CO2 and coral

The BBC and their environmental allies have told us many times that the rise in CO2 levels in the seas is killing coral and that coral just will not survive in acid oceans. The trouble is that the science shows otherwise: Watts Up With That reports that 'The fishes and the coral live happily in the CO2 bubble plume'. Here's an extract:

'Willis Eschenbach’s post on lab work on coral response to elevated carbon dioxide levels, and The Reef Abides, leads to a large scale, natural experiment in Papua New Guinea. There are several places at the eastern end of that country where carbon dioxide is continuously bubbling up through healthy looking coral reef, with fish swimming around and all that that implies.

What that implies is that ocean acidification is no threat at all. If the most delicate, fragile, iconic ecosystem of them all can handle flat-out saturation with carbon dioxide, what is there to worry about?'

So why are the enviromentalists keen to push the threat? The same article suggests a possible reason:

'That lack of a threat is a threat to a human institution though – the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) based in Townsville, north Queensland run by Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.

To quote Walter Starck (http://www.bairdmaritime.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6171:png-coral-reefs-and-the-bubble-bath&catid=99:walter-starcks-blog&Itemid=123) – “A never ending litany of purported environmental threats to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has maintained a generous flow of funding for several generations of researchers. The “reef salvation” industry now brings about US$91 million annually into the local economy in North Queensland.

Although none of these threats has ever become manifest as a serious impact and all of the millions of dollars in research has never found any effective solution for anything, the charade never seems to lose credibility or support. The popular threat of the moment is ocean acidification from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.”

So AIMS mounted an expedition to Papua New Guinea to examine the large scale, natural experiment that was a threat to their livelihood. They reported in Nature (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n3/pdf/nclimate1122.pdf?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201106) that while the reefs they examined looked healthy, they didn’t like them. The threat has been averted for the moment, but maintaining funding requires constant vigilance.'