"This is an all-out battle," said David Coutts, Alberta's minister of sustainable resource development. The Canadian Forest Service calls it the largest known insect infestation in North American history.
U.S. Forest Service officials say they are watching warily as the outbreak has spread. The United States is less vulnerable because it lacks the seamless forest of lodgepole pines that are a highway for the beetle in Canada. So far, U.S. officials say, the outbreaks have been mostly in isolated clumps of remote wilderness areas of northern Washington.
"It's a rapid warming" that is increasing the beetles' range, Carroll said. "All the data show there are significant changes over widespread areas that are going to cause us considerable amount of grief. Not only is it coming, it's here."
Meanwhile, the beetle is moving eastward. It has breached the natural wall of the Rocky Mountains in places, threatening the tourist treasures of national forest near Banff, Alberta, and is within striking distance of the vast Northern Boreal Forest that reaches to the eastern seaboard.
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/13995365.htm
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on March 6, 2006]
Note: http://www.duluthsuperi...
Canadian Forests Doomed?!
Posted on Saturday, March 04 at 12:08 by AnonymousContributed By
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prices on the already viable and available technology of
alternate energy sources(sun and the wind),to where the
everyday consumer can afford to purchase them,global
warming and pollution will continue.
Until government reigns in corporation such as Fortis and
Teresen and the like,kiss our forests good by. This is
likely not to happen as these corporations and others have
the gov exactly where they want them,between the sheets.
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A little peice of heaven is found in good deeds.
And these self-same corporations (with their government "pets") are just using the Pine beetle epidemic to harvest yet more wood. There is no comprehensive plan to deal with post-beetle economies in the affected areas.
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RickW
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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden
Good point.
Global warming is here and ending all pollution today will not end it today. The pine beetles were not created and were there all along. Warmer temperatures allowed them to breed better. In the 60's, Northern Alberta was struck by Tent caterpillar (Malacosoma americanum). They stripped every leaf of the tree's and were so plentifull that they covered areas like a blanket. The caterpillar were overwhelming for a couple of years untill a species of Dragonfly entered the chain and consummed the eggs... I don't recall the weather being colder or warmer during that time. Tent Caterpillars are still arround. Have the Pine beetles been arround before and caused the same problem is a matter of research.
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Expect little from life and get more from it.
We went through the tent caterpillar infestation for 2 years, about 10-12 years ago, and it was terrible. With each moth laying 400 eggs, millions hanging in clusters from the trees, the outsides of buildings and all equipment covered with thick layers, no leaves on the aspen trees and no birds anywhere, only dead silence. The roads were a black, slimy mess, no visible lines and we could see and hear the goop from the worms flying about as we drowe along.
The infestation was cured by a winter of -40 for a few days.
The same would happen to the pine bugs, but that was about the last time we had it that cold.
In our 31 years here, 27 as permanent residents, we have seen major climatic changes, caused by clearcutting for one thing and the obvious pollution we can not escape even here, long distances from major industries.
As far I'm concerned, these are, at least for a large part, caused by deregulated money creation that demands resources
to maintain its convertibility, the explosive growth of cities and the physical reactions to automation requiring huge energy inputs, while the human labour force has been cut back to 25 or 30% of what we had 30 years ago.
These are the transferred costs of so called "wealth creation" , always in the interests of "cost cuttings". So where are those cost cuttings. Every time we go shopping, we find higher prices in the supermarkets. 20 years ago I could buy an 8' 2x4 stud from a lumberyard, sometimes for .65 cents. Now, with all the cost cuttings, mass firings and stagnant wages, the same stud costs $2.50, or more, while our air is poisoned and our wells are drying up on account of sinking water tables, caused by environmental destruction.
In 1985, 3 years after I started reading economics, I made the following definition:
"NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS ARE THE SCIENCE FOR THE ALCHEMIC CONVERSION OF SILK PURSES INTO SOWS' EARS"
The deterioration caused by past 21 years have proven this definition.
Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.
They have a limited flying range. Fire breaks between infested regions and uninfested regions, then burning what's infested would kill them. But no one wants to go that far to kill them. But it might be our only choice.
It is hoped that the rockies would stop them, but that doesn't look like it will.
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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden
It will take either -40 for a week, or a miracle to stop them.
Right now, I can't think of what kind of a miracle, but perhaps our ideologues and economists can come up with something, as they always do. Now with Harper in the driver's seat any miracle is possible. (-:) ??????????
Ed Deak.
And the Softwood dispute? Why, no one is in a hurry to "solve" that, as a simple correlation between the salaries saved through massive forestry workers' layoffs, and the tarriffs charged, will show that company profits have actually increased in the last few years, because the tarriffs were paid for by the wages saved.
Canadian forests ARE dooomed.....just not solely through the actions of a little beetle, which will eventually stop, and a different forest structure will evolve. Canadian forest are doomed because corporate interests hold sway over this government, the previous one, and the one before that..............
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RickW
Two Economists are trying to figure out an equation on a blackboard. One turns to the other and says 'I think this works better without the people in it.'
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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden
The logging trucks are a regular site on BC Highwys and yet the mills are closing. No "softwood dispute" but denial of wood products such as lumber. The logs are selling well. The stumpage fee applies to them not the lumber made from them. Local mills can't afford the logs.
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Expect little from life and get more from it.
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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden
By the way.......my favourite expression, when the Mexican pine furniture fashion was on in the 60s, we used BC alder to make great Mexican pine furniture.
As far the softwood issue is concerned, with much of the Canadian lumber industry now under foreign, mostly US control, they are doing very well, milking the system on both sides of the border.
As long as economic efficiency is legally defined as the "most profits for the least monetary inputs", what does anybody expect?
Let's not forget, that under NAFTA rules, the raw logs, or gas and oil, going across the border can not be stopped, or cut back under any new government, even to save some for the survival of Canadians. All resource exports must continue to the last log, or drop of oil and home needs can go to hell.
The most dangerous people on Earth today are not so called terrorists, but economists and architects, filling our lives with fraud, misery and ugliness.
Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.
<br />
<a href="http://www.cofi.org/reports/factbook2000/Pages%20from%20FACTBOOK%202000-19.pdf">http://www.cofi.org/reports/factbook2000/Pages%20from%20FACTBOOK%202000-19.pdf</a><br />
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Also, go here and click on "View Interactive maps"<br />
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<a href="http://www.bcforestinformation.com/">http://www.bcforestinformation.com/</a><br />
<br />
From that map, most of the Hemlock/Birch appears to be in the north and on the islands.<br />
<br />
and:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/bcts/">http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/bcts/</a><br />
<br />
(Mexican pine furniture - that's good!)<br />
<p>---<br>"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden<br />