Obama's View from Yellowstone: Pines Killed by Climate-Fueled Beetles
President Obama heads Saturday to Yellowstone National Park, where he and his family join the millions of Americans who thrill each year to the sulfurous steam of Old Faithful, the wild domains of bison and elk and the summer splendor of the Rocky Mountains.
Sadly, though, they'll also witness firsthand the domestic ravages of global warming. This widening scourge is taking a devastating toll on our country's first, oldest and most beloved national park, one more reason why the Senate should pass legislation aimed at curbing climate change and the destruction it wreaks.
The victim this time is the whitebark pine, the signature species of the northern Rockies ridge line and a foundational tree critical to the high mountain habitat of red squirrels, elk and grizzly bears.
A slow-growing species that lives for centuries, the whitebark pine is often the only tree hardy enough to withstand the frigid winters and harsh winds several thousand feet high in the Rockies. These majestic trees help to shelter smaller plants, stabilize vulnerable mountaintop soil, moderate snowmelt runoff, ensure steady stream flow in summer and produce a super-sized pine nut that's essential food for wildlife.
After anchoring the Rocky Mountain high country for thousands of years, the whitebark pine is threatened with extinction by a modern ill. The greenhouse gases that are heating our planet have warmed the northern Rockies just enough to allow the native mountain pine beetles to flourish at high elevations where few could thrive before now.
As a result, whitebark pine trees are under siege by these ravenous beetles. Right now as much as 70 percent of these ancient trees are already dead in parts of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.
The First Family will see this ongoing disaster in the form of lifeless trunks gone grey where green and healthy spires once reached for the skies.
Wildfires and disease are playing a role. Scientists and foresters, though, say the trees could largely withstand those pressures if they were not weakened and further attacked by the beetle onslaught.
Global warming is changing climate patterns around the world. The Rocky Mountains are not immune, nor, as it turns out, is Yellowstone National Park. It has taken its place alongside the melting Arctic ice caps, sprawling African deserts, warming Caribbean waters and the increasingly violent storms they breed in the unholy parade of environmental catastrophe passing by our very eyes.
The Senate has the opportunity, and the obligation, to stand up to this unfolding calamity and stem the reach of its disastrous tide.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act, passed earlier this summer by the House will help create 1.7 million jobs in promising new areas that will help us build more efficient homes, work places and automobiles. It will help make our country more secure by reducing our reliance on foreign oil. And it will push back against the greenhouse emissions we know are heating our planet, disrupting climate patterns and destroying the very ecosystems upon which our very survival depends.
In 1872, just seven years after the Civil War, our Congress established Yellowstone National Park as the first such delineation of public lands in our country -- indeed, the first anywhere in the world. From that inspired decision has grown a network of nearly 400 national parks for Americans to enjoy, a proud and rich legacy President Obama honors with his Yellowstone visit on Saturday.
As the rest of us ponder these national treasures, and the collective good they provide, let us remember, as well, the duty we have to preserve for future generations what others of vision protected for us. Together, we can turn back global climate change, safeguard our natural heritage and leave behind a brighter future for our children.
This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.
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You know, as do those who have researched the beetle problem is due to poor forestry management, by the government. Unintended consequences continue to constantly raise their heads. Maybe time to break up the national forests and allow each state to run. One mistake will not be propagated across all areas.
"warmed the northern Rockies just enough to allow the native mountain pine beetles to flourish at high elevations where few could thrive before now."
lets start with:
1. native - oh they live there
2. few could thrive before now - but yet they did
conclusion: a few of the indigenous beetles that managed to survive at that elevation and temp extremes got together and had a few baby bugs that could not only survive there like their folks, but thrive in that environment.
Sounds like adaptation - RE: Darwin
Did you not evolve from a monkey - or did god put you here.
Heresy!
Yeah... according to AGW theory, the temperature during summer months no longer drops to the same nighttime lows, allowing these beetles to flourish!
Never you mind that the winter months get as equally cold as before - and that the beetles someone manage to live THROUGH THE ENTIRE YEAR.
Better reorganize the entire world economy, just in case carbon emissions and beetle populations are related...
Don't forget about the Dinosaurs!
They also were victims of climate change. If only humans had reduced their CO2 emissions back then, we'd still be able to enjoy interacting with T-Rex and Bronto today!
Wow! I thought it was a comet that collided with Earth. Thanks for correcting (rewriting) the record.
the comet impact produced enough climate change (cooling) to affect dinosaurs. Thus vie2012ne is correct in that respect.
But then humans did not coexist with dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs needed global warming to survive.
Lilacs and migratory birds have shown similar responses which are also well-documented. You can look them up if you're interested. The point is that the story of the pine beetles is not an isolated one, but fits into a larger pattern that is emerging globally. Ecologists who study species habitat do not doubt that this is a significant trend which, when combined with habitat disturbance and fragmentation as well as disease, could lead to significant losses in biodiversity.
The beetles are not the only species that have migrated northward and up in altitude during the past few decades.
A study in Europe found that during this century, 63% of non-migratiry butterflies have shifted their habitat northward, while only 3% have shifted southward.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v399/n6736/abs/399579a0.html
The golden toad of Costa Rica face exctintion, and scientists believe it is due to the loss of mists in its native habitat, the cloudy mountains of Costa Rica's rainforest. They attribute this change to rising temperatures associated with climate change. Other species in this unique ecological niche are being devastated as well.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/355veua1dqke0uy1/
Even more common than habitat shifts or loss is a genetic response to changing seasonal events. The mosquito species Wyeomyia smithii, has a genetic developmental response which is controlled by the length of the day during spring--the lengthening daylight corresponds to the optimal temperature for larvae hatching. Since the 1970s, the mosquito's genome has shown a distinct shift towards shorter and shorter photoperiods, or day lengths. This means that evolution is favoring those mosquitos that hatch earlier in the year, because as global temperatures rise, spring comes earlier.
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/life_sciences/report-83286.html
Climate fueled Beetles? Seriously?
Sounds like NBC's made-for-tv movie of the week.
What, exactly is the Natural Resources Defense Council defending natural resources from?
People like Wyomingredneck.
If the coin phrases of "Global Warming" & "Climate Change" are too vague, how about simply; Increase in Methane in the Atmosphere...
"...For more than four years now, methane - a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than C...O2 -- has been bubbling up out of melting permafrost, peat bogs and clathrates in the northern latitudes. For the last two years, atmospheric concentrations of this powerful GHG have been rising rapidly..."
btw-just a suggestion, read the whole article.
Global Warming and the Only Question that Matters
CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/16-2
Yes, if you'd just stop fahhting, dahling ...
It isn't climate change that is causing this problem it is poor forest management
You are exactly correct. Pine beetle infestations have been around for years. Here in the south, it is a major problem.
Poor forest management seems to be the hallmark of the US Forestry Service.
While it's true that beetle infestations have occured in the past in lower elevation pine (limber, lodgepole, etc), what is different here is that beetles are now moving into higher elevation whitebark pine (9,000 ft and above) for the first time. This is a direct result of warming temperatures. This has NOTHING to do with forest management since whitebark is a non-commercial tree species (i.e., not used in wood products and therefore not logged). However, it is extremely important for the health of the ecosystem for reasons mentioned in the above article.
You can deny all you like, but in less than a decade, it's predicted that whitebark pine will be extinct...that is, if we don't do something about it. Just wait, this is going to get real ugly.
Snow....in august!
Not at all unusual in the rockies.
Well, on the mountaintops maybe, but this was in one of the big public RV campgrounds in the valley. It's unusual.
I live in the Rockies - in snow country. I can tell you it's been a very cold summer here so far. Last winter was colder and longer then usual too.
Hey, my son was in Yellowstone last week. He told me it snowed one night in the campground, and they froze their buns off.
Snow ... in August!
Not sure I want our president walking around on the top of an active volcanic area, but I suppose the odds of it blowing while he's there are pretty slim.
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