I'm going to preface this by saying I know the author may be slightly biased, but the facts are there to see, really

EVER since it slammed into the Great Barrier Reef, the Shen Neng 1 has oozed a great slick of hype.

What a gift it’s been for green propagandists.

Not only has the Chinese carrier leaked up to four tonnes of oil since the weekend, but it carries coal, another symbol of wicked human development. And so we’re now deafened by the usual fearmongering.

The Shen Neng is a “ticking environmental time bomb”, howled green group WWF, claiming that not just the ship’s fuel but even its load of coal “could get into the ecosystem”.

“Oil slicks and the like have devastating effects,” wailed the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Activists “fear for the Great Barrier Reef”, moaned the BBC.

Politicians stoked the scare. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced he’d fly over the spill to, er, well, to seem like he’s doing something about it.

And inevitably this puddle of oil from the Shen Neng was likened to the ocean that leaked from the infamous Exxon Valdez, which greens in 1989 turned into a poster villain after it leaked not four tonnes but 38,000 off the Alaskan coast.

“Environmental medical specialist” Andrew Jeremijenko, for instance, told the ABC: “We’ve seen in the Exxon Valdez that there have been long-ranging effects and we shouldn’t be allowing these things to happen.”

Ah, yes, that’s the same Jeremijenko who last year used the same hype when the Pacific Adventurer leaked 270 tonnes of oil into Moreton Bay. He then claimed this “catastrophe” would produce “the same effects” here as the Exxon Valdez had in Alaska.

Time to draw a calming breath.

Here’s the total loss of wildlife detected by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority in its inquiry into that Pacific Adventurer spill, which the hyperventilating Queensland premier claimed at the time was “the worst environmental disaster that Queensland has faced”.

I quote the AMSA report: “The total oil-related mortalities were three dead animals, comprising one sea snake, one little tern and one petrel species.”

Wow. More wildlife is killed by Australia’s wind farms each year, without greens or politicians wailing about “the worst environmental disaster”.

Can it just be possible that green groups make oil spills seem more devastating than they are?

Hmm. Four years ago the Sydney Morning Herald announced another spill in Queensland - possibly “the state’s worst in more than 30 years”.

More than 24 tonnes of oil was flooding “sensitive mangroves” around Gladstone after a tug hit a bulk carrier, causing the ABC to declare: “Gladstone oil spill a tragedy for marine life.”

“Tragedy”? This time, AMSA said it could find only a “small number of impacted wildlife, less than 10 birds”.

Surprised so much oil could cause so little harm? After all you were taught about the Exxon Valdez cataclysm?

Speaking of which ... No oil spill has been more demonised than that of the Exxon Valdez, but 10 years later researchers from American universities, research groups and government bodies reviewed all studies on the supposedly worst-hit wildlife - salmon, sea otters, harbour seals and seabirds.

Conclusion: “They demonstrated that earlier suggestions of negative impacts may have been unfounded (harbour seals) or that the species either exhibited no obvious detrimental effects of the spill (pink salmon population runs, population density and habitat occupancy of half of the 23 seabird species examined) or indicated impacts followed by clear evidence of subsequent recovery (sea otters, the remaining seabird species).”

The authors urged that people check such facts, “divorced from advocacy positions”. In other words, the next time a ship hits the reef, consult the facts and not the alarmist agendas of activists, politicians and journalists.

After all, it’s those slickers, not the slicks, that most need watching.