Industry experts believe fruit and vegetable prices will return to normal in coming months | thetelegraph.com.au

Unusually cold weather in the nation's north and the flow-on effects of floods and cyclones have sent prices sky-high - but industry experts believe they will return to normal in coming months.

Alarmism a danger to democracy: Vaclav Klaus | The Australian

Mr Klaus, who entered public life in 1989 when he and colleagues volunteered their services to the leaders of Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution against the communist regime imposed in the aftermath of World War II, warns that climate change is being used as a political weapon by the Left. "I do not believe in the innocence of global warming alarmists," he said. "They do not care about the environment, they just misuse it in their crusade, which aims at limiting our freedom and prosperity.

"I don't want to make cheap comparisons of their ideology with communism, but I do see many similarities . . . It is a new variant for the activist political Left, and I spent all my life fighting such a political thinking because I lived in such a political system."

Mr Klaus fears the climate change debate is leading to the politicisation of science.