I spend probably more time in the Washington Cascades than anyone except Forest and Park Rangers. I have noticed something disturbing in my travels...the forests are dying...fast. I noticed this a couple of months ago and it's spreading. I did some investigating and found this article:

here

I think we are in big trouble kids.

Check out this pic. Note the trees on the hillside to the left. This is where I first noticed it. These trees are dying and it's spreading.

here

Wow! yer right Jer....something 'World Wide' needs to be done ...'Fast'!..
The goverments would only try to blame it on all the public! doing too much 'farting' or such!

uh i'm leavin soon so i can't read all that, but if that's where St. Helens is, isn't that a sign of an eruption or something?? -_-

Scary....depressing...alarming....:(

Alarming is right, we hear every day about the Amazon rain forests, but never hear about what's going on in our own backyards.

One day scientists say when the sun is dying out it will become so large as to engulf the orbit of the earth. Maybe the sun is starting its outward growth? It could also be a cycle of the earth as the area I live in was once a tropical climate which now suffers from sub zero temperatures. Why didn't they collect weather data 10000 years ago instead of painting on rocks? I guess they were more like us Caedesians:-)

There is a book written many hundreds of years ago by an inspired group of men who told of this coming. Now we are beginning to see it.

Or it could be just the usual cycle of things - going around in (very long) circles. The earth’s geography and landscape is in a constant state of flux and most of the scenery we see today is comparatively new. Only the arrogance and self importance of man seams to think they have the will or ability to change or affect this cycle’s inevitability. Last time I checked – trees were pretty transient things and could hardly be classed as permanent fixtures and fittings in the big scheme of things.

actually .. the tread of certain hiking boots causes the water to NOT absorb into the ground .. so if the forests are dying where you are hiking you should inspect your footwear

the sole material has a slight acidic taste .. lick them to see if yours are in violation


**this information brought to you by the "tongue in cheek news service"

I licked em...no acidic taste....do you know if they are edible? In a survivor mode that is...of course.

Key words Phil...or it could be. We have the spiritual view of something said coming to reality and the scientific view which is a good guess.

And it doesn't matter who is right or wrong, we have an immediate problem that could potentially kill us all. One sizeable nuclear war and the planet will never recover...I have heard that somewhere before.

well the planet has survived far worse catastrophes than a nuclear war and bounced right back - again it's just a human conceit to believe we hold that kind of power - sure we could kill ourselves off but that's about it.

"Save the rain forest"...This is true, but the hypocrosy in that is...that a handful of these so-called "environmentalists" sure don't mind snorting and/or smoking the end products of what often gets grown in the place of these cleared ecosystems!

Phil...you say "sure we could kill ourselves off but that's about it"...what's left? Dead is the end of this life. According to my source the very heavens will be shaken and even destroyed...this coming from the one who created them. Now don't all line up against me and say I'm wrong...my point is just a valid as yours and we are entitled to our point of views, we have the right to choose what we believe....at least so far.

Jerry – I wasn’t questioning your beliefs – merely suggesting that it is an arrogance of man as a species to believe he has any significant hold over the destiny of this planet. In the timeline of its existence, humans appear as a speck at the end of the line and prior to that, the planet has survived far more calamitous events – even collisions with other planets during its formation and has always recovered. If, for whatever reason the human race were destroyed entirely, it would ultimately be of little consequence to the planet and life in some other form would go on.

Just wondering..say..oh a plant virus goes around and kills all living plants. How long can we, the 6.something billion people, live without the trees. (Just on the oxygen in the atmosphere)

well trees only produce about 20% of the Earths oxygen supply - so just breathe shallow :-) recent studies have shown that older trees and forests actually produce more carbon dioxide than they do oxygen due in part to decay and to less efficient synthesis.

So it's good that some of the tree's are dieing?

Btw, where does the other 80% come from?

the bulk of it comes from ocean going Phytoplankton, the rest comes from various sources such as forests, grasses and even from melting ice caps....

Really? So, i'll look up phytoplankton, but how does melting ice caps give off oxygen? Just a thing where dissolved oxygen in the water escapes or something like that?

Oh phytoplankton are just little plants in water...

...good to hear we wont run out of oxygen sooon, soo...back to the forests. TAKE PICTURES WHILE YOU CAN! :-D ...and water your trees.

Oxygen is trapped in pockets and bubbles in ice as well as in the frozen water itself and is released when the ice thaws – unfortunately so does other gasses :-)

...well as long as there is oxygen (and everything else we need to live), i'm happy... :-D :-) =)

Phil, I know you aren't coming down on me and I don't want to give others the impression you are, so that's straight.

Noah, I would think it would take a little more than that to make you happy but admittedley without oxygen none of us would be happy for long. It's not so much what is taken out of the air as to what's being put into it.

Um, yup. But I was saying I'm happy with oxygen alone...Keifer told me I'm too pessimistic, ;-) I'll be happier with more (actually less in some cases) than that...

What? Pessimistic people require less oxygen?

Taken from the article, "Huge expanses of forest in central British Columbia have died and turned red. A friend living in the Quesnel River watershed of central British Columbia said, "It's all red, and next come the fires."". These trees are dying from an infestation of Pine Beatles. The solution, a cold -30 C for a couple weeks. The beetles live under the bark which protects them from the cold. They have likely spread or have spread from the warmer states mentioned in that article. The infected wood turns a brillant blue color and is called Denim PIne. It provides some very unique opportunities for woodworkers. It is rather scary to see the amount of damage the pine beatle has done. It is natures course:-)

I wish pessimistic people require less O2... :( I was saying, I couldof said "I'm not satisfied with just oxygen.." rather than "I'm happy with oxygen". :)

To Mayne, I have heard that the Beetles are the problem though the Seattle P.I. doesn't seem to think that is the main problem. The main problem being continued high heat at high altitude caused by global warming. Let me just show you something from the most controversial book ever published:

Revelation 16:7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
8 ¶ And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

Of course if you don't believe in God you have nothing to worry about do you? It does say there will be great heat...no further explanation.

*whew* Good news for me...*i wasnt supposed to say that* ...ok ok! Now you all know.

What I stated are facts that Ive seen. It is likely that there are other factors that are attributed to the high stress and eventual death of the trees. Low water table, disease, pests, high UV, depleted nutrients from harvesting, acid rain (which could also result from electrical storms), global warming, etc.

Well, I found this little Tid-bit. Just as ALL things are cyclical, perhaps it is just the forests time.

I'm on the fence with this one. I'm not scientifically educated enough to make a opinion based on fact. I just think pollution is disgusting, plain and simple. Wether it is directly responsible for global warming I don't know, but I wouldn't doubt it. It's hard to watch anything die around us, whatever the cause.

With the population increase over the past 2000 years, emmisions (as Phil previously posted about) from just being alive are pollution. If the earth is on a cycle towards warming as opposed to freezing we are certainly tipping the scales by throwing all of our s&%# around and having little care for our planet (though we talk about it openly here most people avoid this subject completely).

It is more like an age or an era, we are in a stalemate with our earth. We are over 150 countries here, all with our own policies and programs. Some care to consider resolutions and SOME refuse to even address the possibility (or they pretend to address it). So it may be falling apart before our eyes and by the time all the scientist have it figured out, we may in serious s^&%.

I plainly believe that trying to be contentious about your immeadiate com
munity is key. No one can save the world alone. And things (wether this is a natural cycle or global warming) like protecting clean water sources, keeping forests alive and communties and cities not choking on their own breath because of pollution are essential for all our health. It's just called being alive. Are we not all dependent on the earth for our lives, then as much as we like being alive we should protect the source from which that life comes. To not is to be foolish.

If you knew your house for natural reasons was eventually going to disappear, would you still do your dishes, cut the grass and weed your garden? Or would you order take out food, let garbage pile up and let your toilet stay plugged because, eventually, it's all going to disappear anyway? Well we all happen to be sharing the same house, disappearing or not.

And though we will never come together on this subject to resovle it globally, it just makes sense to wash your underware and lock your house at night, because you care about your family and yourself, and eventually perhaps your community too. Peace out .............

Amaris darling… I'd like to introduce you to an important new concept (hey… even Jacqueline learned it)… it's called "a paragraph break" 8•P

I like paragraphs..make it feel like your reading less....when technically your reading more.

Here’s an interesting stat for you that kind of puts the role of trees in perspective. Many eco warriors would have you believe that we would be in serious trouble without the Amazon rain forest being there to produce our oxygen supply but in reality the amount of trees required to service the global human populations needs alone would require a healthy forest of nearly 62 million square kilometres – in other words a forest eight times the size of Australia or fifteen times the size of the whole Amazon basin…..

Okay Cat :p done...............