DK GreenRoots

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Climate change will do more than make life on Earth a bit warmer. Even a 5th-grader can tell you that. The problem with people like James Inhofe is that they are not smarter than 5th-graders.

If things don't change (for the better) quickly, we are looking at major die-off of the world's trees. If the trees go, we are not far behind.

From the ultra-liberal hippies at NASA:

Underlying Cause of Massive Pinyon Pine Die-Off Revealed
October 10, 2005

The high heat that accompanied the recent drought was the underlying cause of death for millions of pinyon pines throughout the Southwest, according to new research.

The resulting landscape change will affect the ecosystem for decades. Hotter temperatures coupled with drought are the type of event predicted by global climate change models. The new finding suggests big, fast changes in ecosystems may result from global climate change.

The Wall St. Journal, owned by Mr. Ultra-left wing Rupert Murdoch, posted this a few months back:

But a mysterious ailment -- or perhaps a combination of factors -- is killing hundreds of thousands of acres of the trees from Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona through Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and into Canada, according to the U.S. government and independent scientists.

The aspen die-off comes on the heels of a pine-beetle invasion that has destroyed millions of acres of evergreens. Foresters expect to lose virtually every mature lodgepole pine in Colorado -- five million acres of them.

(snip)

Researchers believe they understand why the beetles have been thriving. Temperatures in the mountains have been unusually warm over the past several winters, and it takes a long, hard freeze to kill beetle larvae.

More notorious DFH Über-treehuggers, the dry, droll NPR last year:
Trees May Dry Up With Global Warming

Warming global temperatures could cause massive tree die-offs. That's the gloomy conclusion of a new study by scientists at the University of Arizona.

The study addressed a fairly basic question: Do warmer temperatures make trees more susceptible to drought?

Hint about the answer: YES.

Listen to the 4-minute report here:

WIRED magazine? You guessed it!
In Al Gore's back pocket:

Trees in western North America are dying at faster and faster rates, and climate change is likely to blame.

The mounting deaths could fundamentally transform Western forests because tree reproduction hasn’t increased to offset losses, according to a new study published Thursday in Science. New seedlings aren’t rising quickly enough to fill the gaps.

“If current trends continue, forests will become sparser over time,” co-author Philip van Mantgem, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said in a press conference call. This would be a setback in the fight against global warming because thinner forests with small, young trees store less carbon, so more heat-trapping carbon dioxide would cycle into the atmosphere.

The research revealed that tree mortality rates in old-growth forests from southern British Columbia to Arizona have doubled every few decades over the past 50 years.

Do you see a trend here?
Not really?

OK, one more then:
From a study at Oregon State University:

A vicious cycle could develop as regional warming causes trees to die. The diminished forests will absorb less carbon dioxide and then inject more greenhouse gasses back into the atmosphere, which could in turn lead to even higher levels of warming.

Drought conditions also are related to warming, since higher temperatures result in less snowpack, earlier snowmelt and longer dry periods. That also could enhance the growth and reproduction of insects and pathogens that attack trees.

The impacts, (professor of forest ecology at OSU, Mark) Harmon said, could greatly impact what future forests might look like.

"This is actually the beginning of the change. It's the tip of the iceberg. It's not the iceberg. The changes in the future should be much more dramatic if scientists are right about their projections," Harmon said.

So, correct me if I'm reading all this wrong, but this sounds like we have been watching this "tree problem" get worse and worse. And when it gets worse, it makes the problems that cause it worse.

This is what is called a vicious circle, yes?

In climate change science, feedback loops involve positive feedbacks and negative feedbacks that respectively serve to intensify or dampen the effects of global warming.

I thought so.

And if the problems related to sudden massive tree death due to "unusual heat" (*cough*climate change*cough*), drought, insects & the like continue to worsen (like they have for the past 50 years), then this already very dramatic problem "should be much more dramatic in the future."

Am I getting this right?

The only part I don't really understand from all that is the "in the future" part. What "future" is Professor Harmon referring to exactly? Because if I understand the concept of a biosphere correctly, humans kinda depend upon trees for us to breathe. Is he referring to life on Earth for the trees once we are gone? It would have been nice if he could have pointed that out for us laypeople.

And the trees simply dying from pests, drought, and other factors doesn't even really do the tragic story justice.

Hispaniola is divided in half in more ways than one.

Remember Haiti? Not long ago people were talking about that country.

Due to various factors, they have been mired in extreme poverty for decades. When people are unable to buy fuel for cooking, they use trees. The only problem is that they eventually end up cutting them all down. Yes, all of them.

This is a view from space that shows the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

(The half without a single tree is the Haitian half, in case you didn't guess.)

By now 5th-graders understand that we are (still) cutting down the rainforest at a rate of one football field per second, but those are "jungles". They grown right back as soon a we have decided we have cut down the right amount, right? Right?

And God said we have dominion over the Earth, so who gives a damn about some stupid jungle in the developing world anyway?!?

:-o

The 2004 documentary "The Great Warming" just ran on Sundance Channel recently (I'd never heard of it). Leaving aside the odd pairing of narrators (Keanu Reeves, Alanis Morisette), they point out what became clear earlier in The Ohs.

Rainfall patterns are also shifting & that means more & more of the trees of western Europe and western North America are burning up releasing more stored carbon and accelerating the Great Warming. It's not hard to imagine a future where crisis centers spend much of the year confronting forest fires and managing the impact of drought and disease on our forests, if any trees are left.

"The standing dead" of the desert southwest are discussed in the film.

• 99% of pinyon pines over millions of acres have died.
• They contain less moisture than kiln-dried lumber.
• "The standing dead" may be a permanent feature even if the water comes back.

::

So Hollywood elites, university professors and scientists all have known about this and spoken about it for a decade or more, at the very least.

Two more questions:

What are the odds your average Joe Sixpack out there has a clue about the impending collapse of the world's tree populations and the ecosystems that support them?

A) Very Good Chance
B) Decent Chance
C) Not Much Chance

I'm going with "C" for both answers.

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And for those who still aren't convinced that changing our behavior to save the world's trees is "worth it", perhaps some humor will help. It usually helps coax me off the ledge when human stupidity is too much to bear.

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GreenRoots is an environmental series created by Meteor Blades and Patriot Daily for Daily Kos. This series provides a forum for educating, brainstorming, discussing and taking action on various environmental topics.

Please join a variety of hosts on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 6 pm PDT. Each Wednesday is hosted by FishOutofWater.

Notes:
• All bold mine.
• Original title of this piece was It's the trees, stupid!
• x-posted @ TLP & Daily Kos