‘But he was fired for talking about it’ is a rather bold claim. Many people get fired who didn’t promote fringe ideas, but claiming you got fired for exposing some big lie is great publicity. I would suggest looking for evidence before assuming someone is telling the truth when they say such things.
As to bleaching it’s not an every year or every reef thing. The general consensus in terms of recent events only 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020, and 2022 had wide scale impacts and there’s quite a bit of recovery between those dates and many areas that aren’t impacted. However, more frequent bad years has impacts not just on the ecosystem but also tourism. EX: https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2017/04/10/2016-2017_gbrble...