Economy
Live near the beach? Coral reef expert Charlie Veron has some advice for you …
*Pic: Flickr, David Blackwell: ‘Walking home one evening in 2074 Paul wondered about the scientific breakthrough reversing the effects of climate change and its impact on his beach condo investment’ …
… “We have crossed a bridge now, and we have burnt it,” he says, sitting on his patio overlooking the creek, eating a ham and cheese roll. Moving out, should it come to that, will be a mixed challenge. The 72-year-old Veron is a veteran “chucker-outtera”: apart from a defunct pool table and his father’s army dress sword, he has few material possessions. He gets his clothes from Vinnies (“the best shop in the world”), doesn’t own a pair of formal shoes and has successfully purged his home of coral specimens, which remind him of work.
Shifting his library, on the other hand, could be trickier. Rivendell is stuffed with books, thousands of titles on everything from Giuseppe Verdi to Lawrence of Arabia. But most of his collection concerns marine biology and coral, a topic Veron knows more about than anybody on the planet. Dubbed the “Godfather of Coral”, Veron has, over his 50-year career, redefined our understanding of reefs, the way they grow and reproduce, the way they evolve, and now, most poignantly, the way they are dying. He has identified more than 20 per cent of the world’s coral species, and has been likened by David Attenborough to a modern-day Charles Darwin.
“His contribution has been huge,” says the scientist, explorer and conservationist Tim Flannery. “Without his early work we wouldn’t have had the basic benchmarks to see the nature of the changes that we are now seeing. He provided that baseline to put everything in context.” Author and environmental advocate Tim Winton says Veron “isn’t just a coral scientist, he’s a pathfinder, a scout who’s been sending back dispatches on the future of our planet for decades. If ever there was a moment for Australians to listen up and act on what he’s learnt, it’s now.”
Veron is a journalist’s dream: highly knowledgeable, and fearlessly outspoken. He has of late become the go-to guy for anyone seeking a frank opinion about coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. “The reef is in strife, and to say otherwise is bullshit,” he tells me at Rivendell. “Half the place is dead already. It won’t be here in 15 years.” Contrary to public opinion, he says, runoff from nearby farms is not nearly as big a threat to the reef as climate change, embodied most recently in the proposed Carmichael coal mine, in north central Queensland. The mine’s proponent, the Indian multinational conglomerate Adani, projects there will be more than 4.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions associated with the mine over its lifetime – nine times Australia’s total production of the greenhouse gas in 2015.
Veron has variously referred to Carmichael as “evil”, “beyond logic” and “appallingly stupid”. The larger problem is not the mine, as bad as that is. It’s Australia, it’s the world; it’s our complacency, our distrust of science and, of course, it’s our politicians. “We are being led by idiots,” Veron says. Former federal environment minister Greg Hunt is “the most stupid man you could ever hope to meet”. Tony Abbott is a “moron”; Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who has also backed the mine, “just awful”.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, he says, is the worst of the lot. “A few years ago I talked to him for two hours about climate change, and he had a great grasp of it. Then he turns around and does nothing. To me, that is truly criminal.”
Scientists are, by nature, cautious. Instead of opinions, they have facts. Instead of randomness and speculation, they have reason and protocol. Veron is largely the opposite. He abhors protocol and is falling over himself with opinions, many of which have found their way into his new book, A Life Underwater. Equal parts memoir, coral reef primer and requiem to a planet, Veron’s book charts a career that could scarcely be imagined today, a love affair with science birthed from childhood wonderment, free-range academia and happy accidents.
Born and raised in Sydney’s north, Veron was an awkward child: he suffered from asthma and a pronounced stammer. He spent most of his time roaming nearby bushland or poring for hours over rock pools at Long Reef beach. Veron (whose real first name is John) had a habit of bringing his discoveries into class – sea worms, funnel web spiders – prompting his teacher to dub him Mr Darwin, or Charlie. He attended Barker College, a private school, where he failed miserably in everything except biology …