THE scientist at the centre of the
“climategate” email scandal has revealed that he
was so traumatised by the global backlash against him that he
contemplated suicide.
Professor Phil Jones said in an exclusive interview with The Sunday
Times that he had thought about killing himself “several
times”. He acknowledged similarities to Dr David Kelly, the
scientist who committed suicide after being exposed as the source for a
BBC report that alleged the government had “sexed
up” evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq.
In emails that were hacked into and seized upon by global-warming
sceptics before the Copenhagen climate summit in December, Jones
appeared to call upon his colleagues to destroy scientific data rather
than release it to people intent on discrediting their work monitoring
climate change.
Jones, 57, said he was unprepared for the scandal: “I am just
a scientist. I have no training in PR or dealing with crises.”
The incident has taken a severe toll on his health. He
has lost more than a stone in weight and disclosed he is on
beta-blockers and using sleeping pills. He said the support of his
family, and especially the love of his five-year-old granddaughter, had
helped him to shake off suicidal thoughts: “I wanted to see
her grow up.”
He remains at risk, still receiving death threats from around the world
including two in the past week: “I was shocked. People said I
should go and kill myself. They said that they knew where I lived. They
were coming from all over the world.”
Jones has temporarily stood down as director of the climatic research
unit at the University of East Anglia. He fiercely defends the
unit’s science — “I stand by it
100%” — but now accepts that he did not treat
Freedom of Information (FoI) requests for the data as seriously as he
should have done. Jones believes that the unit was maliciously targeted
with multiple FoI requests by climate change sceptics determined to
disrupt its work.
Last week Graham Smith, the deputy information commissioner, ruled that
by failing to release requested data Jones and his colleagues breached
FoI regulations. The affair is now the subject of a review led by Sir
Muir Russell, former vice-chancellor of Glasgow University.
|