More on tree deaths across New Zealand

When I made the following video last night I had not seen the following item.

Tree deaths across New Zealand after dry conditions followed wet
Widespread tree deaths nationwide affecting whole hillsides have been reported to the Department of Conservation (DOC), after dry conditions followed a wet winter.

The usually lush Clutha Southland region has faced very dry conditions this summer. Photo: RNZ / Tim Brown

RadioNZ,

2 May, 2019

DOC botanist Shannel Courtney said the deaths covered a lot of the northern South Island.

"There seems to be quite widespread deaths of trees in the Marlborough Sounds and through the Pelorus catchment, right through into Kahurangi National Park and down into Nelson Lakes National Park," he said.

The species affected and the extent of the damage varied from place to place, with native black beech and hard beech trees - which make up most of the northern South Island forests - worst hit after the dry season because they grow along ridges and exposed areas.

Another species, Mahoe, was also dying "en masse", he said.

"I've also seen instances where a whole hillside has been affected, like in the upper Takaka Valley where the young tōtara appear to have died," he said.

"We think that the contrast of the really wet winter followed by an exceptionally dry summer - where we didn't have rain effectively for three months - that those extremes have predisposed many trees to be more susceptible to drought and they weren't conditioned for drought before the drought hit," he said.

Mr Courtney said root stress from a very wet winter and spring last year had weakened the trees and caused root damage, and the extremely dry conditions that followed were now proving fatal.

He said in some places it looked as bad, if not worse, than the 2001 drought. Mr Courtney said the effects were still unfolding and we may not see the full extent for months or another year.

Nelson helicopter pilot Matt Gibb told the department it was the first time he had seen so many dead native trees in 25 years of flying around the area.

"The ridges especially are speckled with dead trees, including in the Wairoa Valley and the Wangapeka area of Kahurangi National Park," he said. "They are becoming very noticeable."

He said as the country would likely experience more droughts due to climate change, we could "expect to see vegetation dieback like this happening more often".

Regeneration would only be possible in places where trees were in good health prior to periods of drought, Mr Courtney said.

The ability of a forest to bounce back from a drought is reduced if the underlying vegetation had disappeared due to goats, deer and possums.

Trees are dying at the top of the South Island of New Zealand

Short reports like this one from Radio NZ provide warning of what is up ahead for us in this country, surrounded as it is by ocean on all sides.

There are high numbers of dead native trees at the top of South Island NZ

California has 149 million dead trees ready to ignite like a matchbook

https://www.vox.com/2019/2/13/18221822/california-149-million-dead-trees-wildfire?fbclid=IwAR1KZTykTu14Jtb7FQj5uwkOpwCCVuTVnfNA4m8nKrHMbXnNX4TqgjnsdSw

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And across Cook Strait the Department of Conservation says the high number of dead native trees being seen across the top of the South Island is likely caused by drought stress. Areas affected include the Wairoa Valley and the Wangapeka area of Kahurangi National Park. Dead trees have also been reported in the Murchison and Nelson Lakes area, the Wairau Valley in Marlborough, the Marlborough Sounds and the Takaka area in Golden Bay.

DOC staff have seen extensive areas of dead mahoe in Abel Tasman National Park's Wainui Inlet, browning rimu trees on dry ridges near the Heaphy Track, and dead beech trees particularly in places where they grow on thin or stony soils along the banks of the Buller River. Introduced species, including pines and eucalyptus, have also died.

https://www.radionz.co.nz/programmes/regional-wrap/story/2018693448/regional-wrap

On California's dying trees

California has 129 million dead trees. That’s a huge wildfire risk.

But no one can afford to cut them all down.

Vox,

4 September, 2018

California has a problem to the tune of 129 million dead trees, spread across 8.9 million acres. That’s 6,450 times the number of trees in Central Park, truly “astronomical,” in the words of Heather Williams, a spokesperson for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

In dry, hot times like these, the record number of decaying ponderosa pines, sugar pines, and other towering species can become kindling for errant sparks, fallen power lines, cigarette butts, and lightning strikes.

The bumper crop of kindling helps explain why this has been the worst year on record for California wildfires. Already, more than 876,000 acres have burned in California, compared to 228,000 last year at the same time. The Mendocino Complex Fire, now almost fully contained at more than 459,000 acres, is the single largest fire on record in state history. The largest fire before that, the Thomas Fire, was just put out in January this year.

These recent fires have barely made a dent in the glut of dead trees, CalFire says, and peak fire season in Southern California is still to come later this year.

Dead trees in Sierra National Forest. US Forest Service

The die-off, meanwhile, that’s created so much fuel is a symptom of the years-long drought that has parched the Western United States. With limited water, trees have shriveled up or succumbed to bark beetle infestations, with some of the most severe declines in central California. And as the climate warms and more people move into high-risk areas, the damages from wildfires are projected to increase.

Here is a map of how the die-off has progressed over the last four years:
Tree deaths in California. US Department of Agriculture/US Forest Service
State fire officials are well aware that these trees pose an immense fire hazard, but controlling them is not as simple as cutting them all down. For starters, the sheer number of these trees is poses an immense logistical challenge. Nearly 1.3 million trees have been removed so far, but many are in remote areas where it’s difficult to bring tree harvesting equipment.

It’s also expensive to try to process so many trees. Lumber companies can sell some of the wood to recoup their expenses, but many of the trees are too decayed or structurally unsound to sell. There are jurisdictional hurdles as well, since the forests span federal, state, and private land.

California put together a Tree Mortality Task Force that has awarded millions of dollars in grants to study the problem and to deploy tactics like thinning forests across public and private land. With limited personnel, equipment, and funding, the task force identified several areas as high priorities for management, including Fresno, Kern, Madera, Mariposa, and Calaveras counties. These regions face the highest risks to people and property from falling or burning trees.

But that means the vast majority of the dead trees in California will stay in place and continue to pose fire risks. “There is no way to remove 129 million trees,” Williams said.

We all share the blame for wildfires

Fires are a natural part of the ecosystem in many forests. Blazes clear out underbrush, restore nutrients to the soil, and help some plants germinate. However, the severity and the damage from recent wildfires is due in large part to human activity.

People are moving into areas prone to burning, people ignite the majority of blazes, and people are changing the climate.

How we manage forests is another key factor increasing the dangers of wildfires, from preventing natural fires from burning, to cutting down the wrong kinds of trees, to neglecting pruning in forests near population centers.

However, George Geissler, the Washington State forester, said that this situation arose from many different causes and is too complicated to blame on any individual or group.

Which means forest fires are not due to environmental terrorist groups, as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke suggested, nor are they due to logging companies cutting down fire-resistant trees, as some activists have claimed, nor are they due to landowners opposing prescribed burns (and it’s definitely not “water foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean”).

The big failure is that the US has not put in the time and money needed to be able to live next to forests, harvest the trees, and reduce wildfire risks. There is no coherent vision across all levels of government, and conflicting priorities like forest preservation and property protection have exacerbated fire risks. “The idea of caring for a forest is much like caring for a garden,” Geissler said. “You have to invest in it to keep it healthy.”

So in some areas, managing forests requires deliberately igniting fires. In others, it would require clear-cutting. Still other areas demand planting new trees to reduce fire risks.

California is taking some steps to systematically reduce fire hazards. The state legislature on Friday passed a $1 billion fire risk reduction package. It give grants over five years to communities to cut fuel breaks, thin flammable brush, and educate firefighters. The bill also relaxes rules on logging to make it easier to get to some of the most flammable trees.

However, the bill also contains a controversial provision that would allow Pacific Gas and Electric to pass off some its liabilities to customers. The utility is facing billions of dollars in damage payouts after its power lines were blamed for starting some of the fires in California last year. California Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign the bill.

Meanwhile, fire officials are still bracing for more blazes this year. “We’re always optimistic that things will stay quiet, but the past two years have shown that is very unlikely,” Cal Fire’s Williams said.


Firefighters construct fire lines to control the Lions Fire in Sierra National Forest in California on August 22. Jim Bartlett/US Forest Service

Doing all this takes money, and bringing down fire risks will take years. Politically, it’s easier to muster the resources to put out a fire than it is to prevent one, especially when groups like the timber industry and environmental activists are diametrically opposed on certain kinds of management techniques, like forest thinning. That means states and the federal government will face a slog of litigation and red tape as they try to bring fire risks down.

“It took decades to get to this point, it will take decades to get out of it,” Geissler said. “It requires commitment and unfortunately it requires a hell of a lot of patience.”

Jerry Brown quietly admits Trump was right

California guv eases state's logging rules in wake of wildfires

After brushing off President Trump’s charge that poor forest management is partly to blame for California’s recent devastating wildfires, Gov. Jerry Brown is urging state lawmakers to ease restrictions on logging that were enacted under pressure from environmental groups.

Brown is proposing one of the most significant changes to the state’s logging rules in nearly half a century, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported, as noted by the Daily Wire.

In an effort to thin more forests, the proposal would allow private landowners with 300 acres or less to cut larger trees and build temporary roads without obtaining a permit.

Environmentalists, however, want to make California’s logging rules even more restrictive, the Daily Wire said. But the recent deadly fires in both Northern and Southern California have prompted lawmakers to act.

Brown’s proposal would allow landowners to cut trees up to 36 inches in diameter — up from the current 26 inches — without a permit if their purpose is to reduce fire risk.

They also would be be allowed to build roads of up to 600 feet long without a permit.

Landowners currently are allowed only to clear dead and decaying wood and undergrowth.

Two weeks ago, the Daily Wire reported, Trump threatened to withhold federal money if California didn’t improve its forest management.

“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,” he tweeted.

“Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”

Brown’s office responded to the president, calling his opinion “inane” and “uninformed.”

“Our focus is on the Californians impacted by these fires and the first responders and firefighters working around the clock to save lives and property — not on the president’s inane, uninformed tweets.”

And Brown blamed global warming for the increase in fires, the Daily Wire pointed out.

Planting tress will no longer save us - MAINSTREAM

What I have known for about 4-5 years finally goes mainstream. I would love to jam this down the throat of some public figure locally!

There's so much CO2 in the atmosphere that planting trees can no longer save us

Business Insider,

28 October, 2018

There isn’t enough space on Earth to plant the amount of trees it would take to prevent the climate from warming by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Humans emit roughly 30 to 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide, or the greenhouse gas known as CO2, into the atmosphere each year.
• If we keep it up, Earth will continue to heat up and ultimately devastate our way of life.
• Watch the video above to learn what it would take to solve our emissions problem.

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Humans emit roughly 30 to 40 billion tons of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere each year. If we keep it up, Earth will continue to heat up and ultimately devastate our way of life.

So what can we do about it?

Most scientists agree that we need a way to capture some of that CO2 out of the atmosphere. One idea is to plant lots of trees. Trees use CO2 in order to grow. They also release oxygen, so it’s a win-win.

But studies indicate that we simply can’t grow enough trees to capture the necessary amount of CO2 that would help us meet the goals set by the Paris Agreement.

In truth, we would have to cover the entire contiguous US with trees just to capture 10% of the CO2 we emit annually.

There’s just not enough room on this planet to have the farmland it takes to feed the world plus the space to plant the necessary number of trees.

In other words, many of us would starve if we tried using trees to solve our emissions problem.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This video was originally published on May 31, 2017.

A PREDICAMENT: The insanity of burning slow-growth forest to cut back on coal

"Comrades, pull the curtains (of the snow-bound train) and let's pretend we're moving"

Leonid Brezhnev in Soviet-era joke

This is what you get when you try to solve a predicament and save civilisation.

UK Is Cutting Down Huge 

Swaths Of American Forest To Fight Climate Change

It is not often (in fact NEVER) that I can look to InfoWars for any sense about climate change, but this is a big exception!

Apart from the obvious bias about this being about the "Left" there is little I can take exception to in this presentation.

The powers-that-be in Britain are burning biomass from slow-growth forest being cut down in Virginia to replace coal so they can say they are doing something despite the fact that burning biomass creates 8 % more carbon.

This is truly taking a situation and making it worse so they can claim they are doing something to "fight" climate change.

This falls into a similar category as geoengineering and far worse that perpetuating the myth that "sustainable energy" based on fossil fuels is going to "save the planet"

It is an illustration of the predicament of burning the planet in an attempt to maintain human industrial civilisation as well as the truism that everyone wishes to flatly deny that "human civilisation is a heat engine"

With this going on it is not hard to see why CO2 levels in the atmosphere have reached over 411 ppm and are rising.

In the meantime Britain has a real energy problem.

This last winter they have had a severe shortage of natural gas and have had to bring in more than one shipload-full from Russia (something they refuse to acknolwedge).

And then they crow about how they have done without dirty coal for THREE DAYS!!!

At the edge of extinction only insanity remains.

Cold Snap Triggering Gas Crisis in U.K. Shows Rising Supply Risk

Russia delivering more gas to Britain to relieve cold-weather shortage

From the Guardian

UK runs without coal power for three days in a row

Demand lower following recent warm weather, making it easier for gas, renewables and nuclear to cover UK’s needs 

The UK has been powered without coal for three days in a row, setting a new record and underlining the polluting fuel’s rapid decline.

Coal has historically been at the cornerstone of the UK’s electricity mix, but last year saw the first 24-hour period that the the country ran without the fuel since the 19th century.

New records were broken last week when zero power came from coal for nearly 55 consecutive hours.

That milestone in turn was smashed on Monday afternoon and the UK passed the 72-hour mark at 10am on Tuesday. The coal-free run came to an end after 76 hours.

Without the fossil fuel, nearly a third of Britain’s electricity was supplied by gas, followed by windfarms and nuclear on around a quarter each.

The rest came from biomass burned at Drax power station in North Yorkshire, imports from France and the Netherlands, and solar power. Drax said it expected to go without coal on Tuesday.

It seems that the Ecologist (founded by my eco-hero, Teddy Goldsmith agrees..

Hardwood forests cut down to feed Drax Power plant, Channel 4 Dispatches claims

Brendan Montague

The Ecologist,

16th April 2018

Drax Power - is it really producing renewable energy?

Wikipedia

Creative Commons

A Dispatches investigation has uncovered evidence of hardwood forests being chopped down to provide 'green energy' for the UK. Experts say unique habitats rich in wildlife are under threat as Britain’s power stations switch from burning coal to wood, writes BRENDAN MONTAGUE

Huge areas of hardwood forest in the state of Virginia are being chainsawed to create 'biomass' energy in Britain as the government attempts to reach targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in efforts to tackle climate change, an investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches has found.

A key part of government efforts to hit its green energy targets is to switch from generating electricity from burning coal to burning wood - or so-called biomass. It’s a policy that is costing taxpayers more than £700 million per year through a levy on their electricity bills.

The biomass industry and government argue that because wood is a renewable source of energy and trees can be replanted to reabsorb carbon dioxide this policy is good for the environment.

Simple experiment

Antony Barnett, reporter at Dispatches, travelled to the southern states of the USA to investigate the source of wood that is now being turned into millions of tonnes of wood pellets to be burnt in Britain’s largest power station, Drax, in North Yorkshire.

Footage reveals huge areas of hardwood forest in the state of Virginia  being chopped down and removed to a factory owned by US firm Enviva that grinds up logs into pellets. A large proportion of these pellets are then shipped across the Atlantic to be burnt at Drax in the UK - one of Enviva’s main customers.

Britain has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 57 percent by 2030 and getting Drax to switch from burning coal to wood is meant to play an important part in that. Drax now produces up to 17 percent of Britain’s 'renewable' electricity, enough to power four million homes.

The power station giant claims that burning pellets instead of coal reduces carbon emissions by more than 80 percent.

However, Dispatches conducted a simple experiment at a laboratory at the University of Nottingham to compare the carbon dioxide emitted when burning wood pellets, similar to those used by Drax, instead of coal.

Dozens of scientists

It found that to burn an amount of wood pellets that would generate the same amount of electricity as coal it would actually produce roughly eight percent more carbon.

Biomass is viewed as ‘carbon neutral’ under European rules. This means Drax is not obliged to officially report the carbon emissions coming out of its chimney stack. Dispatches calculated that if Drax were to report on the full extent of its emissions it would show that last year they amounted to 11.7 million tonnes of CO2.

Drax claims that the replanting of trees means all the C02 will be reabsorbed. But scientists argue that it will take decades for forests to regrow and subsidising biomass from wood pellets is fuelling an industry that’s making climate change worse in the short term.

Professor Bill Moomaw helped lead a team that won a Nobel Peace Prize for its work on climate change at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He is one of dozens of scientists who have written to the British government, warning against this policy.

Professor Moomaw said in an interview with Dispatches: “If we take the forests and burn them the carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere instantly, in a few minutes. It takes decades to a century to replace that.

Carbon absorbed

“Britain may be on track to eliminating the use of coal but they are not on track to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. We’re not going to meet our one and a half or two-degree targets that all governments, including the British government, agreed to in Paris.

"Burning more wood makes it absolutely impossible to meet that target. We now know that if we overshoot that the consequences last for 100s to a thousand or more years.  So there’s no off switch, there’s no reverse gear.”

Andy Koss, chief executive of Drax Power, defended the policy of burning wood pellets in an interview with the programme: “I am very comfortable that all the material what we source meets regulatory standards in the UK and meets our very strict sustainability criteria.”

Koss said the site Dispatches had seen being logged was atypical and that the “vast majority” of its wood comes from residue and waste material. He said: “We’ve obviously looked at this as well.  The site was a working forest, it was left unmanaged.  

"The owner of that forest wanted to clear this using standard harvesting techniques to turn it back into a working forest. That forest is being regrown. We know the owner of that particular tract - that will grow and there will be more carbon absorbed.”

Sustainability provisions

On the question of Drax’s claim that by burning wood instead of coal it reduces carbon emissions by more than 80 percent, Koss admitted it didn’t include emissions from its chimneys: “We don’t count that. The government doesn’t count that.

"It doesn’t include stack emissions because if we are sourcing sustainable biomass from working forests, where this is more growth than is being harvested, we see the carbon as being reabsorbed.”

Envier said in a statement to Dispatches that it "works to industry leading, strict sustainability and wood sourcing policies and certifications."

It added: We will not work with any supplier that does not adhere to our commitment to protecting, nurturing and growing forests. Enviva does not accept wood from old growth or independently designated conservation areas. The small family owned site allegedly being shown in the footage is made up of younger trees = not the alleged 80 to 100 years - and is not a sensitive wetland forest.”

A spokesman for the Government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy told Channel 4: “Between 1990 and 2016, the UK reduced its emissions by over 40 percent. We have the most stringent biomass sustainability provisions in Europe.

"Environmentally friendly, low carbon bioenergy can help the UK to transition to a more diverse energy mix, increase our energy security, keep costs down for consumers and help us to meet our 2050 carbon targets.”

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Channel 4 Dispatches. Dispatches: The True Cost of Green Energy will be shown at 8pm on Monday 16 April on Channel 4.

PS. This is the audio of the Dispatches documentary which is not available in this country.

More from the Ecologist

No Drax! There's nothing 'sustainable' about big biomass

The Drax power station in Yorkshire is the UK's biggest CO2 emitter, burns more wood each year than the entire UK timber harvest, and is a major importer of coal from strife-stricken regions of Colombia, writes Frances Howe. This Thursday campaigners will target the company's AGM to highlight its impacts on forests, biodiversity, climate and communities, in the face of Drax's PR offensive to make biomass appear 'sustainable'.

Even the author of this article in the Guardian seems to agree.

Burning wood for power is ‘misguided’ say climate experts

Using biomass instead of fossil fuels may not be the answer to averting global warming