AN ERA of unusual dominance is at an end. Supporters now despair of ever seeing their team win again.

Truly, this has been a summer of shattering disappointment for local fans, who are in retreat following the collapse of their dream.

But now is not the time to become glumly introspective. Now is the time to examine the individuals who were at fault. Only the most forensic player-by-player analysis will reveal where mistakes were made and where failure was pre-determined.

We might try this again next week with the Australian cricket team. For now, however, let's continue our examination of the global warming movement and its fantastic decline.

Openers

DOOMSTRUCK US scientist James Hansen essentially launched the modern global-warming movement with his 1988 testimony before Congress. Batting on a friendly pitch and facing only the softest of attacks, Hansen scored easy runs and has remained in the opening slot ever since. Against more probing questions, however, Hansen is prone to wild slogging.

In 2009, he was forcibly removed from the crease during an anti-coal demonstration outside the White House. Later that year, he called for a carbon tax equivalent to $1 per US gallon of petrol.

Hansen's opening partner, US panic merchant Bill McKibben, wrote one of the earliest books on global warming and continues writing books on the same subject, hoping that one day they will be read.

He is currently campaigning to have Earth re-named "Eaarth". Seriously.

Top order

THE Warmy XI belted thousands of runs during the past 20 years, but big scores are drying up now that pitches across the planet are covered in snow.

The top order appears to have no technical means of countering these unexpected playing conditions.

His plodding footwork exposed, Tim Flannery is especially vulnerable to cold or rainy circumstances, having based his game around the belief that hot, dry conditions would prevail for ever.

Flannery isn't alone. British climate guru Dr David Viner predicted in 2000 that snowy days would become "a very rare and exciting event" and that "children just aren't going to know what snow is."

Evidence that Viner was wrong has lately been available outside any British window, in great big piles on the street.

Speaking of which, where are all the bodies promised to us by warmist and population alarmist Dr Paul Ehrlich?

"By the year 2000," Erlich forecast in 1971, "the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people."

Instead, the UK is populated by 60 million fat, pale people, all happy about the Ashes.

Keeper

KEVIN Rudd desperately sought the job of global backstop for the climate-change movement, but a mistimed emotional hook during the 2008 Copenhagen climate-change conference may have cost him any significant role.

Rudd's bid for glory involved a letter written to him by a six-year-old.

"Hi, my name is Gracie. How old are you?" Rudd read to a room of adults. "I am writing to you because I want you all to be strong in Copenhagen. Please listen to us, as it is our future."

Rudd added: "I fear we are on the verge of letting little Gracie down."

Back home in Australia, little Julia began sharpening her knives. The global warming movement remains without a keeper of any note.

Spinners

DAVID Koch, Robyn Williams, Sandra Sully, Tony Jones, Phillip Adams, Melissa Doyle, Charles Wooley, Tara Brown, Kerry O'Brien. Practically everybody in the Australian media has tried spinning for climate change, but few have made much impression.

Most are characterised by predictable lines and inadequate variation, although lack of flight isn't an issue, judging by this lot's frequent-flyer miles.

They'd prefer that you didn't fly quite so often, however.

All-rounders

MALCOLM Turnbull and Arnold Schwarzenegger attempted to blend carbon-conscious caring with capitalism and crashed. Schwarzenegger, having left California near bankruptcy, is now trying for a global climate change coaching position. If it involves sending profitable businesses to the wall (as most climate-change solutions tend to), he's your man.

Turnbull's one great climate change achievement was to introduce a ban on bright, efficient incandescent light bulbs, now replaced nationwide by frustratingly dull energy-efficient units. No night games for Malcolm.

Fast bowlers

EX-QUICK Peter Garrett, formerly observed commencing his run-up from the boundary prior to unleashing any number of wayward head-high attacks, now timidly rolls his arm over off a three-step approach.

An attempt to rebuild his credentials with a stint in the insulation league brought the house down. So many of them, in fact, that Garrett was prematurely withdrawn from the league and put in charge of Australia's trees. We lose thousands of them to fires, so a few more won't be noticed.

English climate paceman George Monbiot thrived on the high bounce and favourable umpiring decisions of the global-warming era, but is leaden and slow when conditions go against him.

One of Monbiot's recent columns warned about the "crisis" of too many unused bedrooms in British houses, and the need to address this frightening situation. He's come a long way from worrying about the end of the world.

Captaincy

AL GORE, the Warwick Armstrong of climate change, didn't even bother to appear at last year's big climate bash in Cancun. Nor has he been seen often in the US - though to be fair, it could be he's obscured by gigantic mounds of snow he never thought would arrive.

Gore's last major hit coincided with Hurricane Katrina, a catastrophe he predicted would become more commonplace in future years. This has not been the case.

Coaching

THE United Nations still runs a climate-change coaching clinic, but a lack of graduates has seen funding reduced. the Copenhagen conference in 2008 cost more than $200 million to stage, but last year's conference at Cancun drained only $68 million.

At that rate of decline, the 2026 UN conference on climate change will be run on a budget of $2.50. It's still too much.

Originally published as Relax, it's not the end of the world