'Rapid Warming' Spreads Havoc in Canada's Forests

[sasha031]

Tiny Beetles Destroying Pines
QUESNEL, B.C. -- Millions of acres of Canada's lush green forests are turning red in spasms of death. A voracious beetle, whose population has exploded with the warming climate, is killing more trees than wildfires or logging.The mountain pine beetle has infested an area three times the size of Maryland, devastating swaths of lodgepole pines and reshaping the future of the forest and the communities in it.

"It's pretty gut-wrenching," said Allan Carroll, a research scientist at the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, whose studies tracked a lock step between warmer winters and the spread of the beetle. "People say climate change is something for our kids to worry about. No. It's now."Scientists fear the beetle will cross the Rocky Mountains and sweep across the northern continent into areas where it used to be killed by severe cold but where winters now are comparatively mild. Officials in neighboring Alberta are setting fires and traps and felling thousands of trees in an attempt to keep the beetle at bay.
This is an all-out battle," said David Coutts, Alberta's minister of sustainable resource development. The Canadian Forest Service calls it the largest known insect infestation in North American history.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR2006022801772.html

[cspanlovr]

1. Good Lord

Its the Helstrom Chronicle!

[JuniperLea]

2. Same thing happened in the Lake Arrowhead area in So Cal

And once the trees were all dried and dead... and the residents exhausted their attempts to get CA to cut down the infested trees, wildfire came through and burned the hell out of the area. I'm afraid this is what is next for Canada.

Oh, wait... this is Canada we're talking about. There is hope... they will probably get those trees removed in a timely manner.

[sasha031]

3. what makes me cry, is this beautiful planet is dying

all of this could of been avoided, if it wasn't for blind cruel greed...:(

[JuniperLea]

4. You are too right

I'm sad to say... I'm so grateful for the days I spent camping, road tripping, exploring and other types of traveling with my kids. They are adults now and have fond memories of Mother Earth before she lost her glory.


So very, very sad that this is all because of the greed of so few.

[SongOfTheRayne]

5. It's not "dying", it's being killed.

And the people who are killing it have names and adresses.

[Delphinus]

6. Agreed.

And, in spite of my best efforts at leaving a small footprint upon this Earth, I still have not done enough.

[NMDemDist2]

7. the drought in Arizona too and this was before our 130+ days of no rain

Pine Bark Beetle Outbreak in Arizona
Written by: Tom DeGomez, Forest Health Specialist, with the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension Forest Health Working Group and the Arizona Bark Beetle Task Force which includes professionals from University of Arizona , Northern Arizona University, United States Forest Service, & Arizona Public Service

Arizona’s ponderosa pine and piñon forests have sustained significant impacts from the bark beetle outbreak of 2002. Conservative estimates, based upon U. S. Forest Service aerial surveys of federal lands, place the number of dead ponderosa pine statewide at 2 million on 503,000 acres. This estimate is admittedly low because the surveys were done between late July and October and many additional trees were detected during fall. One area was re-flown in October and levels of mortality increased more than 300% over the earlier estimates.

The most heavily impacted forests of the state are the Tonto, Apache-Sitgreaves, and Prescott National Forests, and the San Carlos Apache Reservation and adjacent state and private lands. Some stands in these forests have 80 to 90% tree mortality, other stands have less that one percent mortality. Mortality in piñon pine woodlands are equally high. A late season survey of 28 square miles of piñon woodland southeast of Flagstaff revealed 700,000 dead trees or more than 90% of the mature piñon trees in the area.

http://www.gffp.org/bb_outbreak.htm

[phantom power]

8. Have you noticed browning pine trees in the valley?

Quite a few of the pines in my neighborhood are either partially or almost completely brown.