Trees dying twice as quickly as they did three decades ago

There's hundred's of thousands of square miles of old growth forest. It's not economically efficient to forest in the old growths. What about the plants that were blocked out by the tree?

I agree we all need to plant trees but as a reminder you also need to put in a garden this spring as food prices will continue to rise. The elders always had some type of garden going. I recall them telling me that's how they made it through the great depression-if someone had chickens and eggs they would barter and trade with someone who had greens.Yes it may get that bad- You can grow vegtables in containers on your porch.We should all plant a garden regardless of your evironment.
I am old enough to remember what the elders instructed us to do.If you are lucky enough to have an elder in your family go talk to them."make a hole drop a small fish back fill to 2 inches drop a seed back fill press down firmly and water add patience".Fill your life with Joy!

Because of Katrina, we lost 1000 trees, and we know this as we hired an expert to estimate. We have some acerage and it was dense and overgrown and we just let nature do her thing with no thinning or removing trees.

I think the deforestation due to Katrina and the stupid burning of the debris after has contributed to global warming. They could have used the debris improve the fertility of the dieing wetlands, but no, Bush's contractors wanted to burn it. We had weeks of choking smoke.

We just left our disaster as it is and removed only that which prevented entrance into or out of our property or what was a danger.

I planted some new trees in spaces. Pine trees and cypress trees grown really fast and because of that create more oxygen.
Everyone should plant a tree where they can.

that's insane!

But if we plant more trees, wouldn't they just die also since all those insects and summer droughts are already there?? By planting more trees with the problem of these beetles would be doing nothing but giving these beetles more to munch on. I think the US government should work on getting rid of these beetles.

Here, in Ontario a few years back, we had a beetle called the asian long horned beetle and it would eat through the barks of various trees. What was scarier was that there was a conservation area where there were over a hundred different types of trees planted. Anyway, the government worked really hard to get rid of these beetles and cut down A LOT of the trees that were infected, they also cut down the trees surrounding it too.

As for the drought problem...i don't know what to tell you. It's impossible to water an entire forest. But at least if you take out of the factors that are killing off the trees, they stand a better chance of living.

..tell obama, I'm sure he'll do something about it

I try and plant 5 trees a year, I know not much but every little bit helps...

Well, I'm losing a couple firs every year now in NorCal.. 60 to 80 footers. Unless these beetles are micro-scopic, it's gotta be something else. And yes, I do of course inspect the tops of every one I fall.

What may be even more profound .. UC Davis has installed a "Pollution Sniffer" up on Cahto Peak, to measure the pollution coming over from Asia. Whether it be the beetles, global warming, pollution, or even electro-magnetics .. it deserves our attention.

Forest fires will not alone take care of the damage to the trees, We did not have long enough cold winters to kill pest off. Their survival rate is higher therefore they attack trees longer, The soil is less productive because their is not enough water in the soil to strengthen the distribution of nutrition for the tree, , Even if you plant new trees the young tree could not take enough nutrients out of the soil to satisfy there need unless they ground is irrigated natural or with a irrigation system. Cutting more old growth tree will only renter the soil less productive. Cleaning out the forest my help a little pit so moister could be saved for healthy trees,

I'm telling you, it's all this pollution, too much for the trees to take in at once.

i cut standing dead pine in nm. most are killed by the bark beatle.we have not had a good winter down here
for quite a while.but the forest dow here is overgrown with trees.
it hasent been logged in 40 years
so the tree huggers say dont log any of them well guess
what it will burn down dont get me wrong i love the forest
but i think we have screwed it up by stopping forest fires.
now we are in a spot we cant let them burn there is to much fuel on the ground.

the earth is shriveling up like bitter conservative republican codgers. it's just a matter of what dies out first.

There was an article recently posted about trees in Canada releasing CO2 rather than hosting it like a sink due to overload. Add to this the changing climate, and we've got one heck of a problem. Trees will not be able to adapt quick enough to the change in temp re: NPR's a small change in degrees can make a big difference. Google Lago Guri: that's what our world is going to look like if we don't get to it.

There might be some truth to that story. There's a big ozone hole in the Antartic area and there aren't any trees there.

Ronald Reagan said it best, "You seen one tree, you seen em all." God Bless America and Gold bless Ronald Reagan. PT Barnum was right.

I heard a report on NPR this morning that it only takes 1 degree (temp) to change everything.

Well Carbon-Dioxide isn't to blame.
If we plant 4x more trees than we have then we will be good :P
no seriously plant more trees

we need to plant more trees!

This just breaks my heart. But there's no time to waste for finding a solution.

Before we moved into the lovely hills in the west mother nature allowed uncontroled forest fires caused by lightening strikes to clear forests and allowed regrowth and the smaller trees could then grow without huge ones shading them, It all works in balance.

Is this the same with human beings?

I'm sure it's global warming, but I live in Colorado and Pine Beetles have put quite a dent in the pine tree population. I don't know if their effects were included or excluded in these numbers, it would be interesting to find out.

There are many tree-planting initiatives out there on the internet and in your own community. Join one. If you can't find one then there are many fantastic place to find cheap trees or seeds online.
Arborday.com is a cool place to check out.

I tell ya i's dem dar bark beetle ma' creatures not just da gall darn heat and what not

This is kinda scary.

Continued: "The data for the research was gathered by several generations of scientists counting trees over more than 50 years. It included forests in Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and south-western British Columbia. All were older than 200 years, with many being established more than 500 years ago. Death rates in old forests tend to be more stable since they mostly contain very old trees.

"With many of our long-lived trees that grow very large, each year as they become larger and older, the probability of living the next year increases," said Franklin. "You might imagine that, as a tree gets larger and older, the probability of death would increase but it does not - it decreases for many of our species."

In most forests, it is the youngest trees that are most likely to die. "Often they are shaded by larger, taller trees and so they grow more slowly," said Nathan Stephenson of the USGS. "They are less resilient to changes in the environment and they also don't have as well-developed root systems so, if they run into a drought, they're more likely than a large tree to suffer."

In the latest survey, the research team found that trees of all ages were dying more quickly.

The team also ruled out factors such as overcrowding, forest fragmentation or air pollution. The main air pollutant that harms trees in the western US, for example, is ozone. "In California, where most of our forests are concentrated, ozone is fairly severe," said Stephenson. "Over the time period of the study, there was no trend in ozone and it might even have declined slightly."