Global warming and wine

I'm feeling ill. Very ill. Currently confined to bed, and there will be no wine tonight. It's frustrating being ill because it affects how clearly I think, and even though I have some time on my hands, I don't feel like making the most of it because of a lack of energy.

Started a poll on erobertparker.com about global warming and wine. It was prompted by frustration that previous threads on the topic had been nuked for being 'political'. In the poll I asked participants whether they thought that the evidence that wine regions have got warmer, and will continue to do so, is a suitable topic for discussion, or whether they considered it to be political and out of bounds. We had a nice discussion going, in which most participants accepted that the data on temperature trends weren't controversial, just the notion that the cause is human activity. [Having said this, I think the evidence that human greenhouse gas emissions are a contributory factor is about as clear as it could be.] The poll was running at 90:6 in favour of discussion when the thread got blasted away. Fair enough, it is his board. Mark sent me a note:

'To answer your question, global warming is not a legitimate topic for discussion on a wine board that bans politics. No one knows how it affects wine. From week to week you hear that the vineyards will be (a) colder or (b) warmer. Be that as it may, it is a very political discussion in any number of contexts. If you do not agree with that, that is most certainly your right. But it is my right to run the board...'

Discuss!