Climate Change Takes Toll on the Lodgepole Pine

Climate Change Takes Toll on the Lodgepole Pine

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/ ... ss&emc=rss



The lodgepole pine is just one of a number of North American tree species suffering from climate-related changes. In 2010, an estimated 100,000 spruce trees a day were toppled by a massive spruce beetle infestation in Colorado, according to a study of the state’s forests released earlier this month.

The 2010 outbreak covered nearly 210,000 acres of spruce forests in Colorado, nearly double the size of the affected area the previous year. The state also suffered the loss of hundreds of thousands of acres of lodgepole pine and aspen forests.

Attributing cyclical natural balances to climate change is quite a leap.

Agree with MB, change is a constant and doesn't have to be bad.

One of the people commenting on this piece wrote;

We are not "skeptics of climate change." Climate change is real and has been occurring since the dawn of time. We are skeptical of the proposition that human activity is causing climate change and humans can change the course of climate change.

Skepticism is the heart of science.

"If science ceases to become a rebellion against authority, then it does not deserve the talents of our brightest children." Freeman Dyson

Michael A. Lewis, Ph.D.
Santa cruz, California
February 28th, 2011


As someone who has hunted in those areas, you would not believe the grasses that are growing where before there was nothing but darkness and with very little vegetation under the canopy.

I remember this very same phenomenon being reported in the early 60s on one of the three national TV broadcasters. The national evening news showed the dead trees in the forest of Colorado that were killed by the beetles. I was a kid at the time and it looked just like the beetle killed trees currently near Breckenridge and Cisco.

The beetles come and the beetles go.

Every once in a while in the south the fields will be covered with field rats and field mice. But, not to fear, the number of coyotes increases as it provides more food and the balance is restored. At other times it will be grasshoppers (locust) or maybe june bugs. These cycles come and go.

Climate change/Global warming all a bunch of BS!