Brett is going to be off for a few days, so that means that I'll temporarily be hosting the blog. I've followed Brett's blog fairly closely (I think he does a great job), but I haven't seen everything that he's posted lately, so I apologize if I post something that he's recently talked about.

One thing that I find disturbing about the debate related to global warming (or climate change) is the unfortunate marriage of global warming and politics. In some sense, it's difficult to separate the two since political decisions are often made based on beliefs related to global warming, and the concept of a carbon tax (discussed recently) is one such example. In that case, a discussion of politics is directly related to a discussion of global warming.

The part that I find disturbing is the fact that the global warming debate often becomes a political football, with the sides being largely divided along party lines. Democrats are supposed to believe certain things about global warming, and Republicans are supposed to believe other things. The result is that people, then, often use the discussion of global warming as an excuse to espouse their political views.

This is intented to be a blog about the global warming debate, not of political debate. So as I moderate the comments, I will not post any comments that are only about politics, and it goes without saying that I, like Brett, will also not post any comments that include name calling or hateful rhetoric.

Let me know what you think--but watch how you say it!

--Paul Yeager

Update from Indianapolis: I want to thank Paul for helping me out this week. My wife just gave birth to our third child and second daughter out in Indianapolis, Indiana early Saturday morning, while I was still in Pennsylvania with the blizzard stuck in between in Ohio. The baby came a lot earlier than expected, which explains why she was in Indiana for the Big ten tourney. I finally arrived in Indiana later Saturday afternoon. Mother and daughter are doing well. We may be here for a while, so I have no idea when I will return to this blog. I also wrote a more detailed summary of how it all unfolded Friday evening and early Saturday in my Accuweather.com Canadian blog.Thanks for your understanding. Brett