Behind Walls-The Battle of the Disciplines?

It is interesting how if you study something for a bit how things seem to fall in place. Pulling on threads tend to unravel cloaks.

Let me just say that if I should throw out my own opinions and conclusions from time to time, well that is my prerogative, this is my personal blog, I represent only myself, For all intent and purposes a blog such as mine is nothing more than a personal journal. If other people wish to read it, link to it, quote it or even distort what I write here that is their choice and there is little I can do about it. The internet is the greatest tool ever provided to mankind to communicate and educate one another. But we all choose as individuals what to believe or what weight to ascribe to what we read and learn the same as from any other source of information we may come across in life.


What pulled this particular thread in my memory was trying to check into who attended the meeting of the minds in Chicheley England hosted by the Royal Society on the subject of geo-engineering.   While going through a Google search I happened to notice that the event was held at The Kavli Royal Society International Centre.

Kavli is what caught my attention having been trying to look into the Novim Group I am constantly running into Kavli as in the Kavli Foundation, the same foundation which is responsible for The Kavli Royal Society International Centre

In 2010 the Royal Society acquired Chicheley Hall in Buckinghamshire with support from The Kavli Foundation. The building is named The Kavli Royal Society International Centre in recognition of the Royal Society’s gratitude to the Kavli Foundation.

When I read this I remembered that the Kavli Foundation had some connection to the Novim Group. If you go to the Berkley Earth Surface Temperature web site under the About Us tab you will find a tab for the Novim Group which states :

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study has been organized under the auspices of the non-profit Novim Group.

Novim's mission is to provide clear scientific options to the most urgent problems facing society, to explore and explain the feasibility, probable costs and possible consequences of each course of action, and to distribute the results without advocacy or agenda both quickly and widely.

Novim builds on a set of scientific collaborative tools developed at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara

 For those who falsely claim that the Novim Group is simply a source of funds for the BEST project I would point to the above statement as to their relationship. I would also point out that the very Logo of the Berkley group (BEST) belongs to the Novim Group.

The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) is basically, by Novim's own description, the inspiration for the philosophy of the Novim Group

Novim’s Mission

To provide clear scientific options to the most urgent problems facing society.

To explore and explain the feasibility, probable costs and possible consequences of each course of action.

To distribute the results without advocacy or agenda both quickly and widely.

Novim builds on a set of scientific collaborative tools developed at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara.

 This urgency to solve societal problems was what first caught my attention. The fact that the first major undertaking of the Novim Group was to bring together scientist to explore geo-engineering the climate shows what they consider to be the most urgent societal challenge.

It is also of interest that the primary focus on geo-engineering over the past two years has been done by the Novim Group and the Royal Society.

I do want to say that I am making no accusations against the Kavli Foundation or claiming any conspiracy such as the left has smeared everything Koch Brothers. All that I am showing is that the Kavli Foundation is involved with a lot of physics research, a noble cause, many of the participants happen to end up being involved with geo-engineering schemes. As they say birds of a feather tend to flock together.

Among the connections I am making are;

* BEST is connected to the  the Novim Group and according to BEST operates under the auspices of the Novim Group.

* The Novim Group was founded to provide solutions to urgent societal problems. The two which they have chosen to involve themselves in are geo-engineering the climate and establishing an independent temperature record.

* Nearly all of the principles of the Novim Group are involved with or have formerly been involved with KITP

One other connection I wish to make though it is a bit more tenuous. The vast majority of these two groups of scientist, those involved with the geo-engineering and those involved with the surface temperature record, are physicist.

In fact as far as I can tell there is only one climate scientist, Judith Curry involved in the BEST project and one atmospheric scientist involved with the geo-engineering project. All the other scientist involved with Novim projects are from other disciplines primarily physicist.

Is this important? I think it may be. It certainly would explain the two different approaches toward the solutions the various camps are making. Geo-engineering versus cap and trade.

The antipathy toward other solutions to the alleged problem of global warming by what I call the the Al Gore camp which dominates the climate science's solution agenda is telling as to their true agenda. Whenever an alternate solution even a possible alternative to anything short of  decarbonization of western society is proposed they venomously attack it, think Bjorn Lomborg. It is not that they are content to save the planet, they are only intent on saving it in such a way as to redistribute wealth and destroy evil capitalism.

The geo-engineering crowd which appears to be primarily led by the physics wing of science is nearly as great a threat to the Al Gore/UN camp as the realist community, perhaps more so. Because this camp is proposing solutions that will not allow for what is the obvious real goal of the Al Gore faction, a new Green World Order.

In short any solution to the alleged global warming problem which allows for the continuation of a fossil fuel based energy economic model even in the short term, ten to twenty years, is a threat. A threat not to the Earth's atmosphere but a threat to their economic and political schemes.

Of course from a realist's point of view, a pox on both your houses. A realist believes that carbon dioxide is neither in the short or long term a serious threat to either the planet or mankind and in fact may be beneficial.

This I believe is the reason for the schism developing in the scientific community. The question remains why do scientist not a part of the climate science community, or even those who are, that do not buy into the idea of destroying capitalism, not speak out more forcefully against the obvious hyperbolic unscientific claims of the so called consensus community? As Dr Muller attempted.

The answer is pretty obvious how can you go after the shoddy science which is the foundation for global warming without killing the golden goose of all golden gooses feeding the scientific community as a whole. This is the tightrope that Dr. Muller appears to be trying to walk. It is not just the climate science community which benefits from  global warming hysterics, it is virtually all of the global science community which is riding the GW gravy train.

In fact almost all of the hysterical claims made about the global warming are not made by the climate science community directly. Rather, other scientific disciplines simply use the modelers scenarios to make outlandish projections which feed not only the hysteria but tremendous scientific funding across the board.

As Joseph Bast pointed out following the Climategate revelations:

Computer models are practically the only “proof” that global warming alarmists have to support their theory and forecasts. How can scientists know that global warming is man-made and will be a crisis, while at the same time express deep skepticism towards the computer models that might support such beliefs?

The answer is that they don’t actually “know” global warming is man-made or will be a disaster; they “believe” this to be true.

Like the rest of us, scientists rely on the expertise of others to provide guidance on issues they haven’t taken time to study. Climate change is a complex topic that requires the insights of geologists, physicists, climatologists, and statisticians (to name only four disciplines) to get a fairly complete understanding of the issue.

Most scientists align their beliefs regarding global warming with the views expressed by the IPCC, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other organizations they trust. Climategate revealed that trust was misplaced. The institutions formed to bring together specialists to produce overviews of the science of climate change have been politicized and corrupted by private agendas.

So it seems we now have a a second front in the attack on the global warming agenda as represented by the Al Gore/UN camp.  This is a nuanced attack which is trying to maintain the reality of global warming while criticizing the obvious unscientific conclusions that have flowed from the scientific belief in Global Warming.

They want their cake and eat it too. They want to look like they are defenders of objective scientific process without derailing the gravy train. In many ways they are even more unprincipled than the Al Gore camp, but the truth is that both are out to benefit from an illusionary theory and in the end truth will win out and all those who play this game will be shamed by history.

The wall is crumbling as it inevitably was bound to do and now those who have benefited from it are scrambling to keep their section of it propped up. Unfortunately for them there is infighting amongst the ruins which will only hasten the destruction.