For instance, there is the claim that Australia's Great Barrier Reef is dying because of global warming. Maintaining the scare requires academic solidarity, meaning no challenges to the orthodoxy. Unfortunately for his career prospects, Professor Peter Ridd of James Cook University in Cairns, Queensland didn't get or didn't heed the message. Professor Ridd teaches physics at JCU and is attached to its Center for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research. As real scientists do, he advances knowledge by challenging the results reported by others.

As the global warming fraud fails to deliver on the promises of "no more snow" and other apocalypses, the dogma requires catastrophes that sound bad but are remote enough to defy individual self-verification. If citizens are to be bullied into accepting carbon taxes and regulations constraining their energy use while their betters fly around on private jets to more global warming conferences, they have to be scared about things they can't see the same way they can see record snowfalls years after the deadline for "no more snow" has passed.

Don't expect the mainstream media in this country to express any interest in this case. But if the science is so solid, why not take on critics directly? The approach of silencing dissent tells you all you need to know about their real confidence in their scare-mongering.

But this case is not only about free speech. It is also about whether scientific debates are settled by censorship or by debate.

This has so far cost him $95,000 in legal fees, but thank heavens many Australians still think free speech is worth defending.

Some of those alleged breaches were nothing more than Ridd telling his own wife that the university was punishing him. He is now fighting in the Federal Court to defend his academic freedom.

It has further accused him of denigrating the university and a colleague, and of breaching confidentiality.

It pounced after Ridd last year went on Sky News to outline his arguments, adding: "We can no longer trust the scientific organisations like the Australian Institute of Marine Science, even things like the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies."

Ridd may be right or wrong. Either way, this is a critical debate, yet JCU is trying to shut it down.

"Some parts of the southern reef, for example, have seen a tripling of coral in six years after they were devastated by a particularly severe cyclone."

He says the reef is actually "in excellent condition", and largely regrows after bleaching or cyclones.

"As just one example, coral growth rates that have supposedly collapsed along the reef have, if anything, increased slightly ... and mass bleaching events along the reef that supposedly serve as evidence of permanent human-caused devastation are almost certainly completely natural."

"I have published numerous scientific papers showing that much of the 'science' claiming damage to the (Great Barrier Reef) is either plain wrong or greatly exaggerated," he said last week.

Andrew Bolt of the Herald-Sun covers what has befallen Ridd for his heterodoxy, from behind a pay wall :

As the global warming fraud fails to deliver on the promises of "no more snow" and other apocalypses, the dogma requires catastrophes that sound bad but are remote enough to defy individual self-verification. If citizens are to be bullied into accepting carbon taxes and regulations constraining their energy use while their betters fly around on private jets to more global warming conferences, they have to be scared about things they can't see the same way they can see record snowfalls years after the deadline for "no more snow" has passed.

For instance, there is the claim that Australia's Great Barrier Reef is dying because of global warming. Maintaining the scare requires academic solidarity, meaning no challenges to the orthodoxy. Unfortunately for his career prospects, Professor Peter Ridd of James Cook University in Cairns, Queensland didn't get or didn't heed the message. Professor Ridd teaches physics at JCU and is attached to its Center for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research. As real scientists do, he advances knowledge by challenging the results reported by others.

Andrew Bolt of the Herald-Sun covers what has befallen Ridd for his heterodoxy, from behind a pay wall:

"I have published numerous scientific papers showing that much of the 'science' claiming damage to the (Great Barrier Reef) is either plain wrong or greatly exaggerated," he said last week. "As just one example, coral growth rates that have supposedly collapsed along the reef have, if anything, increased slightly ... and mass bleaching events along the reef that supposedly serve as evidence of permanent human-caused devastation are almost certainly completely natural." He says the reef is actually "in excellent condition", and largely regrows after bleaching or cyclones. "Some parts of the southern reef, for example, have seen a tripling of coral in six years after they were devastated by a particularly severe cyclone."



Professor Peter Ridd (picture: Cameron Laird).

Ridd may be right or wrong. Either way, this is a critical debate, yet JCU is trying to shut it down. It pounced after Ridd last year went on Sky News to outline his arguments, adding: "We can no longer trust the scientific organisations like the Australian Institute of Marine Science, even things like the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies." JCU found him guilty of "serious misconduct" and of lacking "collegiality" – meaning "groupthink". It has further accused him of denigrating the university and a colleague, and of breaching confidentiality. Some of those alleged breaches were nothing more than Ridd telling his own wife that the university was punishing him. He is now fighting in the Federal Court to defend his academic freedom. This has so far cost him $95,000 in legal fees, but thank heavens many Australians still think free speech is worth defending. Ridd's go-fund-me appeal raised the money in just two days. But this case is not only about free speech. It is also about whether scientific debates are settled by censorship or by debate.

Don't expect the mainstream media in this country to express any interest in this case. But if the science is so solid, why not take on critics directly? The approach of silencing dissent tells you all you need to know about their real confidence in their scare-mongering.

Hat tip: John McMahon