In which the pond celebrates the exceptional climate science skills of that masterly Order of Lenin sleuth, the Major Mitchell ...

While it's well-known that Major Mitchell is Australia's foremost Order of Lenin hunter - he can find them when others just shrug and give up - it's a less celebrated fact that he's one of the world's greatest climate scientists.

Perhaps it's his innate, unassuming modesty. Perhaps it's because the lizard Oz is full of great climate scientists, with many of them making remarkable contributions to the science, with the immortal Moorice at the head of the pack. Devotees of the reptiles will know that Moorice's calm, studied analyses have befuddled the hysterics and led to all sorts of alarmist headlines ...

(Here).

The pond realises that some will stake a claim for the immense significance of the Bolter's field work. No banal desk work for him - the Bolter has gone from the Arctic to the Antarctic to the Siberian fields of *methane to the melting glaciers of Greenland to discover definitive evidence that this tommy rot climate hysteria must stop ...

The Bolter's swum in the deepest oceans to confirm there's nothing happening and surveyed the scene from space to confirm that everything is for the best in the best of all climate denialist worlds ...

Up against these legends, the Major is something of a shy, awkward shrinking violet, the kind of wallflower that could be seen at a dance in the Duri town hall ...

But dammit, every so often, the Major gets bitten by a spider and comes out as a caped climate science crusader ...

Even more piquant was the company that google assigned for the Major as he joined the dance ...

No, it's not lonely being a climate skeptic, or even a sceptic, you septical tank of a Yank. 

At social gatherings at the lizard Oz you're likely to be a lost soul if you don't talk of climate hysterics and the uselessness of renewable energy and the tremendous cleansing virtues of clean coal and so on and so forth, and use media personalities as your easily whipped straw dogs, actual climate scientists being a little trickier and more difficult ...

Oh dear, the pond almost forgot to mention Lloydie, the Efrem of Peru ... much like Lawrence of Arabia ... an astute businessman and a wily observer of coral science ...

Now the pond is mortified and a tad embarrassed for the social faux pas committed by the Major, but then he's always tended to blunder around like a bull at the gate or in a china shop ...

But if now is not the right time, and as the Major has mentioned Scottie, when is the right time?

If we must break Scottie's rule and talk about him and about hurricanes and about Lloydie, why not head off to the Miami Herald? 

After all, what the heck would they know about anything, being so distant from the heart of the storm, unlike the Major and Lloydie, who were right in the thick of it ...

Oh dear, active links here, and an attempt at actual reporting, as opposed to ideological argument ...

What, climate science is complex? 

Well we can't have that sort of hysterical nonsense ruining the pond's reputation, so it's time for another cartoon ...

Here for Horsey, but just remember Jennifer Lawrence, because the pond is getting back to the Major quik stix ... we still have good old coal to celebrate in a style that Jennifer might envy...

Yes, it's coal, coal, coal, dinkum oi oi oi, all the way ...

Indeed, indeed, and bouquets to the lizards of Oz for publishing the likes of Moorice and the Major ...

Frankly without them, the pond wouldn't be blessed by the coal-fired riches it enjoys. Was it only a few years ago that Moorice was warning the world to watch out for global cooling ...

It was, it was ...

And this constant talk of the joys and wonders of coal reminds the pond of all that talk of the wonders and joys of copper and HFC, and hasn't that worked out well for broadband ...

With a bit of luck, we could still convert the world to copper and to dinkum Aussie coal ...and think what that and the Major could have achieved for the planet ...

One word of caution however ... apparently the United States is deeply concerned that the hurricane season might just keep on keeping on ...and these hurricanes come in all shapes and sizes ...