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Beetle Kill


Actaeon

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I proposed this (as well as a topic on water rights) sort of in jest, but I actually would like to hear this community's thoughts. Vast sections of forest throughout the west are standing dead. The Aspens aren't handling the temperature changes terribly well, either. According to an article in the New York Times a while back, it's not just here. Trees as far away as Australia and Africa are feeling the heat.

 

Last time I touched on this topic, I encouraged avoidance of the main issue: climate change. This time, I'm considering it natural topic drift.

 

But first... beetle kill. Can it be stopped? Mitigated? Can we use the lumber? Should anyone in the urban West or outside the mountains and Boreal forest even care?

 

(Edit: This IS more interesting than water rights to the Easterners and Europeans here, right?)

 

(Postedit... I'm not sure what to make of starting a topic with the number of the beast.)

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Originally Posted By: Actaeon
Trees as far away as Australia and Africa are feeling the heat.



I don't about that. We've had the coolest summer in Australia, at least in Queensland for a while. We've also had quite a lot of rain this time of year, for the last few years, which may have something to do with it.
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Originally Posted By: Actaeon
Should anyone in the urban West or outside the mountains and Boreal forest even care?


Despite living in the (American) West, I'm not terribly educated on the issue. However, as far as this question is concerned, I can give a definitive 'yes.' Trees are the lungs of the planet; we should care about their health to help with the health of the ecosystems. Those trees could be in the American West, the Amazon rainforest, or the Russian wilderness. They're still important.

Ecosystems ought to be maintained as an end to themselves. Nevermind that humanity is part of the ecosystem just like all other organisms. As the Lion King says, we are all part of the circle of life.
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Trenton, you do not understand. It's us older generation that's trying to prolong the Earth in such a fashion that when your great grand children have the awesome technology, to not only rape the Earth of all its resources, but to take the whole Solar system for all its worth, and then blow it up in fantastic magnifisence.

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Originally Posted By: Trenton-bok
I refuse to argue. Later.

The movie,"Armageddon", insisted that a meteor was about to crash into the earth. What did the end of the mayan calendar predict? The end of the world, with something crashing into us.


actually the mayan calendar didn't predict anything at all, that was just a thing that some new-agers made up because they figured that since their calendar system ended on that date it meant the world had to end too. it would be exactly the same as if someone said that the world had to end on December 31st because that's the end of the year.
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Originally Posted By: Lilith
I refuse to argue. Later.

 

actually the mayan calendar didn't predict anything at all, that was just a thing that some new-agers made up because they figured that since their calendar system ended on that date it meant the world had to end too. it would be exactly the same as if someone said that the world had to end on December 31st because that's the end of the year.

 

 

Well since you brought this up, I agree with you on basic principle. Just because my Top Gear calendar ends on December 31st this year, it doesn't mean there isn't a calendar already made for next year.

 

Originally Posted By: Trenton-bok
But what about the conspiracy, of science, and orbits, and Planet X?

 

Planet X would signify that we have a hidden 10th planet. As far as modern Astronomy goes, we have only 8 planets in our solar system, with many "minor" planets and minor bodies extending past Neptune, plus the all elusive Oort cloud.

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Originally Posted By: Actaeon
I proposed this (as well as a topic on water rights) sort of in jest, but I actually would like to hear this community's thoughts. Vast sections of forest throughout the west are standing dead. The Aspens aren't handling the temperature changes terribly well, either. According to an article in the New York Times a while back, it's not just here. Trees as far away as Australia and Africa are feeling the heat.

Last time I touched on this topic, I encouraged avoidance of the main issue: climate change. This time, I'm considering it natural topic drift.

But first... beetle kill. Can it be stopped? Mitigated? Can we use the lumber? Should anyone in the urban West or outside the mountains and Boreal forest even care?

(Edit: This IS more interesting than water rights to the Easterners and Europeans here, right?)


This is not just a problem in the west. Invaders like the emerald ash borer and the asian long-horned beetle are devastating forests in Ontario. And there doesn't seem to be any effective way to fight them.
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Originally Posted By: Jerakeen


This is not just a problem in the west. Invaders like the emerald ash borer and the asian long-horned beetle are devastating forests in Ontario. And there doesn't seem to be any effective way to fight them.


We have a similar problem here in Australia, but moreso relating to the Cane Toad thats mostly ravaging northern and eastern Australia. A lot of people, until recently have supported eradicting it off our shores, because it is an introduced species thats harming our eco-system. But for some reason, some local eco groups have recently done a backflip on the subject and have decided that it is unjust to kill this harmful pest on our shores.

So make sure that whatever eco-idiot hippies don't hinder the progress of getting rid of eco unfriendly pests, just like our idiot government has done.
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Originally Posted By: Lilith
actually the mayan calendar didn't predict anything at all, that was just a thing that some new-agers made up because they figured that since their calendar system ended on that date it meant the world had to end too. it would be exactly the same as if someone said that the world had to end on December 31st because that's the end of the year.


Let's not forget that they tend to also invent elaborate psuedoscientific theories about the planets aligning or a magnetic pole change or galactic space radiation to confirm their obsession with a utterly irrelevant civilization that died out like five hundred years before the Spanish even got there.

It's not like people who propose that "we die in 2012 because Mayans!" are making some kind of honest mistake at this point- they've long since passed into willful New-Age delusion and hardly deserve any more attention than Gene Ray or Harold Camping.
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I think the world will end just shortly after this changes to "OMG!!! D:"

 

Then we'll all have seconds to curse the mad scientists who've doomed us all before being consumed by a negatively charged mass of strange matter, or some other exotic quantum phenomena that wasn't supposed to happen or be possible.

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