German language RTV here reports: All the talk in the media of a dying Great Barrier coral reef near Australia is “a media swindle”.
Symbol image, provided by Grok AI
The facts: Record numbers of coral reefs were already measured in 2024 and the coverage has indeed tripled over the last 12 years.
According to RTV, “coral bleaching due to high water temperatures has been proven to be a lie” and the claim of damage to the reef in recent years said to be due to climate change has in fact a completely different background and has the reef has recovered.
According to Report 24, all the media claims made on a yearly basis, e.g. from the Guardian and CBS, of the Great Barrier reef near Australia dying at a record speed and being irreversible is “a fairy tale” and “false, misleading or simply a lie.”
Report 24 writes that the damage to the reef was caused by a tropical cyclone that moved across across the reef in 2009 and caused immense damage. A study by the Australian Institute of Marine Science summarized the damage which ranged from exfoliation, scouring, which removed all living tissue from the corals, and included coral breakage where both massive coral heads and more fragile branching corals broke off.
It had nothing to do with CO2 and climate change.
Moreover, according to scientists, coral bleaching is by no means a sign of a dying reef and does not produce a white dead coral lump like the ones you can buy in a souvenir shop on the beach. Instead, bleaching means that the coral has lost the algae living in it, usually due to various stress factors such as fluctuations in light or changes in water temperature. This causes the living coral to turn white but not necessarily die.
Report 24 adds that occurrences of coral bleaching could become even more frequent due to the record growth of recent years.
The dying reef narrative began 12 years ago when the reef was severely damaged by the cyclone, with up to 85% of the coral cover gone. At the time, real scientists stated that recovery could take up to 15 years, and this is exactly what has since happened.
The reef has not only recovered, but also continued to expand.
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April 2, 2025 at 01:00PM
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