With people assessing Mother Nature on Earth Day, here’s something to ponder …

Is Wine Country the canary in the coal mine when it comes to global warming?

There seem to be two camps, one that spots actual proof while the other doesn’t see a trace. What camp are you in? Remember, you’re only a click away from having your unmitigated say.

Vintner Paul Dolan, who wrote “True to Our Roots,” is in the first camp. He says: “As a key California agricultural industry we are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of global warming. Winemakers are experiencing impacts that are changing the face of wine style, structure and composition … I personally can remember as a young winemaker thirty years ago struggling to reach maturity in my grapes of 23.5 to 24 degrees Brix. Now I have a simiar challenge to keep the sugars below 28 to 29 degree Brix each year while waiting for the tannins to ripen … The greatest challenge we face in the world today is global warming. All of us, individuals and businessess, must do all we can to meet this challenge.”

Meanwhile, Bob Cabral, winemaker of Healdsburg’s Williams Seylem, says: “The mind sees what it wants to see. I’ll argue that … I don’t see enough of a general pattern to say that global warming has happened. When you look at history, how do you know that this isn’t a natural cycle of the Earth heating and cooling over the millions of years. This isn’t the first time the Earth has gone through a heat cycle … Our total life on Earth is 80 to 90 years, a fraction of a second when you consider the total life of Earth … I think the liberal media is panicking people.

Earth Day was created to be an environmetal teach-in in the 1970s. So consider this a teach-in on global warming – with plenty of airtime for all points of view. So what do you think? Is Wine Country the canary in the coal mine when it comes to global warming?