A month ago or so, I wrote about a lengthy paper published in an unscholarly forum that challenged any number of aspects of global warming.[1] [2] A few days later, I was informed that a rival, and equally unscholarly, forum challenged the assertions published in the first.[3] While I found the refutation to be a less cogent argument, it is certainly possible that others were persuaded to dismiss Mr. Monckton's claims.
Today's news should be less dismissable. Professor David Derning, an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma and adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, has testified before congress to some of the flaws in the public understanding of global warming.[4] Specifically, he affirms Mr. Monckton's claim that scientists are actively trying to deceive us about the "Medieval Warm Period," and about the media's complicity. He provides at least some evidence of significant bias, with the media unwilling to print a story related to the topic unless humans can be shown to be a cause.
The Medieval Warm Period, if it is allowed to have existed, would make the modern temperature rise significantly less unique. In doing so, it would substantially undermine the idea that this warming is necessarily caused by human activity. We would have to consider the possibility that the current warming is caused by the same or similar phenomena as that one.