Well for good or for bad I'm back. Kind of got shamed into it really. One's children have a knack of doing that, especially when they talk about what they and their children will face once you have slipped the mortal coil.

A family discussion about GW last night had me dipping the toe back into OLO to see what the lie of the land was post Abbott ascension, and I must say it ain't pretty. Talk about the patients running amok.

This is most evident in the comments to David's article. The usual bullies appear emboldened - sneering, snide, bombastic, and pack driven even more than I remember.

But one shouldn't go missing just because the going gets a little tough, or to put it more directly, when the deniers hold the reins, therefore here I am, hardly reformed, hardly less cranky, but back in the trenches so to speak.

So let's kick things by looking at the first few posts.

Dear Cohendite, here the bloody hell do you get off telling David he is a liar or ignorant? He was referencing the work of our national Bureau of Meterology.

“Summer 2012–13 was the warmest on record nationally, spring was also the warmest on record and winter the third warmest. Overall, 2013 was Australia's warmest year on record: annual national mean temperature was +1.20 °C above average.”
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/

So you come in here as an upstart climate wannabe without climate qualifications of any sort and essentially call the good men and women of the bureau, the majority qualified weather and climate specialists, LIARS?

Who in the hell do you think you are?

And do not start simpering about 'my set of figures show that 2005 or even 2003 were cooler'. 13 out of the last 14 years have been the hottest recorded in Australia and you are using them to try and make your case?

The BOM figures have been taken from ground stations for over 100 years, not varying satellite records.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/2013/20140103_Tmean_plot.png

Those figures, the bureau, and David Leigh have far more weight in any thinking person's book that whatever dribbles from your pen my friend. Perhaps you might feel I'm being a little harsh, well tell you what, calling someone a liar is far more egregious. Park it and I endevour to ease up.

Dear Jbowyer. Your next. When do you get off calling those who work for the BOM corrupt? What a bloody discraceful thing to say. You give no evidence besides them reporting the results of last years temperature collations from across the nation – specifically their job. Their only affront is to challenge your ideology. Well suck it up mate.

Dear SPQR, Ah attacking the man with the first salvo. True to form my good fellow. I see you have lost none of your distaste of doing the work and arguing the facts.

Dear Curmudgeon, a beautiful post, so true to the namesake I don't think I can add anything.

Dear Hasbeen, straight to the name calling I see. Kook? Pretty close to Gook. Good old serviceman vernacular. But what really got a laugh was when you referred to 'outerspace'. Now that brought back memories and a good belly laugh. Remember this little gem.
“Okay, let me get this straight, you want us to dismiss solid climate science and modelling and then recommend a site predicting weather patterns from the orbit of Neptune?”
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5123#138493
Now that my friend was pure cuckoo land.

And now for my dear runner. Can't say I have missed you but I will give you credit for not going the man nor slandering our BOM as most of the previous posts had done.

How is this for a plan. If someone is prepared to write an article for OLO and make themselves available to argue the issue then calling them liars and kooks and all the rest is no way to honour that effort. Disagree strongly with their arguments if you will but treat them with some respect.

In noting the groups whose trolls post climate denialist comments - I did omit quite a few notable ones - Competitive Enterprise Institute, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation, Heartland Institute, The Heritage Foundation.There are at least 20 more such groups, all funded by Exxon Mobil and other polluting industries.http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/Dealing-in-Doubt---the-Climate-Denial-Machine-vs-Climate-Science/Dealing-in-Doubt-The-1990s-a-network-of-denial-is-created/

Linked to these American climate denial front groups, Australia has The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and the Australian Environment Foundation, the Australian Climate Science Coalition, the Lavoisier Group. Climate denialist articles and comments, with varying degrees of skill come from these industry-connected organisations, and from other paid shills of the polluters. http://www.cana.net.au/sites/default/files/DoubtingAustralia.pdf

Steele, Noel, how many years of the only true, trustable climate record, the satellite record, will it take to convince you that there has been no global warming? Even the addle headed at the IPCC have now admitted this fact.

Of course if you are on the gravy train, spending a billion a year on the fraud, I suppose nothing would get you to admit the truth. What is your excuse?

Rehctub….you have an interesting point there…..World population is the number one problem, not only in second and third world settings, first world countries are now realizing the costs of having to feed and so forth, with real time head counts…(Australia can’t be the lucky country for much longer) Centrelink populations that’s been high-lighted with the cash for kids, the answer that kills two birds with stone, is to put a cap of..lets say three children max, then every child after that, Centrelink will no longer pay for any further off-spring.

Just a thought.

Planet

Dear Hasbeen,

I tell you what records I trust, those accumulated over a hundred years by Australians all over this nation going out each day and diligently noting daily observations come rain, hail or shine. Some of this has been overtaken by automation but I'm prepared to trust the Aussie scientists who constructed, calibrated and maintained those instruments. These measurements were taken in the big cities and in the small towns across this land, done by people who where not driven by a profit motive nor beholden to the coal industry nor the ideologues within the Greens or the Liberal party. They were intent on doing their job and being as accurate as they could be.

The best, most robust of the data from those thousands of measuring stations has been collated by reputable scientists and statisticians within the Australia Bureau of Meterology and our own (thus far at least) CSIRO. The result is summed up in the graph I posted earlier and do so again.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/2013/20140103_Tmean_plot.png

Some trumped up legal type comes in here and slaps down three sets of satellite date purporting to show that Australia is not warming, none of them agreeing completely with the others, and this is what you want me to believe in instead.
http://onlineopinion.com.au/images/article-images/Cox_14_01_10_I.gif

Well I'm sticking with the home grown. You go ahead and try and make the case why these diligent and dedicated folk across this land just happened to have stuffed it up so completely.

I'm listening.