There are some people, so obsessed with politics they can’t even see the parrot fish; they just go on and on and on about the coral bleaching that they have never seen.
And these are mostly the people that our institutions give the microphones to. On both sides of politics.
They lecture to us about things they have no understanding of, and no experience of.
It has taken me an awfully long time to realise that as a civilisation, there is really very little interest from the political class in how things really are in the natural world. There is just a desire to turn it into one more thing that can be argued over.
But how they will pretend otherwise.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
That’s very true Jennifer
The political class goes into every new situation with an open mouth
Just to complete Mike Burton’s truism:
“…. an open mouth with no nous”.
Oh how so true. The next time l’m lectured on coral bleaching l will ask whether they’ve ever witnessed bleached coral!
Well said Jennifer. IMO they NEED “problems” like this to try to flog what’s starting to become a dead horse around adverse consequences of global warming.
Thank you Jen for providing real evidence to educate the polititians, marine science institutions, and permanently outraged people in general, about the actual healthy state of the reef and its eco-system. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for the feedback. It is the case that the ignorance is on both sides. And you can take someone to the Great Barrier Reef, who has never dived it, from the political right, and before he even jumps in he can tell you as a long monologue his theory about coral bleaching and how it is in great shape.
That’s why independent scientific surveys, peer review and publication are so important.
I’ve had the (mis) fortune of being subpoenaed as an “expert witness” (geology) for a moderate number of commissions of enquiry and court cases resulting from incidents – two of these incidents were catastrophic.
The point I’m presenting here from this small but detailed sample is that most of the educated personnel in the courtrooms had no interest in factual information that may have led to understanding. If such information did not lead to someone who could be blamed, then it was discarded as useless.
Perhaps even worse, people from judges down could not cope with a map that had the North arrow in any direction other than “up” the page. In short, no matter how simplified the map, they were unable to read it – and had no interest in trying. Some of legal protagonists were even of the view that hard facts could be overcome with a law or regulation, so making factual information irrelevant.
Journalists present in the court gallery and assigned to cover the cases were not different. MSM reports reflected this.
Neither AIMS, nor the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, nor any Australian University, nor any NGO funded ‘expert’ nor a UNEP delegation or other such ‘international’ institutions can by any stretch of the imagination be considered ‘independent’. Sadly they have one objective only and that is to obfuscate, deceive and lie blatantly in pursuit of political objectives.
The most revealing and authentic surveys that I can find are those done by Jennifer and her colleagues and I am sure there are also a number of others who will no doubt all be labelled as ‘amateurs’ by those afraid of being exposed as charlatans. Peer reviews are no guarantee of veracity and more often than not confirm the opposite due to manipulation and external interference as was highlighted in the 2009-11 Climategate scandal. I would prefer the gifted and conscientious amateur over the unethical expert any day. Much of our early understanding of geology was the work of amateurs, frequently C of E parsons.
Whilst I would much prefer it if our governments and institutions, to whom we should be able to go to for honest advice, were worthy of such trust – at least in a claimed democracy – there is far too much evidence of their inability to act honestly as is evident with their concerted attacks on free speech.
Thank you for the gentle but much needed reminder that bias is a human condition, not a political attribute of one side or the other. Self-awareness and humility are vital when observing and collecting data. And should be equally important in policy making…