The Australian government yesterday announced that substantial progress has been made toward protecting the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Conservationists applaud improvements in the reef’s health and resilience, but caution that current government policies do far too little to counter global warming, which officials and scientists both agree is the greatest threat to the reef’s long-term survival.
“[There is] still a long way to go,” says Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a coral reef expert at University of Queensland, St. Lucia, in Brisbane, Australia.
As part of a March 2015 “Reef 2050 Plan” put forward to avoid the GBR losing its coveted World Heritage Site status, the federal government and the government of Queensland state, which borders much of the GBR, promised annual updates on the status of efforts to manage and protect the reef. Officials feared failure to protect the reef would seriously affect tourism and give the nation a black eye.
Modern Journalism in a nutshell take a news story exaggerate it, to get clicks, sit back and look at gullible morons on twitte crying about something they probably couldn't give a damn about the day before, wishing the human race would go extinct, screaming why aren't we doing anything et cetera et cetera.There’s no denying the Great Barrier Reef is in serious trouble, having been hammered in recent years by El Niño and climate change. In April, scientists from the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies found that the most severe coral bleaching event on record had impacted 93 percent of the reef.
But as a whole, it is not dead. Preliminary findings published Thursday of Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority surveys show 22 percent of its coral died from the bleaching event. That leaves more than three quarters still alive ― and in desperate need of relief.
Two leading coral scientists that The Huffington Post contacted took serious issue with Outside’s piece, calling it wildly irresponsible.
Russell Brainard, chief of the Coral Reef Ecosystem Program at NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, told HuffPost he expects the article was meant to highlight the urgency of the situation. But those who don’t know any better “are going to take it at face value that the Great Barrier Reef is dead,” he said.
The Australian federal election has delivered a shocking result, with the right-wing Liberal-National government expected to return to power for a third term despite polls and odds having strongly favored the opposition Labor Party.
Votes are still being counted; although no side has a majority, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal-National coalition (also known simply as the Coalition) is projected to win enough seats in the House of Representatives to form either a majority or minority government. In the case of a minority government, the Coalition would hold fewer than the required 76 seats needed for majority rule, and would have to negotiate with independents for supply and confidence.
At the time of publishing, the ABC has called 75 seats for the Coalition, 65 for Labor, and 6 for independents.
Australia’s favorite election analyst Antony Green gave a tempered projection about the country’s political future as initial results came in, saying, “We can’t see an alternative to a Morrison government in the numbers we’re seeing at the moment.”
Hours after Green made those comments, Labor leader Bill Shorten conceded, telling supporters, “I know that you’re all hurting, and I am too,” after what has been described by the ABC as a “horror night” for Labor.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 057806389fFraser Anning ― the far-right Australian lawmaker who became an internet sensation after being egged by a teenager ― has been booted out of Parliament.
On Saturday, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Australian Broadcasting Corp. election expert Antony Green made the call, announcing that the Queensland senator “goes back to where he came from ... he won’t be in the Parliament.”
Though the results of Australian’s elections are still being finalized, it appears Anning won’t be back in his seat once his term ends on June 30.
Anning became known outside Australia in March, when 17-year-old Will Connolly of Melbourne struck him in the head with a raw egg after the politician blamed Muslim immigrants for the New Zealand mosque massacres in which an alleged white supremacist gunman killed 51 people.
The day the attacks unfolded, Anning, who has expressed Islamophobia in the past, sparked backlash when he released a statement declaring, “The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place.”
The following day, Connolly egged him during a live TV interview, prompting Anning to swing around and hit the teen in retaliation.
spoonman wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 1:35 amWell there is at least one bit of good news to come out of Australia's Federal election - openly racist fuckwit is not going to keep his seat in the Senate.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 057806389fFraser Anning ― the far-right Australian lawmaker who became an internet sensation after being egged by a teenager ― has been booted out of Parliament.
On Saturday, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Australian Broadcasting Corp. election expert Antony Green made the call, announcing that the Queensland senator “goes back to where he came from ... he won’t be in the Parliament.”
Though the results of Australian’s elections are still being finalized, it appears Anning won’t be back in his seat once his term ends on June 30.
Anning became known outside Australia in March, when 17-year-old Will Connolly of Melbourne struck him in the head with a raw egg after the politician blamed Muslim immigrants for the New Zealand mosque massacres in which an alleged white supremacist gunman killed 51 people.
The day the attacks unfolded, Anning, who has expressed Islamophobia in the past, sparked backlash when he released a statement declaring, “The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place.”
The following day, Connolly egged him during a live TV interview, prompting Anning to swing around and hit the teen in retaliation.
- By The Weeping Angel
https://twitter.com/JohnOBrennan2/status/131831500[…]
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