Beetles, Climate Impact W. Canada Forests - "Biggest Landscape-Level Change Since Ice Age"

[hatrack]

VANCOUVER, Jul 31 (IPS/IFEJ) - Environmentalists and researchers say that climate change is a significant factor in the pine beetle epidemic that has ravaged forests in the western Canadian provinces of British Columbia (BC) and Alberta. In some areas of the BC interior, almost 80 percent of the lodgepole pines will have been devastated by the beetles within 10 years, resulting in widespread economic consequences, according to resource experts.

"The pine beetle infestation is the first major climate change crisis in Canada," Doug McArthur, a professor of public policy at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, told IPS. "The pine beetle has survived the warmer winters due to global warming. The result is the rapid cut of forests to salvage the wood, which could, within seven or eight years, result in some communities being without a forestry industry which has sustained many regions for decades. The potential economic impact of this climate change issue is massive," he said. A temperature of -40 degrees Celsius for a few days is needed in the winters to kill off the beetle adequately.

Ben Parfitt, a resource policy analyst with the BC chapter of the non-profit Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, told IPS, "To contextualise the magnitude of the devastation, it is probably the biggest landscape-level change since the ice age."

"There are forestry disease issues across the continent right now," he said. "The pine beetle has hit lodgepole pine, but it could spread across the continent to boreal forests as well. This could very well be only the beginning of the implications of climate change for forests in North America and other parts of the world."

EDIT

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38735

[JDPriestly]

1. Will the beetle infestation be followed by devastating forest fires?

In California, we have seen that forests destroyed by pests are susceptible to fires. So goes life as we know it on earth.

[kestrel91316]

3. Er.....YES.

[kestrel91316]

2. Wow. Somebody finally woke up and smelled the coffee.

".......Environmentalists and researchers say that climate change is a significant factor in the pine beetle epidemic.........."

I've been saying this for years. Everybody in the media has been making like it's some big unknown with an undetermined cause.......

Reminds me of the ocean dead zones.........we pretend like humans have nothing to do with them........

[hatrack]

4. If the headline had read "Biggest Lindscape-Lohan-Level Change Since Ice Age" . . .

I'm sure this story would be getting far more attention the press!

:eyes:

[Dead_Parrot]

5. Maybe Paris Hilton could get a job at the IPCC?

After all, someone's got to change the toilet rolls. She could make a TV show out of it.