Author: postMigrator

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“The recent transition from sink to source
is the result of large insect outbreaks.”
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA

PNAS | February 5, 2008 | vol. 105 | no. 5 | 1551-1555

OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/105/5/1551

Risk of natural disturbances makes future contribution of Canada’s
forests to the global carbon cycle highly uncertain
Werner A. Kurz, Graham Stinson, Gregory J. Rampley, Caren C. Dymond,
and Eric T. Neilson

Abstract

A large carbon sink in northern land surfaces inferred from global
carbon cycle inversion models led to concerns during Kyoto Protocol
negotiations that countries might be able to avoid efforts to reduce
fossil fuel emissions by claiming large sinks in their managed
forests. The greenhouse gas balance of Canada’s managed forest is
strongly affected by naturally occurring fire with high interannual
variability in the area burned and by cyclical insect outbreaks.
Taking these stochastic future disturbances into account, we used the
Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3) to
project that the managed forests of Canada could be a source of
between 30 and 245 Mt CO2e yr-1 during the first Kyoto Protocol
commitment period (2008-2012). The recent transition from sink to
source is the result of large insect outbreaks. The wide range in the
predicted greenhouse gas balance (215 Mt CO2e yr-1) is equivalent to
nearly 30% of Canada’s emissions in 2005. The increasing impact of
natural disturbances, the two major insect outbreaks, and the Kyoto
Protocol accounting rules all contributed to Canada’s decision not to
elect forest management. In Canada, future efforts to influence the
carbon balance through forest management could be overwhelmed by
natural disturbances. Similar circumstances may arise elsewhere if
global change increases natural disturbance rates. Future climate
mitigation agreements that do not account for and protect against the
impacts of natural disturbances, for example, by accounting for forest
management benefits relative to baselines, will fail to encourage
changes in forest management aimed at mitigating climate change.

Complete article at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/105/5/1551-

Open Access articles are available without fee or subscription payment.

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WildSource E-News – February 2008

Idaho’s Pristine Wildlands Need Your Support!  Take Action TODAY!

Idaho is blessed with over 9.3 million acres of pristine, roadless wildlands.  In
2001, thanks to the hard work and comments of people just like you, national forest
wildlands in Idaho and around the country were protected from development.

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has attempted to repeal these protections.
Currently, the Forest Service has written a draft plan that significantly weakens
protections for nearly 6 million acres of Idaho’s backcountry forests.  This new
plan would result in logging, mining and other damages to some of the last remaining
pristine landscapes in the US and the world.

Do you part to help the pristine forests you love by submitting comments to the
Forest Service today – take action at:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1537/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=22694!  For more
information, please visit:  www.wildwestinstitute.org/pdf/ID_Roadless.pdf.

USFS Proposes Giving Outfitters Your Access and Your Rights – Take Action TODAY!

If you do nothing, these sweeping changes will impact all do-it-yourself
(self-guided) recreationists, including hunters, fishermen, hikers, backpackers,
canoeists, and river runners. Once the rights to your favorite picnic area, boat
ramp, or wilderness trailhead are sold, the change is permanent; the self-guided
public enthusiast loses, and also loses the right to comment in the future.

Past long-term efforts by the outfitters’ lobby have failed, due in part to your
vigilance. This most recent attempt is more sinister. The outfitters and guides have
joined forces with non-profit groups that lead guided outdoor trips, and are now
attempting to re-write the rules that govern the policies of the US Forest Service
to win special access privileges.

For more information about this issue, please visit this link:
http://rrfw.org/article.php?file=20071222.RRFW_Riverwire.Public_Comment_Extended_on_USFS_Give-Away.
To Take Action and submit your comments by February 19th, please click:
http://rrfw.org/ForestRec.php.

Good News for Public Lands: White House Drops Appeal of WildWest Court Victory
You may recall that back in March 2007,  the WildWest Institute and our partners
scored a major victory on behalf of America’s national forests and wildlife when a
U.S. District Court judge ruled that the Bush Administration illegally rewrote the
rules for managing 192 million acres of federally owned forests.

We got more good news last month when the Bush Administration dropped its appeal of
this case. Get the scoop at
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-01-08-2905883424_x.htm.

The Five Stages of Climate Grief

The global warming topic seems to now be saturating the media. Newspapers,
television, weekly magazines and endless Internet sites all have summaries of the
science, and wide ranging discussions of what society should do next. The global
warming trends and projections are sobering, even frightening, eliciting puzzling
responses from the public.

As a professor and climate scientist at the University of Montana in the U.S.A., I
have been giving public lectures on “The Inconvenient Truth for Montana” for at
least five years, and these speaking engagements occur now almost every week.  My
speeches cover the newest evidence of increasing hurricane intensity, larger
wildfires, melting glaciers, and sea level rise that are being implicated with
climate change. Individual reactions to my presentations are wide-ranging, from
anger to depression, and it has been difficult for me to understand this wide
spectrum of emotions.

I recently took a fresh look at the widely recognized concepts on the “5 stages of
grief” that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross defined back in the 1970s to summarize how people
deal differentially with shocking news, and it seems that these stages of grief
provide a very good analogy to how people are now reacting to the global warming
topic, so I have formulated my “5 Stages of Climate Grief”.  Read the rest of the
story at
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1537/blog/comments.jsp?key=333&blog_entry_KEY=23043&t=.

Check out the Deforestation and Climate Change Video by 41 Pounds.org!

This exciting new video brings alive the connection between deforestation and
climate change!

Help keep the trees in the forest by stopping your junk mail.  More trees help to
keep the planet cooler and heathier.  By taking this simple step you can take to
help reduce global warming!

To watch the video or find out more about 41 Pounds.org, please visit
http://www.41pounds.org/savetreesvideo/.

Science Spotlight

Every month we’ll highlight new scientific research and findings as part of the
WildWest Institute’s on-going efforts to ensure that science guides the management
of our public lands.

February Spotlight:  Re-examining fire severity relations in pre-management era
mixed conifer forests: inferences from landscape patterns of forest structure – read
the full report at http://www.wildwestinstitute.org/programs/science_spotlight.html.

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