Weather can be variable no matter what climate you live in.
It's the extremes of the variations that are a worry. Extreme summers and extreme winters. That is global warming or global change. Depends if you are in summer or winter.
The oceans are warming, that is the stumbling block for you to cure.
That is where the extremes are coming from.
The northern hemi; is subject to big ice melts, that is changing the jet streams and causing extremes of climate.
Of course this is all a natural cycle, so when is this natural cycle going to run out. Someone should know seeing it has all happened before.

@ Jon J:

There are various organisations and people out there saying all kinds of things about global and US climate trends, as well we all know.

In order to explain that global climate is still trending warmer, regardless of individual observations one way or the other, I suggest that you review what the National Geographic had to say, in simple english, only a week back.

The link is: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/17/global-temperature-rises-in-2012-climate-conditions-questioned/

Opening paragraph:
"Just days after the announcement that last year was the warmest in history for the continental United States, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found global temperatures are rising too."

BTW, China is several times as large as Australia.

The scientists told us as early as the 1960s that increasing emissions of greenhouse gases would gradually increase global temperatures. It was around 1840 that CO2 was identified as a heat trapping gas and probably explained why the the earth's temperature was some 33 Deg C warmer than simple theory would predict. The globe has warmed considerably since the late 1960s as predicted.

S o what happens in the 2000s a whole of people with no training in climate science suddenly decide that the scientists don't know what they are talking about. This has to be wishful thinking on there part or perhaps they are just suffering from an epidemic of cranial silicon dioxide immersion.

The current situation is that in order to avoid a global temperature increase in excess of 2 Deg C we can only burn 1/5 of all the know fossil fuel reserves. This means that peak oil, coal or gas will not prevent us from exceeding the 2 deg C mark by a large margin. It also means that there will be huge pressure from those people who have access to the other 4/5 of the know fossil reserves to be allowed to exploit those reserves. Just think for a moment what would happen to the share price of a major oil company if they were told the would only be allowed to extract 1/5 of their know oil reserves.

We could on a world wide bases easily replace all fossil fuel with renewables. We have the knowledge on how to do it right now. Yes it would be expensive to change over but not trying to avoid the risk of excessive climate change is a no brainer. We see on a regular basis attempts by various groups claiming that renewables can not possible supply our needs. This could not possibly have anything to do with the fossil fuel industry trying to protect there interests ? or am I being too cynical.

Günter
go back and look at your post and the National Geographic article that you cite. As it says the academic study it cites contradicts all other studies in the area.. now it could be that all the other studies are wrong but the coal industry itself does not seem to think so and they have a vested interest in the matter. As the article makes clear its a fringe position.

Okay, under sea drilling. The oil industry is the most studied but predictions in it are arguably the least effective. Sufficed to say, for the moment, that the US is on track to become self sufficient in oil fairly soon which is a complete flip on all peak oil forecasts made a few years back. Sorry but resources aren't running out any time soon.. or even later..

In the next 15-20 years as Liberal National governments dominate the Australian political scene most of these carbon crappers will lose their government funded jobs and this type of tripe will be not be written and global warming without the these excitable fearmongers will forgotten about.

Yawn.

This is a really silly article. It is an example of the nonsense put out by doomsayers at their worst.

We have a virtually infinite supply of energy on Earth (uranium and thorium). Human ingenuity and energy will provide everything current and future generations will want and need.

With cheap energy, we can provide as much fresh water as we need. With greater wealth we can feed however many people there are on the planet. Food supply is a constraint only where there is poor governance and poor infrastructure. Both will be overcome by increasing prosperity. Increasing prosperity will also reduce the rate of population growth and reduce the peak population.

People who don't understand this are either ignorant or ideologically blind. Read this to understand what fossil fuels have done for us: http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/humanity-unbound-how-fossil-fuels-saved-humanity-nature-nature-humanity .
Use your powers of logic to think what nuclear (20,000 to 2 million times more energy-dense than fossil fuels) will do for future generations.

The best the self claimed 'Progressives' could to save the planet would be to stop blocking progress and stop screeching their messages of doom and gloom. Instead they should start advocating wealth creation, freer trade, enthusiastically encouraging profit motive, deregulation, globalisation and large corporations. They and small, versatile, adaptable, innovative business are what are making us better off and improving human well-being world wide.