Green eco-warriors are killing off tourism because visitors think the Great Barrier Reef is dead

The Greenie lies never stop

Queensland's tourism industry is facing a recession as an increasing amount of tourists shun the Great Barrier Reef.

Reef cruise operators and tourism experts have seen a downturn in the amount of interest the once popular destination is receiving.

They argue claims made by environmental groups and eco-warriors that the reef is dying are detrimental to the industry.

Cairns-based Coral Expeditions commercial director Jeff Gillies said the overall negative perception of reef health has 'definitely affected the downturn in reef tourism'.

Former Cairns mayor Kevin Byrne agreed. He told The Australian 'our tourism industry here is pretty well static, if not in recession.

'We now have the monumental task of convincing people to come to the Great Barrier Reef. As a living organism, it is in wonderful shape and people need to be proud enough to stand up and say it'.

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James Cook University head in trouble over firing of Prof. Ridd

Ridd is an honest scientist who had the daring to call out fake Greenie science at the university.  So they hate him with a passion.  In an old, old strategy, they thought to protect the Greenie crooks by attacking the whistleblower

If the vice-chancellor of James Cook University thinks she can keep a low profile, she is mistaken. Sandra Harding’s management of the sacking of physics professor Peter Ridd is under the microscope for good reason. The buck stops at the top. And much is at stake, with JCU facing international reputational damage over the scandal, huge legal costs, cost-cutting pressures from falling student numbers and staff discontent.

“The bottom line is Sandra Harding should go," says a former member of the university’s 15-member governing council. “It’s in the interest of everybody that she retires." Speaking to The Weekend Australian this week, the former council member says if Harding doesn’t retire, she should be sacked.

Ridd, an esteemed physics professor respected by students and staff, was sacked by JCU using a bogus claim of uncollegial behaviour that was rejected by the Federal Circuit Court last month. He questioned the quality of science about coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef. JCU spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending its right to sack Ridd, rather than encouraging a healthy debate about the claims he made.

So much for JCU being a bastion of academic freedom in the search of the truth. “Ridd is a decent man," says the former council member who has had a long association with JCU, adding that Ridd did not want this fight. “He never set out to hurt anybody. But he did believe in what he was saying, he had evidence, and it’s proper to call out your colleagues if that is needed, to get to the truth. JCU took the nuclear option against Ridd, and that was crazy."

Sacking Ridd was squarely a management issue for the VC, but the former council member says that JCU’s governing council should now be far more involved given the fallout from this debacle.

Still in close contact with JCU staff, including academics, the former council member says staff are upset and “whether or not they agree with Ridd is a separate matter. This court case probably cost the university a million bucks, which is money JCU cannot afford."

The Weekend Australian has been told JCU is cutting about $20 million each year over its forward estimates due to financial pressures because the university is not meeting its own student enrolment targets. The former JCU council member confirms that is “one of the reasons why the staff across campus are very unhappy".

“They know that there will be further redundancies coming. Those redundancies have already been chosen, but the staff haven’t been told who they are."

According to the ex-member, the other reason the governing council should be more involved is that “the sacking of Ridd is being watched around the world. It is damaging JCU’s reputation in an area where JCU leads the world. In marine science, JCU is the top dog. To have that reputation damaged is extraordinarily worrying."

The Weekend Australian also has been told JCU’s governing council has received briefings but otherwise has had little hands-on involvement in the Ridd matter. Given that council members have fiduciary duties similar to board members, some are asking why the governing council is not more involved with issues of reputational damage to JCU and the big bucks spent on court battles with Ridd.

The Weekend Australian sought an interview with Harding. She declined. A spokesman provided some answers by email to a list of questions, and a link to a statement by JCU provost Chris Cocklin after the Federal Circuit Court found against the university last month. The Weekend Australian also rang and left a message with JCU chancellor Bill Tweddell, who chairs the council. He did not return the call.

Though Harding has tried to keep her head down, the focus will remain on her. And it is not just her handling of the Ridd case that is causing consternation. “One of JCU’s current council members has been precluded from taking part in any council discussion involving Ridd because they reckon he has a conflict of interest because he knows one of the lawyers acting for Ridd," says an insider.

“That’s not a conflict of interest," he says, clearly frustrated by the erosion of council oversight, adding that “the council member didn’t want to rock the boat, so he has agreed not to attend meetings when the matter is discussed. She (Harding) might fight the battle, but she won’t win the war and there was never a need for the war in the first place. (JCU’s) campus is a very unhappy place right now."

All this when Harding, in her 60s, might be planning one more career move. Her term as JCU boss expires at the end of 2021. She has been mentioned as a future Queensland governor. Some say she has her sights on one of Australia’s grander Group of Eight universities. But the controversy over her handling of Ridd won’t make either promotion easy.

“This is a significant bump in that road to a bigger and better position," says one insider, who has been involved in the governance of JCU.

According to the former member of JCU’s governing council, Ridd has more support on campus than he realises, including from fellow academics. Something for Harding to keep in mind.

This month, Ridd told The Weekend Australian that none of his colleagues had defended him publicly. He suggested the need for “kamikaze academics", academics who are older and established enough to resign in the noble cause of defending academic freedom. A few days later, JCU adjunct associate professor Sheilagh Cronin resigned from her unpaid position at the university. “After reading that, I thought ‘that’s me’," she told The Weekend Australian this week.

Cronin wrote to Harding, resigning from her role at JCU and outlining her concerns over Ridd’s treatment: “I believe his treatment by yourself and your board is completely contrary to the philosophy of open discussion and debate that should be at the heart of every university. It saddens me that the reputation of JCU is being damaged by the injustice of Professor Ridd’s case."

Cronin told The Weekend Australian she is also concerned about the scale of money spent on litigation against Ridd, and more still if JCU appeals.

“When the federal government gives us money, we are very closely scrutinised and so we should be. These are precious dollars that could be used elsewhere," says Cronin, a doctor who has overseen a $23m budget to provide health services through the Western Queensland Primary Health Network. It is the same at JCU, she says, where the governing council has oversight duties.

“I’m not looking for a row with JCU, but I think there is an important principle of openness and transparency when you’re handling taxpayer dollars."

Cronin is troubled by the lack of introspection at the highest levels of JCU: “They’re putting all the blame on him and they aren’t looking at themselves."

Cronin has not received a response from Harding.

A few weeks ago, former JCU dean of science John Nicol wrote to each of JCU’s council members expressing his concern that “the university’s reputation as an honest broker in the field of marine science has been trashed".

“I am writing to express my concern and disappointment at the worldwide unmitigated adverse publicity, which the university management has brought to bear on James Cook University’s fine reputation, through its inaction in ensuring the integrity of all of its research output and its un-conscienable (sic) treatment of Professor Peter Ridd who sought to encourage the university to restore such integrity."

Nicol concluded his letter to council members as follows: “James Cook University now needs your direct intervention and support." He has not received a response to his concerns from any council members.

The Weekend Australian asked Harding whether, given the dismal fallout from the Ridd saga, JCU intends to commit to the set of principles about academic freedom recommended by former High Court chief justice Robert French in his recent report to the Morrison government.

Harding had nothing to say. A spokesman referred back to the provost’s April statement, adding this: “JCU strongly supports the principle of academic freedom and notes that the French review found there was … no evidence, on the basis of recent events, which would answer the pejorative description of a ‘free speech crisis’ on campus."

Pulling a single line from the lengthy French review has further disappointed Harding’s critics. “Harding is making a huge mistake in the way she’s managing this whole issue," the former council member says of the university’s attempt to justify the Ridd debacle and fob off the French review.

French appealed to university vice-chancellors to embed a culture of academic freedom on their campuses: “A culture powerfully predisposed to the exercise of freedom of speech and academic freedom is ultimately more effective than the most tightly drawn rule. A culture not so disposed will undermine the most emphatic state of principles."

French’s recommendation for a model code of academic freedom was released by the Morrison government barely two weeks before JCU’s attempt to sack Ridd was rejected by a court at first instance.

Harding might re-read the whole 300-page French review before deciding to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting the respected physics professor in another round of expensive and damaging litigation.

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Qld.:  Palaszczuk government drops coalmine fine as pressure of Federal election result mounts

The Palaszczuk Government has dropped a bid to fine Adani-owned Abbot Point Operations $12,000 over the company’s release of sediment-contaminated floodwater during Cyclone Debbie in 2017.

The environment department today agreed to Abbot Point Operations’ offer to build a $100,000 real-time water quality monitoring system at the discharge point of its settlement ponds in return for the penalty infringement, which had escalated to court, being dropped.

Located 25 kilometres north of Bowen in north Queensland, the port of Abbot Point, owned by Adani, is Australia’s largest deepwater coal port and is supplied by a rail line from the Bowen Basin coalfields.

It would also be the offload point for coal from Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine in the neighbouring, but as yet untapped, Galilee Basin.

Abbot Point Operations, formerly Abbot Point Bulkcoal, was charged in 2018 with contravening a temporary emissions license after it released sediment water during the cyclone in March 2017.

The emissions license granted the company to release water from its settlement ponds into the ocean but Adani’s own monitoring of the water quality found the sediment concentrations in the released water had been eight times higher than was authorised.

Abbot Point Operations had pleaded not guilty, arguing that the sediment had not reached the Great Barrier Reef offshore and therefore the license had not been breached.

The Department of Environment and Science fined Abbot Point Operations $12,190 but the company elected to have the matter heard before a magistrate.

In a statement released today, Abbot Point Operations said it had reached an agreement with the government that would see the court matter resolved.

“As part of (a) commitment to continually improve our environmental management, we welcome the Queensland Government’s acceptance of an Enforceable Undertaking application that we lodged voluntarily in order to deliver additional water quality monitoring at our site," the statement said.

“This Enforceable Undertaking will help ensure positive environmental outcomes are achieved in the near-term instead of continuing prolonged court proceedings in the Magistrates Court related to an alleged floodwater release during Cyclone Debbie.

“This new water monitoring infrastructure will allow us to measure water quality in real-time to assist in managing stormwater impacting our site.

“It will give the regulator and the community further confidence that our operations are being managed safely and responsibly."

The water monitoring system will be built at the authorised flood water release point opposite the ocean to provide real-time monitoring of water flows.

Abbot Point Operations’ pledge to build the new system comes on top of $15 million in infrastructure improvements at the site in the past two years, including increased water storage, higher levee banks and better piping.

The department has previously said “no known environmental impacts occurred as a result of the discharge".

The charge was not in relation to the nearby Caley Valley Wetlands.

The dropping of the fine comes as the Palaszczuk Government faces pressure from Labor members and its own MPs over its handling of the approvals for Adani’s Carmichael mine.

The Adani issue, and Labor’s mixed messages about whether the party supports the project, were a key feature of the federal election campaign in Queensland and are believed to have played a considerable impact in Labor’s poor results in the state.

Former state and federal Labor candidate and ex-mayor of Bowen, Mike Brunker, demanded a “rank and file revolution" in the north.

“I’m calling for a rank and file revolution in north Queensland to change the leadership (of both the Premier and Deputy Premier Jackie Trad)," Mr Brunker said.

“The Premier should have made a captain’s call by now, and said this rot’s got to stop, this (Adani) has got to go through)."

“If Adani is not fixed within the next fortnight or month, Labor is going to get wiped out in the state election."

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Labor pledges to terminate half-a-billion-dollar Great Barrier Reef Foundation grant

This payment was a totally useless Turnbull brain fart that should never have happened.  Shorten is right to claw it back

Labor has vowed to strip the Great Barrier Reef Foundation of its half-a-billion-dollar grant if elected on May 18.

Labor added that it would redistribute that cash amongst public agencies, but is yet to detail specifics ahead of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's first election-period Queensland visit this week.

Last August, a $443 million grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation by Malcolm Turnbull's government was criticised for lacking an open tender process, and for burdening an organisation that had six full time staff with a grant of such a size.

Labor wrote to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation at the time to warn them that if the party won government, it could withdraw from the existing contract.

But this marks the first time they have determined to rip up the agreement.

"Every dollar returned will be invested back in the reef and we will seek advice on the most effective way to allocate the funding," Mr Shorten said, adding that his government would consult with the Department of Environment on its reef strategy.

Mr Shorten mentioned peak science body CSIRO, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences as possible alternatives.

While the Great Barrier Reef Foundation has had all $443 million of the grant in its accounts for months, Labor environment spokesman Tony Burke has previously pointed to a contract clause that allows the agreement to be terminated if there was "a material change in Australian Government policy that is inconsistent with the continued operation of this agreement".

In the letter warning the foundation that funding could be withdrawn, Labor advised it not to spend a disproportionate amount before the election, noting that the funds were set aside for a six-year period.

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"Code of conduct". That’s code for ‘conduct yourself as we tell you’

A code of conduct is becoming an employer’s power trip

Ever since the ruling classes of East Germany shamelessly nicknamed the Berlin Wall the Antifaschistischer Schutzwall, the anti-fascist protection wall, it pays to check how those with power use words, pretending to protect us by restricting basic freedoms.

Those wielding power today favour deliberately innocuous labels to describe new institutional ramparts that limit basic freedoms. And nothing sounds more innocuous than a code of conduct.

Most read like bad poetry, sweet-sounding words linking lofty aspirations about how people should treat one another in a workplace. Codes of conduct have become a neat way to virtue-signal your political correctness too. No socially progressive word or phrase is left out, usually highly contestable, offering no great guidance for the reader or the employee.

Drawn up by ever-expanding human resources departments, these slick instruments are found inside just about every company, organisation, government body, sporting club or other group made up of more than a dozen people. Codes of conduct are sprouting like weeds, rarely trimmed for meaning, only ever augmented by more and more prose pickled in sugary sentiments.

But don’t be fooled by the vanilla label. Increasingly, a code of conduct is becoming an employer’s power trip, their weapon of choice in the workplace to limit the basic freedoms of employees. And these deliberately vague terms become expensive legal battles for sacked employees. Two examples in the past two weeks. Last week, Peter Ridd, the highly respected professor of physics, won his court case against James Cook University after he was sacked for offending the univer­sity’s code of conduct.

JCU used its code of conduct to full effect. When Ridd raised doubts about the quality of science claiming the Great Barrier Reef was being damaged, he was accused of misconduct, not acting in a collegial way, disparaging fellow academics, not upholding the integrity and good reputation of JCU. It made no difference to the code’s enforcers that Ridd raised his concerns in a polite and measured manner, making clear that fellow academics were honest, though mistaken, in their work.

When Ridd raised funds online to help pay for his expensive legal battle with JCU, the university accused him of breaching the code of conduct. When Ridd sent an email to a student, attaching a newspaper article headed “for your amusement", the physics professor of 30 years’ standing was censured for acting contrary to an earlier “no satire direction" when JCU told Ridd not to trivialise, satirise or parody the univer­sity’s disciplinary action against him. When Ridd mentioned JCU’s “Orwellian" attitude to free speech in an email to another supportive student, JCU censured him for another breach of the code of conduct.

Note that JCU discovered the offending email by trawling through Ridd’s correspondence in a distinctly Orwellian manner.

On it went. Actions and words parsed and censured, secrecy sought under JCU’s code of conduct to protect the university, not Ridd.

Last week, the Federal Court rejected JCU’s 17 claims against Ridd under the university’s code of conduct. Federal Court judge Salvatore Vasta made clear that JCU’s fundamental error was to assume its code of conduct “is the lens through which all behaviour must be viewed". Rather than starting from the principle of intellectual freedom set out in clause 14 of JCU’s enterprise agreement with academics, a core value that goes to the mission of a university, JCU used its lengthy and loquacious code of conduct to restrain Ridd. Therefore, it did not occur to JCU, or to academics who complained about Ridd, that the best response was to provide evidence Ridd’s claims were wrong. The enforcers chose censure and sacking over debate.

Rejecting JCU’s position, Vasta found the intellectual freedom clause is “the lens through which the behaviour of Professor Ridd must be viewed". The judge said intellectual freedom allows people to express opinions without fear of reprisal. That is how Charles Darwin broke free from the constraints of creationism and how Albert Einstein challenged the constraints of Newtonian physics.

JCU will surely appeal this decision. Other universities will also be hoping for a favourable legal determination that upholds their codes of conduct as the final word, trumping even an intellectual freedom clause in an enterprise agreement with academics.

All things considered then, we have reached a shameful state of affairs: university leaders spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to uphold coercive powers they have given themselves under codes of conduct but expending no intellectual effort in considering the need for a truly liberating charter of intellectual freedom such as that drawn up by the University of Chicago and adopted by dozens of other American colleges.

This augurs poorly for Wallabies star Israel Folau, sacked last week by Rugby Australia using its code of conduct. Folau’s sacking was, in many ways, inevitable. If a university cannot uphold basic freedoms for academics to express honestly held views, what hope for a sporting code?

Folau’s contract with RA does not include a freedom of expression clause, but neither does it include a clause telling him to stop posting offensive views on social media. In another messy, expensive and protracted legal battle, the basic right to free speech will depend on whether RA’s code of conduct is the final legal word on Folau’s future.

RA could have left it to us in civil society to exercise our powers of condemnation against Folau for his ignorant and divisive comments. We could have enlightened Folau that gay people do not deserve to be in hell for their sexuality. Instead, RA became the enforcer, turning a goose into a martyr by using the same clumsy stick JCU used against Ridd.

What grates, more generally, is the selective approach to who gets hung, drawn and quartered these days. The Australian is aware that senior ABC staff have raised concerns with ABC management about divisive statements made by some of their so-called “talent". Fairfax writer, ABC host and gay rights activist Benjamin Law happily tweeted during the same-sex marriage debate that he was “wondering if I’d hate-f..k all the anti-gay MPs in parliament if it meant they got the homophobia out of their system". A few years ago, Josh Szeps, now an ABC host, expressed his view during a YouTube chat with Joe Rogan that it should be legal for a woman to kill her unborn baby right up to nine months’ gestation, and sometimes after birth. Are these statements any less abhorrent than Folau’s views?

Vaguely drafted codes of conduct are a conduit for double standards. And that is why they are bogus legal instruments. Every law student is taught that contracts can be voided for uncertainty. A boss should only ever have power to adversely affect a person’s employment in the clearest and most precise circumstances. It is high time that proliferating codes of conduct are exposed as dangerously vague virtue-signalling instruments with a nasty kick to them, allowing bosses to terminate an employee at will.

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The Ridd affair is a debacle for JCU -- and its council should look into it

Physicist Prof. Ridd blew the whistle on scientific fraud at JCU and the Warmist fraudsters hate him for it. He showed that their statements about the "endangered" Great Barrier Reef depended on very selective evidence.  They had no defence against his accusations so they played the man, not the ball.  The Federal court has just overturned their attempt to fire him. 

They were relying on the taxpayers' deep pockets to ensure that Ridd could not afford to challenge them in court.  But Ridd's treatment was so palpably wrong that many people rallied to his defence by contributing to his fighting fund

The unrepentant academics at JCU have said they will appeal the finding.  They may be encouraged by the fact that judge Vasta has been overturned a few times lately.  They should not get their hopes up. He has been overturned on appeal at least 15 times but he has heard more than 1000 cases.  That's not good odds for them


Thank God for the National Tertiary Education Union. Sacked professor Peter Ridd won his Federal Court action against James Cook University this month ­entirely because the university’s enterprise bargaining agreement, negotiated by the union, included a lengthy and carefully worded protection for intellectual freedom.

And that is the simple fact. Ridd’s win (he was found to have been wrongly dismissed) was a big victory for intellectual freedom in academia, and its legal foundation is in the commitment of the tertiary union to free speech.

Why is last week’s decision, from judge Salvatore Vasta, so important? It helps to look back at the history of this dispute.

First of all, Ridd is a respected scientist. He was head of physics at JCU from 2009 to 2016, and he managed the university’s marine geophysical laboratory for 15 years. He has expertise in studies of the Great Barrier Reef.

But he held concerns about the methodology used by some colleagues who said that coral bleaching on the reef was a recent phenomenon and linked to global warming.

Ridd also questioned the methodology behind findings that sediment in run-off was damaging the reef.

Ridd spoke to journalists and made public statements about these concerns. He questioned the judgments of colleagues and called on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority as well as the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies to “check their facts before they spin their story".

But the point about this is that Ridd was arguing about scientific judgments. His views may be right or wrong. But they are testable in the way all scientific assertions should be tested — by observation and experiment. Scientific controversies are a staple of the history of science and, eventually, truth outs.

But the university, offended by Ridd’s contrarian views and possibly fearing the impact it would have on its relations with other bodies such as the GBRMPA and the ARC Centre of Excellence, went after Ridd personally, saying that he had breached the university’s code of conduct by not upholding “the integrity and good reputation of the university".

The university also trawled through Ridd’s work emails and came up with things that reflected on the organisation and some of Ridd’s colleagues.

There was this statement by Ridd: “ … our whole university system pretends to value free debate, but in fact it crushes it whenever the ‘wrong’ ideas are spoken. They are truly an Orwellian in nature." And this, referring to some colleagues: “Needless to say I have certainly offended some sensitive but powerful and ruthless egos."

Such statements, in the view of the university, were again not upholding the university’s good integrity and good reputation.

Sensibly, [judge] Vasta took the view that Ridd was just exercising his right, contained in the enterprise agreement, to “express opinions about the operations of JCU" and “express disagreement with university decisions and with the processes used to make those decisions".

Naturally the university doesn’t agree. In a statement last week, issued after the decision, it stood by its view that Ridd “engaged in serious misconduct, including denigrating the university and its employees and breaching confidentiality directions regarding the disciplinary processes".

“We are a university," JCU also proclaimed in the statement. “Within our very DNA is the importance of promoting academic views and collegiate debate."

With respect, it is exactly the lack of commitment to academic and collegiate debate that is the problem.

If the university had taken Ridd’s scientific objections to findings about damage to the Barrier Reef seriously, it’s very unlikely that this debacle — which is highly damaging to the university — would have occurred.

There is another point that needs to be made. The science at issue here is not about whether or not global warming is occurring, or whether or not such warming is caused by humans. What Ridd questioned is whether recent bleaching (which nobody disputes occurred) is itself evidence of warming. Ridd presented evidence — which should have been ­investigated, not summarily dismissed — that bleaching is a recurring phenomenon not specifically linked to warming.

In the court decision, Vasta offered his own defence of intellectual freedom and an implicit rebuke of JCU.

“It (intellectual freedom) allows a Charles Darwin to break free of the constraints of creationism. It allows an Albert Einstein to break free of the constraints of Newtonian physics. It allows the human race to question conventional wisdom in the never-ending search for knowledge and truth. And that, at its core, is what higher learning is about. To suggest otherwise is to ignore why universities were created and why critically focused academics remain central to all that university teaching claims to offer," the judge said.

The Ridd affair should be of major concern to the JCU council — the university’s governing body — and its chancellor, former diplomat Bill Tweddell. If the council doesn’t look into why the university sacked a professor whose honestly held scientific views happened to be unpopular, then it’s failing in its duty.

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Critical Australian academic’s firing was ‘unlawful’, court finds

He dared ridicule the Global Warming messiahs in his university who said that climate change was devastating Australia's Great Barrier Reef.  He showed clear evidence that they were deceptive.  So his university was out to "get" him by hook or by crook, mostly crook.  They are now more furious  with him than ever. Liars hate being exposed


A Federal Court judge has ruled James Cook University acted unlawfully when it sacked physics professor Peter Ridd after he publicly criticised the institution and one of its star scientists over claims about the global warming impact on the Great Barrier Reef.

Professor Ridd last night welcomed the decision and called on the university’s council, its governing body, to make vice-chancellor Sandra Harding accountable for the legal defeat. “The university has broken the law. What is the university council going to do about this? The vice-chancellor has brought the university into disrepute," he said.

In his verdict, judge Salvatore Vasta said the university’s grounds for dismissing Professor Ridd — that he breached the university’s code of conduct — were improper. He found that all 17 findings used by the university to justify the sacking were unlawful.

Judge Vasta found that a clause in the university’s enterprise agreement, which upholds academic freedom, justified Professor Ridd’s conduct. “This trial was purely and simply about the proper construction of a clause in an enterprise agreement," he said.

Judge Vasta also said the university had misunderstood “the whole concept of intellectual freedom". “In the search for truth, it is an unfortunate consequence that some people may feel denigrated, offended, hurt or upset," he said.

A penalty hearing will be set for a later date.

At a three-day hearing last month, barrister Chris Murdoch, representing the university, argued Professor Ridd went beyond his right to intellectual freedom by personally attacking his colleagues, threatening to “hurt" the university and breaching confidentiality directions.

In 2016, Professor Ridd emailed a journalist to allege images given to the media by university colleagues were misleading because they showed poorly affected corals, which were selected over nearby healthy coral and used to show “broadscale decline" of reef health.

Professor Ridd claimed the use of the images was “a dramatic example of how scientific organisations are happy to spin a story for their own purposes".

He also said his colleague Professor Terry Hughes, the head of JCU’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, would “wriggle and squirm" when asked to explain discrepancies in the images.

Professor Ridd was censured again in 2017 when he repeated the claims on Sky News.

After a third alleged violation of the code of conduct, including allegedly leaking confidential university information, Professor Ridd was sacked in April 2018.

James Cook University last night challenged Judge Vasta’s ruling in a lengthy statement from its provost, Chris Cocklin, which accused the media of inaccurate reporting on the case.

“We disagree with the judgment and maintain we have not taken issue with Dr Ridd’s nor any other employee’s rights to academic freedom," Professor Cocklin said.

Professor Cocklin, who was involved in Professor Ridd’s disciplinary process, said the university was “considering its options" on the matter.

“We disagree with the judge’s comments and are also troubled by the fact he fails to refer to any legal precedent or case law in Australia to support his interpretation of our enterprise agreement, or academic freedom in Australian employment law," he said.

Professor Ridd’s legal action was partially funded by conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs and a GoFundMe web page which raised $260,000 from 2500 donors.

IPA policy director Gideon Rozner said the judgment was proof that Australian universities were confronted by a “free speech crisis".

“This judgment should rightly send shockwaves through Australian universities regarding their commitment to academic freedom and how they deal with academics who hold a contrary view to established group think," Mr Rozner said.

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Another Greenie shriek about the Great Barrier Reef

This piece of research must have been frustrating to its authors.  They found that the presumed evil -- farm runoff -- actually HELPED the barrier reef.  So they had to do a lot of scratching to turn that around.

The big drama about the reef is that it undergoes periodic bleaching  --  when the coral expels its symbiotic algae.  Nobody likes the look of that but the corals mostly recover after a while.  So that is what all good men and true rally to prevent.  STOP the bleaching!  And now we have found something that prevents it to a degree:  Farm runoff!  How big a disappointment can you get? Farm runoff was supposed to KILL the reef!

But by scratching around in their data, the authors found something to warm their pessimistic hearts.  They found that once the coral had been harmed by some "disturbance", farm runoff hindered recovery to some degree.  But if coral amid farm runoff is less damaged in the first place, does that not make the recovery rate of less concern?

Not so fast!  The authors say.  You have got to balance one effect against another to get an overall conclusion and we have got this nifty little model that will do just that!  So we run the model and we find that that a "6–17% improvement in water quality will be necessary to bring recovery rates in line with projected increases in coral bleaching".

So there's the African-American in the woodpile!  It is all based on a "projection", or in layman's terms, a guess. And the projection is heroic.  They ASSUME that global warming will steadily increase and they ASSUME that warming is the main cause of coral bleaching.  There are large scientific arguments against both those assumptions so if we take them away what is left?  Two people can play the projection game so I project that farm runoff is on balance neither helpful nor harmful so that Nothing needs to be done. Nothing!  Horrors!

My comments so far spring just from a reading of the abstract.  I shudder to think what I would find if I studied the whole article.  I taught applied statistics at a major Australian university for a number of years so I know the tricks researchers get up to if their results don't suit them.  There were so many collaborators on this article that something HAD to come out of it.  Re-running their model with more cautious assumptions would be a ball of fun.

I follow the press release below with the journal abstract


Scientific research published today on the impacts of poor water quality on some Great Barrier Reef corals shows why it’s vital the Queensland Government passes new rules on farm pollution, the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) says.

The study, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, found corals in the central and southern sections of the reef would need improvements in water quality of between six and 17 per cent to keep their recovery rates in line with projected increases in coral bleaching.

Corals exposed to poor water quality were also more susceptible to disease and outbreaks of Crown of Thorns starfish, the study found.

Proposed Queensland government laws would phase out harmful farming practices that cause pollution and sediment to run into rivers and out into the reef.

Dr Lissa Schindler, AMCS Great Barrier Reef campaign manager, said: “We need to give the Great Barrier Reef the clean water it needs to recover, and this study shows that clearly. The Queensland Government’s proposals to cut farm pollution need to be passed."

“What this study also says is that these levels of cuts to farm pollution won’t be enough to save corals on outer reefs from the impacts of rising ocean temperatures caused by global warming.

“We have to make sure we are giving the reef the cleanest water we can, while at the same time stopping the digging up and burning of fossil fuels that drive the warming in the reef’s waters."

Schindler said while the study found that corals in areas with poor water quality were more resistant to coral bleaching, due to the low level of light penetrating the turbid water, these corals had slower recovery rates and were more susceptible to disease and Crown of thorns starfish outbreaks.

The study, acknowledged that any marginal bleaching protection corals might get from poor water quality “are probably overwhelmed by the most extreme warming conditions" already seen during 2016 and 2017.

Schindler said it was also important to note the study did not consider any impacts of coral bleaching in the vast and once pristine northern sections of the reef that were hit hardest by extreme ocean temperatures in 2016 and 2017.

Media release. AMCS communications manager Ingrid Neilson 0421 972 731

Water quality mediates resilience on the Great Barrier Reef

M. Aaron MacNeil et al.

Abstract

Threats from climate change and other human pressures have led to widespread concern for the future of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Resilience of GBR reefs will be determined by their ability to resist disturbances and to recover from coral loss, generating intense interest in management actions that can moderate these processes. Here we quantify the effect of environmental and human drivers on the resilience of southern and central GBR reefs over the past two decades. Using a composite water quality index, we find that while reefs exposed to poor water quality are more resistant to coral bleaching, they recover from disturbance more slowly and are more susceptible to outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish and coral disease—with a net negative impact on recovery and long-term hard coral cover. Given these conditions, we find that 6–17% improvement in water quality will be necessary to bring recovery rates in line with projected increases in coral bleaching among contemporary inshore and mid-shelf reefs. However, such reductions are unlikely to buffer projected bleaching effects among outer-shelf GBR reefs dominated by fast-growing, thermally sensitive corals, demonstrating practical limits to local management of the GBR against the effects of global warming.

Nature Ecology & Evolution (2019)

Outrage as it's announced one million tonnes of sludge will be dumped in the water surrounding the Great Barrier Reef

The stuff below is very misleading.  All that is happening is that mud from one part of the sea bottom will be moved to another part of the sea bottom.  It will NOT be dumped onto the reef and there will be no increase in the total amount of mud in the area

One million tonnes of sludge will be dumped in the water surrounding the iconic Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority approved the jettison of the waste through a loophole in the federal laws that are meant to protect the landmark.

The announcement of the dumping comes only a week after floodwaters from Queensland flowed into the reef, with experts saying the dirty water will 'smother' the coral.

The federal laws heavily restrict what can and can't be released into the water surrounding the natural wonder.

But an exploit in the laws means materials generated from port maintenance work can legally be dumped in the reef.

The residue is dredged from the bottom of the sea floor near Hay Point Port - one of the world's largest coal exports.

Larissa Waters, co-deputy leader of the Greens Party, called for change, saying it would be the same as treating the reef like a garbage dump.

'The last thing the reef needs is more sludge dumped on it, after being slammed by the floods recently,' she told the Guardian.

'One million tonnes of dumping dredged sludge into world heritage waters treats our reef like a rubbish tip.'   

However, Dr Simon Boxall from the National Oceanography Centre Southampton says the dumping is only the beginning of the problems. 'If they are dumping it over the coral reef itself, it will have quite a devastating effect. The sludge is basically blanketing over the coral,' he told the BBC.

He says the sludge-dumping is a short-term issue, with the Australian summer bringing about 'rapid algae growth'.

He says more funding should be allocated to finding a less environmentally detrimental area to dump waste, but admits the money isn't easy to come by. 'It'll cost more money but that's not the environment's problem - that's the port authorities' problem.'

Last year, Australia pledged half a billion dollars to protect the Great Barrier Reef - which has lost 30 per cent of its coral due to rising sea temperatures. [The coral loss was temporary and it was due to falling sea levels, not temperature variations]

SOURCE  

Accident Leads to Incredible Discovery, Regrowing Coral Reefs Like Never Before

When you have a task to complete, many times it seems best to hunker down and focus solely on finishing that task until it's done. Whether that's writing a novel, making sales calls or writing lesson plans, putting everything else out of your mind and getting to work is a proven means to accomplish your goals.

When you have blinders or tunnel vision, though, you often forget to stop to smell the roses or see what's going on around you and what valuable lessons or insights you might be missing.

Plenty of scientists have made discoveries by accident, and have found useful inventions or information in their pursuit of something completely different. That's how we've gotten duct tape, super glue and even microwaves.

Now another scientist, Dr. David Vaughan, has made a discovery that could potentially regrow coral reefs in a fraction of the time it would normally take. According to BBC, it started with brokenness.

"Little did I know that one elkhorn coral attached itself to the bottom of the aquarium," Vaughan said. "So when I went to move it, it stuck, and I heard a breaking sound."

"And it had broken into many tiny pieces. They grew back to the same size in just a few weeks that it had taken three years to grow."

Upon realizing what this could mean, he tested it out on more and more species of coral until he confirmed that this fragmentation method worked brilliantly with all of the Florida Keys varieties.

The painstaking process of growing coral has been obliterated by this discovery. Under normal conditions, it can take corals up to seven decades to reach maturity; now, it could take as few as three.

Being able to regrow corals nearly 40 times faster than before means a lot of reefs could be restored.

"Corals the size of a small car could be 200-500 years old, so it might take centuries for it to come back. We now take a coral the size of a golf ball and cut it into 20 to 100 microfragments," Vaughan said.

"Each fragment grows back to that size in as little as a few months, and when they touch each other as they're growing, they recognize each other as themselves and fuse back together."

Vaughan has some big plans for the future and has even stayed on longer so he can see the coral reefs regrown.

"This is now a new discovery that can give real hope for our coral reefs that has never been there before," he told BBC. "So I postponed my retirement until I see a million corals replanted back on the reef."

SOURCE