Up until December 1941 Cairns was a sleepy outpost far to the North of Australia on the Pacific Ocean, with the Great Barrier Reef just offshore.

After the whipping the Japanese gave all of the European powers at the beginning of the war in the Pacific, Australia became the essential, unsinkable, aircraft carrier for the United States to continue the war against Japan – and Cairns was now on the frontline.

The Americans set up facilities in Cairns for PT Patrol boats, submarines and escort vessels. Cairns also provided essential bases for storing supplies and equipment needed to keep the fighting forces advancing in the Pacific against the perimeter of the Japanese Empire supplied. Many hospitals were also built – especially up on the Atherton Tablelands.

To enable Cairns port to be able to take the American escort vessels Trinity Inlet had to be dredged so that ships would have a 6.7 metres deep channel to allow for the draught of these larger vessels. This enabled warships to move up the Inlet and be out of sight of any Japanese air attacks.

The spoil from the dredging was taken a little way off shore and dumped. No one complained then about the Great Barrier Reef being killed because of the dredging. But then that wasn’t something people gave any thought to in those days. In the age before the invention of scuba equipment, people didn’t really go under water. 

It’s a very different story today. But should we be complaining now about dredging? After all, don’t you want to see those giant cruise ships moored in the heart of Cairns? Or would that mean you supported killing the reef?

Tag words: GBR; Great Barrier Reef; Cairns; PT Patrol boats; ABC; Australian Broadcasting Commission; Four Corners; dredging; spoil; Climate activists; Believing is Seeing; Michael Guillen; dark matter; Faith; atheists; Peter Ridd; Reef Heresy; Barrow Island; Mediocre Fringing Reef; Parthenium weed;

The World Wildlife Fund’s 2018 report on the Great Barrier Reef told us the shocking story of how run off from our farms, going into the rivers, is fuelling the breeding of the crown of thorns starfish, causing population explosions that will destroy the reef.

Critical in minimising the damage from the Crown of Thorns starfish, the Report tells us, is improving the reef water quality by minimising the nutrient rich run-off from agriculture. The Report says that science has established a clear link between nutrient enrichment of reef waters from run-offs from farms, with an increased likelihood of developing massive Crown of Thorns starfish outbreaks. The leading expert on this is cited in the report as Brodie J Fabricius. I’ll come back to his import research a few times in this programme.

The Great Barrier Reef is such an amazing gift from God, and God has told us that we’re the custodians of the earth to keep it and preserve it – so it sounds like we need to be doing a lot more. Now I’m going to tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the reef and the crown of thorns starfish.

Tag words: GBR; Great Barrier Reef; Crown of Thorns Starfish; World Wildlife Fund; WWF; God; Triton shell; Great Barrier Reef Marine Park; Moses; Leviticus 16:8; scapegoat; Geologists; Stephen Hawking; Swains Reef; Environmental activist; Jesus; John 14:6; John 8:32; truth; rubber vine;

In this programme, and over the next programmes, I’m going to be looking at the extreme danger that our Great Barrier Reef is in.

Sir David Attenborough tells:

Peter Ridd, a marine geophysicist, and lover of the Great Barrier Reef gives us this useful description of the Great Barrier Reef – something not easy to get your head around - in his book “Reef Heresy” he says what everyone says, I’ve never heard anyone express a different opinion, and explains what the Great Barrier Reef is:

“The Great Barrier Reef is for me the most special and awe-inspiring natural environment and habitat in the world. …The Great Barrier Reef as one ecosystem,  comprises nearly 3,000 individual reefs stretching for 2,000 kilometres. It is visible from outer space.”

But Greenpeace, on their website give us this warning:

“The Great Barrier Reef is a living thing - precious and fragile. In 2016, warming oceans caused the worst coral bleaching event in history on the Great Barrier Reef and almost a quarter of the Reef’s coral died.”

So let’s start by telling you how fragile coral reefs are – it’ll help give us a good understanding of how endangered our precious reef is.

Tag words: GBR; Great Barrier Reef; Sir David Attenborough; Peter Ridd; Reef Heresy; Greenpeace; Global warming; bikini atoll; Marshall Islands; Stanford University; Louis Réard; Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Bikini Yellow Polka Dot Bikini; Brian Hyland; Great Pyramids; Science; Christianity; CP Snow;

Did you know that if everyone ate a vegan diet, which excludes meat, eggs and dairy products, land-based carbon emissions could be cut by 70% by 2050 that’s the good news from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). That good news was published in their 2019 report called “Food Security”.

Did you also know that you could easily stop eating living things and be healthier because of it?

These and other truths are going to be explored in this programme. And I’m going to share more than a few secrets with you. So stay tuned.

Tag words: Meat; IPCC; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Food Security; Stefano Mancuso; The Incredible Journey of Plants; PETA; vegan; vegetarian; protein; human brain; low density energy; Vitamin B12 deficiencies; Apocalypse Never; Michael Shellenberger; Nina Teicholz; The Big Fat Surpise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet; Gary Taubes; Good Calories, Bad Calories; Obesity; diabetes; metabolic syndrome; George Orwell;

I don’t scuba dive. So I don’t speak from personal experience, but I understand that diving off Costa Rica is really something.

In the summer of 2015, then PhD student Christine Figgener, was out diving as part of her marine biology studies. She was in a boat, scraping parasites off a marine turtle’s back when she noticed something stuck up it’s nose. She could see that the turtle was in distress from it and she decided to pull it out. Luckily for posterity, she got out her video ready to record this intervention, and one of her colleagues grabbed a pair of pliers and started pulling after she said she was ready to shoot.

Whatever it was it was really stuck up this turtle’s nose. Blood started to dribble from the turtle’s nose. They all agreed that it had to be some sort of parasitic worm. Maybe it had even burrowed into the brain of this poor turtle. Pulling it out could kill the turtle. Leaving it in would kill it anyway – so the only way to go was to keep going.

A bit of whatever it was broke off. They discussed how hard they should keep pulling. They could kill the turtle by their kindness – but then ultimately that looked like the only outcome if they didn’t try. Finally one of the crew picked up the bit that had broken off, he put in his mouth and bit on it, ewwww. “It’s plastic” he said.

Christine pipes up: “Is it a straw? Don’t tell me it’s a freaking straw because in Germany we have those with a black stripe. So this is the reason we do not need plastic straws.”

They got back to the job of trying to get that straw out of the turtle’s nose. It took eight minutes in all. Finally there was a suction sound as the guy on the pliers pulled out the last piece of the plastic straw from out of the turtle’s nose.

When Catherine got home that night she uploaded the video onto YouTube. Two days later the video has had millions of views. By 2021 the video has had over 126 million views.

Soon after the release of the video, inspired by its obvious message, the city of Seattle announced a ban on plastic straws. In 2020 Starbucks followed suit. Then American Airlines, then the city of San Francisco. This tsunami aimed at sweeping away plastic straws has continued to swell and sweep the world ever since.

On 11 April 2018 Cairns Regional Council, with the mighty Great Barrier Reef just off their shore, and at the prompting of a then 10 year old local girl, Molly Steer, set itself the goal of removing all plastic straws and single-use plastics and supporting local businesses that followed suit.

I’ll tell you more about Molly and her very impassioned plea in a Ted talk presentation in October 2017, that she did in Cairns when she was just nine years old and in Grade 4 at school.

If you’re old enough to remember the 1967 movie “The Graduate” with Dustin Hoffman, you might remember this scene at a party put on by the Robinson family, and a nicer family you could not ask to meet. 

Dustin Hoffman’s character has just graduated, I guess that’s why the movie was called “The Graduate”. So what to do now with his life. One of his father’s friends offers him some good, if baffling, career advice.

Back in those days plastics seemed to have a future. Is that still the case today?

Tag words: Christine Figgener; Cairns Regional Council; Great Barrier Reef; Molly Steer; Dustin Hoffman; The Graduate; A Plastic Ocean; Straw No More; Banning straws; plastic straws; Made To Stick; United Nations Environment Programme; Collin Ward; micro-plastic; Renewable energy; Malcolm Gladwell; Talking to Strangers; Jordan Peterson; Beyond Order; Elena Struthers-Gardner; God

Everybody loves dinosaurs. Well they do! You name one person that doesn’t. So it was with great sadness that dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. Or was it? Have you ever seen Jurassic Park – Lost World. A Tyranosaurus Rex ends up in the suburbs from Jurassic Park. A T-Rex going around your neighbourhood would not be a good look. Your dog’s chain hanging out of its mouth after it had been swallowed. Or what about that lawyer eaten by the T-Rex while he was on the toilet in the first Jurassic Park movie. OK – maybe that’s not a good example. Who cares if a lawyer gets eaten!

So 65 million years ago, this massive asteroid hit the earth, sending up a massive dust cloud that blotted out the sun, leading to the extinction of all of the dinosaurs. Well a lot of them anyway.

But that’s just one theory isn’t it.

Today scientists, like Piet Hut, Walter Alvarez, and Eugene Shoemaker have a new theory. They don’t believe it was just one massive asteroid that took out all of the dinosaurs in one hit. They say it was a billion comets hitting the earth between 95 and 38 million years ago that did it. 

So what really happened to the dinosaurs is just a guess. A scientific guess. Looking at other things about the geology of the planet that we believe today, with what we think we know, is the truth. But just like the theory of dinosaur extinction, what we “know” about geology today, might change tomorrow with new theories.

Any way, if you go to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and end up wandering into the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda you’ll see a plaque with this grim warning which reads:

“Five major world wide extinction events have struck biodiversity since the origin of complex animal life some 535 million years ago. Global climate changes and other causes, probably including collisions between Earth and extra-terrestrial objects, were responsible for the mass extinctions of the past. Right now, we are in the midst of the Sixth Extinction, this time caused solely by humanity’s transformation of the ecological landscape.”

Hell that is terrifying. So let’s have a look at how life on earth is already disappearing because of climate change. Don’t change stations or turn me off, because this is one hell of a story and, as always, I’m going to tell you a whole lot of new stuff that you have never heard before that you are really going to want to know.

Tag words: Jurassic Park; Dinosaurs; Tyrannosaurus Rex; Piet Hut; Walter Alvarez; Eugene Shoemaker; Sixth Extinction; Evolution; apes; Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services; Richard Leakey; The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind; Robert MacArthur; E. O. Wilson; Stephen Hawking; Tomas Sedlacek; Chris Thomas; International Union for Conservation of Nature; biodiversity; doomsday scientists; Sixth Global Mass Extinction; Greta Thunberg; Arctic polar bears;

It was a grim call to action. Extinction Rebellion was going to be holding a rally at 180 The Strand, London, United Kingdom on 15 February 2020. The reason – to demand the end of London Fashion Week – so that life on earth could continue.

The clothing industry alone, Extinction Rebellion said, accounts for 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions – that’s almost equal to the total emissions of the EU. The climate impact of the industry is predicted to increase by a shocking 49% by 2030.

Fashion is a wasteful industry with less than 1% of clothing recycled into new clothing.

80% of the garment workers are women, of whom many work long exhausting hours for less than half of a living wage.

The call to action said “We ask the industry to join us in using its power of persuasion to tackle the climate and ecological crisis in a meaningful and just way.”

It seems that for the first time, the world is on the eve of destruction, which is why I guess the Barry McGuire song, “The Eve of Destruction” was released for this fashion week protest. Let me tell you the truth about sweatshops and what they are doing to the world.

Tag words: Extinction Rebellion; Michael Shellenberger; Apocalypse Never; Suparti; Edgar Ansel Mowrer; Nazis; Greenpeace; Death rates; Life expectancy; Technology; High yield farming; Henry Ford; H & M; Nike; Mattel; Massachussetts Institute of Technology; MIT; Kerry Emanuel; The Wealth of Nations; Adam Smith; Socialism; fashion industry

In the spring of 2013 something absolutely incredible happened. A solar powered plane, called “Solar Impulse”, flew across the United States. “Air & Space” magazine was positively glowing at this accomplishment, which it said, was “proving that unfuelled, clean flight is possible. Who needs fuel when the sun can keep you afloat.”

What seemed to be a technological triumph said pretty well everything that there is to say about solar energy. Solar suffers from chronic energy poverty. It can never deliver enough. The plane’s wingspan was about 63.4m, around the same massive length as a Boeing 747 passenger liner.

While the Boeing Jumbo jet could carry 500 people at 1,000 kph, Solar Impulse could carry 1 person and fly at less than 100 kilometres an hour. That’s why it took two months to complete the trip across America. Hardly a breakthrough that anyone had been waiting for.

So what’s the real story about solar? Is it going to save the planet?

Tag words: solar powered plane; Solar Impulse; chronic energy poverty; Boeing Jumbo; Stanley Steamer; Fred Marriott; Daimler Benz; Charles Burnett III; Dr George Löf; Solar power; wind power; backup; grid; Elon Musk; Tesla; Solar panels; lithium batteries; toxic chemicals; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; IPCC; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; UN Food and Agricultural Organisation; The Future of Food and Agriculture – Alternative Pathways to 2050; sustainable practices; Meredith Doig; Rationalist Australia; United Nations; Michael Shellenberger; Apocalypse Never; Corruption; Matthew Parris; Christianity;

I quote:

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. … hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate. … no changes in behaviour or technology can save us unless we can achieve control over the size of the human population. The birth rate must be brought into balance with the death rate or mankind will breed itself into oblivion.”

From Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb”.

I’m pretty sure I actually heard Paul Erhlich say that at one of the meetings he held when he was visiting Sydney.

I was pretty shaken up. Today the world’s population is nearly 7.8 billion people. When I was born in 1950 it was about 2.5 billion. So it’s trebled since then.

In the article published in the journal “Science” by biologist Garrett Hardin of the University of California, he argued that environmental collapse was inevitable because of uncontrolled breeding, and that the only way to avoid the tragedy was “mutual coercion”, in which everybody agreed to similar sacrifices.

So it seems that we’re all doomed to extinction just like Greta Thunberg has warned us from, amongst other things, our booming population. Scary stuff – but I like talking about scary stuff so you know the truth. The Truth will make you free.

Tag words: Paul Ehrlich; The Population Bomb; Garrett Hardin; environmental collapse; Thomas Robert Malthus; Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor; Club of Rome; The Limits of Growth; colonialism; Road to Survival; William Vogt; Yuval Noah Harari; Environmentalists; World Bank; Michael Shellenberger; Apocalypse Never; neocolonialists; coal; gas; nuclear; Virunga Park; Senkwekwe; The Bible; Greta Thunberg; Arthur van Benthem; Pontius Pilate; What is truth?; climate change religion; President Barack Obama; Soccket; Greenpeace; Bugs Bunny cartoon; Porky Pig;

I don’t know about you, but I just look at those Extinction Rebellion people wearing those red Medieval looking clothes, with their faces painted white and am totally turned off by them.

I thought the idea of a major ecological catastrophe was just rubbish. I don’t any more and in this programme I’m going to tell you why.

Tag words: Extinction Rebellion; insect extinction; wind farms; McKinsey; Woody Allen;