Scientists: Save Australia's Great Barrier Reef (or, at the very least, our funding)

The Great Barrier Reef -- is it dying/dead as some media outlets have suggested? Is man/climate change the cause? Is urgent, expensive action required immediately?

In short, no, no, and... no.

As these two articles show, alarmism drives science funding -- the greater the alarm, the more publishable it is.

The Great Barrier Reef Wars by Kip Hansen. Extract:

The latest round of El Niño coral bleaching events brought headlines:

Coral bleaching hits 93% of Great Barrier Reef: scientists by Madeleine Coorey — April 20, 2016 – Yahoo News online  

“Sydney (AFP) – Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is suffering its worst coral bleaching in recorded history with 93 percent of the World Heritage site affected, scientists said Wednesday, as they revealed the phenomenon is also hitting the other side of the country.

After extensive aerial and underwater surveys, researchers at James Cook University said only seven percent of the huge reef had escaped the whitening triggered by warmer water temperatures.2016″ 

 Is this the end of the Great Barrier Reef? — April 8, 2016  by  Tom Arup — Environment editor, The Age 

Study: Over 90% of Great Barrier Reef suffering from coral bleaching by Euan McKirdy, CNN Wed April 20, 2016
“At some reefs, the final death toll is likely to exceed 90%. When bleaching is this severe, it affects almost all coral species, including old, slow-growing corals that once lost will take decades or longer to return.” 

 Only 7% of the Great Barrier Reef has avoided coral bleaching.  Media Release  — 20 April 2016 —  issued by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University
“The final results of extensive aerial and underwater surveys reveal that 93% of the reef has been affected. …. “We’ve never seen anything like this scale of bleaching before. In the northern Great Barrier Reef, it’s like 10 cyclones have come ashore all at once,” says Professor Terry Hughes”

The Reef’s Self-Serving Saviours by Walter Starck. Extract:

Coral reefs are highly diverse dynamic environments frequently subject to large natural perturbations.  Environmentalism primes us to believe in a “fragile balance of nature”, with any significant fluctuation as evidence of some unnatural “impact” caused by humans. Researchers soon discovered that investigation of environmental threats assured generous funding and the result is now  a whole generation of researchers whose entire training and experience of the reef has been in the context of  investigating such threats. They see every fluctuation as a threat and while they proclaim deep concern for the reef, their true commitment is more to the threats. This becomes apparent if any suggestion is made that a purported threat may not be as great as they claim to fear.  The reaction is never hopeful interest. Always, it is angry rejection.

As the second article makes clear, reef scientists -- and their funding -- are wed not to dispassionate discovery, but to environmentalism. And they live not to save the reef, but to save their funding.

h/t WUWT