By Shani Raja and Simeon Bennett, Bloomberg

Sydney residents and tourists are cursing La Nina as the harbor city says goodbye to the summer that wasn’t. While the La Nina weather pattern is delivering rain to farmers after the worst drought in a century, it’s cutting profits for cafe owners, travel agents and insurers. Insurance Australia Group Ltd., the nation’s largest home insurer, last week posted a sixth straight profit decline after hail storms cost it A$105 million ($97 million). The yearly `Symphony in the Park,’ which usually attracts 80,000 people, had 700 this year as the orchestra played behind a tarpaulin during a downpour.

Sydney’s famous Opera House courtesy www.greeatbuildings.com

“Everyone always thinks Australia is the best place for perfect weather, but I’m not sure I’ll believe it any more,” says Minsoo Seo, a 28-year-old marketing executive from Korea’s Jeju Island, as he gazes at the waves crashing toward Bondi Beach on Australia’s last day of summer. “The wind’s too strong,” he says after deciding against surfing on a grey, gusty morning.

After four years of water restrictions, Sydney saw about 50 percent more rain than usual this summer, according to Mike De Salis, a spokesman at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. No day topped 31 degrees celsius (88 degrees fahrenheit) for the first time since 1956. Average daily sunshine totaled 6.7 hours, an hour less than normal and the lowest since 1991-92. The average maximum temperature was 25.2, the coolest since 1996-97.

By Jeff Poor, Business & Media Institute

The Weather Channel has lost its way, according to John Coleman, who founded the channel in 1982. Coleman told an audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 3 in New York that he is highly critical of global warming alarmism. “The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced - several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.’’

Coleman also told the audience his strategy for exposing what he called “the fraud of global warming.” He advocated suing those who sell carbon credits, which would force global warming alarmists to give a more honest account of the policies they propose. The Weather Channel has been an outlet for global warming alarmism. In December 2006, The Weather Channel’s Heidi Cullen argued on her blog that weathercasters who had doubts about human influence on global warming should be punished with decertification by the American Meteorological Society.

Earlier at the conference Lord Christopher Monckton, a policy adviser to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, told an audience that the science will eventually prevail and the “scare” of global warming will go away. He also said the courts were a good avenue to show the science.  Read more here.

By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM

I will be at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City this week sponsored by the Heartland Institute and many other organizations. Hundreds of the world’s leading scientists, economists, and policy analysts will come together to explore key issues overlooked by advocates of the theory of man-made global warming. There will be over 90 speakers presenting or discussing major climate issues. I am speaking on the importance of the oceans and sun in climate change.  At the conference I am looking forward to hear among all the others, Vaclav Klaus, Czech president speak on the issue of climate change. See a recent speech here. It will be interesting to see how much media coverage this conference gets.

It appears both sides of the issue recently have been getting more media coverage to the dismay of the alarmists. See Andy Revkin’s New York Times story “Skeptics on Human Climate Impact Seize on Cold Spell” and the angry comments back.

I have seen Al Gore’s movie and read his speeches pushing for more action now. See his latest rant here in the AFP story ”Climate Crisis Getting Short Shrift in US President Race: Gore”. Gore used the stage at a prestigious Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, California, to call for activism to push climate change to the top of the candidates’ political agendas. “As important as it is to change the light bulbs, it is more important to change the laws,” Gore told an elite gathering of scientists, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and Internet superstars. “We have to become incredibly active as citizens in our democracy. In order to solve the climate crisis we have to solve the democracy crisis, and we have one.”

Meanwhile, Paul Klemperer, Oxford University’s Edgeworth professor of economics in the London Financial times notes ”If Climate Sceptics are Right, It is Time to Worry”. Al Gore says the science on global warming is clear and there is a major problem. Vaclav Klaus, Czech president, contends that climate change forecasts are speculative and unreliable. Whose claims are scarier? Of course, Mr Klaus exaggerates (he is a politician) but if he is partly right, we should be more concerned, not less. Likewise, if our understanding of climate systems is flawed, our best guess about the dangers we face may be less pessimistic, but extreme outcomes are more likely.

He continues “Mr Klaus is probably right that there are fewer certainties than many claim. Even commentators who support the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change point to methodological weaknesses in its economics. A UK High Court judge recently required that a list of “scientific errors” be sent to schools that show Mr Gore’s remarkable polemic, An Inconvenient Truth – confirming the impression that the film goes some way beyond established facts (Mr Gore is also a politician). The continuing scientific uncertainty about the pace of climate change should make us more concerned, not less. And it is those who doubt the climatologists’ models who should be the most frightened.”

Indeed we have more to fear from a sudden turn to colder if the cooling of the Pacific is more than a temporary blip and the next solar cycles are duds as more and more solar scientists believe. The last few decades will be looked on as a modern climate optimum.  Our colder eras historically have been periods of course of more snow and winter cold, spring floods and severe weather outbreaks, summer heat and drought in some key growing areas and early on more landfalling hurricanes.