The media’s Great Barrier Reef hoax is bigger than the reef

The coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef is as expansive now as it has ever been recorded, with coverage nearing 40%. In fact, the coral cover has nearly tripled in the past dozen years. Despite this record expanse of coral off the coast of Australia, the climate community and mainstream media outlets unrelentingly push the narrative that the Great Barrier Reef is dying.

For example, CBS News ran one of its periodic pieces on the reef a few months ago with this terrifying headline: “Parts of Great Barrier Reef dying at record rate, alarmed researchers say; ‘worst fears’ confirmed.”

Reports of the Great Barrier Reef dying or being in peril are false, dishonest, and deliberately misleading.

The Guardian has been relentless in its apocalyptic coverage of the reef’s supposed imminent demise. More than a decade ago, the outlet essentially delivered the reef’s last rites, insisting that only a drastic reduction in carbon emissions could save it. A 2014 article, headlined “Great Barrier Reef damage ‘irreversible’ unless radical action taken,” warned: “The Great Barrier Reef will suffer irreversible damage by 2030 unless radical action is taken to lower carbon emissions.” Since that article was published, global carbon dioxide emissions have risen roughly 30%.

A coral apocalypse?

Despite the Great Barrier Reef doubling in size since then, the Guardian has doubled down on its doomsday narrative. Since the coral has not died as predicted, “coral bleaching” has emerged as the new man-made catastrophe in its reporting. These stories get distributed throughout the climate community and widely disseminated throughout its advocacy networks.

In January, the Guardian published this headline: “Catastrophic: Great Barrier Reef hit by its most widespread coral bleaching, study finds.” Just a few days ago, it followed up with, “Ningaloo and Great Barrier Reef hit by ‘profoundly distressing’ simultaneous coral bleaching events.”

From these headlines, one might assume the reef is dying. However, bleaching does not equate to death. Coral bleaching does not create a chunk of white, dead coral sold at a beach town shell shop. Instead, it occurs when the coral has lost the algae living on it, often due to a variety of stressors, including fluctuations in light or changes in water temperature. This process causes the living coral to turn white but does not necessarily kill it.

Misleading statistics

With record-high coral cover, it is mathematically probable that there will be more instances of bleaching simply because there is more coral overall. If a farmer triples the size of his apple orchard from 100 to 300 trees, and the number of trees suffering from blight triples from five to 15, that does not indicate a catastrophic increase in blight. Blaming climate change for an expected proportional increase in blight would be misleading. Yet, when it comes to coral, the media and climate activists ignore this logical correlation.

It is worth noting that when “the imminent death of the Great Barrier Reef” became a major climate story a dozen years ago, the reef had indeed shrunk dramatically. Some areas saw up to 85% of the coral cover disappear — not due to overheated ocean waters or excessive CO2, but rather due to a natural occurrence: a tropical cyclone.

A Queensland, Australia, map shows that the Great Barrier Reef runs parallel to the northeast coast. In 2009, Tropical Cyclone Hamish took a path parallel to the coastline. Instead of crossing the reef perpendicularly, it churned directly over it, causing immense damage. A few months after Hamish, the Australian Institute of Marine Sciencepublished research on the extent of the damage:

Damage ranged from "exfoliation," where the reef matrix was removed along with all that grew on it, leaving bare limestone, to "scouring" that essentially stripped all living tissue from living corals, to coral breakage in which massive coral heads as well as more delicate branching corals broke off.

Nature’s recovery

That 2009 analysis stated that it could take up to 15 years for the Great Barrier Reef to regrow to its pre-Hamish level of cover. The climate community dishonestly blamed the loss of coral cover following the cyclone on global warming, predicting a continued decline and an inevitable death. Fortunately, the reef has avoided any significant cyclone damage since 2009 and has not only returned to its prior coverage level but has continued to grow.

Reports of the Great Barrier Reef dying or being in peril are false, dishonest, and deliberately misleading.