FACT Planet Earth stores vast amounts of carbon in its various forms. The core of the Earth is approx.6,000 degrees C, comparable to the temperature of the surface of the Sun. As the planet slowly cools, a thin solidified crust is forming, together with oceans of water, and a rarefied gaseous atmosphere. The lungs of the planet are the oceans that are heated mainly from below, as gravitational and electro-magnetic forces cause fissures and vents, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The sub-sea crust is thinner and hundreds of thousands of underwater vents constantly discharge solid, liquid and gaseous matter into the water in volumes exceeding by far anything produced by humans. Gas is absorbed or expelled from oceans in accordance with Henry's Law as the water warms or cools. To boil some water for a cuppa, better to use an immersion heater, rather than wave a hair dryer over the top. Newly discovered ‘heat blobs’ in the oceans are the cause of previously unexplained El Nino and other weather phenomena. Water vapour is the overwhelmingly predominant ‘greenhouse gas’.
FACT: Coal is the product of hundreds of millions of years of photosynthesis as plants extracted a trace gas, carbon dioxide, from the air and stored the energy of the Sun in subsurface batteries of magnitude far beyond our ken. The relatively small amount burned by mankind returns some CO2 to an atmosphere, which is in geological timelines suffering a deficiency of this life-essential gas. The plantation trees surrounding the Tarong Power Station are growing at over twice the rate of similar trees 20 km away. We are helping to green the planet.
FACT: Mankind escaped constant cycles of famine and starvation using steam power with coal as the energy source, to allow the current generation to live with unprecedented longevity and prosperity, and the freedom to publish ad hominem attacks on decent people such as Christopher Monckton and Tony Abbott who had the temerity to stand against a wave of mass hysteria. But the tide is turning and the myth of anthropomorphic global warming is finally being exposed by principled scientists.

As I said in earlier posts it won't be long before we won't be able to give our coal away! And in the not too far distant future, those nations that have already transitioned away from coal and fossil fuel will likely impose increasingly punitive carbon tariffs on exports from countries like ours with the highest per capita carbon footprint.

As for the forest fires, one notes that wetlands don't burn and those wetlands can be man-made! Just add water! Even if that requires the robber barons take a hit in the hip pocket!

And too easy with new technology accepted and rolled out by recalcitrant government obsessed with mining and using coal.

If we can't get investors to fund new coal-fired power stations then the government can build two or three with taxpayers funds?

All they need is a mandate from the people and need to flag their intentions before an election not afterwards like the still hated GST that only had a 13% approval rating prior to the term of the Howard government when he introduced his tax.

A tax which transferred taxpayer responsibility from those with the least and away from those with the most, sort of reverse good Samaritan action if you ask me

. As long as folk too stupid to see the forest for the trees argue over what caused it and who is responsible, nothing much will happen and the same old, same old status quo will remain. And the too all too obvious solution will be as usual pigeon-holed and gather dust!

And the robber barons and their lickspittle pollies will heave a sigh of relief?
Alan B.

Jay Cee Ess,

<<Peter, it is very obvious from this opinion piece that your strong points are not science, nor meteorology, nor bush fire management, nor climate science, nor fire fighting. You have brought nothing of fact to the discussion.
If, has has been claimed, there is in fact a measurable increase in average global temperatures over the past century, it is still less than a full degree centigrade. This does not cause the spontaneous ignition of piles of dry vegetation that have built up in the Australian National Parks, Nature Reserves and Forestry Reserves. It is this build up of fire fuel that has driven the bushfire "emergency" this season. One fire can spawn dozens of others downwind of it, so a single act of arson can generate over one hundred subsequent fires.>>

I commend you for such a splendid assessment of what causes bush fires and how that catastrophe could have been avoided.

In my understanding, instead of blaming global warming for the bush fires, we need to accept the evidence:

1. Our Indigenous People have done it for thousands of years. They have regularly done back burning of the undergrowth to control the possibility of fires.

2. Most will not accept this point. We have had a previous Prime Minister say, 'We can't make it rain', http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/immediate-relief-for-farming-families-takes-drought-relief-to-576-million, but he didn't tell us who could send the rain.

3. '[The LORD] makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses' (Psalm 135:7). I'm waiting for our Christian Prime Minister, ScoMo, to call the people who believe in the power of prayer into church buildings to pray for God to be merciful on a wayward nation and send the rain to break the drought. We don't deserve it, after the way we have turned against Him. May He have mercy on us.

'. '[The LORD] makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses' (Psalm 135:7). I'm waiting for our Christian Prime Minister, ScoMo, to call the people who believe in the power of prayer into church buildings to pray for God to be merciful on a wayward nation and send the rain to break the drought. We don't deserve it, after the way we have turned against Him. May He have mercy on us.'

yeah I think you are largely right OzSpen. It is the LORD who is Sovereign. He has also given man a free will. Close to a couple of hundred has used their free will to light fires in recent times. GW is then blamed. If not for the Lord's mercies we all would of been consumed long ago. When you read of the flood or Sodom and Gomorrah it amazes me how compassionate God has been to Aussies.

As far as ScoMO calling for prayer I am not so sure about. We have many of the warmist earthworshippers who think the 'sin' of burning coal has brought about these fires. 'Mother earth' is angry. Just ask Greta. Sheer lunacy and madness I know, but its exactly what lunacy rejection of our Creator does to one's mind. ScoMo's calling for prayer would simply trigger the god deniers with their usual hateful, intolerant rhetoric.

No they are not the result of climate warming.

THEY ARE THE RESULT OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING.

Climate warming? Well the hell did that one come from?

runner,

<<ScoMo's calling for prayer would simply trigger the god deniers with their usual hateful, intolerant rhetoric.>>

Of course, but that does not defeat God's decrees:

+ 'Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus' (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). This teaching was directed to a Christian church, 'Never stop praying'. We must not give up on God when we are in drought. We need to pray for his mercy to be given to a rebellious nation.

+ What happened when Elijah prayed? 'Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years!' (James 5:17).

+ What happens if Australians resist the call to pray? 'And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure' (James 4:3).

If we pray and don't receive any rain, there is a reason for God's not responding. We ask with a wrong reason in mind. If we want rain for selfish pleasure, don't expect God to answer.

Why is God holding off in sending a deluge of rain across the nation? Take a listen to Steve Grace's, 'God send the rain - the droughtland prayer', http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKhSjYM6BaI