Interesting stuff

@GS

Id love to see the breakdown of percentages in what type of coal is exported and from where in regard to.

Thermal coal=For coal fired power plants
Coking coal= For steel production etc

Id expect Gallien basin coal is mostly thermal its a decent quality but not best of the best, so doubt it would be competing against any coking coal exports.

You would expect a good chunk of coal from down NSW way would be coking (metallurgical coal) for steel production etc (maybe someone knows?)

Had a quick look on google but didn't find much.

I did see some stats from a about ten years ago and i $$$ wise coking coal exports made up the bigger chunk of the two (maybe this is the same or maybe changed?)

And it was only yesterday the topic was reality, Aunty you should try grabbing it some time and I’m not going to waste my time refuting every false or misleading piece of bullshit you post here.

Guy: they are opened ended comments pointing out that it might not be comparing apples with apples, you want to prove me wrong(and i could be), go dig up the stats on what percentage of coal exported from these areas is thermal and coking and what countries it goes too. .

But im kind of guessing that these huge companies know if they have a market for the coal they are interested in, i highly doubt that you some random guy on the internet knows better than they do

BTW. I did find this from a recent article

" Australia exports slightly more thermal coal than metallurgical coal. But because the market for international trade in coal, known as the seaborne market, is smaller for metallurgical coal, Australian exports account for around half of this market, compared with around 20 per cent of global thermal coal exports."

This is actually pretty interesting, i like many always assumed coking coal only made up a tiny percentage of our coal exports.

Funny how these things rarely get brought into things in media etc

look into Brendan Grylls former state Nationals leader of WA and what happened to him with the aid of mining lobby groups when he tried to re-negotiate state iron ore royalties because he could see we where being fucked in the arse with no lube.
The government wouldn’t allow this to happen eh’. Well history clearly shows that the Barnet state government along with labour, and the federal liberals stood back and watched the Mineral council of Australia roast him to a degree that his career in politics was over. One of the best state politicians we’ve seen, and the mining industry fucked him for unfair division of the profits.
And you would argue the case that they should self regulate and they would be honest and forthright in the way they conduct thier business. And Australian politicians have been incorruptible along the way.
I’m not against mining at all. I just don’t think that letting the industry run the industry as you suggest is the best practice. And history clearly shows it not to be.

I never suggested self regulation or industry rùnnng the industry.

Kinda interesting would really help developing countries if possible http://keepitclever.com.au/carbon-capture-makes-coal-in-one/

@Freeride. A while ago you were asking me about the state of the reef from what I'm seeing. Here is a little something to perhaps back up my reply and what alot of us that live and breath the GBR see on a daily basis.
Make of it what you will, but this is a stones throw from the Abbott Point Coal terminal and are inshore coastal reefs which cop the worst from weather, runoff etc.
I rarely venture in this close to the coast, so imagine how good it is out on the outer and inner reefs.

EDIT FOR BB, below is IPA quote

"Claims that the Great Barrier Reef is in crisis are not true.

IPA Senior Fellow Dr Jennifer Marohasy presents this short film which allows Australians to see for themselves.

A key claim in a January 2016 article in the scientific journal, Nature, is that there are no longer any living colonies of Acropora - a particular type of coral - at Stone Island off Bowen Harbour in the Whitsundays, and that other corals are now covered in mud.

Dr Peter Ridd’s path to dismissal by James Cook University began with an email questioning claims that the corals at Stone Island were bleached, dead and reduced to mudflats.

Dr Marohasy and her team went to find out the true state of the coral reefs around Stone Island.

What they found contradicts the Nature paper and proves this key reef system is very much alive."

@Fitzroy

So you spend a lot of time on the reef?...and have for a long time? (how long roughly?)

So have you seen changes?

The video is interesting as is the comment section, Guardian article and then her follow up to Guardian article.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/19/scientist-says-right...

and then her defence

https://jennifermarohasy.com/2019/11/experts-now-agree-is-acropora-coral...

Haven't been up to the Great barrier reef for 20 plus years, did do my diving ticket up there and a dozen dives in various places on the reef and off course heaps of snorkelling in Indo, the one thing ive always noticed is how different reefs are from one spot (island or areas) to another, in shape and colour etc.

I think a lot of people think of coral reefs as one thing lots bright colours and lots of fish etc, but lots of corals don't look as picture perfect as we see in doccos or pics or artist impressions.

Even from one area of reef to another life can be totally different, some areas brimming with fish other areas not, and this is not unnatural.

@Blowin re the North Coast Weather records going back less than a century. Rainfall data for Port Macquarie goes back to 1841 and lowest annual rainfall recorded was 734mm in 1915. This year there has been 474mm year to date, so if there is <260mm in the next five weeks it will be the lowest annual rainfall recorded in 177 years of records. Interesting stuff!

The perennially angry are once again going to be beside themselves with indignation for the next two Friday’s.

ER are taking it (back) to the streets!

#globalclimatestrike

Going to be interesting to see when we get our first outbreak of violence related to ER protest, no way on earth these type of protest are going to remain peaceful, you can't continue to piss people off without a reaction.

Offcourse when it happens everyone will blame those who react to their antics most likely even blame police or government anyone but those who are pissing people off, ER will be painted as innocent victims.(despite the fact they are antagonising the public and authority's)

Personally i say bring it on the more protest ER do the faster this will happen and the faster they will fragment into different groups and dissolve, social media is already full of rumours connecting them to fires. (not at all far fetched

Calm down Aunty, no point still seething with anger over what those horrible protesters, police and the courts did to that nice young man, can’t think of his name, what was it? Blair something?

@fitzroy.
So have you completed a full survey of the reef using proven techniques of measuring diversity and abundance? Or are you just stating anecdotal evidence of your own, limited, observations supported by material from a group (IPA) well known for climate denialism and support for corporate and political abuses?
This is an accurate assessment of the reef. Maybe you should read it to put your observations in context.
https://www.aims.gov.au/reef-monitoring/gbr-condition-summary-2018-2019

So from that report i got.

There is one non natural threat that seems quite substantial "crown of thorns star fish"

Then there is the natural cycle of nature destroying and building, with some areas hard coral growth increasing while other areas decreasing.

If i was just going off that report, id say the biggest threat and action needed is in regard to crown of thorn star fish.

BTW.Good news story, just recently the reef has had its biggest spawning event in recent memory https://www.zmescience.com/science/great-barrier-reef-spawning-event-931...

Morning BB. Nice to see you're back. We both know I’m not a scientist and I have no idea what or who IPA are or represent. I was sent the info from a friend and it shows what I see regularly with my own eyes from working 25+ years on the GBR from Bramble Cay to Lady Elliot Is.
The amount of conflicting information out there from all sides, including organisations that we should trust, I no longer know what to believe. I only trust what I see with my own eyes. Like I said, make of it what you will. I truly don’t give a shit.
In that time I have had researchers from the likes of JCU, GBRMPA, QPWS, QFS on boats I have operated for various periods doing research up and down the reef and out to areas in the Coral Sea. One common theme/personality I have found with all of them is that they are rather reserved/coy of discussing their findings openly. I have my own opinion as to why this is so.
Currently, I am at Lizard Is doing the heavy tackle season. One of several I have done here. I think it was 2014 that Cyclone Ita roared through here and the damage underwater was pretty significant. Before that, headlines sceemed that bleaching had destroyed the reef around this area, and another time, crown of thorns were threatening the area also. It was doom and gloom, never to recover, blah, blah ,blah.
Well I get a bit of down time out here, and I spend it looking around. Snorkelling, diving, drifting with a view bucket. And guess what, all those areas of devastation I witnessed straight after Ita. They look awesome. So whilst I’m not a scientist or researcher and I do not carrying out their techniques, I very much trust what I see with my own eyes.
Now, multiply that by all the other areas I regularly visit and you get the picture.
With all due respect BB, have you ever visited or spent time on the reef? Or do you go by all the reports by various agencies that you read with your own eyes? At 50 years of age, experience tells me to trust what I see with my own eyes in this regard.

Indo the evidence is that the crown of thorns plagues occur as a result of increased nutrients from fertiliser pollution. So, as you say, non-natural. I think you have missed a couple of points there in suggesting that all the other changes are cyclical. Coral bleachings are not cyclical but are the result of increased water temperatures caused by climate change. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority blames the bleachings in 2016 and 2017 on climate change.
From the previous link:
“The geographic scale of recent mass coral bleaching and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks means that breeding populations of corals have been decimated over large areas, reducing the potential sources of larvae to recolonise reefs in the near future.
Hard coral cover in the Northern and Central GBR continues to be close to, or at, the lowest levels recorded in the 30+ years of the LTMP. Reefs in the Southern GBR have moderate hard coral cover but have limited genetic connection to reefs further north. This limits their capacity to serve as a major source of coral larvae to support reef recovery elsewhere.
The prognosis of more frequent disturbances, each causing greater damage to reefs, combined with slower rates of recovery will inevitably lead to less living coral on reefs of the GBR.”

The impact of man made factors on an already dynamic system can be hard to precisely determine but in this case it is clear that the reef is in crisis and will continue to decline in health over the medium term. The fact that there are still large areas in relatively good condition is no indication of the long trend.

Consider that scientists have recently begun to collect coral spawn to grow in nurseries until it can be relocated to the reef, indicating their concern about the reef’s ability to sustain itself naturally.

cheers Fitzy, good to get reports from people actually out there, seeing it with their own eyes.

I was curious because wife and kids went up with father in law to Cairns earlier this year and went out to reef, not sure which one. Day trip from Cairns.

The photos and video they brought back the reef looked pretty poor to my eyes. Lots of bleached and algae covered coral. Not much fish life.

I know it's a big structure and while some of it might be in poor shape, some of it might be thriving.

@fitzroy I will continue to trust the data from scientists with numerous vessels, using well established methods over the entire reef for several decades, over casual observations by untrained non-specialists. You are lucky to be able to enjoy the reef as it is now. The evidence is over-whelmng that future generations will not be so fortunate.

@BB, I'm glad you have such trust in the Government and their numerous well paid agencies.

@FR, that is a shame. As you would know, there are many operators in that area and they all spread out. It sounds like an inner reef. Some are suffering as I have said before and as you may have noticed in that video link, there was alot of broken, dead and algae covered coral amongst the new growth.
I believe the reef will continue to adapt and evolve as it has for millions of years and well beyond us.

In 69 did a diving spearing trip from cairns up along the ribbon reefs past Lizard island.Actually slept on the beach at Lizard isand ,woke up to find not 50 meters away were croc tracks going into the swamp there.....at the time didnt know crocs swam that far out but they do.....anyway the crown of thorns was running rampart then and they were putting a bounty on them for each one caught,actually thought about leaving school and going up there to help.....but some of the reefs had been hit hard and some hadn't and even back in those days way before climate change reared its head the reef was going thru its natural cycle of die off and rebuild whether its from crown of thorns or cyclones.....whats really normal anyway in the grand scheme of things..?..but totally agree man needs to clean his act up.

Would have been amazing 50 years ago Simba.

I was a commercial free diver for trochus shells all through the Swain Reefs from '97-2000. Memories of those trips will stay with me, some of those reefs and the life they support were like a fantasy.
It was bloody hard work, but sometimes like a dream.

Agree with Fitzy, if you get dropped in the lee of a reef in the shallow patchy stuff (where most day trips etc are going to anchor for safety and comfort) it can look very unimpressive. The weather face is a different story.

At the same time, there's very little doubt as to the threats facing the Reef.

I see from the other surf site that Surf Witches are a thing up on the Goldy. Was wondering if FR could go in undercover, infiltrate the group and come back with a report? I'm thinking Point Break style.

I've got a spare tea-bag...

BB - "the evidence is that the crown of thorns plagues occur as a result of increased nutrients from fertiliser pollution".

I call bullshit on that. There is no farming, nor runoff from farming to make any contribution to that statement within 200+km of Lizard Is in any direction. And yet there is documented regular outbreaks of Crown of Thorns at Lizard Is.

I have also seen outbreaks at Finders Reefs, Heralds Prong, Heralds Surprise and Lehu Reefs, 200 - 400km off the coast in the Coral Sea.

A large contribution to CoT outbreaks is lack of predation, which is directly caused by humans ie giant triton snail, through over harvest for shell. Maori wrasse, from over fishing, although now protected, and numerous others.

But hey, wtf would I know, I'm not a scientist "using well established methods over the entire reef for several decades"................

I don’t want you to be a scientist I just don’t want people to make simplistic sweeping generalisations in public forums about complex environmental issues without carefully considering the scientific evidence.

Nutrient levels are probably not the only factor but the evidence is that they are a significant one. As the quotes below show the nutrient levels do not have to occur in the area where the outbreak is found.

“Sediment and nutrient levels on the GBR (especially near-shore environments) have increased significantly since European settlement [40], and many authors have suggested enhancement of larval survivorship through nutrient enrichment is the fundamental cause of outbreaks, both on the GBR (e.g., [1, 16, 41]), and elsewhere [14, 42]. Lucas [43] suggested that the amount of phytoplankton required to maintain cultured larvae was much higher than generally occurs within the GBR lagoon, leading him to conclude that outbreaks only occur following major phytoplankton blooms (“larval starvation hypothesis”; [43]). Similarly, Fabricius et al. [16] reported minimal survival of larval Acanthaster planci at chlorophyll concentrations below 0.25 μg.l-1, whereas larval survival increased approximately eightfold with each doubling of chlorophyll concentrations up to 3.0 μg.l-1. Fabricius et al. [16] also argue that elevated nutrients in the GBR lagoon are directly attributable to major flood events. They point out that the region of elevated nutrients only overlaps with mid-shelf reefs, between 14.5°S-17.0°S, and hence it is only here that nutrient concentrations exceed the threshold (>0.25–0.5 μg.l-1) necessary for enhanced survivorship of crown-of-thorns larvae, thereby explaining initiation of outbreaks in a relatively discrete area north of Cairns.”

“Genetic studies have confirmed that reef-wide outbreaks on the GBR are linked to the initiation of primary outbreaks north of Cairns [28, 29]. Moderate levels of connectivity among reefs on the GBR then facilitate a “travelling wave” of secondary outbreaks away from the area of initiation [30, 31].”

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169048

Nice one BB, I wish more of your assertions were backed up with evidence.

I'm curious as to how "reef-wide" reef-wide actually is.

Are Crown of Thorns outbreaks (ie. their larvae) near Cairns affected more by trade winds or the EAC?

It's a long trip south against the prevailing winds to the Swains.

Here we go down the usual Swellnet rabbit hole, obfuscate, change the subject, concentrate on the trivia. Let's just go back a bit. I called out fitzroy for this:

"Claims that the Great Barrier Reef is in crisis are not true.
IPA Senior Fellow Dr Jennifer Marohasy presents this short film which allows Australians to see for themselves."

So, with nothing more than his own observations and a link from a denialist website he challenges conclusions based on decades of careful research. Just chat amongst yourselves, but try to avoid the really egregious bullshit the site is becoming well known for. How to spread toxic bullshit from your preferred echo chamber? Post it on Swellnet!

OK BB, I did not make the statement under that link I posted. That was a statement from the IPA link. I will try to be more precise in reference in the future.

In case you have not noticed, I am very passionate about this part of the world. I have worked with GRMPA and Fisheries in having reefs in the northern zone closed ie green zones. Yes, believe it or not, a commercial fisherman encouraging the closure of reefs. They had no idea at the time that some of these reefs had incredible habitat and were turtle nesting sites.

I will continue to question and challenge the science if it contradicts what I am seeing. That does not make me a denialist, I just don't trust the motives of many agencies and for good reason.

You continue your science based evidence from your lounge in DY or where ever you are living these days, and I will continue to observe and show people the beauty of this part of the world and prove it is not dead and dying like all the doomsdayers are claiming.

edit .... yeah sorry Ive doubled up on something previously posted.
People should be free to argue the point without being put down and labelled by PC Principles

Tubeshooter, she's a climate change sceptic who's in with the IPA.

Personally for me observations from people like Fitzroy hold a lot of weight, someone that has spent a lot of time on the reef above and below over a long period in various areas and doesn't seem to have any social or political agendas.

Yeah sure he is no scientist but for me nothing holds more weight than living and breathing something, for me its like the sharks issue too, i trust what the fisherman say as much or even more than scientist.

The problem i have with academics that everyone should have because it's clearly a big problem these days is they seems so driven by politics and money, it's like things are written in the office then they go out looking for confirmations.

Im sure the reef has issues, but id be surprised if it's not being blown up to fit the climate change agenda especially by the media.

I still hear claims there's no fish left in the ocean

Esme Dreaming :)

I hooked this really nice tailor first cast on the last day before the northerlies started blowing and ended up on the end of the treble myself.

I was hooked on the back treble and the tailor had the front treble in his gob. Great fun on the end of the platform.

esme dreaming the dream?

freeride76 nice bit of bling...,I thought you were about to reveal something nastier than a tick on your nether regions for a moment

it was fun and games because the treble was in my left forearm and I'm left handed so couldn't use left hand, trying to hold fish still with right hand and knock hook out by tapping on the rocks and using teeth, while not getting my lips ripped off by his teeth.

got fish off on the rock, back into the carpark. thought I could pull hook through and cut shank but I couldn't get the barb through and couldn't find anyone with snips to cut through 3x strong treble (fuckign last time I upgrade trebles on tailor lures).

bloke helped me get lure off split rings so I gave him the fish and drove to emergency.
Sat arvo, no wait time, Indian doctor had the treble out in about 30 mins.

drove straight back to platform and hooked up first cast again. juvenile big eye trevally. place was crawling with them.
caught and released 3 or 4 then drove home via bottle shop.

northerlies have howled dawn to dawn ever since.

"Just chat amongst yourselves, but try to avoid the really egregious bullshit the site is becoming well known for." - Blindboy.

You got scientific evidence to support this??

You know what BB. You're right. You are always right and it was foolish of me to ever offer an alternate view. I will join the sheep and blindly follow all those views that are flawless from the world of academics.

Ouch thats heavy, respect for going back fishing straight away.

thats the second treble I've put through me in 6 months. I figure if I can deal with it, then the whole "fish feel pain"argument is kind of moot.

the tetanus needle hurt more.