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profterryhughes.bsky.social
Scientist, mentor, posting on #ecology and #conservation, #environment, #climate change and #coral reefs. Australian-Irish. Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=MhJ2LfsAAAAJ&hl=en
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Posts 39 Comments 11

Adelaide wants to host COP31 “to showcase its renewable energy credentials”. Meanwhile….. www.santos.com/news/santos-...

submitted 2 hours ago • 0 comments

New 2025 study on “cloud brightening”: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... Aircraft instruments detected aerosol plumes from the vessel's sea water atomisation system BELOW cloud base. “Aerosol concentrations were orders of magnitude LESS than what is envisioned for any practical implementation”

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

A decision on who will be the host of COP31 – sought by both Australia and Turkey – could be made this week…. reneweconomy.com.au/cakes-of-coa...

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

Of course, one of the ways plants respond to rising temperatures is - they die. Seems worthy of more attention…

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Unfit for public office: www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

This is utter bullshit: “The cryobank, one of just a handful around the world, offers a glimmer of hope.” www.sciencealert.com/world-oceans...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

Further proof that the Norse God of War had very, very little training in marine biology….

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Fact-check: “Science has shown us that these fully protected areas give resilience to ecosystems so they have a fighting chance in the face of climate change.” Not true - More than 98% of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has bleached at least once since 1998. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

submitted 9 days ago • 2 comments

A reminder that dotted lines on a map do not prevent ocean acidification or rising sea temperatures. Australia’s marine parks are being destroyed by policies that promote more fossil fuel pollution until 2070. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

submitted 9 days ago • 2 comments

New study suggests that scrutiny of risky “assisted reef ecosystem adaptation” experiments shouldn’t focus on facts. (And you’ll never guess who funded this article…..) www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

submitted 11 days ago • 4 comments

A lobster in the rainforest? It’s a Lamington Spiny Crayfish. Euastacus sulcatus, which can reach a kilo in weight. Native to elevated forests in SE Queensland.

submitted 897 days ago • 2 comments

From the guy who just extended fossil gas until 2070: “I’m proud to represent Australia at next week's UN Ocean Conference,… to share our knowledge and experience in ocean management, which is central to protecting our precious World-Heritage Listed Great Barrier Reef," nit.com.au/06-06-2025/1...

submitted 12 days ago • 5 comments

If you care about the short- and long-term health of WA’s incredible reefs and sea country, public consultation for the Browse project is open until 10 June: consultation.epa.wa.gov.au/open-for-sub...

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Another “spatial refuge” finally succumbs to rising sea temperatures. The hopeful narrative that isolated “heat-resistant reefs” will continue to avoid climate change (and somehow recolonise everywhere else) is wearing very thin. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

submitted 12 days ago • 5 comments

Western Australia: Now that the federal election is over, government scientists are allowed to speak with journalists again. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

A new study predicts that the global demise of coral reefs would allow the ocean to absorb even more carbon pollution by 2300. (As if the remaining carbon budget for the +2C will still be relevant in 275yrs from now). www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

submitted 12 days ago • 2 comments

Who will host COP31, and will it make any difference? dialogue.earth/en/energy/co...

submitted 13 days ago • 2 comments

Hey Siri, what does “conflict of interest” mean? reneweconomy.com.au/oil-and-gas-...

submitted 13 days ago • 2 comments

In an angry statement, Pacific Elders warn Australia that approving more fossil fuel projects “compromises the security of our Pacific communities and grossly undermines the spirit of partnership and trust in our Pacific family.” pacificelders.org/statement/au...

submitted 13 days ago • 5 comments

A complete ban on fishing in the high seas (recommended in this Comment by scientists exclusively from wealthy countries) is not justified. A more balanced view should include a social science perspective (food security, equity of access, governance, etc, etc) and voices from developing nations.

submitted 13 days ago • 2 comments

The failure of the National Academy of Sciences USA to make a clear and unequivocal statement about the disastrous Trump administration science policies — it lets all of us down and dooms them to eventual irrelevance.

submitted 14 days ago • 16 comments

Fact-check: It is not demographically possible to regrow billions of dead adult corals from teaspoons of frozen sperm. “Eggs contain too much water and fat to be frozen without damage” iol.co.za/ios/world/20...

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Out today in Nature, our paper on the drivers of the record 2023 summer heating of the North Atlantic. Temperatures warmed to record levels in just a few months. The impacts on climate & ecosystems were severe. A thread on how this work came about and what we found.👇👇🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

submitted 14 days ago • 9 comments

Another ABC article about the cost of climate change that forgot to mention either climate change or the resulting sea level rise. 'It doesn't look like it's going to stop'. Genius. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06...

submitted 14 days ago • 6 comments

This was a bad decision @albomp.bsky.social One that will be held against you for decades. It will come back to bite you every time you try to claim the high moral ground on climate change. www.smh.com.au/business/the...

submitted 15 days ago • 29 comments

Can you see the elephant in the room? Another news article on the escalating cost of climate change - including an extra-tropical cyclone fueled by rising sea temperatures. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

submitted 15 days ago • 6 comments

In 2022, 30 million sponges died in Fiordland on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island, due to global heating. In the same summer, mass mortality of corals occurred on the Great Barrier Reef for the 4th time in just 7 years (2016, 2017, 2020, 2022). One-third of corals died in 2016 alone.

submitted 15 days ago • 3 comments

Hey Siri, show me how the Great Barrier Reef is the “best protected reef in the World”…..

submitted 15 days ago • 3 comments

When the Australian government repeatedly “lobbies” UNESCO (to ignore scientific evidence) - it fundamentally undermines the integrity of the World Heritage Convention (which stresses the duties of States Parties to protect WH sites). www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

submitted 16 days ago • 2 comments

Approving fossil gas projects until 2070 could hardly be described as positive “action” on climate change.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

You'd have to have lived under a rock for a decade to think that tourism in Queensland in 20 years won't be profoundly changed by climate change. Already, mass bleaching occurred in 6 of the past 10 summers. By 2045, the Great Barrier Reef will be unrecognizable. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06...

submitted 17 days ago • 10 comments

Scientists removing dying corals into aquaria is certainly a "response" to climate change - but can tiny rescue operations really be described as "adaptive governance"? www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Clean coal is fraud. Fossil gas as a transition fuel is fraud. Carbon capture and storage is fraud. Carbon offsets to extend fossil fuels is fraud....

submitted 17 days ago • 2 comments

Punching above our weight: “Approving more coal & gas projects, such as the North West Shelf, really undercuts Australia's climate credentials & presents Australia internationally as not just a climate laggard, but really as a destructive player on climate change." www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05...

submitted 17 days ago • 4 comments

I used to teach field classes on coral ecology to undergraduates at this coastal reef. It was beautiful. Today, it’s dead rubble and mud. Details here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

submitted 17 days ago • 4 comments

Disappointed at the outcome of North West Shelf expansion off WA. It pushes us further from net zero at a time we need to be doubling down on emissions reductions. This carbon bomb risks protections for biodiversity and irreplaceable Murujuga rock art.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

All of us who warned that the "concessions" offered to and accepted by the teals and the greens were just more dodgy greenwashing accounting were roundly ignored. Now they're central themes to the gov't justifying carbon bombs. drive.google.com/file/d/1pOOU...

submitted 17 days ago • 4 comments

Embarrassing: “The newly approved North West Shelf expansion (until 2070) would not jeopardise emissions goals because the site is legally required to ratchet down its own emissions toward net zero”. Of course, the ‘site’ doesn’t include exported emissions. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06...

submitted 18 days ago • 9 comments

A word of caution about “84% of reefs exposed to bleaching-level heat” measured from satellites. But did they all actually bleach? Bleaching thresholds vary hugely over time, mostly because dead corals don’t bleach again.

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment