Australian radio hosts broadcasts show critical of climate ‘alarmists’ from Cairns before launching the Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef website

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A new Great Barrier Reef conservation site has been launched by the Australian broadcaster Alan Jones, who has declared that climate change was a hoax and said the reef was “fine”.

Experts, including the federal government, agree that climate change is the biggest threat facing the reef.

“The global warming alarmists will stop at nothing,” Jones said on his radio show before launching the Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef website in Cairns.

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“Green groups run a very different agenda. If they can prove there’s an armageddon on the way they’ll get money. They want to talk about climate change and shut down everything.”

Jones attacked WWF and Greenpeace in particular, saying they were lying about the effect of industrialisation along the Great Barrier Reef.

“Like much associated with the global warming hoax, truth was the casualty,” he said.

“The Barrier Reef’s fine – there are any number of reputable entities who will be looking after it and making sure it continues to be fine and looked after.”

In 2016 a mass bleaching event killed almost a quarter of the coral on the Great Barrier Reef, something that scientists found would have been almost impossible if it weren’t for climate change.

Jones was taken on a helicopter tour of the Great Barrier Reef as part of the launch, and after the trip, declared the reef will regenerate.

“There are cycles in all of this – the reef regenerates its­elf,” he was quoted saying in the Cairns Post. “The reality is that northern section was here thousands of years ago and will be for the next thousand.”

It is unknown if Jones was aware that several partners of the Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef project had put out reports stating the climate change is the biggest risk facing the Great Barrier Reef.

The project lists the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) as one of its partners. GBRMPA has clearly and repeatedly stated that climate change is the most serious threat.

James Cook University (JCU) is another partner. Terry Hughes, a professor at JCU and head of the national coral bleaching taskforce, told the Guardian in June that coral bleaching, caused by climate change, had “changed the Great Barrier Reef forever”.

One of the founding members of the Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef was a long-time climate change campaigner at WWF, Andy Ridley, who started Earth Hour.

The Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef foundation chairman, Alex De Waal, told Guardian Australia that Jones “wasn’t engaged to launch the initiative”.

But a spokeswoman for Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef said: “He said he could do a media launch for us today, which he did.

“It was announcing it on his radio show basically and he did a media conference here with the local media.”

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A press release sent out by Citizens of the GBR said: “Australia’s leading broadcaster Alan Jones AO will launch Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef to his vast breakfast audience across Australia when he broadcasts from Cairns today and tomorrow.”

De Waal said: “Anybody that comes to us and says we want to tell the community about the Citizens of the GBR program, we are very encouraging. We are very agnostic in terms of anyone who is able to drive and generate visitation to citizensofgbr.org.”

Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef is a crowd-funding program that intends to allow members to vote to direct funds towards conservation and research programs of their choice.

Richard Leck, WWF-Australia head of oceans said: “Any campaign that seeks to educate people around the globe about the jewel in Australia’s tourism crown is welcome.”