The IPCC concerns are still simmering, maybe reaching a boil. I've been noticing a lot of comments on ag lists that are only tangentially involved in any of this but have a certain amount of chatty off-topic posts about life in general, including the climate scandals. And this old post from a year ago about Al Gore's abuse of weather events to advance his climate agenda and the reaction to that abuse by the scientific community . . . none . . . has being getting a flurry of hits. The delay in response is not unusual since there was a concerted effort to cover it all up, and I still expect the storm to pass with little permanent damage, but there are some telling events in the news. Goats will be sacrificed.

Phil Jones, the University of East Anglia scientist whose stolen emails caused the worldwide ‘climate-gate’ kerfuffle, has told The Sunday Times he contemplated killing himself. . .

Jones also told the paper he is now on beta blockers and taking sleeping pills in the aftermath of the email theft. He continues to receive death threats. . .

Meanwhile, a poll for the BBC seems to show an increase in people who don’t believe in global warming. The survey of 1,001 adults found 25% said no when asked “From what you know and have heard, do you think that the Earth’s climate is changing and global warming taking place?” This is up from 10% in November. The proportion saying yes dropped to 75%, down from 83% in November.

However, Richard Black at the BBC thinks this might just be down to the recent weather in Blighty.

“Having to dig your car out of a snowbank and sending the kids out to make a snowman would, you might think, tend to mitigate against belief in warnings of a dangerously warming world ahead,” writes the environment correspondent. “An unusually hot summer - and globally, January was the warmest on record, in case you missed it, and El Nino conditions pertain in the Pacific - and fickle opinion might turn again.”

It's hilarious that Gore's abuse of weather got so little official reaction while the public's equal and opposite response to current weather is criticized. The rational, responsible position would be to speak against exaggeration and misinformation, but that doesn't serve the agenda.

We seem to be living in an era of mediocrity. Those who are in positions of power and authority are not particularly bright or competent. It happens. History has many examples of periods when otherwise advanced societies suffered from incompetent bureaucracies in troubled times. Standards get lax in good times and institutions get clogged with time servers of no particular competence as those who are more capable choose other types of activities, and aren't actually welcome in the ever more ossified bureaucracies in any event. The bureaucrats seek comfort, not competence. But they are not adequate when real trouble comes.

Suicide or murder aren't rational responses, but we do need to make some staff changes to raise the quality of our bureaucracies to the levels required for the current problem set.