The storm story on the front page of HuffPo is headlined: “Epic Snowstorm Batters East Coast: Trees Are Starting to Come Down”
Please note, trees are not supposed to fall down because it is snowing. Trees evolved to survive much worse snowstorms than this (note the very last excerpt below). If it was normal for them to fall down because of snow, they would have all fallen down by now and we wouldn’t have any left.
There are many areas of untouched woods, where there are more trees lying on the ground than there are standing. Why? We are poisoning them with toxic greenhouse gases. They cannot breathe (photosynthesize) in the atmospheric anarchy of our fuel emissions.
Here are sections from the article. We can expect much more of this as the dying trees fall:
“A blizzard battered the Mid-Atlantic region Saturday, with emergency crews struggling to keep pace with the heavy, wet snow that has piled up on roadways, toppled trees and left thousands without electricity.
“Things are fairly manageable, but trees are starting to come down,” said D.C. fire department spokesman Pete Piringer, whose agency responded to some of the falling trees.
“Maryland Transit Administration spokeswoman Jawauna Greene said the underground portion of the Metro could reopen later Saturday but it depended on the weather conditions.”
“We have trees on the overhead wires, trees on train tracks. We can’t get anything out,” she said.
“Hundreds of thousands of customers across the region had lost electricity and more outages were expected to be reported because of all the downed power lines.”
“The biggest snowfall for the Washington-Baltimore area is believed to have been in 1772, before official records were kept, when as much as 3 feet fell, which George Washington and Thomas Jefferson penned in their diaries.”
This link is to an article at Climate Progress, about the EPA decision to push for more use of biofuels. In the comments I have been trying unsuccessfully to find out who, if anyone, is taking into consideration the effects of emissions from burning ethanol. It seems not even those who are enlightened about climate change want to deal with that question!
Hey - I just found this website: some very disturbing info you have uncovered here for someone like me who is deeply interested in forestry.
ReplyDeleteWe need to begin to decentralize the population of the USA, and especially reduce the concentration of populations in massive suburban and urban areas.
For instance, I see that you are in New Jersey. New Jersey is obviously very overpopulated, with a population roughly the same as North Carolina even though NC is obviously MUCH bigger than NJ. Thus it makes sense that the trees and vegetation are suffering in NJ because of population concentrations there, because concentrated populations means the overconcentration of emissions from autos, power plants, factories, etc.
Thus I propose the decentralization of populations from overpopulated areas like NJ. There have already been MANY people from The North who have moved here to The South in the last couple of decades, and we have plenty of small towns situated near farms, waterways, and so on which could be reactivated by an influx of well-meaning people from other areas.
I too have noticed that in the overpopulated areas of NC (Charlotte, Raleigh, etc) the vegetation and trees are suffering from the problems you mention on this website. However, once you get a good distance away from the major urban/suburban conurbations and out in to the countryside the trees and vegetation seem to look much healthier. Similarly, I cannot imagine that the trees and vegetation of a very sparsely settled state such as Idaho and Wyoming are suffering from the same amount of degradation as the trees in overpopulated states like NJ, MA, etc.
Again, if we decentralize populations this will help the local damage that results from the overconcentration of human populations.
Also, I ought to mention that you ought to form a co-op with some of the local people in your area to clean up the forests by removing what you can of the dead and dying trees - through that y'all can also gain a bunch of free firewood (energy).
ReplyDeleteAlso, clearing the forest floor of dead trees will allow room for new ones to sprout and grow in the future. A long time ago forest fires used to be a part of the natural cycle of forests, clearing the forest of weak trees so that new ones had the room to sprout and grow. Now that we no longer allow forest fires to burn for long this natural cycle has been interrupted.
Thanks for reading and commenting! It is my goal to raise awareness about the dwindling health of our trees. We cannot begin to remedy this situation until the primary cause is identified.
ReplyDeletei think it is going to require some rigorous scientific study to figure this out. Large cities and shipping food an average of 1,500 miles from its source on not going to be tenable in the future for a variety of reasons.
But merely moving people will only shift the dreck unless we all make serious conversions to clean energy and local, sustainable food production.
It is a tall order!
PW, mosts of the dead trees are cleared by the landowners, who get low, farmland tax assessment for managed woodlots. That's why it is interesting to find a plot that for whatever reason, is intact. Clearing dead trees doesn't help with regeneration though, because the deer population is enormous - even in suburban towns - and they eat everything!
ReplyDeleteOf course, when food gets to be prohibitively expensive, the deer will look a lot more tasty - between that and a lack of food for them to eat, their population will see a consequent decline.