Aspen Trees Dying Off; Scientists Still Don't Have Definitive Reason

Wall Street Journal:

DENVER -- This should be the golden season across the West, when aspen paint hillsides in shades of fall.

But a mysterious ailment -- or perhaps a combination of factors -- is killing hundreds of thousands of acres of the trees from Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona through Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and into Canada, according to the U.S. government and independent scientists.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[ibsteve2u]

Wasn't that long ago that I saw a rightie troll advocate clear-cutting all national forests as a means of controlling forest fires here on HuffPo.

It would appear that the cumulative load that mankind - under the guidance and at the behest of the greed of the right - is putting upon the planet will beat them to the trees.

Looked at the satellite pictures of the pollution blowing out of China from our offshored - and cheaper, 'cuz they're environmentally unregulated - factories, lately?

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=1036
http://geology.com/nasa/monitoring-pollution-by-satellite.shtml
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/0710-overseas_pollution_hitting_the_us.htm

From the latter:

[bq]
Dr. Holloway’s research indicates about 12-percent of the pollution in the Western United States comes from emissions in Asia and Europe. In the eastern US, up to 10-percent of air pollution comes from those areas.
[eq]

Now, of course, I suppose I will hear that we should clear-cut the planet "because the trees are all going to die anyway".

Pretty amazing...­our corporations - lead by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - still argue that pollution should be ignored.

Our corporations are still killing us - just more discretely.