'Bandaid Measure': Is $500m Enough To Save The Great Barrier Reef?

SBS - Rashida Yosufzai

A $500 million rescue package has been announced by the federal government to help the Great Barrier Reef, but experts and green groups aren't sure if it will be enough to save the World Heritage site.


The federal government has announced a record $500 million investment to save the national icon, but some experts say it’s too late for some areas already severely damaged by the impacts of climate change.
The rescue package comes after parts of the ailing reef were hit by two consecutive years of a major coral bleaching event linked to climate change in 2016 and 2017, coupled with the destruction wrought by a recent outbreak of coral-eating crown of thorns starfish.
The funding includes measures to improve water quality by encouraging better farming practices, scientific research towards reef restoration and building more resilient coral by tackling the coral-eating corn of thorns starfish.
University of Sydney Marine Biology Professor Maria Byrne says the funding measures are welcome, especially for those areas of the reef heavily dependent on the tourism market.
But she said no amount of money could bring back those northern reefs that were impacted by the 2016 and 2017 mass bleaching event."
“For instance, the reefs around Lizard Island, 90 per cent of those reefs are gone," Professor Byrne told SBS News.
“No money put at those reefs is going to reinstate those in the next while.”

An underwater photographer documents an expanse of dead coral at Lizard Island on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The Ocean Agency/XL Catlin Seaview Survey via AP

Tourist areas likely to be targeted
“Clearly the government isn’t investing in the entire Great Barrier Reef but importantly it will probably be investing in areas where we have targeted commercial interests – those tourists jobs."
And in order to save the reef, the government must tackle the elephant in the room first: climate change, she added.
“You cannot protect the reef from puddles of warm water sitting over the entire northern GBR, together with all of the cyclones that came at the same time which were also climate related.
“So sure this is a bandaid measure to try and keep those tourist reefs in good shape.”
The Wilderness Society criticised the government for supporting the Adani coal mine, accusing it of using the funding package as a “smokescreen to cover up years of inaction on climate change”.
“Prevention is far more effective and cheaper than the cure and in this case the government refuses to curb carbon pollution which is damaging the reef and refusing to curb deforestation which is muddying up the waters of the reef,” Climate Campaign Manager Glenn Walker told SBS News.

Rescue package brings hope
Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg acknowledged the reef was facing a number of challenges.
“But these are important initiatives, we continue to invest heavily recognising that all Australians have an investment, have an interest, have a stake in the future health of the Reef.

Coral bleaching has devastated Australia's Great Barrier Reef. AAP

“That is why the announcement today is such a game-changer. It will secure the reef for future generations."
The Great Barrier Reef Foundation, which is partnering with the government on the rescue package, said it would bring hope to the reef’s future.
While the world worked on a plan to tackle climate change, these were practical measures to build the Reef’s resilience, Chairman John Schubert said.
“Today’s major investment brings real solutions within our grasp,” he said.
These funds represent an unequaled opportunity to create a legacy of hope for future generations.”

Links

• Great Barrier Reef corals 'cooked' by marine heatwaves
• Adani chairman says he believes in climate change but coal will help India
• Budget Earmarks $500m To Mitigate Great Barrier Reef Climate Change
• Great Barrier Reef Coral Bleaching
• 'Cooked': Study Finds Great Barrier Reef Transformed By Mass Bleaching
• Losing Nemo? Wider Effects Of Mass Great Barrier Reef Bleaching Emerge
• World's Coral Reefs Face New Peril From Beneath Within Decades
• Great Barrier Reef In 'Deep Trouble' As Climate, Other Threats Mount: Official
• 'Wasteful Stunt': Turnbull Government Accused Of Doing Too Little To Save Reef
• Great Barrier Reef: Rising Temperatures Turning Green Sea Turtles Female
• Great Barrier Reef Will Be Dead By 2100, Says David Attenborough's Blue Planet II
• Why Climate Change Is A Key Issue In The Queensland Election

A Storm Chaser’s Unforgiving View Of The Sky

The New Yorker - Alan Burdick* | Photography Camille Seaman*

Kansas, May, 2008. Photographs by Camille Seaman / Courtesy Princeton Architectural Press

 A cloud is a shade in motion. Shape-shifting and moody, it arrives with a message that is opaque as often as it is threatening. “Clouds always tell a true story,” the Scottish meteorologist Ralph Abercromby wrote, in 1887, “but one which is difficult to read.”
The appeal of clouds is obvious: no two are the same, and no one is the same for long. And they not only manifest change but inflict it as well. A cloud can be beautiful, terrible, or both—the embodiment of the sublime. Few other things on earth still present us with a power larger than ourselves. To watch a supercell gather force over the plains, as storm chasers take such pleasure in doing, is to watch Zeus take shape on earth. We’ve learned enough over the centuries to know that clouds aren’t supernatural; rather, fiercely condensed and sweeping, they represent all that is natural, and we stand beneath them awed and merely human.
But our relationship to clouds is changing, growing hazy. In 1803, Luke Howard, a British pharmacist, proposed a classification scheme that has mostly stayed with us. It introduced four basic kinds of clouds—cirrus, stratus, cumulus, and nimbus (the Latin words for curl, layer, mass, and rain)—as well as an array of subcategories that recognized the fact that one kind of cloud could turn into another. Recently, meteorologists have added several new cloud types to that known pantheon, and some of them describe clouds that are created by us: Cumulus homogenitus names the cloud formation produced by smokestacks and steam plants; Cirrus homomutatus are the high-elevation condensation trails produced by airplanes.
We are changing the face of the sky. And we are altering its mood; scientists hesitate to link specific storms to global warming, but it’s clear that, on the whole, climate change is making extreme-weather events more powerful and, perhaps, more common. When we look up, increasingly the face we see is ours. In the photographer Camille Seaman’s cloudscapes, it’s difficult to not also see humankind’s self-portrait: potent, defiant, unforgiving. Clouds always tell a true story, Ralph Abercromby said, and more than ever the story they tell is the story of ourselves. Where that story will take us is difficult to read.

Nebraska, June, 2012.

Nebraska, June, 2012.

Kansas, June, 2008.

Kansas, May, 2008.

Kansas, May, 2013.

Texas, June, 2014.

Kansas, May, 2008.

South Dakota, May, 2011.

Texas, May, 2012.

• Text and images were drawn from “The Big Cloud,” by Camille Seaman, which is out May 1st from Princeton Architectural Press.
• Alan Burdick, a staff writer, joined The New Yorker in 2012. He is the author, most recently, of “Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation.”

Links

• 40 Degrees In April: Why This Autumn Has Felt More Like Summer
• Complex Science Behind Climate Change And Extreme Weather
• Turnbull Knows Better Than To Deny Fire Weather Link To Climate Change
• Extreme Winter Weather Becoming More Common As Arctic Warms, Study Finds
• Climate Change Will Accelerate Extreme Weather Events In The Coming Years
• Arctic Warming: Scientists Alarmed By 'Crazy' Temperature Rises
• 'Really Extreme' Global Weather Event Leaves Scientists Aghast
• Scientists Just Issued a Grim New Warning on Climate Change: 'We Are Not Prepared'
• Human Existence Threatened More By Extreme Weather, Not Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Global Experts Warn
• 2017 Brought Another Year Of Weather Extremes As Drought And Heat Took Its Toll 

Climate Change: Australia's Position Is Unconscionable For A Wealthy Country

ABC - David Shearman*

French President tells US students they have to make a fair society (ABC News)

"There is no planet B" says President Macron in an electrifying speech to Congress, yet for most of us climate change is of much less concern than the cost of living, taxes, schools and health services.

As a slow creeping threat, "unlikely to affect me much anyway", climate change is easy to dismiss and therefore is never high on the election stakes where it is easy for our leaders to say they are doing everything they should — which they are not.
So as a doctor, why am I distressed by the announcement that gas resources in NT are to be developed and fracked? After all, the NT government indicates it can be managed safely, will occur in sparsely populated regions, will bring jobs and profits for shareholders and restitution for languishing state and federal budgets?
The Adani coal mine has signalled to the world more than any spoken word that the Australian Government does not understand or care about climate change.

Development of Northern Territories huge gas reserves will produce even more emissions than Adani, with a measurable increase in world and domestic emissions.

Australia has no treaty obligation to reduce the export of gas.

Gas mining on hold in many countries
The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported recently that the Earth's greenhouse emissions from fossil fuels had increased by 1.4 per cent in 2017 after three years of flat emissions. The goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change are in jeopardy.
In Australia in 2017, emissions increased by 0.8 per cent, the third yearly consecutive increase.
The IEA report indicates that natural gas demand in the world, which includes unconventional gas, is increasing rapidly and now supplies 22 per cent of total energy. If other gas developments proceed in WA, Australia is likely to be the world's greatest exporter of gas as well as of coal.
Recognising the threats from climate change, many countries have decided on "no new coal mines" or delayed or stopped unconventional gas mining on either local health or emission concerns.

To the World Health Organisation, climate change is the greatest health threat of this century. (Reuters: Liu Chang)

Health and the rising level of greenhouse emissions
To the World Health Organisation, climate change is the greatest health threat of this century, a view recognised by the statements of the Australian Medical Association.
It is responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide from storm, flood, fire, drought and hunger and a range of other causes including infections. Deaths are projected to rise to 250,000 by 2030.

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The forgotten islands

The Takuu group of atolls is home to a rich and historic culture, but the resilient people and their idyllic islands face an increasingly dire threat from climate change.

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In Australia the existing and expected health impacts are well documented and already affect our health services.

Many doctors find Australia's position unconscionable for a wealthy country.

We are trading more wealth for lives lost, mainly those living in less developed, poorer countries, those least able to care for themselves.
The desperate pleas for emission reduction by our neighbours in the Pacific Island States under threat or existing inundation are ignored.
Australia absolves itself by indicating it will fulfil its fair share of emission reduction under the Paris Agreement, but even that is in doubt and ignores the fact that wealthy technological nations are positioned to offer leadership and have the capacity to carry greater responsibility to do more against climate change.
These attitudes stem from a failure to recognise our collective responsibility to act, for we all share the same atmosphere and finite resource of freshwater, biodiversity and productive land which are currently threatened by increasing climate change.
As we burn carbon we also burn whatever hope our children and grandchildren will have of having a safe climate in the future. Our legacy to them will rather be an increasingly dangerous and unstable climate.

Fracking is likely to resume in the Beetaloo Basin, an area rich in shale gas and bordered by Mataranka to the north and Elliott to the south. (ABC News: Jane Bardon)

NT contribution to Australia's emissions
The gases that leak from gas exploration, mining and sealing of wells are called fugitive emissions; add leaks during transport, loading, distribution and then the burning of gas and you have the full life cycle emissions.

What is fracking? Fracking is used to extract gases, such as coal seam, tight and shale gas by pumping high-pressure water and chemicals into rock, fracturing it to release trapped gasses There are concerns the chemicals could contaminate groundwater supplies and threaten agricultural industries

Recent science indicates that with leakage rates as little as 3 per cent, emissions from gas are no better than coal fired power stations.
Fugitive measurements in Australian gas fields are poorly regulated and are currently unknown.
In the US, emissions from unconventional gas mining range from 2 per cent to 17 per cent.
The NT government report acknowledges the problem and hopes piously "that the NT and Australian governments seek to ensure that there is no net increase in the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions emitted in Australia from any onshore shale gas produced in the NT".
This hope remains unfulfilled in any Australian gas field.
The development of NT gas will inevitably cause an increase in Australia's domestic emissions, as it did in Queensland.
France banned fracking in 2011. President Macron brings "Planet B" to Australia soon.

*Dr David Shearman is the honorary secretary of Doctors for the Environment Australia and Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Adelaide University.

Links

• Fracking set to resume in the Northern Territory as moratorium lifted
• Another record year throws the heat on Australia's Paris climate targets
• The 'Kodak moment' for coal, and why the Adani mine could be a financial disaster
• NT Government told risks can be mitigated if fracking moratorium is lifted