In the Financial Post, the Wall Street Journal and the South Pacific, Bjorn Lomborg refuses to eulogize the Great Barrier Reef. As you know if you read our blog, the funeral has been very crowded lately, with gloating mourners from activist outfits and media outlets (but we repeat ourselves) rushing up to the coffin clutching “tipping points” such as “World’s coral reefs in almost irreversible die-off, scientists say” only to find that, disappointingly, there’s no corpse at all. As Lomborg writes, “The latest data show that coral cover has dropped across 10 of 11 sectors, with two experiencing their largest one-year drop.” But, he notes, “large year-to-year variations are typical; this year’s declines came off the record highs of 2024; one sector is at its highest-ever coral cover; and cover across the entire reef is ‘only’ the fourth-highest ever recorded since systematic monitoring began.” Cancel the funeral, again.
One qualification here as always is that the term “highest-ever” should not lightly be thrown around. The kind of monitoring in question on the GBR only stretches back to 1986, and if instead we had good data going back to 1936, 1886 or 36, we’d have a much better idea whether recent fluctuations are normal in frequency and intensity, and whether the peaks are encouraging or the valleys are of death. Since we don’t, we should admit that we have only a limited idea as to what’s going on.
Then we should admit that what we do know does not justify black crepe bunting. Instead, not entirely unlike the not-dead-yet Arctic ice, what we see is a period of brief but potentially scary decline and then the dreaded rebound. As his Post piece says:
“Until the millennium, the reef was mostly stable, but in the early 2000s it started declining, and by 2012 it had shrunk to less than half its original cover. Unsurprisingly, reporting got more pessimistic. Researchers predicted climate change and warmer waters would halve the coral cover again by 2022, leaving it at almost nothing.”
Cue the funeral march in G minor. Bom bom ba dom bom… uh, no. Instead:
“over the next decade the reef rebounded spectacularly. By 2021, coral cover was higher than in any year since measurements began. Then it increased further, staying at almost impossibly high levels in 2022 and 2023. Did the media celebrate? Hardly.”
Instead, the Guardian, which was all set to bury the dang thing in 2014 only to have it sit up and protest “I’m not dead yet”, wrote in 2023 that the recovery had “stalled”. It would, wouldn’t it? But as Lomborg again observes, with a simple appealing chart:
“Across the entire reef, cover is still higher than in 2021, which itself was higher than any other year since recording began. All the reef’s highest years are in the 2020s, and yet the media continues to paint a dismal picture.”
Maybe we should bury them instead. The lack of brainwave activity is, after all, a serious indication that they are late, if not lamented.
Beautiful story. I wonder why a press release to the Associated Press wouldn’t get lots of attention.
Instead of saying, “Scientists say …”, quote actual people and actual facts.