The inaugural Great Barrier Reef Megafauna Expedition departs in just two days, on Monday 2^nd September for 5 nights at sea – weather permitting.    And the weather does look like it might be a bit blowy.

Breaking news:

There are now six categories including ‘largest reptile’.   This could be a turtle, a snake –hopefully not a crocodile.

Prize money is $500 for the winner of each category with the potential for $3,000 to be won across all six categories.

This new category of ‘largest reptile’ is at the request of Paul Crocombe from Adrenalin Snorkel and Dive who are co-hosting the event, and along with the now standalone category ‘largest whales’ is sponsored by Perth-based philanthropist Bryant Macfie.

Charter of the MV Sea Esta has been made possible by Sydney-based philanthropist Simon Fenwick.

Did you know, six of the world’s seven marine turtle species occur in Australian waters:

1. Green Turtle, Chelonia mydas,

2. Loggerhead Turtle, Caretta caretta,

3. Flatback Turtle, Natator depressus,

4. Hawksbill Turtle, Eretmochelys imbricata,

Olive Ridley, Lepidochelys olivacea,

and the Leatherback Turtle, Dermochelys coriacea.

The Leatherback Turtle is the largest species; adults usually grow 1.8 to 2.2 metres and weigh between 250 and 700 kilograms.   This is information from the Queensland Museum Website.

I know from the stories my mother told me, she worked on Heron Island during the 1950s, that turtle meat was once very popular in Queensland –  for eating.

According to an article by Suzy Freeman-Greene published in the Griffith Review some years ago:

In Queensland, by 1886 a substantial turtle meat and soup industry had been established in the Moreton Bay area …  Most turtles were caught there with nets. One traveller to the Fitzroy River estuary reported that it was customary ‘for drinking salons in the coastal towns to have turtle soup “on tap”’.

In the Capricorn group of islands, which includes Heron, harvesting of nesting turtles began in 1904. Hunters would patrol beaches in the evening, flip turtles on their backs and leave them overnight. They would return at high tide to decapitate them with an axe, taking the meat away by boat. Occasionally, turtles were hoisted live onto boats in slings.

During 1924–25, 1,220 turtles were harvested at North West Island, producing 36,000 tins of soup. Once the Heron Island cannery opened, the combined harvest of the two factories was 2,500 green turtles in 1925–26. End quote.

Last time I was at Heron Island, in November 2020, there were so many turtles, and the females were laying eggs on the beach through the night and still at 10am in the morning.

Population numbers seem to have recovered – at least of Green turtles.

Times have changed.  When it comes to turtles at least, we are kinder.

So please don’t tell me that the Great Barrier Reef was pristine, back 100 years ago – as Valerie Taylor and others are inclined to suggest in their memories.

*****

And we now have a megafauna logo, more about this and that clam soon.

From the NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard on 30. August 2024

“Clearly, the atmospheric CO2 observation data are not consistent with the climate narrative. Rather, they contradict it.”  – Koutsoyiannis, 2024

Per a new study, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) utilizes “inappropriate assumption and speculation,” as well as non-real-world models of “imaginary data,” to claim CO2 emissions derived from fossil fuel burning function “weirdly,” far differently in the atmosphere than CO2 molecules derived from natural emissions (e.g., plant respiration, ocean outgassing) do.

“The ambiguity is accompanied by inappropriate assumptions and speculations, the weirdest of which is that the behavior of the CO2 in the atmosphere depends on its origin and that CO2 emitted by anthropogenic fossil fuel combustion has higher residence time than when naturally emitted.”

While the IPCC acknowledges emissions from natural sources have an atmospheric residence time of only 4 years, they have simultaneously constructed model outputs that assert CO2 molecules derived from fossil fuel emissions remain in the atmosphere for hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, even several one hundred thousands of years.

Per the IPCC:

“15 to 40% of an emitted CO2 pulse [from anthropogenic emissions] will remain in the atmosphere longer than 1000 years, 10 to 25% will remain about ten thousand years, and the rest will be removed over several hundred thousand years.”

“Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an extreme example, its turnover time is only about 4 years because of the rapid exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean.”

Again, a four-year residence time for natural CO2, but hundreds of thousands of years residence time for CO2 molecules elicited from fossil fuel burning. It would seem just about any result can be derived from imaginary data.

Instead of relying on models built on assumption and speculation, Dr. Koutsoyiannis utilizes a well-established, hydrology-based theoretical framework (refined reservoir routing, or RRR) combined with real-world CO2 observations to robustly conclude the residence time for all CO2 molecules, regardless of origin, is between 3.5 and 4 years.

The applied theoretical results match the empirical results so closely (e.g., an empirical mean of 3.91 years vs. a theoretical mean of 3.94 years at Barrow, and an identical 3.68 years for both empirical and theoretical means at Mauna Loa from 1958-2023) that the theoretical framework can be said to be “close to perfect.” In other words, the consistency of the applied calculation with real-world observations provides robust evidence that CO2 residence time is likely close to this range.

In contrast, the calculated probability for the modeled, imaginary-data-based claim that the residence time for a CO2 molecule persists for over 1000 years is 10⁻⁶⁸, which means the probability value is “no different from an impossibility.”

A residence time of only 4 years for all CO2 molecules, regardless of origin, is consistent with the conclusion that nature is dominant in driving changes in CO2 concentration. Fossil fuel emissions serve only a minor role.

Since 1750, additions to the atmospheric CO2 concentration derived from natural emission sources associated with biological processes are about 4.5 times larger than the contribution from fossil fuel emissions (e.g., 22.9 ppm per year from nature, 5.2 ppm per year from fossil fuel combustion).

In other words, observed CO2 data contradict the climate narrative that says anthropogenic fossil fuel burning is driving CO2 concentration changes.

By Jo Nova

And then the climate pledges evaporated

The Tech-Giants are backing away. Microsoft and Google have given up — they’re not bragging about their carbon neutrality anymore. Not now that their emissions have increased 29% and 50% respectively in the last four or five years.  Over 500 companies pledged to get to net zero by 2040, but 96% of them are failing to stay on track. To distract us from talking about how the Climate Bubble has popped, some are blaming “AI”.

The world is facing mass death and boiling oceans, and wind and solar are still as cheap as they never were, but Big Tech are sneaking away from saving the world, wait, because Artificial Intelligence uses a lot of electricity? It’s like, these CEOs were saviors of Mother Earth not long ago, but the ice-caps be damned, there’s a race on to capture the AI market?  So the planetary heroes just turned back into robber barons doing business?

Dr Jemma Green, who sells software for renewables markets, is trying to sell us a bad-luck story, as if it makes any sense. The truth is that if net zero technologies were cheap and useful, and the CEO’s ever cared about the planet, they wouldn’t be abandoning them. But they are…

Jemma Green, Forbes

AI’s energy hunger and corporate climate hypocrisy

…corporations like Google, Microsoft, and Shell once positioned themselves as leaders in sustainability, setting ambitious net-zero goals to align with global environmental efforts. However, the rapid rise of energy-hungry artificial intelligence is forcing these companies to reconsider—or even abandon—these commitments…

Corporate climate pledges surged recently, with over 500 companies globally committing to net-zero emissions by 2040. This momentum continued between June 2022 and October 2023, with a 40% increase in new net-zero targets​. Yet, as the AI revolution gains traction, cracks in these promises are beginning to show. Recent analysis reveals that only 4% of these companies are on track to meet their goals, highlighting a disconnect between corporate rhetoric and reality​.

Despite the headline, Jemma Green isn’t even trying to explain “Why” the end is here. After a few paragraphs blaming AI she laments how other giants like Shell, or Gucci, or EasyJet are stepping away too from their goals too,  poking a hole in her thesis that it was only due to AI.

What she’s documenting is the corporate world quietly erasing their mistakes:

Shell, for instance, has abandoned its 2035 target of a 45% reduction in net carbon intensity, citing “uncertainty in the pace of change in the energy transition.” This target was a key milestone towards Shell’s broader goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

The same goes for luxury fashion house Gucci, which once committed to carbon neutrality through verified carbon offsets and in May 2023, quietly removed its claim of being “entirely carbon neutral” from its website.

The truth is that if the Earth was in danger, smart CEO’s and billionaires, who have to live on the planet too, would be pushing nuclear power. But it was all an intellectual fashion contest and a quick subsidy buck, and maybe a few even believed wind and solar power looked useful, but they don’t anymore.