Scientist Acknowledges History, Maybe

The inventor of the infamous global warming "Hockey Stick" graph is acknowledging that his data was not "well organized" and that there is a "real issue" about whether the Middle Ages were warmer than today.

This was during the "Medieval Warm Period," when it was warm enough for Vikings to settle in Greenland.

As a history major, I learned all about the effects of the Medieval Warm Period in allowing European populations to increase and providing an environment that allowed the Vikings to erupt out of Scandinavia.  Then, all this Global Warming stuff and it was like people had just forgotten this bit of history.

Like I've always said, I will get nervous about "Global Warming" and the DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD when we can grow wheat in Greenland.

From the BBC article:

Phil Jones, the professor behind the "Climategate" affair, has admitted some of his decades-old weather data was not well enough organised.


He said this contributed to his refusal to share raw data with critics - a decision he says he regretted.

But Professor Jones said he had not cheated over the data, or unfairly influenced the scientific process.

Fraud includes providing only a half-truth without the necessary qualifications that allow the receiver of the information to properly weigh the information.  In this case, the necessary qualification would have been that Jones data was not well organized and that he was withholding the raw data to spare himself the embarrassment of people learning that his data organization rendered his conclusions subject to criticism.

So, instead, he presented one view of the data, didn't reveal the weakness of his methodology and permitted supporters to declare that anyone who doubted his "hockey stick" graph was insane.

That's fraud.

He said he stood by the view that recent climate warming was most likely predominantly man-made.


But he agreed that two periods in recent times had experienced similar warming. And he agreed that the debate had not been settled over whether the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the current period

Well, no one previously said "predominantly" and no said that the debate hadn't been settled.  Rather, they sent the MWP down Orwell's "information hole."

Shouldn't the debate be "settled" before we cripple the economy?  Might it not be important to learn whether the Middle Ages were warmer and why that might be the case, in light of the fact that their were no carbon emitting industries way back then?

Just asking.

Interesting Update:

The BBC article didn't mention this bit from the BBC interview, which the Daily Mail supplies:

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.


And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made

So, no statistically significant warming since 1995, i.e., during the same period that we have been repeatedly told that Global Warming has been established as a fact.

Why did the BBC article not mention the "inconvenient truth" that the scientist it interviewed said that there was no statistically significant warming since 1995?

Perhaps, it has something to do with the fact that the BBC has its pension money invested in Global Warming:

STRIKING parallels between the BBC’s coverage of the global warming debate and the activities of its pension fund can be revealed today.


The corporation is under investigation after being inundated with complaints that its editorial coverage of climate change is biased in favour of those who say it is a man-made phenomenon.

The £8billion pension fund is likely to come under close scrutiny over its commitment to promote a low-carbon economy while struggling to reverse an estimated £2billion deficit.

Concerns are growing that BBC journalists and their bosses regard disputed scientific theory that climate change is caused by mankind as “mainstream” while huge sums of employees’ money is invested in companies whose success depends on the theory being widely accepted.

The fund, which has 58,744 members, accounts for about £8 of the £142.50 licence fee and the proportion looks likely to rise while programme budgets may have to be cut to help reduce the deficit.

The BBC is the only media organisation in Britain whose pension fund is a member of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, which has more than 50 members across Europe.

Its chairman is Peter Dunscombe, also the BBC’s Head of Pensions Investment.

Prominent among its recent campaigns was a call for a “strong and binding” global agreement on climate change – one that fell on deaf ears after the UN climate summit in Copenhagen failed to reach agreement on emissions targets and a cut in greenhouse gases.

Veteran journalist and former BBC newsreader Peter Sissons is unhappy with the corporation’s coverage.