Various types of pine beetles, spruce beetles, fir beetles, balsam beetles, etc.
Posted on 07/25/2022 11:53:01 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration on Monday announced plans to replant trees on millions of acres of burned and dead woodlands as officials struggle to counter the increasing toll on the nation’s forests from wildfires, insects and other manifestations of climate change.
The U.S. Agriculture Department said it will have to quadruple the number of tree seedlings produced by nurseries to get through the backlog and meet future needs. That comes after Congress last year passed bipartisan legislation directing the Forest Service to plant 1.2 billion trees over the next decade and after President Joe Biden in April ordered the agency to make the nation’s forests more resilient as the globe gets hotter.
The Forest Service this year is spending more than $100 million on reforestation work. Spending is expected to further increase in coming years, to as much as $260 million annually, under the sweeping federal infrastructure bill approved last year, agency officials said.
Congress in 1980 created a reforestation trust that had previously capped funding — which came from tariffs on timber products — at $30 million annually. That’s proven far too little as high intensity fires increase.
Insects, disease and timber harvests also contribute to the amount of land that needs reforestation work, but the vast majority comes from fires. In the past five years alone more than 5 million acres were severely burned.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Excellent summary. I have used the same reasoning in the past but had not included the beetle aspect. But that makes perfect sense.
Even the fires that start by accident, like the one outside of Redding, CA a few years ago, are allowed to get out of control by the US Forest Service.
Most forest fires start from lightning strikes. The one I outside of Redding was started by trailer safety chains dragging on the pavement and created a spark which ignited roadside brush. The difference is that IF that fire started on private forest land they would immediately dispatch crews to put the fire out. Instead, the Forest Service has a meeting. How did the fire start? By natural means or man made. By the time they figure out what to do, the fire has grown out of control.
When lightning starts a fire on private timber lands. The company that owns the land puts up a helicopter. Drops off firefighters ASAP to put the fire out before it gets out of control. The main reason is that company has a vested interest in the value of that timber. That timber is money, profit for the company/business. It effects their bottom line.
That is not the case with government.
How the hell does climate change kill off forests? There are forests in all sorts of climates ranging from the subarctic Taiga to tropical jungles.
The Department of Agriculture needs to be dismantled. This is just another abuse of hardworking American taxpayers. Federal land, national forests, and national parks should be given to the states. (Less a very small percentage reserved for military use.) We need to stop this cycle of sending our tax dollars to Washington DC only to enrich a bunch of moronic leftists that have ZERO idea of what they are doing.
They need to clean out the dead wood, apparently that is what is fueling these fires
There is a forest underneath the Sahara Desert sands......dead, of course..........
Why is he hell would climate change kill off forests?
Probably killed by the Pine Bark beetles that the enviros refused to allow the forest rangers to spray and kill them.
Clean up the underbrush.
Do some logging.
Add more trails
Scr** the damn owl and frog.
We know how to do this...it's just plain stupidity that stops it from being done.
Twenty years ago acid rain was going to kill all the forests. Pine beetles are currently the nemesis of western forests.
Not just in the west. All up and down the Appalachians too
Laying out in the sun on the side of a mountain in Mexico...looked up and saw a big bird circling. Finished my nap inside. Not so fond memory. LOL
Once the fire burns the bark off of the tree the timber gets infested with insects that burrow into the cellulose. These insects then lay eggs. That larvae eventually hatch and eat their way out in the case of the Mountain Pine Beetle.
The beetle also eats the cambium layer between they bark and the wood. This is the growing/live part of the tree that conducts the water from the roots to the leaves/needles. Destroy this part of the tree and the tree dies. If the preservationist can delay the timber sale long enough after the fire the value of the timber decreases. Even the chips from the burnt timber have to be segregated because paper mills can not take chips from burnt timber.
So, if they can delay harvest after the fire the timber eventually becomes worthless. Then no sawmills want to buy it. Then all that dead standing timber becomes even more susceptible to forest fires.
“as officials struggle to counter the increasing toll on the nation’s forests from wildfires, insects and other manifestations of climate change.”
So I guess the environmentalist are off the hook. You know. The ones keeping states from effectively managing forest lands by keeping them from clearing out dead brush and trees encouraging massive fire traps. Let’s not forget the politicians in those state who took donations from the environmentalist and abetted in those disasters.
Plants and trees evolved at a time when CO2 was 2 to 3 times its current level
Climate change quotes not often heard in media: Dec 1, 2014
Regarding the Nov. 28 column, “Religion and the coming environmental storms:” Here are a few quotes not often found in mainstream media from some experts on the global warming agenda.
— “The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” — Club of Rome, premier environmental think-tank, consultants to the United Nations.
— “We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” – Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports.
— “We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” – Timothy Wirth, president of the UN Foundation.
— “No matter if the science of global warming is all phony. … climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” – Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment
— “The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.” – Professor Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.
— “The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful.” – Dr David Frame, climate modeler, Oxford University.
— “It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” – Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace.
https://www.standard.net/opinion/letters/2014/dec/01/climate-change-quotes-not-often-heard-in-media/
El Condor Pasa...One of my favorite Paul Simon songs.
Yes, that bird? Oh, he was just passing through, stretching his wings and stuff. Their wingspan is about 6ft across.
My goodness. Climate change has nothing to do with dying forests. Governments, who are not good stewards of the land, are the ones who are killing trees. Private timberland owners know you have to cull the trees once you see some are infested with beetles. They know you have to do controlled burns to keep the forest floor free of fire fuel. Government mismanagement is the main cause of forest fires.
Various types of pine beetles, spruce beetles, fir beetles, balsam beetles, etc.
They could call it Arbor Day?
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