Yes I am diminishing the case of global warming about the tree. The tree they kept records of 1200 years ago is not the cultivated one seen in many parks now. That tree is about a million years old. Article just says "Kyoto’s cherry trees", which would include the old and new ones. Importantly, the new cultivated ones bloom earlier.

This could be a case of trying to make a climate argument, when the underlying data is more nuanced. Maybe we should just say it's nice the trees are blooming earlier.

The trees are unambiguously blooming earlier because of climate change.