Gosh. How can you publish this stuff? The promoters of the hoax that we can influence the climate by taxing or otherwise regulating a trace gas in the atmosphere are pushing an agenda which is wasting huge resources which should be better used. Perhaps scientists should study Henry's Law and understand that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is regulated by water temperatures in the oceans where the waters literally breathe carbon dioxide in and out. Our coral reefs and immense limestone deposits result from this wonderful relationship. The term 'fossil fuels' should be corrected to the more generic term, 'carbon fuels' as naturally occurring methane is the source of much of the carbon fuels available to mankind, and there is no indication we will ever run out of this resource - new and better ways of finding access to the energy we need to live on this abundant planet will emerge long before we even scratch the surface of the so-called fossil fuels. Read Thomas Gold 'The Deep Hot Biosphere'.

Hells bells John, give up the complete claptrap, will you!

John McRobert, that is.

Excellent article, John Coulter.

This article is a disgrace; for instance:

"The only safe level of CO2 in the atmosphere that we know of lies between 180 and 300 ppm, the levels between which CO2 fluctuated during the whole 6 million years of human evolution from our last common ancestor"

This is b.....t! According to Sage plant growth sufficient for human agriculture cannot occur below 270 ppm:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.1995.tb00009.x/abstract

It is a proven fact that CO2 levels above the current level of 400ppm are beneficial to crop production:

http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/photosynthesis-and-co2-enrichment/

And general plant production; the world is actually greening:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/14/a-must-watch-greening-the-planet-dr-matt-ridley/

How could it be otherwise when plants eat CO2?

The article's attempts to substantiate claims that extra CO2 will be bad are ludicrous and show no understanding of climate sensitivity [CS] which is the alleged response of the climate system to temperature. Even AR5 has lowered its estimation for CS.

The article ignores the ongoing debate about whether the current level of CO2 is the highest in recent geological time [it probably isn't].

The article also ignores the issue of whether human emissions are even responsible for the increase in atmospheric CO2.

The article ignores the fact that there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature over any time period and that CO2 movements follow temperature at best.

In short the article is devoid of fact and is merely another in the chorus line of despicable comments by Greens and other alarmists since the bushfires commenced.

For a real analysis of the bushfires and the scam of AGW see:

http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/is-there-no-end-to-bushfire-bastards.html

Thirty years of warning? Prof Flannery said that it was likely that it would never rain in Brisbane again. Well they had floods not once but twice.
The dear Prof learned quickly and he is now in the retrospective forecasting game. It floods - global warming, oops sorry climate change! Drought climate change, big wind climate change and no wind climate change.
This nice little earner for the corruption game of academics and all the usual suspects just goes on and on.
All my life I have been told (Shrilly) we are all going to die because nuclear war, a new ice age, y2k bug. For goodness sake give it a rest!
What I want to see is a really savage attack on the pensions and wages of these clowns. Perhaps the writer would like too sacrifice his academic and his political pension for the good of humanity?

John Coulter - sorry but the global warming industry doesn't agree with you. If you look at the summary for policy makers released a few weeks ago it says only that it is "likely" that bushfires and extreme weather events can be linked to climate change.. no certainty at all.. although I haven't looked at the full report I am under the impression that in the full report the panel retreats from any link between global warming and storms.. if anyone has the full report and can expand/correct that impression, then feel free.. and please quote the passage and relevant sections

Certainly scientists have argued at length over whether there has been any overall trend in storms in recent decades.

While this article is essentially about climate change rather than bushfires per se, it nevertheless builds on the plethora of academic and media commentary over recent weeks which can largely be described as implying that climate change is the primary cause of heightened bushfire threat.

What has been massively disappointing about this has been the lack of input from people who actually know about bushfires and the array of other factors, principally related to land and fire management, that have increased bushfire threat and severity over the past several decades. These non-climate change factors include:

1. Substantial changes to public land management associated with the transfer of State forest formerly managed by foresters (who pioneered preventative cool burning) to the conservation reserve network where fire management is not as actively practiced.
2. Also associated with this, is the substantial loss of timber industies whose experienced men and their machines were traditionally at the forefront of bushfire fights, and the consequent loss of fire expertise from the Govt agencies themselves.
3. This has impacted on how fires are fought, and on the capability do do preventative burning to arrest fuel build-ups.
4. The demographic shift of the community into bushland areas which also makes it harder to do preventative burning and has itself forced changes in how bushfires are fought, such as greater requirement for aerial water bombing.
5. The emergence of an 'emergency industry' that reflects the greater need to protect people living in dangerous places, but which thrives on costly new toys that skew the budget further away from fire prevention activities.
6. The dramatic increase in arson associated with a larger population living in closer proximity to the bush.

These factors are to a large extent fuelling the perceptions that climate change is wholly responsible for greater bushfire severity and threat when in fact it is just one of a range of factors that are arguably mostly of greater importance.