Comments on: The Starck Truth about The Great Barrier Reef

By: gavin

gavin — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:59:40 +0000

one small point SJT, good science only comes after an event

By: SJT

SJT — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:52:05 +0000

“Man always thinks the way things are when he was born is the way things always were and will always be. Can’t be much more wrong than that.”

That is why there is a scientific method, to remove such subjective biases.

By: SJT

SJT — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:48:02 +0000

“Travis you statement was intended to disredit the logic that followed.Yes,this is not solely a Greens syndrome,but they have perfected the art.”

The IPCC and “The Greens” have nothing to do with each other.

By: Arjay

Arjay — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:54:56 +0000

Travis you statement was intended to disredit the logic that followed.Yes,this is not solely a Greens syndrome,but they have perfected the art.

By: Travis

Travis — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:45:25 +0000

“What really irks me about the Greens is their attitude of wanting two camps,believers and deniers.” – Arjay

Huh? That is something soley attributable to the greens?? Pffftt!

By: Arjay

Arjay — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:30:45 +0000

What really irks me about the Greens is their attitude of wanting two camps,believers and deniers.

Most logical,sane people are considering all the possibilities and are rightly sceptical until the hard core scientific evidence is made available.The Greens just want to shunt us all into their camp via a collective guilt trip based on scant science at best!

The Greens are doing their cause more harm than good,because when they do actually have the substance and scientific proof,no one will listen.

Remain sceptical but believe the traditional tried and tested scientific methods.

Finding holes in Jesus’ hands and blood dripping from them,using the scientific method,is still not proof.

By: Alarmist Creep, AGW Fanatic, opinionated urban green tax eater and nice person (Lucy - the artist fo

Fri, 09 May 2008 08:22:48 +0000

You’d have to be desperate to defend Burdekin land managememt (ask Burrows). About what you’d expect from industry apologists, resource exploiters, and denialists.

It’s called no grass. Too many yaks. Urea and molasses. And epicentre of the known El Nino universe.

I guess one could table the 1000s of photos, surveys, satellite imagery but they’d be dismissed too. Then there’s the sediment flume work comparing defence reserve areas vs grazing. Bombs are much better than Cattle. Of course then there’s the elemental analysis of sources of sediment in the Tully catchment – is sugar – but why digress.

Three big Burdekin changes (1) dam (2) drier years since 1980s (3) the first big pulse was the A horizon going to Fiji.

Suppose I’d better send the full paper to Motty for his delectation.

Now I didn’t say what effect it was having on the reef long term. And I’m not calling for the end of agriculture or pastoralism in the Burdekin either. But why waste topsoil, grass productivity and crop fertiliser. Doesn’t make sense.

And indeed locals have recognised the problem and are working at it.

Remember we’re on your side.

By: Ian Mott

Ian Mott — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:08:10 +0000

They were obviously “Manbearcows” Walter. As part of their evolution into Al Gore’s manbearpigs, these 50,000 cows were prone to uproot vegetation and wallow in mudpools, the contents of which were then easily flushed down stream. It may not make sense to you and me, but after bonging away half an ounce of hooch at a GBRMPA “workshop”, it all falls into place.

By: Walter Starck

Walter Starck — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:29:36 +0000

Alarmist Creep said, “And as we all we all know Burdekin sediment rates on inner reef are 5-10X pre-European.”
I assume the reference is to the widely cited study by McCulloch et al:

McCulloch, M., Fallon, S., Wyndham, T., Hendy, E., Lough, J. and Barnes, D. 2003 Coral record of increased
sediment flux to the inner Great Barrier Reef since European settlement. Nature 421, 727-730.

This study used Ba/Ca ratio in coral cores as a proxy for suspended sediment from 1755 to 1997. They found a step increase in 1870 which they attributed to introduction of cattle into the Burdekin at that time. However, other studies have found Ba/Ca ratios to be influenced by various factors and difficult to interpret. In addition to the introduction of cattle in the Burdekin, 1870 was also the end of a 70 year long dry period when there were few major floods. It is further difficult to understand why the 50,000 cattle at that time caused such a marked jump in Ba/Ca ratios; but, the 1,000,000 head there today plus large agricultural areas haven’t resulted in any significant further increase.

We do not in fact “…all know Burdekin sediment rates on inner reef are 5-10X pre-European.” It simply suits some of us to believe it.

By: MB

MB — Fri, 09 May 2008 05:58:56 +0000

In any case the NASA Aqua project shows that the sea temperatures have been cooling in recent years (even with the “corrected” data).