Dying Forests: How Bad Is It, Really? - NYTimes.com
I finally asked [warmist Ralph Keeling] a simple question: How did his deep knowledge of climate change affect his life?
He started by assuring me there was nothing paralyzing about it — he managed to get up and drive to work in the morning like the rest of us.
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“When I go see things with my children, I let them know they might not be around when they’re older,” he said. “‘Go enjoy these beautiful forests before they disappear..."
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Alert readers may have noticed, however, that I did not give any specific numbers for dying forests or their extent, compared with a century or two ago. That is because we simply do not have such historical numbers on a global scale.
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The situation certainly sounds dire, but let us pause and play devil’s advocate for a moment.
For starters, it is quite clear, as I pointed out in my article, that forests over all continue to take up far more carbon dioxide than they are losing.
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Moreover, it would certainly be a mistake to conclude there is anything novel about fire and bugs in the world’s forests. In many places, in fact, they are a crucial part of the ecology.
Some species of pines, in their mature phase, will drop seeds only after a big fire. Large outbreaks of mountain pine beetles have occurred many times in the past.
James J. Worrall, a scientist with the Forest Service who has helped analyze the decline of aspen forests in certain parts of the West, sent me a report written in 1944 that documented a large beetle outbreak in some of the same locations that are under attack by pine beetles today.
...When I was [in the northern Rockies] there in July, I drove through 30-foot snow banks still standing along the highest mountain passes.)
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