11 ms·

The High Sierra forest is dying, and you can't count the loss in dead trees

139 points by Mz 10y ago

fred_is_fred 10y ago
California should consider itself lucky if the pine beetle has just hit in 2015 and not really that bad from the pictures. Probably 50% of the trees in Colorado are dead, 90% in some places.
- RangerScience 10y ago
  There's no mention of the pine beetle in the article. He heavily implicates drought and climate change.
  - honkhonkpants 10y ago
    Drought makes the trees easier for the beetles to attack, and climate change keeps the beetles alive through the winter.
  - camiller 10y ago
    I would think, although possibly wrongly, that if this was drought induced the die off would be more uniform. The pictures look similar to what I saw in Wyoming a decade ago due to pine beetles. Both are likely related, reduced water makes the trees more susceptible to the ravages of the pests?
    - amluto 10y ago
      Reduced water does indeed make pine trees more susceptible to beetles. Pines defend themselves by producing pitch to trap and expel the beetles, and that works better when the trees have enough water.
    - ktsmith 10y ago
      I spent half my childhood in South Lake Tahoe and have lived in the region most of my life. During the 80's and 90's, much of which was a period of drought for the region, beetles were a problem and being actively mitigated by the forestry service. You can go through the national forest all through the sierras and see trees that have been tagged for removal due to beetles. The problem is very severe right now and certainly the worst I can remember. I've got a couple of friends that work for the us forestry service and they say it's so bad they can't keep up with it. Other sources point out that beetle infestation is part of the problem. Local news site for Tahoe specifically: http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/california-tahoe-area-tree-deaths-climb-to-record-levels-thanks-to-bugs-drought/ http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/california-tahoe-area-... SF Chronicle on the beetle problem and commenting on the excess wood: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-has-66-million-dead-trees-and-nowhere-8337745.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-has-66...
  - Mz 10y ago
    But climate change and its horsemen — rising temperatures, drought and bark beetle — are accelerating this pace. Maybe it is a different kind of beetle, but the article does mention beetles.
  - aftbit 10y ago
    >But climate change and its horsemen — rising temperatures, drought and bark beetle — are accelerating this pace.
  - blackguardx 10y ago
    The pine beetle is native to Colorado. Its population is normally tempered by cold winters. With increasingly warmer winters brought on by global climate change, the pine beetle is left unchecked. It seems like a similar process is playing out in California due to the native bark beetle. Colorado seems to be doing better these days. I think the pine beetle mitigation efforts are showing some progress and I would assume that the trees left standing are maybe naturally more resistant.
- adriand 10y ago
  > California should consider itself lucky I don't think any place experiencing the destruction of its landscape, the erosion of its environment, and the tragic loss of so many unique, beautiful and valuable places, should count itself lucky simply because it's not as bad as somewhere else.
- mathattack 10y ago
  Do the trees get replaced? Or come back? I would think this is catastrophic from a global warming point of view.
  - DubiousPusher 10y ago
    It's hard to say what will happen here. If the drought subsides, which statistically speaking it should as California's climate trend should "regress to the mean," the ecosystem should recover to some extent. Unless the tree population/ecosystem has been so grossly devastated that the tree it is past returning to a self sustaining point. The current drought in California isn't widely considered to be caused by global warming though there does seem to be some notion that it has been worsened by it. It's too sharp a climate swing to fall along the global warming trend line. The scary thing isn't that this is global warming but that this is just an image of what rapid climate change could do on a much vaster scale if not kept in check somehow.
  - nsxwolf 10y ago
    In the scale of a human lifetime this is a tragedy. We see the forests when we are children and we expect to be able to return to them again and again and that the same will be true for our descendants. But go a little farther out, and every asteroid impact above a certain size incinerated every last tree on earth, instantly. Giant ice sheets scraped them off en masse like barnacles. In every case, trees came back. Maybe not the same trees, but trees suited for their new environment. It will be the same for beetles or climate change or whatever comes next.
    - mathattack 10y ago
      My time horizon is "Do we have enough trees sucking carbon out of the air before we cross the point of no return?" and "Can we plant enough trees before we lose all the coastal property?"
      - nsxwolf 10y ago
        We may lose current coastal property - but it will be replaced with all new coastal property. At a terrible cost, yes.
- aftbit 10y ago
  I visited Rocky Mountain National Park in early September, and it was awful what fraction of the trees appeared to have died off. There were some absolutely gorgeous scenes that must have been truly stunning when they were green. I'm sad I missed seeing them before the pine beetle. My home town of Cincinnati has been suffering from the emerald ash borer. Forests that I played in as a kid are now just empty fields.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  California, even less than Colorado, cannot afford the destruction of what non-desert habitat it has.
- korethr 10y ago
  Indeed the pine beetle did quite a bit of damage. Some time ago I was working up in the mountains regularly, and from the US-40/I-70 junction and on up the US-40 corridor, the damage was apparent and got progressively worse the deeper one went into the mountains along US-40. Once past Berthoud Pass, the forest was the opposite of how a healthy one should look: dead brown as far as the eye could see with the occasional patch of living green. I've not been up there in a while, so I don't know how things have progressed -- if they've gotten worse, better, or just shifted about. Sadly, what needs to happen in these areas of pine beetle infestation is what will never be permitted to happen: the forest needs to burn. A large forest fire would kill the beetles and their eggs/larvae, clear out the dead trees to make space for new growth, and fertilize the soil, making it possible for the forest to recover. But with how much beetle-kill there is up there, I don't think a controlled burn would be permitted. It would likely escape containment; there'd be too much risk to persons and property. But the longer such a burn is deferred, IMO, the harder it will be to prevent one, and the more severe it will be. I don't know of a good solution here. Cutting down all the dead trees for lumber might help, but I don't think it can defer a need for a burn forever, nor do I think it will help the forest recover as well as a burn would. I would be happy to be wrong in this regard.
  - fred_is_fred 10y ago
    You are wrong in some respects. Where the fire does not affect structures it is allowed to burn. See the Beaver Creek Fire.
- Snow_Flame 10y ago
  Southern New Jersey has the same beetle problem: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/science/earth/in-new-jersey-pines-trouble-arrives-on-six-legs.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/science/earth/in-new-jerse... Alas for the cold nights that would kill 'em all in winter.
  - ktRolster 10y ago
    The high sierras have cold nights in the winter.
- ktRolster 10y ago
  You can see Yosemite Valley this summer: http://i.imgur.com/FSmwv6g.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FSmwv6g.jpg It looks quite beautiful, with the fall foliage, leaves changing color.....then you realize those are evergreens and are changing color because they are dead.
- soared 10y ago
  ...You've completely overstated the beetle problem. It seemed as though it would have massive impact a few years ago, but it didn't. Very specific locations saw a lot of damage, but the overall impact is negligible. http://csfs.colostate.edu/forest-management/common-forest-insects-diseases/mountain-pine-beetle/ http://csfs.colostate.edu/forest-management/common-forest-in...
M_Grey 10y ago
If only people got the message a few decades ago, we'd have a modicum of hope. It's too late now.
- zo1 10y ago
  The big environmental movement started in the 70's. I remember as a very young kind in the 90's that it was drilled into our innocent minds at school. People have been worrying about resources and the environment for a very long time before that, as well.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    It's been a building problem with a clear trajectory for a long time, but typically people are only getting the message long after there's something meaningful they could have done.
  - mooneater 10y ago
    worrying about != building political will for the significant changes needed
  - ashark 10y ago
    I remember in the late 80s/early 90s it seemed like all the environmental stuff was about the ozone hole and acid rain. By the late 90s it seemed to be all about preserving the rainforest to the exclusion of almost anything else—incidentally, did we... win that one? Or hopelessly lose it so everyone gave up? It seems like the chatter there has dropped to almost nothing, though for a while it was the environmental issue. Global warming per se didn't get center stage until later. I don't remember hearing much about it back in the days of soda-by-the-pitcher and Made in America signs on racks at Wal-Mart (gave up on that one pretty fast, haha).
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      The ozone hole is closing, so that's a win, but also a bit of shuffling deck chairs.
    - 10y ago
neilsharma 10y ago
This is sad. I could see this causing a lot more problem than all the fires we're getting in CA. This is a slight tangent, but are there jobs for people in tech to help fight this (or drought, logging, etc)? Wouldn't mind spending a few years trying to protect the environment, but want to put the engineering skills to use.
- illegalsmile 10y ago
  Environmental engineering is a field that would be utilized for this sort of issue as one facet of a multidisciplinary remedy or study. I do a lot of environmental work but haven't heard much about the tech industry but there is a lot of technology involved with remote sensing, UAS, instrumentation and data analysis. I would love to hear about modern environmental tech firms working on solutions to these types of problems.
  - mooneater 10y ago
    Unfortunately a lot of private sector "Environmental engineering" jobs are about getting projects through/around the regulations.
- mabramo 10y ago
  I see that the USDA has some software related to conservation up for download [1]. Anything from water budgeting on farms to Animal Waste Management. I did not download or test any of this software, just found it after a quick search. Then there's this organization that ran out of funding, but contacting one of the former team members may help you. [2] There is development of software that doesn't directly affect the environment but rather helps dictate what work should be done to improve/conserve conditions. This book seems to address this topic. [3] Here are some other random related things. [4] [5] Unfortunately, it seems like software engineers are mostly used to develop management software. Modeling software is closer to the type of action I suspect you are interested in. It is needed, though I doubt the software engineers are helping analyze data and building solutions based on that research. I could be very wrong. EDIT: I should clarify. A SE COULD analyze the data, but in the context of a paid full-time position I doubt your employer would want you to spend your time doing that. If you find any information regarding "environmental [activism/conservation] with software", or something like that, please let us know. DISCLAIMER: I don't know what I'm doing ;) [1] http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/ndcsmc/?cid=stelprdb1042198 http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/ndc... [2] http://se4s.ics.uci.edu/ http://se4s.ics.uci.edu/ [3] http://www.journals.elsevier.com/environmental-modelling-and-software http://www.journals.elsevier.com/environmental-modelling-and... [4] http://www.conservation.org/NewsRoom/pressreleases/Pages/software_indentifies_key_areas.aspx http://www.conservation.org/NewsRoom/pressreleases/Pages/sof... [5] http://www.capterra.com/environmental-software/ http://www.capterra.com/environmental-software/
Analemma_ 10y ago
I mean, I get that this is a serious problem, but before we get too hasty about doing anything about it, imagine all the shareholder value that could be lost by hasty actions, or all the economic liberty that could be destroyed by environmental regulation. They're the real victims here.
- Oletros 10y ago
  I think people has missed the sarcasm, because it is sarcasm, isn't?
  - arca_vorago 10y ago
    The brilliance of that comment is that around here I wouldnt be surprised if it wasn't!
thaumaturgy 10y ago
I live in the foothills of the sierra, and I've been a search and rescue volunteer for a while now, so I'm in some part of the Tahoe national forest about once a week on average. The damage, when you see it up close, is stunning. You'll be driving along a highway and see miles, and miles, and miles of dead trees standing there, waiting to burn. It's catastrophic, and that's not a word I use lightly. The prediction for this year is a mostly dry and cold Winter. If that happens, I expect next Summer to be one of the worst fire seasons in state history. There's so much dry material out there now in areas that require tremendous resources to combat. If/when superfire season happens, there's a good chance it'll overwhelm state resources and there's going to be a lot of damage that will take decades to recover. I was in Kings Canyon for a state SAR conference not too long ago and the fire scars from a few years ago still look fresh. Most of the stretch of highway 20 through Clear Lake is just black and brown. That's gonna be a look that's hard to get away from pretty soon, and I doubt we fully grasp the impact of that yet.
- npsimons 10y ago
  I too spend a lot of time in the Sierras, though more of the Southern end. I would concur with your conclusions. While I'm not the most cognizant of foliage, I can say that the watershed has dropped noticeably over the years. People might say "who cares? you only need water for overnight trips.", but that's not only wrong, but missing the big picture. The Sierras have been getting less snow, and LA is literally sucking them dry with the aqueduct, refusing to even consider solutions such as desal plants. Public transportation to reduce AGW is also a no-brainer that no one seems to want. Damage has already been done, but there are actions that could be taken to improve the situation. No one seems to care, though.
  - paulmd 10y ago
    The reality is that it's too late at this point. The easy fixes might have worked if we could get worldwide buy-in 20 years ago but short of a planetary-scale engineering project or outright banning fossil fuel usage we're in for some bad times even before we factor in economic growth from India, China, and Africa. Levelling off is no longer good enough, it's too late for that, we need a massive decrease in global carbon emissions. And beyond that we need to start thinking about levelling out energy consumption entirely, even independent of CO2 emissions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc1vrO6iL0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc1vrO6iL0U Classic Newsroom clip but fact-checked as accurate, minus the hyperbole at the end about permanent darkness. We're already seeing majorly shifting weather patterns, movement of the jet stream, droughts, unprecedented wildfires, etc. We're already starting to see the first major cities lost due to rising sea levels - Miami is already sinking beneath the seas and it's only a matter of time before it exceeds the limits of engineering to fix it. It's built on porous limestone and borders directly on hundreds of square miles of swamp, so it's something of a worst-case scenario. You can't pump out water when it just comes right back in through the limestone, and even if you could we would be talking about hundreds of times as much wall as the Netherlands uses. Every single building in Miami will need to be elevated Chicago/Seattle style or abandoned within the next decade or two. Otherwise people are going to start leaving rather quickly once the sewers start backflowing on a regular basis. All of modern society is built on the shoulders of sanitation infrastructure and it's going to get nasty once it stops working. http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/11/climate-desk-fact-checks-aaron-sorkins-climate-science-newsroom http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/11/climate-desk-... https://newrepublic.com/article/123216/miami-sinking-beneath-sea-not-without-fight https://newrepublic.com/article/123216/miami-sinking-beneath... I wish I had something positive to say like "maybe this will finally get us to proactively solve our problems instead of assuming they can always be fixed at some future date" but I don't actually believe that will happen. We are unwilling to systematically factor in future risks into present costs. Heck, even we as a community don't do it properly - how many times are we going to get hacked before we learn to lock things down from day 1? Sorry to be pessimistic but that's the reality at this point. Objections to this are political slant and wishful thinking. The US military's job is to be apolitical and make realistic assessments about future threats to our nation, and they're planning for increased levels of conflict due to climate change in the 21st century. It's happening and it's going to suck pretty bad. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-idUSKCN11K0BC http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-idUSKCN1... http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/10/u-s-intel-alert-climate-change-aids-terrorists-destabilizes-entire-world-stresses-military/ http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/10/u-s-intel-alert-cl...
beloch 10y ago
In Canada, pine beetles have been spreading further and further North in recent years. Warm winters help beetles spread, but keeping old forests untouched by fire many decades past what is typical in the area has also played a big part. Forest fires control pine beetles. In this area, forests do not live for thousands of years. Fire is a natural part of the life cycle, but we've kept unprecedented amounts of forest "safe" from fire in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Pine beetles are forcing their way into very touristy areas, and pretty soon people will have to accept having their view spoiled, either by pine beetles or by fire. Nature is often ugly. We need to perform more controlled burns, both to restrict the spread of pine beetles and reduce the risk of mega-fires. People need to accept forest fires as a natural part of forest ecology rather than seeing them solely as natural disasters. By clinging to our pretty, green views of what we think forests should be, we are actually harming our forests.
pvaldes 10y ago
The planet has suffered climate changes before and there is a common trend in this cases. The forest will move. Entire forests migrated to the north or south to return again after some thousands of years. After the ice covering Europe melted, hazelnuts and poplars regain quickly its territory and arrive first. Oaks came later slowly migrating toward the north from its mediterranean refuges. Finally we have the beechs still trying to extend its distribution towards the south and living in the cold north side of the mountains whereas oaks live in the sunny side. If pines finally give up, a new forest based in different trees (more adapted to dry places) will slowly take over. Maybe oaks. It is worth to mention, that if this species need shadow in its first years, could need the dead pines in place for a while. The new forest will be shorter also. Trees are living creatures that spend a lot of energy to assure that thousands of Kg of matherials will climb up inside the trunk each day. When water gets scarce, there is a point when the roots have problems to win against the electrostatic and gravitational forces that keep the water in the soil. By the laws of physics, greater the distance, bigger the work that you need to do against the gravity to move a given weight. Therefore, taller species of trees are less efficient using water and will be gradually excluded from the drying area.
- jmcqk6 10y ago
  >The planet has suffered climate changes before and there is a common trend in this cases. The forest will move. I think what you miss when making this argument is not that there will be a forest somewhere else in the future, but that there will be consequences from it not being where it currently is.
- rojobuffalo 10y ago
  The timescale of change is important to remember. Yes, forests have migrated in the past--but this current trend of climate change is happening so much faster than anything we see in the geological record. They don't have generational timescales to adapt and move this time.
  - pvaldes 10y ago
    This is a problem that can be solved. We know by the "Chernobyl experience" that nature can return really fast as long as the soil is not reclaimed by man for other uses. We can accelerate that process easily, creating new "highways" for our forests. Most birds don't need it, but big mammals, forest birds and smaller plants and arthropods would benefit a lot of the life-line of having ecological corridors. I'll drop one of my stupid ideas; what if we start thinking about implement the next level of environmental parks?. The first "nomad national parks" in the planet with gradually movable boundaries designed to minimize the consequences of climate change. Some coastal forests could need a safe exit to move towards the inner land for example. We could change a strip of protected soil with dying trees by some agricultural land in the border of the forest, protect strictly this area and plant there a new extension of the forest. We could include the died wood in the contract to buy a bigger extension in other place and use a mix of native trees (designed to be more resilient against plagues than natural monocultures). The right time to start planning how to do this is forty years ago, but today would be also fine.
guest 10y ago
When people speak about it's too late and ad the words "we" i always get nautious. Don't project your generalisations onto others, do something about it - and if you do what you can do help someone else to turn around. There are millions of people working to do so. And yes, there will be a high peak if nothing is done but there is still time to avoid extinguishing (or close to) the human race in it's current technological advancement. There is still time to realingn the military to fight an actual war that matters, for continued human progress. There is still time for powerful regulation of the commons to avoid the tragedy therefor in so many areas. There is still time to buy those solar panels and spread information about those that exist ready to increase the efficiency a handful of times. There is still time for city planners to stop allowing new buildings in areas that will not be sustainable. There is still enough time to do alot of things... Excluding conservatives worldwide, who are finally coming along as looking beyond their noses they've started smelling blood in the water - possibilities to prosper in the new climate.
gerty 10y ago
There was a nice article in The Economist [1] a few months ago on just about this issue - how it relates to global warming, forest densification, mismanagement, etc. [1] http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21701751-stricken-trees-provide-clues-about-how-america-will-adapt-global-warmingbut-little-hope http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21701751-stricken-tre...

139 points by Mz 10y ago

California should consider itself lucky if the pine beetle has just hit in 2015 and not really that bad from the pictures. Probably 50% of the trees in Colorado are dead, 90% in some places.

RangerScience 10y ago
There's no mention of the pine beetle in the article. He heavily implicates drought and climate change.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  Drought makes the trees easier for the beetles to attack, and climate change keeps the beetles alive through the winter.
- camiller 10y ago
  I would think, although possibly wrongly, that if this was drought induced the die off would be more uniform. The pictures look similar to what I saw in Wyoming a decade ago due to pine beetles. Both are likely related, reduced water makes the trees more susceptible to the ravages of the pests?
  - amluto 10y ago
    Reduced water does indeed make pine trees more susceptible to beetles. Pines defend themselves by producing pitch to trap and expel the beetles, and that works better when the trees have enough water.
  - ktsmith 10y ago
    I spent half my childhood in South Lake Tahoe and have lived in the region most of my life. During the 80's and 90's, much of which was a period of drought for the region, beetles were a problem and being actively mitigated by the forestry service. You can go through the national forest all through the sierras and see trees that have been tagged for removal due to beetles. The problem is very severe right now and certainly the worst I can remember. I've got a couple of friends that work for the us forestry service and they say it's so bad they can't keep up with it. Other sources point out that beetle infestation is part of the problem. Local news site for Tahoe specifically: http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/california-tahoe-area-tree-deaths-climb-to-record-levels-thanks-to-bugs-drought/ http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/california-tahoe-area-... SF Chronicle on the beetle problem and commenting on the excess wood: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-has-66-million-dead-trees-and-nowhere-8337745.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-has-66...
- Mz 10y ago
  But climate change and its horsemen — rising temperatures, drought and bark beetle — are accelerating this pace. Maybe it is a different kind of beetle, but the article does mention beetles.
- aftbit 10y ago
  >But climate change and its horsemen — rising temperatures, drought and bark beetle — are accelerating this pace.
- blackguardx 10y ago
  The pine beetle is native to Colorado. Its population is normally tempered by cold winters. With increasingly warmer winters brought on by global climate change, the pine beetle is left unchecked. It seems like a similar process is playing out in California due to the native bark beetle. Colorado seems to be doing better these days. I think the pine beetle mitigation efforts are showing some progress and I would assume that the trees left standing are maybe naturally more resistant.
adriand 10y ago
> California should consider itself lucky I don't think any place experiencing the destruction of its landscape, the erosion of its environment, and the tragic loss of so many unique, beautiful and valuable places, should count itself lucky simply because it's not as bad as somewhere else.
mathattack 10y ago
Do the trees get replaced? Or come back? I would think this is catastrophic from a global warming point of view.
- DubiousPusher 10y ago
  It's hard to say what will happen here. If the drought subsides, which statistically speaking it should as California's climate trend should "regress to the mean," the ecosystem should recover to some extent. Unless the tree population/ecosystem has been so grossly devastated that the tree it is past returning to a self sustaining point. The current drought in California isn't widely considered to be caused by global warming though there does seem to be some notion that it has been worsened by it. It's too sharp a climate swing to fall along the global warming trend line. The scary thing isn't that this is global warming but that this is just an image of what rapid climate change could do on a much vaster scale if not kept in check somehow.
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  In the scale of a human lifetime this is a tragedy. We see the forests when we are children and we expect to be able to return to them again and again and that the same will be true for our descendants. But go a little farther out, and every asteroid impact above a certain size incinerated every last tree on earth, instantly. Giant ice sheets scraped them off en masse like barnacles. In every case, trees came back. Maybe not the same trees, but trees suited for their new environment. It will be the same for beetles or climate change or whatever comes next.
  - mathattack 10y ago
    My time horizon is "Do we have enough trees sucking carbon out of the air before we cross the point of no return?" and "Can we plant enough trees before we lose all the coastal property?"
    - nsxwolf 10y ago
      We may lose current coastal property - but it will be replaced with all new coastal property. At a terrible cost, yes.
aftbit 10y ago
I visited Rocky Mountain National Park in early September, and it was awful what fraction of the trees appeared to have died off. There were some absolutely gorgeous scenes that must have been truly stunning when they were green. I'm sad I missed seeing them before the pine beetle. My home town of Cincinnati has been suffering from the emerald ash borer. Forests that I played in as a kid are now just empty fields.
M_Grey 10y ago
California, even less than Colorado, cannot afford the destruction of what non-desert habitat it has.
korethr 10y ago
Indeed the pine beetle did quite a bit of damage. Some time ago I was working up in the mountains regularly, and from the US-40/I-70 junction and on up the US-40 corridor, the damage was apparent and got progressively worse the deeper one went into the mountains along US-40. Once past Berthoud Pass, the forest was the opposite of how a healthy one should look: dead brown as far as the eye could see with the occasional patch of living green. I've not been up there in a while, so I don't know how things have progressed -- if they've gotten worse, better, or just shifted about. Sadly, what needs to happen in these areas of pine beetle infestation is what will never be permitted to happen: the forest needs to burn. A large forest fire would kill the beetles and their eggs/larvae, clear out the dead trees to make space for new growth, and fertilize the soil, making it possible for the forest to recover. But with how much beetle-kill there is up there, I don't think a controlled burn would be permitted. It would likely escape containment; there'd be too much risk to persons and property. But the longer such a burn is deferred, IMO, the harder it will be to prevent one, and the more severe it will be. I don't know of a good solution here. Cutting down all the dead trees for lumber might help, but I don't think it can defer a need for a burn forever, nor do I think it will help the forest recover as well as a burn would. I would be happy to be wrong in this regard.
- fred_is_fred 10y ago
  You are wrong in some respects. Where the fire does not affect structures it is allowed to burn. See the Beaver Creek Fire.
Snow_Flame 10y ago
Southern New Jersey has the same beetle problem: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/science/earth/in-new-jersey-pines-trouble-arrives-on-six-legs.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/science/earth/in-new-jerse... Alas for the cold nights that would kill 'em all in winter.
- ktRolster 10y ago
  The high sierras have cold nights in the winter.
ktRolster 10y ago
You can see Yosemite Valley this summer: http://i.imgur.com/FSmwv6g.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FSmwv6g.jpg It looks quite beautiful, with the fall foliage, leaves changing color.....then you realize those are evergreens and are changing color because they are dead.
soared 10y ago
...You've completely overstated the beetle problem. It seemed as though it would have massive impact a few years ago, but it didn't. Very specific locations saw a lot of damage, but the overall impact is negligible. http://csfs.colostate.edu/forest-management/common-forest-insects-diseases/mountain-pine-beetle/ http://csfs.colostate.edu/forest-management/common-forest-in...

M_Grey 10y ago

If only people got the message a few decades ago, we'd have a modicum of hope. It's too late now.

zo1 10y ago
The big environmental movement started in the 70's. I remember as a very young kind in the 90's that it was drilled into our innocent minds at school. People have been worrying about resources and the environment for a very long time before that, as well.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  It's been a building problem with a clear trajectory for a long time, but typically people are only getting the message long after there's something meaningful they could have done.
- mooneater 10y ago
  worrying about != building political will for the significant changes needed
- ashark 10y ago
  I remember in the late 80s/early 90s it seemed like all the environmental stuff was about the ozone hole and acid rain. By the late 90s it seemed to be all about preserving the rainforest to the exclusion of almost anything else—incidentally, did we... win that one? Or hopelessly lose it so everyone gave up? It seems like the chatter there has dropped to almost nothing, though for a while it was the environmental issue. Global warming per se didn't get center stage until later. I don't remember hearing much about it back in the days of soda-by-the-pitcher and Made in America signs on racks at Wal-Mart (gave up on that one pretty fast, haha).
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    The ozone hole is closing, so that's a win, but also a bit of shuffling deck chairs.
  - 10y ago

neilsharma 10y ago

This is sad. I could see this causing a lot more problem than all the fires we're getting in CA. This is a slight tangent, but are there jobs for people in tech to help fight this (or drought, logging, etc)? Wouldn't mind spending a few years trying to protect the environment, but want to put the engineering skills to use.

illegalsmile 10y ago
Environmental engineering is a field that would be utilized for this sort of issue as one facet of a multidisciplinary remedy or study. I do a lot of environmental work but haven't heard much about the tech industry but there is a lot of technology involved with remote sensing, UAS, instrumentation and data analysis. I would love to hear about modern environmental tech firms working on solutions to these types of problems.
- mooneater 10y ago
  Unfortunately a lot of private sector "Environmental engineering" jobs are about getting projects through/around the regulations.
mabramo 10y ago
I see that the USDA has some software related to conservation up for download [1]. Anything from water budgeting on farms to Animal Waste Management. I did not download or test any of this software, just found it after a quick search. Then there's this organization that ran out of funding, but contacting one of the former team members may help you. [2] There is development of software that doesn't directly affect the environment but rather helps dictate what work should be done to improve/conserve conditions. This book seems to address this topic. [3] Here are some other random related things. [4] [5] Unfortunately, it seems like software engineers are mostly used to develop management software. Modeling software is closer to the type of action I suspect you are interested in. It is needed, though I doubt the software engineers are helping analyze data and building solutions based on that research. I could be very wrong. EDIT: I should clarify. A SE COULD analyze the data, but in the context of a paid full-time position I doubt your employer would want you to spend your time doing that. If you find any information regarding "environmental [activism/conservation] with software", or something like that, please let us know. DISCLAIMER: I don't know what I'm doing ;) [1] http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/ndcsmc/?cid=stelprdb1042198 http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/ndc... [2] http://se4s.ics.uci.edu/ http://se4s.ics.uci.edu/ [3] http://www.journals.elsevier.com/environmental-modelling-and-software http://www.journals.elsevier.com/environmental-modelling-and... [4] http://www.conservation.org/NewsRoom/pressreleases/Pages/software_indentifies_key_areas.aspx http://www.conservation.org/NewsRoom/pressreleases/Pages/sof... [5] http://www.capterra.com/environmental-software/ http://www.capterra.com/environmental-software/

Analemma_ 10y ago

I mean, I get that this is a serious problem, but before we get too hasty about doing anything about it, imagine all the shareholder value that could be lost by hasty actions, or all the economic liberty that could be destroyed by environmental regulation. They're the real victims here.

Oletros 10y ago
I think people has missed the sarcasm, because it is sarcasm, isn't?
- arca_vorago 10y ago
  The brilliance of that comment is that around here I wouldnt be surprised if it wasn't!

thaumaturgy 10y ago

I live in the foothills of the sierra, and I've been a search and rescue volunteer for a while now, so I'm in some part of the Tahoe national forest about once a week on average. The damage, when you see it up close, is stunning. You'll be driving along a highway and see miles, and miles, and miles of dead trees standing there, waiting to burn. It's catastrophic, and that's not a word I use lightly. The prediction for this year is a mostly dry and cold Winter. If that happens, I expect next Summer to be one of the worst fire seasons in state history. There's so much dry material out there now in areas that require tremendous resources to combat. If/when superfire season happens, there's a good chance it'll overwhelm state resources and there's going to be a lot of damage that will take decades to recover. I was in Kings Canyon for a state SAR conference not too long ago and the fire scars from a few years ago still look fresh. Most of the stretch of highway 20 through Clear Lake is just black and brown. That's gonna be a look that's hard to get away from pretty soon, and I doubt we fully grasp the impact of that yet.

npsimons 10y ago
I too spend a lot of time in the Sierras, though more of the Southern end. I would concur with your conclusions. While I'm not the most cognizant of foliage, I can say that the watershed has dropped noticeably over the years. People might say "who cares? you only need water for overnight trips.", but that's not only wrong, but missing the big picture. The Sierras have been getting less snow, and LA is literally sucking them dry with the aqueduct, refusing to even consider solutions such as desal plants. Public transportation to reduce AGW is also a no-brainer that no one seems to want. Damage has already been done, but there are actions that could be taken to improve the situation. No one seems to care, though.
- paulmd 10y ago
  The reality is that it's too late at this point. The easy fixes might have worked if we could get worldwide buy-in 20 years ago but short of a planetary-scale engineering project or outright banning fossil fuel usage we're in for some bad times even before we factor in economic growth from India, China, and Africa. Levelling off is no longer good enough, it's too late for that, we need a massive decrease in global carbon emissions. And beyond that we need to start thinking about levelling out energy consumption entirely, even independent of CO2 emissions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc1vrO6iL0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc1vrO6iL0U Classic Newsroom clip but fact-checked as accurate, minus the hyperbole at the end about permanent darkness. We're already seeing majorly shifting weather patterns, movement of the jet stream, droughts, unprecedented wildfires, etc. We're already starting to see the first major cities lost due to rising sea levels - Miami is already sinking beneath the seas and it's only a matter of time before it exceeds the limits of engineering to fix it. It's built on porous limestone and borders directly on hundreds of square miles of swamp, so it's something of a worst-case scenario. You can't pump out water when it just comes right back in through the limestone, and even if you could we would be talking about hundreds of times as much wall as the Netherlands uses. Every single building in Miami will need to be elevated Chicago/Seattle style or abandoned within the next decade or two. Otherwise people are going to start leaving rather quickly once the sewers start backflowing on a regular basis. All of modern society is built on the shoulders of sanitation infrastructure and it's going to get nasty once it stops working. http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/11/climate-desk-fact-checks-aaron-sorkins-climate-science-newsroom http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/11/climate-desk-... https://newrepublic.com/article/123216/miami-sinking-beneath-sea-not-without-fight https://newrepublic.com/article/123216/miami-sinking-beneath... I wish I had something positive to say like "maybe this will finally get us to proactively solve our problems instead of assuming they can always be fixed at some future date" but I don't actually believe that will happen. We are unwilling to systematically factor in future risks into present costs. Heck, even we as a community don't do it properly - how many times are we going to get hacked before we learn to lock things down from day 1? Sorry to be pessimistic but that's the reality at this point. Objections to this are political slant and wishful thinking. The US military's job is to be apolitical and make realistic assessments about future threats to our nation, and they're planning for increased levels of conflict due to climate change in the 21st century. It's happening and it's going to suck pretty bad. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-idUSKCN11K0BC http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-idUSKCN1... http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/10/u-s-intel-alert-climate-change-aids-terrorists-destabilizes-entire-world-stresses-military/ http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/10/u-s-intel-alert-cl...

beloch 10y ago

In Canada, pine beetles have been spreading further and further North in recent years. Warm winters help beetles spread, but keeping old forests untouched by fire many decades past what is typical in the area has also played a big part. Forest fires control pine beetles. In this area, forests do not live for thousands of years. Fire is a natural part of the life cycle, but we've kept unprecedented amounts of forest "safe" from fire in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Pine beetles are forcing their way into very touristy areas, and pretty soon people will have to accept having their view spoiled, either by pine beetles or by fire. Nature is often ugly. We need to perform more controlled burns, both to restrict the spread of pine beetles and reduce the risk of mega-fires. People need to accept forest fires as a natural part of forest ecology rather than seeing them solely as natural disasters. By clinging to our pretty, green views of what we think forests should be, we are actually harming our forests.

pvaldes 10y ago

The planet has suffered climate changes before and there is a common trend in this cases. The forest will move. Entire forests migrated to the north or south to return again after some thousands of years. After the ice covering Europe melted, hazelnuts and poplars regain quickly its territory and arrive first. Oaks came later slowly migrating toward the north from its mediterranean refuges. Finally we have the beechs still trying to extend its distribution towards the south and living in the cold north side of the mountains whereas oaks live in the sunny side. If pines finally give up, a new forest based in different trees (more adapted to dry places) will slowly take over. Maybe oaks. It is worth to mention, that if this species need shadow in its first years, could need the dead pines in place for a while. The new forest will be shorter also. Trees are living creatures that spend a lot of energy to assure that thousands of Kg of matherials will climb up inside the trunk each day. When water gets scarce, there is a point when the roots have problems to win against the electrostatic and gravitational forces that keep the water in the soil. By the laws of physics, greater the distance, bigger the work that you need to do against the gravity to move a given weight. Therefore, taller species of trees are less efficient using water and will be gradually excluded from the drying area.

jmcqk6 10y ago
>The planet has suffered climate changes before and there is a common trend in this cases. The forest will move. I think what you miss when making this argument is not that there will be a forest somewhere else in the future, but that there will be consequences from it not being where it currently is.
rojobuffalo 10y ago
The timescale of change is important to remember. Yes, forests have migrated in the past--but this current trend of climate change is happening so much faster than anything we see in the geological record. They don't have generational timescales to adapt and move this time.
- pvaldes 10y ago
  This is a problem that can be solved. We know by the "Chernobyl experience" that nature can return really fast as long as the soil is not reclaimed by man for other uses. We can accelerate that process easily, creating new "highways" for our forests. Most birds don't need it, but big mammals, forest birds and smaller plants and arthropods would benefit a lot of the life-line of having ecological corridors. I'll drop one of my stupid ideas; what if we start thinking about implement the next level of environmental parks?. The first "nomad national parks" in the planet with gradually movable boundaries designed to minimize the consequences of climate change. Some coastal forests could need a safe exit to move towards the inner land for example. We could change a strip of protected soil with dying trees by some agricultural land in the border of the forest, protect strictly this area and plant there a new extension of the forest. We could include the died wood in the contract to buy a bigger extension in other place and use a mix of native trees (designed to be more resilient against plagues than natural monocultures). The right time to start planning how to do this is forty years ago, but today would be also fine.

guest 10y ago

When people speak about it's too late and ad the words "we" i always get nautious. Don't project your generalisations onto others, do something about it - and if you do what you can do help someone else to turn around. There are millions of people working to do so. And yes, there will be a high peak if nothing is done but there is still time to avoid extinguishing (or close to) the human race in it's current technological advancement. There is still time to realingn the military to fight an actual war that matters, for continued human progress. There is still time for powerful regulation of the commons to avoid the tragedy therefor in so many areas. There is still time to buy those solar panels and spread information about those that exist ready to increase the efficiency a handful of times. There is still time for city planners to stop allowing new buildings in areas that will not be sustainable. There is still enough time to do alot of things... Excluding conservatives worldwide, who are finally coming along as looking beyond their noses they've started smelling blood in the water - possibilities to prosper in the new climate.

gerty 10y ago

There was a nice article in The Economist [1] a few months ago on just about this issue - how it relates to global warming, forest densification, mismanagement, etc. [1] http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21701751-stricken-trees-provide-clues-about-how-america-will-adapt-global-warmingbut-little-hope http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21701751-stricken-tre...