Beetle Tree Kill

I just spent weeks in the car. From Texas up through Oklahoma to Kansas, and then across Colorado, Utah, Nevada and back into New Mexico. I met with locals along the way, enjoying the land in which they live and discussing the changes taking place. In Colorado and New Mexico, covered with mountains and forests, one common theme arose: the growing number of dead trees each year.


Why? Beetles gone wild.

A consequence of climate change, the milder winters have allowed the beetle population to thrive (kill off rate has been reduced from 80% a year to a mere 10% since 1994). These beetles feast on and kill the trees. Over the past three to four years, I'm told significant changes have been taking place as the amount of trees killed each year is visibly increasing. This topic wasn't brought up by scientists closely measuring the beetle population, but rather from locals who live in the areas and have simply observed the changes.

I myself noticed my home-town mountain looking rather drab compared to the last time I visited.

Why does this matter?

1. More carbon released into the atmosphere: A significant number of the trees have been killed and that means that the carbon sequestered in these trees is released into the atmosphere. Scientists say that the beetle tree kill actually releases more carbon into the atmosphere than the huge fires we've witnessed on the news in the past couple of years. This must be calculated into climate change model-analysis, but is hard to calculate.

2. Less carbon-capture: If the trees are being killed and releasing carbon into the atmosphere, it is obvious that they are no longer capable of capturing carbon out of the atmosphere.

3. More dry, dead wood to feed forest fires. Until intense new land management practices are put into place to deal with the increase die-off, the growing wildfires we've seen are all too inevitable.

4. Other affects that could occur, but aren't yet measurable: decreased quality of watersheds and decreased vegetation for the animals that live in the area to feed from.

In Canada, the beetle tree kill crisis has been labeled as the first major climate change crisis they've faced. It spans across the country and down into the US, all the way to California. Besides the scientific implications, it was simply sad to see so many trees dead, where otherwise the forest has been green.

Land management will become increasingly more important in the next decade as it will take much more energy to manage issues such as this. Perhaps that'll be my second degree.