Someone needs to explain the seasons to Willis Eschenbach and Stan Robertson at WUWT

I started to write this article some time ago in response to an article by Wondering Willis Eschenbach (archived here). Today there's another article on the same topic by someone called Stan Robertson (archived here) so I figured I'd resurrect this. Stan's been featured here on a previous occasion.

The main question they are asking is: why doesn't Earth heat up more when it's closest to the sun, in January? The corollary they didn't ask is, why doesn't Earth cool down more when it's furthest from the sun, in July?

The main answer is: the tilt of the earth dominates seasonal variation, not distance from the Sun. For Earth that is. (It's different on Mars.) Plus - oceans.

This is a long and long-winded article, probably with too much repetition and a tad muddled. But I've spent enough time on it so click read on if you're up for it :)