Sunday, May 23, 2010
Alaskan Highway
We made it to the Alaskan Highway. It originally begins in British Columbia. Unfortunately I lost the wire to get pictures from my camera to my computer and we're in bed now so I have to wait to look for it. BC is unbelievably gorgeous. It looks the way I think Wisconsin looked before we trashed it with logging, only there are mountains that are so beautiful they take your breath away. And the irony is that although Canada has managed to keep millions of acres of pristine land in its original state, the way it looked when we were kids, with those huge towering fir trees clinging tenaciously to the steep mountain sides, thick and lush forests of them, mother nature is now clearing them out. Fires? Nope, not this time. Its those little pine bark beetles. They get under the bark and chew tunnels until the tree starves to death. There are immense ranges of orange fir trees. The loggers are cutting roads as fast as they can in an effort to harvest the wood before it is mush. They have 5 years... no way! You can't imagine the wood we're talking about here. We drive past enormous piles of logs all stacked up, waiting. The housing market is down and there is no market for the lumber. Can you imagine? What a waste! Please sign my petition to stop the senseless slaughter of innocent ancient forests by mother nature! After all the insecticides we've dumped on the earth, isn't it ironic?
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Looks like that bad old mother nature got an assist from those fun-lovin' homo sapiens!
ReplyDeleteFrom Wikipedia:
Climate change has contributed to the size and severity of the outbreak , and the outbreak itself may, with similar infestations, have significant effects on the capability of northern forests to remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Huge parts of central British Columbia along with parts of the forests of Alberta have been hit badly. The recently mild winters have British Columbia's forestry officials worried because the beetles will have a devastating impact on an ecosystem which may be ill-equipped naturally to deal with it.
OK, so maybe Wikipedia isn't the most reliable resource (though, for the most part, I think it is...). How about this from the USDA Forest Service Climate Change Resource Center:
ReplyDeleteSince 1990, native bark beetles have killed millions of trees across millions of hectares of forest from Alaska to southern California. Although bark beetle infestations are a regular force of natural change in forested ecosystems, several of the current outbreaks, occurring simultaneously across western North America, are the largest and most severe in recorded history.
Bark beetle outbreak dynamics are complex, and a variety of circumstances must coincide and thresholds must be surpassed for an outbreak to occur on a large scale. Moreover, large areas of suitable hosts are an essential requirement for a widescale outbreak. Although outbreak dynamics differ from species to species and from forest to forest, climate change is one factor that appears to be driving at least some of the current bark beetle outbreaks. Temperature influences everything in a bark beetle’s life, from the number of eggs laid by a single female beetle, to the beetles’ ability to disperse to new host trees, to individuals’ over-winter survival and developmental timing. Elevated temperatures associated with climate change, particularly when there are consecutive warm years, can speed up reproductive cycles and reduce cold-induced mortality.
Shifts in precipitation patterns and associated drought can also influence bark beetle outbreak dynamics by weakening trees and making them more susceptible to bark beetle attacks.
Emphasis mine
OK, off the beetles! I've been in BC, as far west as Banff, and I know what you're talking about when it comes to awesome beauty. I hiked through mountain trails between Calgary and Banff and it was amazing. (Not to mention incredibly stupid as I was alone, unarmed, and probably looked tasty to bears...) It must be an intensely sad sight to see entire tracts of pines going brown.
ReplyDeleteYes, we've heard as much from the locals, Joe. They tell us that normally the winters kill off a lot more of the little buggers but now with milder winters (like it's only -75 these days) a lot more of them survive the winter and it all adds up. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, we're all on a very small ship that is overloaded and is in dangerous waters. What we need now are people who can remain lucid and calm - sane and conscious, in these changing times. He tells us that even one person who remains calm can save an entire boat from going under. Don't get sucked under in the rising panic but when and where there is something you can do, for heavens sake DO IT!!!!
ReplyDelete