Dr John 'Charlie' Veron. "Charlie" Veron says Queensland needs to make a choice because coral bleaching was again becoming crucial . "In my view we are precipitating the conditions for a mass extinction," Dr Veron said. "It is as bad as that." Dr Veron used the analogy of a saucepan of boiling water to show rising atmospheric carbon would still increase for 20 to 30 years, even if the world suddenly immediately switched to renewable energy.

"It takes a long time for the saucepan of water to equilibriate to the flame that is under it," he said. "The climate of the earth is controlled by the oceans, it is not controlled by the land; it is the oceans that are the big guys," he said. "They have the thermal inertia. The land doesn't have any thermal inertia and the atmosphere has next to none, he said. "The oceans have got it all. We have put in this blanket of warning from carbon dioxide and they oceans are gradually responding to it. "And the lag time is 20 or 30 years.

"So we won't see the results of today's carbon dioxide levels for another 20 to 30 years." A school teacher nicknamed a younger John Veron, "Charlie" after the father of evolution, Charles Darwin, because he asked so many questions. Dr Veron on Sunday backed a $300,000 television commercial produced by the conservation activist group, GetUp, which argues coal should be left in the ground, the Adani Group's Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland should be rejected and Australia should move immediately to renewable energy. Dr Veron likens the impact of rising carbon emissions from automobiles and coal mining on the world's weather to an emerging 'environmental war' for the Great Barrier Reef.

He says he has researched rising carbon emissions now found in the atmosphere and is pessimistic about the impact, likening it to the learning of the impact of WWII before it started. "They know what is going to happen and they see little 'short-term fixes' here and there and complaints and they scream 'this is going to happen," Dr Veron said. "I know what the science says and the science is not wrong. The science has been right on the mark. Climate change is the first big thing that has been controlled by science – most 'wars' have been controlled by people and politics, but this is controlled by science. "And the science is incredibly right." The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority reported ocean temperature increases of 2.5 degrees above the summer average while investigating coral bleaches.

"The next few weeks will be critical in terms of this bleaching event," Queensland's Environment Minister Dr Steven Miles said. "I am crossing my fingers that we will not see any broad-scale bleaching events like those that endangered the Reef in 1998 and 2002, and an intense event in the southern part of the Reef in 2006," he said. Dr 'Charlie' Veron says most of Queensland's inshore reefs are sub-standard barren and overseas tourists are questioning where our Great Barrier Reef is going. "When I first worked on the Great Barrier Reef, inshore fringing reefs were very interesting. In fact I described a lot of the new species from that work. And now most of them are all gone," he said. The television advertisement has been funded by GetUp and the Australian Marine Conservation Society, and features Whitsunday tall ship tourist operator, Lindsay Simpson.

"As a tourism operator I see the delight in people's faces and is nothing like picking people up at the end of the day when they tell about the magical world they have seen under the water," Ms Simpson said. "And we are the custodians of this and we have to do something," she said. "This coral bleaching is the major concerns and it is definitely related to global warming." Tourism linked to the Great Barrier Reef generates $6 billion and 70,000 tourism jobs. Imogen Zethoven, AMCS's Barrier Reef campaign director said the weather patterns in Queensland had changed in the past decade.

"In the past 10 or so years we have seen two major (coral) bleaching events – from 1998 to 2002 and one severe regional (bleaching) events," she said. "We seen eight severe cyclones, with six of them category five cyclones and we have seen four major major flodding events. "And that means the reef is being battered almost on an annual basis by severe weather. "And why is that?" That is because of global warming." The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority's 2014 reef health report also lists climate change as the major risk to the Barrier Reef.