I like the common sense approach of this article, the only problem is that Barack Obama only has four years to save the planet. Omigod!

Seriously though, the whole "Warming" pitch is based on short-term data and long-term extrapolation. A couple of years ago, the UK Tyndall Centre produced a climate forecast for the year 3000, for heavens sake.

Science is now science by press release and the more that the evidence of our own eyes starts to challenge the theory, the greater the hysteria from those who can see their grants slipping away.

Oh dear,On Line Opinion seems to be the place to be for the Deniers.

Anyway, a bit of comedy never goes astray.

Yes, a typical OLO article on climate change where denialism is dressed up as skepticism. I used to think that Internet forums might provide venues for the exchange of informed ideas about how we might collectively address major problems like climate change, but sadly all we ever seem to get are tendentious articles that attract entrenched ranting from decreasingly civil commenters.

Speaking of which, I think that Leigh's initial comment in this thread is a classic of the genre - several hundred ignorant, fact-free words, ending with the boofheaded admission that he hasn't even bothered to read Lawson's admittedly predictable article. I think it's incredibly rude (and axiomatically ignorant) to presume to comment on an article without having read it, but it seems that some OLO members just utilise any vaguely relevant sounding topic as a soapbox from which to broadcast their entrenched, invariably ignorant, and all too often hateful ideas at the world.

CJ Morgan
I agree wholeheartedly- and whole-headedly- with you.I think that most OLO postings are a disgrace. The second last thing I want is people who agree with me. The last thing I want is to support drivel.

What was that old Chinese saying? "Don't toy with your enemies- it only makes them stronger." These guys are the enemies of reason.

Can anyone suggest an online forum that doesn't pander to this inane bigotry?

I agree Manorina, "a bit of comedy never goes astray."

I found this one from CJ Morgan particularly funny:

"why does just about every discussion at OLO lately descend into Godwinesque comparisons with Hitler, Nazis, brownshirts etc etc?...Undoubtedly [fungochumley'd] be joined by...the rest of OLO's increasingly rabid DENIALIST crew." [my emphasis]

Hmmm, yes, why I wonder?

Take a look in the mirror, CJ, or go back to Baywatch.

As an oldie who has cleared too much farmland, and followed by a study on the way to a doctorate does know -

The major cause is simply man and his advancing technology, aided so very much by flame and fire -

Which even our Aboriginals made so much use of, some say helping to form our deserts.

But the above means nothing compared to what our technics can do right now, mechines so perfect and powerful, the densest heavier jungle means simply nothing.

It was many years ago that I felt the first pangs, the first guilt as me and my heavy crawler smashed just a bit more for the the good of our wheatbelt.

But what makes me still feel sadder, was to find the last patch of timber and scrub seething with all types of wildlife.

Not only big 'roos and small wallabies, but scrub turkey, mallee hens, and a host of little furry creatures, as well as plovers, so scared they were not even game to take off.

Yet the above is insignificant to what is now happening to our jungles to the north, making me in his old age wondering why we are still letting it all happen -

and even believing that if there truly is a God, surely He would vouchsafe that after the way modern man has treated nature it is surely he who has become the evil one.