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Abstract

In 2016 a full-page advertisement was placed by 56 Australian scientists in theBrisbane Courier Mail. The context of the advertisement was the continuingcommitment of Australian governments, federal and state, to coal mining andcoal-fired power stations despite overwhelming evidence connecting thisactivity to the severe damage being suffered by the Great Barrier Reef (HoeghGuldberg, 2015). As well as presenting their scientific credentials in the advertisement – together they had devoted more than 1200 years to studyingclimate change, marine ecosystems and the Great Barrier Reef – the scientistsprioritised the Reef’s economic value over its conservation values. The burning of fossil fuels, they wrote, is ‘directly threatening a major economicresource. The World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef earns multiple billionsfor the economy and provides jobs to tens of thousands of Australians’ (CourierMail, 2016). ‘[T]here can be no new coal mines ...’, the scientists demanded,and ‘No new coal-fired power stations’.

Item Type:	Book Section
Authors/Creators:	Lester, E and Foxwell-Norton, K
Keywords:	science communication, environmental conflict, environmental policy
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
DOI / ID Number:	10.1017/9781108638210.016
Copyright Information:	Copyright 2020 British Ecological Society. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Related URLs:	Google Scholar: Lester, E UTAS Profile: Lester, E
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