It was a warm winter and a hot September. Agro would have us believe that has never happened before in Australia. He/she/other links to GISS and BOM records. Hardy har har. No education system in the history of the world can counter gullibility and/or commitment to an ideology. UAH again makes the BOM look second-rate and who could accept anything from GISS:

http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/more-bastards.html

The history of bushfires in September/October, or Spring generally can be looked at here:

http://www.emknowledge.gov.au/search/?search=&region=&cat=1&events_page=1#events_paging

Spring bushfires of major consequence are not rare.

But I suppose if you imbibe from the same pool of arrogance and bizarre condescension as the likes of Peter Fitzsimons you will believe that there was never a Spring bushfire in Australia; you could not make up this degree of ignorance:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/warmist_fitzsimons_should_check_his_own_paper_not_wikipedia/

I wasn't privately educated Agro; I suppose that is what you mean. Never mind, I'm sure we'll never meet in a courtroom.

<< I have no problem with anyone expressing and supporting their views. I do have some difficulty with outrageous statements such as << With the prospect of peak oil just over the horizon >> >>

Crikey Spinny, you’ve really spun out on this one!! There’s nothing outrageous about it at all!

Peak oil is not just about the prospect of the supply rate peaking, it is about supply capability versus demand, it is about energy needed to extract this energy source and hence the energy-in / energy-out ratio and thus the ever-rising price for the consumer.

It’s about how this rising price will affect economics from the personal to national and global levels.

It’s about how the ever-rapidly increasing demand for oil, and other fossil fuels, is going to be met in an economically viable manner.

That is: not just the economics of extracting the stuff, but the economic (and social) impact that considerably more expensive fossil fuel energy is going to have, all over the world.

And we shouldn’t forget the environmental impact, on the ground, in the oceans and in the atmosphere, the cost of this and the economic impact thereof.

We certainly are heading for a peak. A peak in production. A peak in affordability. And a peak in our ability to keep the supply up to an ever-rapidly increasing demand.

All-considered, we’d be much better off if all this oil, gas and coal that is apparently still out there, wasn’t!

It’s just going to facilitate the continuously increasing demand and take us further away from sustainability and towards a bigger crunch point when it all falls apart.

The sooner we get into developing renewable energy sources, stabilising our population and learning to live sustainably, the better off we will be.

So yes, we need to be very mindful of peak oil.

And as I said earlier; regardless of whether AGW is real or not, we need to do the same sort of things.

So get with it Spinny. Your ‘she’ll be right, everything is just dandy’ attitude is… in my humble opinion… completely misplaced.

Ludwig, after indicating earlier that you were somewhat sceptical of AGW, now you are showing your true, alarmist, warmist colours.

I do not agree with your assertion " that we do indeed have a whole lot of data that points strongly towards there being a strong link between human activities and global climate change. " There is simply no empirical scientific evidence to support your belief in AGW.

Poirot, your ABC -- not mine -- long ago ditched its supposed impartiality. It simply censors out any sceptic view on AGW, and it is the loudest voice linking the bush fires to AGW.

The ABC has adopted a leftist groupthink ideological agenda. By unashamedly operating outside its charter, it effectively has passed its use-by date. Its privatisation so as to make it earn its keep, would be in order.

Oh, I don't know, Raycom.

It recently gave Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, plenty of air time spruiking his climate expertise directly from Wikipedia.

Chris Pyne yabbers away ad nauseam on Qanda.

and Peter Reith appears to be permanently camped on the Drum set.

The ABC hit Abbott repeatedly with a wet lettuce leaf on his serial rorting.

Not to mention Piers Ackerman and Co on Insiders.

I reckon you should thank your lucky stars that the ABC aren't as biased as you would have us believe.

Luddy old mate, in your quest for your "sustainability" you are loosing contact with reality.

To start with there is no alternate renewable energy available, any where near capable of doing more than waste money. To run todays world on wind, solar or ethanol would be a recipe for billions to die, a horrible death.

If you add in nuclear, it might just be possible in a centaury or so, but definitely not with less lead time than that. If you accept nuclear, or a huge increase in coal fired power generation, we could perhaps have half of our commercial distribution fleet electrically powered within 40 years. The huge infrastructure required just to recharge that much would be hard to finance, both in rolling stock, & electricity generation & distribution.

This would not of course get people to work, or the supermarket, & please don't suggest public transport. That is a total failure when asked to get people anywhere they want to go, & the subsidises required would bankrupt us, if the cost of power infrastructure had not done it already.

To be sustainable we have to find an economical way of turning CO2 back to C. Then we will have it, anything less is wishful thinking with todays technology.

Meanwhile, please don't try to deride hydrocarbons due to rising cost. It will never become as expensive as renewables, at least in the lifetime of contributors here.

Nothing wrong with dreaming, but chasing dreams will send people mad, if they don't keep one foot on the ground, & in touch with reality. I detect your gradual acceptance that CO2 can not cause anything like catastrophic global warming, so reality is gaining a foot hold, now it is time to look at what is really achievable.

GrahamY: I beg to differ. Nowhere in the article linked to was there a statement that the fires were caused by climate change. Therefore, the article did not support the claim made for it.

You then introduce a couple of irrelevancies. Carbon dioxide is not the only forcing factor leading to the increase in temperatures over the last 100 years. Both GISS and HadCRUT data sets indicate a change of about 1 degree in average world temperatures over the last 100 years (I will leave aside the blitherings of Mr Cox about UAH, as the UAH data set does not go back 100 years).

Secondly, it is unnecessary to deal with climate models and their ability to model region weather. All that needs to be done is to look at the past and then use some simple probability modelling. Mean monthly temperatures will vary around the long term mean over years. For example, the long term data might indicate there is a 2% probability of greater than 3 degrees above the long-term mean in any year. That is these conditions will occur twice in a century. If the overall average temperature increases by 1 degree, the mean monthly temperatures will now vary around the new mean. Therefore, the probability of greater than 3 degrees above the long-term mean in any one year will increase to about 10% - or once in a decade.

cohenite: Mr Cox, you appear right on cue. Not quite un-evidenced, but close. Your evidence is the website of the No Carbon Tax Climate Skeptics Party? Next time I want to know about the quality of scientific data, I will go and consult a political party. It is the only sensible thing to do.

I have also not argued that spring bushfires have never occurred before. My argument is that with higher avearge temperatures they are likely to occur more often.