Climate Change and Pine Beetle Infestations

Logging industries around the world continue to downplay the severity of deforestation and its effects on the environment. Without governments taking action and without trees to regulate the environment, the world will continue to suffer from extreme weather events.

When carbon dioxide (CO2) and other air pollutants build up in the atmosphere, they absorb sunlight and solar rays that have already reflected off the surface of the planet. Normally, this radiation would escape into space, but because these pollutants can remain in the atmosphere for many years or even decades, they trap the heat and make the planet hotter. The greenhouse effect is the result of these heat-trapping pollutants, notably carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and synthetic fluorinated gasses, which are referred to as greenhouse gases.

Although the earth's climate has changed several times over the past 800,000 years due to natural cycles and fluctuations, our current era of global warming is primarily a result of human activity, specifically the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, gasoline, and natural gas, which creates the greenhouse effect.   Extreme deforestation also exacerbates the effects of global warming.  CO2 from the atmosphere is absorbed by a carbon sink; the major carbon sinks on the planet are the ocean, soil, and forests. CO2 is released into the atmosphere by a carbon source, such as the combustion of fossil fuels like gas, coal, and oil, deforestation, and volcanic eruptions.

The equilibrium is currently being disrupted by growing human activities. More carbon is being released into the atmosphere than the planet's carbon sinks can take up. A football field-sized area of forest land is destroyed every second, despite the fact that forests throughout the world absorb 2.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually.   If a forest absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases, it is referred to as a carbon sink. Through photosynthesis, atmospheric carbon is absorbed and deposited in soils, dead organic matter (such as litter and dead wood), and forest biomass, which includes trunks, branches, roots, and leaves. Carbon sequestration is the term for this process of carbon absorption and deposition.

Canada's managed forests have been a substantial carbon sink over the past century, but the situation has changed in recent decades, wherein many of Canada's woods are now carbon sinks releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than they are able to store.   This transition has been influenced by a number of causes, such as wildland fires (now burning areas far larger than they did previously) and unusual insect infestations. In British Columbia, clear-cut areas release carbon dioxide (CO2) from decomposing matter and soil since young trees (second-growth) cannot absorb more carbon than is emitted. This means that logging adds an additional 42 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere to the existing annual 65 million tons of emissions from fossil fuel use in the province.   

Out of the 3.6 million hectares of clearcut forest, 1.9 million hectares correspond to old-growth forest. Old-growth forests are not a renewable resource; these forests are between 200 and 2,000 years old and second-growth trees do not adequately replicate the original old-growth. Old-growth forests are massive storehouses for carbon and contain two to three times more carbon per hectare than the ensuing second-growth tree plantations that they are being replaced with.  

As climate change creates warmer winters, it allows pests like the pine beetle to destroy millions of hectares of forest. About 98% of these beetles are usually killed off during the winter but warmer winters, regional fire suppression programs, and harvesting programs that focus on other species make these pests particularly problematic. The pine beetle epidemic has destroyed 15 years of log supplies in British Columbia. Native to western North America, the mountain pine beetle may be found from northern Mexico to northern British Columbia.

In the Cypress Hills region of southwest Saskatchewan, where there is a small population of pine trees surrounded by prairie and which was probably infested in the early 1980s, it is also present. With the invasion of new habitat east of the Rocky Mountains in northeastern British Columbia and northern Alberta in the 2000s, the area of the beetle's range considerably increased in Canada. They may start settling among the twisting pitch pines of New England and the majestic red pines of Canada's Maritime regions.

Within 60 years, warmer winters may drive the beetles into Canada's boreal forest. Bark beetle outbreaks have also been occurring more often in woods that have been damaged by rising temperatures and drought in Europe and Siberia.   Warmer weather is fostering circumstances that will make it practically difficult for trees to survive save those high in the Alps, and Switzerland is preparing for the ultimate loss of spruce, its most significant tree. The Norway spruce in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and Slovakia are all being severely attacked by beetles.

Since 2014, the Siberian silk moth has also harmed more than 1,100 square kilometers of Siberian fir, pine, and spruce in Siberia with the assistance of a related spruce beetle. Currently, the infestation is moving northward into the taiga (boreal forest), which has never had an outbreak.   These insects are not only invading new areas, but they are also hatching sooner and reproducing more often. Astonishingly quickly, new infestations develop into full-blown ones, and there are more beetles than ever before.   In Utah, spruce beetle outbreaks were also so severe that after decimating all the trees, the insects turned their attention to telephone poles.   

Despite all of this, protocols have been put in place, in particular in British Columbia, for tactical preparation, prevention, detection, and treatment to control mountain pine beetle populations and reduce their negative effects. These tactics include baiting (pheromone baits), harvesting (removing as much infested material), and single-tree treatment (destroying beetles in individual-infested trees).