And I don't really see any solution. Good science requires significant funding. If the only funding came from the private sector then we might only get advances in short-term technological improvements.
Funding of science by democratically elected governments is supposed to be more longsighted and dispassionate, but it seems to be all caught up in the flavor of the month, which always turns out to be "Rocky Road", i.e. one crisis after another.
The long term solution is for scientists to be well-trained and courageous enough to speak up when the scientific method is being undermined or disregarded. It's also important that things stay in the open so that when failures occur they are very public.
The only good news about the AGW madness is that its proponents are so open about their ideas. When AGW finally becomes too tenuous to sustain the failure will be very public and very damning.
I only hope that when that happens, the average man in the street doesn't lose all faith in science.
Does “faith” in science trump faith in the Almighty? That’s the crux of the matter. Science is merely a tool; it is not the architect of knowledge.