mean total collapse of the stocks, although that is the result in the end.
It seems that your point is that British fishermen never overfished it’s those pesky foreigners who have the temerity to make use of the fishing quotas they bought from British fishermen !
Canada’s not in British waters is it?
So when, in the past, the climate ‘changed’ and it was several degrees hottter than it is today, and when in the past CO2 levels were several times higher than they are today, how did the coral reefs fare then?
Perhaps the BBC can invite one of their celebrated ‘climate scientists’ to come on and explain this part of ‘the science’ to us – you know, so we’re ‘educated and informed’. Until then, ‘coral reefs under threat due to climate change’ means absolutely fuck all squared to me.
The Aussie captain of the ‘Ship of Fools’ wasn’t involved in this hype and misdirection, by any chance? How’s that Antarctic melt going for you, fella?
Fuck the great barrier reef !
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