Death of a Forest
With global warming evident in many places around the world, the forests of North America are in dire trouble. The pine beetle and pine trees have co-evolved until the past two to three decades. The numbers of beetles have been kept in check by cold winters that would kill the beetles, thus limiting their lifespan and ability to reproduce. However, with warmer temperatures during the winters, the beetles are surviving in astounding numbers and are killing the forests of the western United States and Canada. To date, millions of acres of forests and billions of trees are dead and there is no end in sight. Some estimates predict that by 2013, 80 percent of the North American forests could be gone. In addition, we are losing forests that otherwise provide a carbon sink for our production of greenhouse gases, and as the trees die, they emit more carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.
Nothing, except very cold winter weather, will stop the beetles.
