Posted on 08/04/2023 6:13:15 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
CLAUSTHAL-ZELLERFELD, Germany (AP) — Nestled in the spruce trees in the Harz mountains of northern Germany is a bark-eating pest not much bigger than a sesame seed.
Known as “book printers” for the lines they eat into the bark that fan out from a single spine resembling words on a page, these eight-toothed beetles have always been part of the local forest. Officials expect the bugs to typically kill a few spruces each summer as they find suitable trees to lay their eggs.
But the tiny insects have been causing outsized devastation to the forests in recent years, with officials grappling to get the pests under control before the spruce population is entirely decimated. Two-thirds of the spruce in the region have already been destroyed, said Alexander Ahrenhold from the Lower Saxony state forestry office, and as human-caused climate change makes the region drier and the trees more favorable homes for the beetles’ larvae, forest conservationists are preparing for the worst.
As the planet warms, longer droughts are becoming more common around the world, with hotter temperatures also drying up moisture in soil and plants.
Experts say there’s no easy solution, but forest managers work to remove trees that might be susceptible to beetles as early as possible and use pesticides where they’re needed.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Find something bad, then try to associate it with “climate change”.
- OR -
Find something good, and then try to contend it’s threatened by “climate change”.
Every time.
Has “Climate Change” EVER had a positive story spin?
Seriously.
Compulsive Climate Change Liars ,LOL
Climate change cured my athlete’s foot but gave me genital warts.
It’s all about controlling you and stealing your money by governments to redistribute. Yet this concept is too hard for half the the world’s population to understand.
The US has had problems with pine bark beetles for years because the anti-pesticide people demand they NOT be sprayed.
Herr Goebbels is right at home in Deutchland ...
I just read a report where it is estimated that over 40 million trees were killed in Mich. alone.
It's always something.
I see. You had an affair with your podiatrist, and she turned out to be a 'ho.
"Climate Change" is an odd name, but really no weirder than Kennesaw Mountain Landis or Ima Hogg.
Source: https://www.nationalpark-harz.de/en/start/
No messages about "don't come. The devastation is so vast! Don't come!"
Ass-ociated Press actually writes deep into the article: "...other factors, like storms and drought, and other species, such as game and mice that can also hamper plant growth, are potentially more damaging to the forest in the long run than the bark beetle."
So, wiggle words and the like....
The reality is, no one sprayed them with pesticides for millennia. The reason it's so bad is the piss poor management philosophy of fighting every fire instead of letting the smaller ones burn and thin the weaker trees so the entire forest isn't weakened by the fight for water, and thus made more susceptible to bugs and disease.
Or ‘climageddonists’.
“… But the tiny insects have been causing outsized devastation to the forests in recent years, with officials grappling to get the pests under control before the spruce population is entirely decimated.…”
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Hey! This can’t be true. Everybody knows that ACID RAIN KILLED ALL OF GERMANY’S FORESTS YEARS AGO. /sarc
My forester friends (actual experts in the area of forests, especially infestations) all say the same thing: that our western forests are way too dense. That because of fire policy the trees are much to densely packed together.
Such a situation encourages the expansion of bore beetles and other nasty little anti-tree creatures who go easily from one tree to another without ever getting their little feet dirty. The dense forests with many dead trees standing in their midst are essentially kindling waiting for a spark. (Colorado’s Monarch Pass is Example A of a thirty square mile area of dead pines that will explode in flames in the near future. There will be no stopping it.)
Could that “something” be the banning of pesticides that actually work?
It’s a shame this is happening. My ancestors came from Germany to America (New York, then escaped to Wisconsin) in the 1800’s. I’ve been to Germany and visited The Black Forest while there. I can see why my family settled in Wisconsin - if you need to FEEL like you’re in Germany, come here. The landscape is very similar, thought their forests are much older than ours and the trees MUCH bigger.
We have various Spruce all around our house yard as a windbreak to the west and north - nothing prettier; those trees are GORGEOUS, Darling!
Wisconsin also lost all of her Ash trees to the Emerald Ash Borer - but it was before the Globalist Pukes figured out that they could blame it on their Global Warming Ponzi Scheme. *SNORT*
That said, that beetle has nothing to do with global warming.
P.S. Eat more bugs! Send ALL your money to Mother Government so she can SAVE YOU from milder temperatures!
*SMIRK*
The AP is behind in its current climate narrative. It is now “climate boiling” and climate change has been retired for the new and improved slogan.
The Mountain Pine beetle infestation started in British Columbia. These beetles used to die off in the winter. The lower temperatures would kill them. In the 1990s western Canada had a string of warmer than normal winters. This resulted in the Mountain Pine beetle infesting millions of acres of Lodgepole Pine in BC and to some extent western Alberta. The worst area was around Quesnel, BC down to Williams Lake down to 100 Miles house. This is the central southern BC area south of Prince George down to Kamloops.
Millions of Lodgepole Pines(the main commercial timber species died).
The BC government(which owns the timber) made an aggressive plan to harvest this timber as soon as possible. The dead timber would not yield as much higher grade lumber as green timber would. So the mills were forced to take this timber. They virtually GAVE it to them for free. Even though there were devasating wild fires in BC in the next ten years.
So, for the next 15 years the BC & AB sawmills cut a high percentage of this dead timber. The result was eventually especially now in this central BC area there is not enough timber to sustain the existing mills. Therefore, they are now closing some locations. Sinclar just announced this week they will be reducing their Nechako, BC sawmill from two shifts to one permanantly starting in October.
Meanwhile, across the border in the USA the Mountain Pine Beetle eventually spread to PINE TREES in WA, ID, MT, OR, UT and CO. Killing off both Lodgepole Pine even the most valuble species of Ponderosa Pine. Pondy Pine is used primarily in millwork applications (doors & windows) etc.
The dead pine timber gets what is known as BLUE STAIN which is a fungus that changes the color. It does not affect the strength of the wood. It is not rot. It just changes the color. However, it lowers the grade of recovery($ return) for the sawmill. Anderson/Marvin windows do no buy Pine that has stain in it.
The only positive that has come out of the Blue Stained Pine is that there is now a demand for a Cabin Grade Blue Stained board in several markets. Especially CO. This is where you take a 1x6 board and put a V groove edge tongue and groove pattern on it. It is very popular in rustic cabin applications.
SO, IMHO as a 38 year Lumber Trader/broker the Mountain Pine Beetle infestation was caused by the warmer winters we had for a twenty year period. Now, maybe they would have controlled them by spraying with insecticide IF they could. However, US timber companies would have done whatever they could to keep millions of dollars in standing timber to be infected. Weyerhaeuser, Potlatch, Yakama Forest, Simpson Timber and Sierra Pacific would not let millions of acres of standing timber die off and turn to crap if they could do anything about it.
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