"In a long period of deep personal anguish, I turned to specialists in many different fields of science to find anything that might suggest a fault in my own conclusions...."

You must have missed these ones, then:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/01/record-cold-in-florida-kills-reef-coral/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/floating-islands/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/11/not-as-bad-as-we-thought-coral-can-recover-from-climate-change-damage/

Maybe next time, after you turn to them, you should LISTEN to them...

Relax mate and do some real science by asking some real questions. Many of the general public are sick to death of alarmist who are rarely held accountable for there failed predictions. The recent senior Australian of the year made many ridiculous predictions that now should see him with egg all over his face.
The author writes

'This is not what is happening today. Ponder these facts: The atmospheric levels of CO2 we are already committed to reach, no matter what mitigation is now implemented, have no equal over the entire longevity of the Great Barrier Reef, perhaps 25 million years.'

'perhaps 25 million years.' perhaps indeed! and then again it might be 60 million or 2 billion. Take your pick as long as it does not muck up the model.

KenH is correct in exposing the Crown of Thorns and subsequent exaggerations.

The author failed to mention that the crown of thorns problem was not, at the time, seen as causing limited damage at all. It was seen as the end of the reef.

The author seems to have pulled back from his earlier statement that the reefs would be gone within 20 yrs.

http://opentravel.com/blogs/great-barrier-reef-to-die-in-20-years

Sadly, he uses the old "What will we tell our children and our children's children?" The answer? We will say with confidence that Scientists are often wrong in their predictions of the future but they are smart enough to make predictions so far in advance they cannot be held accountable.

wattsupwiththat the totally discredited web site of misinformation and cherry picked data.
No credible climate scientist, including those quoted so often by the denialst movement – Lindzen, Christy and Spencer – denies that CO2 is increasing and that we’re mostly responsible. Neither do they deny that the existing increase in CO2 has caused planetary heating that will continue and that future increases in CO2, due to us, will cause increased heating (and ocean acidification).

"No credible climate scientist, ..." etc.

And what makes a climate scientist 'credible', Peter? Oh yes, that's right: piously mouthing profitable nonsense about AGW. Cancun has just had record low temperatures for December, but even that doesn't appear to penetrate. No, it's AGW, AGW all the way...

Nothing is wrong. Nothing was ever wrong. Nothing will ever be wrong. It is still here because we did nothing to save it. The world will be saved by doing nothing. Ecological threats to the reef do not exist. Bleaching is good for the reef, because reefs can recover.

snort