Year 2, Month 3, Day 9: Maybe They Can Import Kudzu. Yeah. That’ll Work.

More on the soon-to-vanish Lodgepole Pine, this time from Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard. As opposed to a generic AP story, this one appears to be the work of a staff writer, and it’s pretty good.

Citizens of the Pacific Northwest can no longer say they weren’t warned. With the recent release of a study predicting that global warming will bring about a catastrophic decline in the lodgepole pine population over the next five or six decades, residents of the area can begin to imagine a very different-looking future. While the work of Richard Waring and his colleagues is region-specific, there can be no doubt that similar processes are underway around the world; hundreds of regional ecosystems will experience massive disruption, losing thousands of key plant and animal species. We must all work together to change our patterns of energy consumption; as Nobel Laureate Sherwood Rowland once said, “What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?” We’ve all been warned. What will we do now?

Warren Senders