Scientist Peter Ridd is in the Federal Circuit Court in Brisbane (right now). Jennifer Marohasy has news, especially about the ABC not even reporting the case is underway.

Why is our ABC not reporting issues involving devastation (or not) of Australia's greatest international underwater tourist attraction, the Great Barrier Reef? Why? Is there any justified reason?

http://jennifermarohasy.com/2019/03/whatwouldaphysicistknow/

simply does not fit the leftist narrative JF Aus. The abc are a disgrace and a waste of tax payer money at least at the national level.

Why would leftist politics want to suppress work and news and discussion about coral and ocean ecosystem science?

What motive exists for science to suppress science as in the case of scientist Peter Ridd?

Clearly a case of ideology trumping science. Nothing new.

Rudd case update thanks to Jennifer Marohasy.

http://jennifermarohasy.com/2019/03/day-3-peter-ridd-versus-the-university-and-state-funded-media-stuck-in-denial

Do the proceedings of this court case, or indeed any civil court case, really count as "key news"? How many news organisations are covering it?

I'm sure the result will be newsworthy enough for the ABC to report, and FWIW if I were in charge of ABC news I probably would cover the proceedings. But resources are limited and court cases slow, so I can understand their decision not to.

The way that the climate science denial
community and the conservative echo chamber has
rallied around Peter Ridd has been impressive.

All the usual suspects have had a run at Ridd's
story. The Daily Caller, FoxNews, Andrew Bolt
(lots of times), The Australian's, Graham Lloyd,
(lots of times) -
James Delingpole in Breitbart, Alan Jones (lots of times),
Rowan Dean, and so on.

The ABC fully covered the case in 2018.

Ridd has gone pretty much without criticism.
He's also being backed by the Institute of Public Affairs
(they raised $95,000 in two days).

Ridd has been hanging around with climate deniers for the
best part of a decade. He's been a science director of
the Australian Environment Foundation (not a real
Environment Foundation) since 2005 and he doesn't seem to
have had a problem saying what he wants since then.

Ridd's story starts in mid 2016 when through the pages of
The Australian he was making dubious claims about alleged
misuse of pictures of The Great Barrier Reef. The James Cook
University issued a censure against him.

Since then Ridd continued to claim that fellow James Cook
University scientists should not be trusted which lead to
allegations of serious misconduct from James Cook University
that Ridd had repeatedly breached their code of conduct.
Clearly he had. But Ridd hit back and filed a case against
them. Did he seriously expect to keep his job after that?

Clearly the man has a case to answer when he says things
like - "We can no longer trust scientific organisations like
the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral
Reef Studies." Two groups with partnerships and staff at his
own university.

It's entirely predictable that this man is getting full support
from climate deniers. He's serving up two of their favourite
dishes - in one serving. "freedom of speech" against the
establishment and a rejection of the science linking human
activity to climate change and in this case in particular - The
Great Barrier Reef.

Don't kid your self Foxy, most of the research being done at AIMS & at James Cook is propaganda conformation, & the quality of too many of the researchers leaves a whole lot to be desired.

In 85 I took the board of the Marine park authority, & a bunch of researchers from AIMS & James Cook out to our facility at Hardy reef.

They took half the day seemingly delighting in telling us we wouldn't be in business long. They reckoned the crown of thorns was already devastating the area, & there would be no coral to show tourists with in a couple of years.

None of them had ever been in the area, but they assured us their models showed the devastation would be in Gladstone with in 3 years. We tried to give them the benefit of our experience & local knowledge, at the reef 5 days a week with tourists & dive groups, & a dozen overnight fishing & dive trips to the outer reef a month.

The chair lady of the park authority, a history professor, said my skippers probably didn't know what one looked like, when I told her we had seen only one in 6 months.

If you want to know the facts Foxy, do avoid the fish tank specialists in Townsville. Go talk to a professional Swains fisherman, who effectively live out there. One of them told me about the annual coral spawning, about 20 years before the "scientists" discovered it. That was probably in a MacKay pub, it wouldn't have been in a fish tank in Townsville.

Dear Hassie,

Thanks for that.

However -

I get a bit suspicious when people push certain
barrows - Jennifer Marohasy is a former free
market think tank researcher who is now at
Central Queensland University with her
work paid for by the foundation of a
climate science sceptic.

None of the claims by her have been published in a peer
reviewed journal, despite the fact that since January
she has found time to write repeatedly to government
ministers, has spoken at the Sydney Institute and flown
to a conference for climate sceptics in Las Vegas all
the while making the same accusations.

What justification could there possibly be for the ABC to not report the March 2019 Peter Ridd case in Brisbane, involving whether GBR research is untrustworthy and lacking scientific quality?

Sacking Peter Ridd has previously been aired but this is also about trustworthiness of water quality research. Its also about more and more regulations for struggling farmers being blamed for sediment that rarely reaches actual GBR coral 40 miles offshore. Nothing is being said about nutrient feeding algae causing dead zones inundating coral.

Accomplished scientist Peter Ridd has seen need to speak up. People with local knowledge and observed evidence should also speak up.

As an underwater filmmaker and explorer in GBR and SW Pacific Islands waters since the mid 1960’s, long term observation and independent investigative general research has provided evidence of substance indicating there is very significant reason for concern about lack of GBR research quality assurance.

This is not about flogging the ABC, many good people work there. This is about news photographs not indicating the true story News photos generally show beautiful coral while dead coral in among healthy coral is not shown and discussed. So is the GBR ok?

ABC news about global warming usually shows images of power stations with steam billowing upward from tapered steam cooling towers, while nothing can be seen coming out of nearby furnace chimneys. Do many viewers think it’s smoke and CO2 billowing out?

It’s impossible to put the whole GBR in one photo. However there is a way to present evidence of unreported untrustworthy research. Dissolved municipal sewage nutrient over-load amounting to pollution is being transported northwards into GBR waters by known sediment dispersal current. That southern city point source nutrient load is not being measured in GBR science. Absolutely, sediment is measured but not the dissolved nutrient, nutrient that if proliferating algae, algae that is killing seagrass food-web nurseries and GBR coral - linked to fish depletion, dead whales, undernutrition and 21 children dead per minute daily, not duly reported either.

http://www.unicef.org/mdg/childmortality.htm

http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/08-1120.1

Try this:

http://www.unicef.org/mdg/childmortality.html

Ah yeah, those nasty, poison spreading farmers getting the blame for the ills of the GBR.
If only we could stop these farmers from trying to grow so much food for the environmentalists in the air conditioned homes in the South on canal estates & pristine bush land & making a good living in the Public Service by taking advantage of the Peter Principle & conveniently not making decisions in order not to risk responsibility.
Then, in holidays time they can all travel by plane, train & automobile to exotic locations with air conditioned luxury units from which they head out to the reef on fuel guzzling tourist boats.
All the while being hugely concerned about the health of the reef as the sunscreen lotion washes off their bleached bodies & kills the coral polyps.
Back home they then start condemning the scientists who state facts. Yeah, nothing like a parasitic hypocrite !

"key news"?

Hardly. Well not for the vast majority of Australians. Some bloke who despite earlier warnings decided he enjoyed the media spotlight a little more than his academic position is now disputing the price.

Of all the aggrieved people putting their cases to the Federal Court why do you think this should get special attention? Can we have logical reasons not ideological please.

Key news is communication of relevant evidence proving or indicating a cause of damage that if not addressed with proper solutions will continue and worsen and compound. Consequences of such damage include devastation of coral worldwide, not just coral on the Great Barrier Reef. Also there is chronic hardship involving protein deficiency under-nutrition and resulting NCD and early death among Pacific Islands people.

Blaming or pointing the finger at CO2 emissions and farmers for GBR damage is quite different to blaming municipal sewage nutrient loads dumped daily, un-managed nutrient that is amounting to nutrient pollution and waterway and ocean dead zones. Reducing CO2 emissions will not reduce dissolved N&P bonded to fresh water that can be transported long distances by surface water currents driven by prevailing wind.

Government should be seeking truth and debate to implement effective solutions. Public debate and knowledge can inspire correct public spending, for example on scientific research instead of on non-viable traffic jamming tram 'infrastructure'.

Our publicly funded and duly obligated ABC should be reporting apparently justified concern about the GBR, indicated as follows?

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/apr/02/foi-regime-thwarts-bid-to-expose-great-barrier-reef-lobbying-researcher-says

What the government should be seeking is the truth that Peter Ridd has highlighted, that our academics & universities have become grannt chasers, to better then ambulance chasing lawyers.

If Peter is right, & from my personal experience he is in at least some cases, the ABC should be screaming to the heavens of the corruption in academia. Not much chance when the ABC is a major part of the problem, giving air space to every bit of garbage that comes from them.

Bet your boots, they will be screaming in 10 Ft high headlines that Ridd has lost if he does.

Dear Hasbeen,

How it going old cock? Good to see you still at it.

What Peter Ridd should have done was raise his concerns without denigrating his colleagues. He is paying the price for something he was appropriately warned about.

It is your lot who want to turn this into a big anti-GW free speech issue when it appears just to have been not abiding by the rules which were clearly stated.

Time to move on me thinks.

SteeleRedux,
The fact that this was about a trivial breach of the rules is precisely why it is important!
Academic misconduct, whether by him or his opponents, should be exposed not covered up.

Surely the Peter Ridd case is also about whether or not one scientist was justified in making the relevant comments about other scientists.

It appears GBR science is dysfunctional and damage to coral is continuing without communication and debate about appropriate solutions to the causes of coral (and ecosystem) damage.

There is no evidence CO2 emissions are the only cause of AGW and coral damage, there may be two or three causes so why stifle or cover up or gag relevant science and local knowledge news and debate?

"Time to move on", says SteeleRedux. That's the way it was when men women and children were being chopped up and gassed. Other people in a safe zone knew or had a good idea what happening but they chose to move on, doing nothing toward solutions.
It's virtually the same these days, even court proceedings are being gagged to silence what is really going on.
So let's forget what is really happening to the GBR and world ocean! Move on, eh?

http://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedfyi/videos/781655798884760/

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived

Another one the ABC 'forgot" to mention ?

Guys please. Isn't the question about whether there was sufficient justification for Ridd's dismissal right now being assessed by our judicial system?

You lot have your opinion and I have mine but this has gone before the Federal Court for adjudication and we should be prepared to accept the result. If it is deemed unjust he will either be reinstated or compensated.

I fully expect if sufficient doubts are raised with research then there will be a proper process for a review of it to occur. No university wants its reputation tarnished through academic misconduct.

You don’t have an opinion SR you have a side to support.

Anyone who doesn’t realise most of the garbage put out by AIMS & James Cook is for grant generation, & to satisfy the publish or perish of academia today is as they say, “a bloody idiot”.

Most of it is unverifiable, un repeatable rubbish, which was Ridd’s problem. When he took this up with management he was told to go away. Management was/is more interested in grant money than any factual science.

This case is probably as big a test of our legal system, as it is of academia. It will be interesting to see how the judge stands up to pressure to not rock the boat.

There is a question whether Dr Peter Ridd was justified in saying what he did that led to his dismissal. Its not just about speaking about the institution.

Independent evidence indicates GBRMPA management is dysfunctional and their associated science is out of date, out of touch and very incomplete. For example the GBRMPA area and boundary does not include nearshore coastal current that transports various point source nutrient into GBR waters.
Increase in sewage and industrial nutrient pollution is increasing proliferation of excessive algae.

Invasive algae is smothering and damaging seagrass food-web nurseries and reef coral. Small fish nurseries feed pelagic ocean fish on which ocean animals and islander people depend for essential protein.
Yet the northerly flowing Australian east coast sediment dispersal current and the dissolved nutrient load it transports is not scientifically measured and assessed, as it most certainly should be. Why hound and handicap food producing farmers while unmanaged city sewage dumped daily, goes unnoticed?

Sediment from land settles quickly, rarely reaching the actual GBR generally about 40 miles offshore, whereas dissolved nutrient bonded to fresh water within fresher ocean surface water is pushed and transported long distances by prevailing wind, including from say Sydney sewage outfalls to Cape York and beyond. If the nutrient overload is not taken up beforehand it travels, including through or over GBR reef-proper coral.

Absence of ABC news reporting about nutrient pollution leading to damage of the GBR and other consequences, seems to be associated with members of the judiciary lacking adequate understanding of the GBR and ocean and Ridd’s view, making relevant adjudication incomplete.

Academics seem to depend on published evidence but marine science barely knows the basic biology of oceans, a marine biology professor has said to me that science knows even less than that. This is why local knowledge of substance should be communicated and taken in to account.

There is need for relevant communication and complete court hearings and complete science. Modern science. The world ocean is in big trouble. If Peter Ridd can see problematic science then his view should be heard. Not gagged.

You have it wrong JF Aus, but I don't know why.

The Oz east coast current is a south running current, not northerly. At times it is elliptical, bringing everything back to where it started, but mostly anything from Sydney ends up in Bass straight, never in the north.

Up in reef territory there is no prevailing current with in the reef. Only tidal flow parallel to the coast, flooding to the south & ebbing to the north mostly, but in the opposite direction in some areas depending on the local reef configuration. The only current is outside the reef, & is again south going.

As for prevailing winds, they are south east, so any local nutrients are blown on shore.

I don't know if you have ever spent any time around the reef. Inshore there was a major problem years ago when governments were throwing money at farmers to buy super phosphate, & dramatically over fertilise the country. Those days are long past, & farmers are using as little as possible of expensive fertilisers.

The recently much in the news Cid Harbour had a large area of seaweed, not algae, covering areas of what once was inshore coral. This was I believe fertilised by farm nutrients. Over the last 20 years that weed growth has diminished greatly.

I don't get around as much as I used to, so I don't know if that is a local or wide spread effect.

I agree the farmer is a scapegoat for many ills, but we are unlikely to solve any with the bunch of incompetents involved in reef "science" today.

From my observations the reef has simply been loved to death & over fishing is the nail in the coffin !
The increased acidity is world-wide caused !

I have it right, Hasbeen, and I know one reason why.

ABC/media failure to report relevant local knowledge evidence and also facts has even led to government searches being in the wrong direction for 9 people missing at sea that I am aware of. Eventually one boat missing from Shellharbour in 1984 was found where I said it would be off Newcastle, where I even chartered a plane and searched, whereas the government search went south to Gabo Island off Victoria. Government search and rescue procedure was later changed accordingly.

The southerly flowing ocean current is the East Australian Current which is a warm and very clear current usually situated OFFSHORE near the Continental Shelf. It sometimes spins into what are now described as 200 diameter eddies.

The current I am referring to in earlier comment in this thread is the longshore current that flows northward AGAINST the eastern coastline of Australia. This northerly flowing longshore current is driven by energy from waves driven by prevailing winds coming from the south and south east.
This alongshore current has significant energy capable of transporting heavy sand sediment, sand that jetty pump systems move from the south side of seaways to the north side.

Northerly moving longshore sand sediment eventually falls over the Continental Shelf at northern Fraser Island, while I have evidence of substance showing actual fresher water longshore surface current flow continues northward into the GBR lagoon. This eastern coast northerly longshore current flow cannot just stop, because of water coming behind the flow.
That longshore flow powers the east coast sediment dispersal system that includes dissolved nutrient pollution I have referred to in this thread.
http://www.malibumakos.com/currents-and-drafts/

The CSIRO has told me this longshore current is not significant enough to be named but I think otherwise because it is the current that drives east coast sediment dispersal. This longshore current links natural nutrient source estuaries, and now unfortunately human nutrient pollution and impact, including algae devastating seagrass, in Whitsunday - GBR waters.
http://www.seagrasswatch.org/whitsunday.html

The ABC is gagging science and knowledge, including for the Judiciary and toward solutions. Absolutely.
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/08-1120.1

Sorry JF Aus, you are wrong. Even the old sailing directions give the facts. Hell even old Captain Cooks log gives details of his difficulty making headway north against the current. I have experienced over 4.5 knots south going between Port Stephens & Broken bay.

I don't know how much time you have spent sailing the coast, but I have 7 Hobarts 4 Sydney Brisbane, & 3 Brisbane Gladstone races as navigator, & over 40 private trips from Sydney to the reef, always against the south flowing current.

It does develop eddies, where it is south going inshore & north going well off shore. These can be 50 to 100 nautical miles long, but they always return south.

At my first Sydney Brisbane briefing, one of the experienced navigators told us to sail into every bay, & hug the beach to avoid this current. When asked how close inshore should we sail he said "If you can't hear the dogs barking at you, you're too far off shore". He proved totally correct.

Hasbeen, what current do you think takes sand northwards along the coast?
It is known about 500 cubic metres of sand goes northwards past the Gold Coast every year.
Take a look into the two relevant links I posted above. Both state northwards.

Dear Hasbeen,

You write;

"This case is probably as big a test of our legal system, as it is of academia. It will be interesting to see how the judge stands up to pressure to not rock the boat."

How bloody self serving is that? So if the decision doesn't go your way then it is the fault of a weak judge?

I would hope that on the most part the judge will ignore the chattering classes of people like yourself and deliver his judgement based on the law and the relative strength of the arguments from both parties.

SR,
Do you think Dr Ridd's case would be strong after not being able to present evidence of the science he spoke out about - that led to him being sacked ?

Dear JF Aus,

If the judge determined it germane to the case then it of course he should be allowed. If it was instead deemed irrelevant to the case then of course it shouldn't.

Look Ridd was first cautioned over two years ago about following the rules of his employment. He kept wilfully infringing those rules including publishing "Private and Confidential" information of a Go Fundme page of all things.

There are proper channels for raising issues of academic misconduct or inadequate data etc. Ridd is a fringe character but there is no indication that he was prevented from using those channels. There is on the other hand very good evidence he decided to operate outside those rules and now he has taken umbrage at the cost.

So if the decision doesn't go your way then it is the fault of a weak judge?
Steele Redux,
it's not a matter of it going his way, it's a matter of right vs wrong & a weak Judge would make the wrong decision so as not to rock the boat.

If a Judge is under-informed due to news media gagging of evidence and consequently cannot determine what is relevant or not, crime or dangerous negligence will likely continue unchecked.

I submit dysfunction of GBRMPA associated science is relevant and so is opinion of a physicist who may happen to be in opposition to biologists. Different fields of science often compete and struggle for research resources due to inadequate funding for all fields, a motive for opposition.

Eccentric humans are known for wilful behaviour. Many scientists are eccentric, also very intelligent. Yes as you say, Ridd is a character.
What Dr Peter Ridd is or is not personally seems irrelevant to his court case, especially if there is substance to his insight to whether GBRMPA associated science is quality science.

Yes there are proper channels for raising issues of academic misconduct but what are consequences when fundamentally important issues are shunned because of lack of so called scientific evidence, data? E.g. There is no scientific evidence world fish populations are severely and generally depleted, as no scientists counted or measured original populations and counting the remaining re data is impossible. Now there are not enough oily fish left in the whole world to viably feed industrial animal production including aquaculture.

Fact remains the ABC news media has not informed the public and members of the Judiciary, that Australian east coast longshore current flow is transporting southern municipal sewage nutrient over-load pollution through seagrass nurseries and into GBR waters, feeding algae damaging ocean food web supply and coral, and that the total load from all point sources is not measured or assessed in GBRMPA associated science.

Evidence of substance indicates GBR science measuring sediment, not the dissolved nutrient load from all point sources, relevant science is not functioning as it should.

Dr Peter Ridd-linked physics may be suppressed or not heard, proper solutions to GBR and world coral damage not urgently identified and put in place.
Surely all this should be brought out into the open, why not?

Go check your facts JF Aus.

The CSIRO "The East Australian Current flows south along the east coast of Australia from near Queensland’s Fraser Island to Tasmania".

Hell even Wikipedia agrees.

Hasbeen,
I suggest you post a link or source to evidence proving your claim I am incorrect.
I don't need to check such fact but I will post further evidence.

Google: ron boyd abstract sediment dispersal.

Note the last sentence states there are two currents off Australia's east coast flowing in opposite directions.

I have thorough understanding one is the longshore current that flows northwards, and the other is the East Australian Current that flows southwards. And neither start at Fraser Island.

If the Australian public ABC reported relevant new information news of substance about the ocean, both currents would be generally understood, less people would go missing, and nutrient pollution linked coral damage on the GBR would be reduced and not blamed on farmers.

And believe it or not effective employment and business generating water management solutions could then be seen and put in place

Hey! If you are interested in nearshoring or want to know what is that - you can visit this site and read - https://www.nearshoring-info.ch/nearshore-definition/.