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pine beetle

Instagram Filming Logs: Beetles, Fire and Regeneration Failure, September 2023 – Central Rockies

By Abrupt changes, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Photo Tour, pine beetle, Shifting Ecology, Tipping, Vegetation Response

Instagram Filming Logs: Beetles, Fire and Regeneration Failure, September 2023 – Central Rockies Bruce Melton, ClimateDiscovery.org (Instagram logs with photos and video are below the summary.) Across the Central Rockies from the San Juans to Rocky Mountain National Park, beetle attacks are growing again. The beetles and  impacted trees are changing though. Gone are the…

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Giant Sequoias: A Tipping Point

By Abrupt changes, adaptation, Climate Catastrophes, climate emergency, climate restoration, Drought, Earth systems, Fire, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Legacy Policy, pine beetle, Shifting Ecology, The Unexpected, Tipping

The Sequoia Burn Giant Sequoias: A Climate Tipping Point by Bruce Melton PE Follow MeltOn in the field on Instagram See the abridged version on Truthout.org: August 9, 2022. Summary: Up to 13,000 mature sequoias were killed by wildfire between 2015 and 2021, with a total known population of only about 75,500 mature trees. Sequoias…

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Climate Change Across America – Fall Filming 2021: Beetle Kill in SW CO and Forest Failure at Mesa Verde National Park

By Abrupt changes, Drought, Earth systems, Fire, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, pine beetle

Climate Change Across America Fall Filming Report Southern and Southwestern Colorado Beetle Attack and Forest Regeneration Failure at Mesa Verde National Park We returned to filming after a long covid. No trouble. On the big drive from Texas to the mountains, New Mexico was grand with their indoor mask mandate. Colorado and Texas were about…

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Climate Change 2018 Review: The Good and Bad, What Have We Learned?

By Abrupt changes, adaptation, Agriculture, Climate Catastrophes, Climate Policy, climate solutions, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Extreme Weather, Fire, flood, forest health, Forest Mortality, Healthy Climate, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Negative emissions, Permafrost, pine beetle, politics, Reports, Scenarios, Solutions, Trump, Uncategorized

Climate Change 2018 Review:  Part 1 – The Bad  by Bruce Melton Climate Change Now Initiative, 501c3 (Link to Article) So much happened in our climate change world in 2018 that we are printing this article in two parts: The Bad, and The Good. We start with the bad, and as bad as it was…

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Climate Change Across America: Summary of Summer Filming Season 2018

By Abrupt changes, Climate Catastrophes, Extreme Weather, Fire, flood, Flooding, forest health, Forest Mortality, Glaciers, Impacts, Mega-Landslides, Permafrost, pine beetle

Climate Change Across America: Summary of Summer Filming Season 2018 (Our trip log with photos and videos can be found here.) This year was year four of filming with 43,000 total miles of observation to date. In the summer filming season in 2018, for 16,000 miles from Austin to the Arctic via California, we literally…

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Climate Change Across America 2018: Full Trip Log

By Abrupt changes, Climate Catastrophes, Drought, Extreme Weather, Fire, flood, Flooding, forest health, Forest Mortality, Glaciers, Heat, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Mega-Landslides, Permafrost, pine beetle, Shifting Ecology

Climate Change Across America – Instagram Trip Logs Full Trip Log, Summer Filming Season 2018: June 27 through August 11 – Austin to the Arctic Circle via California. The expedition was 16,199 miles, 46 days, 42 different camps, 2 motels – Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Utah,…

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Forest Mortality Exceeds Growth For the First Time

By Abrupt changes, Climate Catastrophes, forest health, Forest Mortality, pine beetle

Our Nation’s Timberlands Flip: Mortality Exceeds Growth by 2:1 Because of climate change, our nation’s forests are dying faster than they are regenerating. This was not supposed to happen for a long, long time. It’s really something that is not even projected, except in very vague terms about ecosystem transformation. But today, already, we see…

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What’s the Big Deal With Climate Change?

By Abrupt changes, Climate Culture, Climate Reform, Deniers and Delayers, Drought, Emissions Scenarios, Extreme Weather, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, Messaging, Myths, pine beetle, Psycho, Shifting Ecology, Strategy, The Unexpected, What we can do

What’s the Big Deal With Climate Change? We all understand climate change is trouble. Even a really significant percentage of oil and gas professionals understand. Of a recent poll (2014) of 474 oil and gas industry insiders, 85 percent believed global warming was happening, 58 percent were either very sure or extremely sure, and 57 percent…

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Forestkill: Coniferous, Deciduous, Palm and Cactus — Climate Change is Everywhere

By Abrupt changes, Drought, forest health, Forest Mortality, pine beetle, Shifting Ecology, Vegetation Response

Slowly and insidiously, or abruptly and finitely. Forests of all kinds are succumbing to climate change. Mountain forests, city forests, forests in the southeast and the far north. Pine, spruce, fir, oak, maple. Nontraditional forests too; the palms of LA, succulents in the desert. Yes, deserts are at risk too. Deserts as ecosystems are fragile…

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Climate Change: What Should We Do?

By Abrupt changes, Climate Catastrophes, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Emissions Scenarios, forest health, Forest Mortality, ice sheets, Myths, Negative emissions, pine beetle, Scenarios, What we can do

One of the biggest myths about climate change is that emissions reductions cool Earth. This is nowhere close to reality. Even the Paris Commitments of 80 percent emissions reductions by 2050 allow warming to triple by 2050 and quintuple by 2100.  We (the royal we) have great challenges as climate reform decision makers. If our…

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Warm Winter, Early Spring: Is Climate Change a Mixed Bag or are we Kidding Ourselves?

By Abrupt changes, adaptation, Beaches coastal, Climate Catastrophes, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, Deniers and Delayers, Drought, economics, Emissions, Emissions Scenarios, Extreme Weather, forest health, Forest Mortality, Glaciers, Gulf Stream, ice sheet, ice sheets, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, modeling, Negative emissions, Oceans, pine beetle, politics, Psycho, Scenarios, Sea Level Rise, Shifting Ecology, West Antarctic Ice Sheet, Winter Weather

President Trump it seems, has given us permission to backslide with our thinking about climate change. Until we have rule or law that tells us we must do something about climate pollution, “those that would rather it not be real” have won. This allows the debate to rage encouraging doubt. The Clean Power Plan and…

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We Can Have a Healthy Climate With Zero Warming in Our Lifetimes, by Bruce Melton

By Abrupt changes, Drought, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, pine beetle, Shifting Ecology, Truthout.org

  We can have a healthy climate — a climate with zero warming — in our lifetimes. The message for the last 20 years has been that we have to reduce emissions drastically to prevent dangerous climate change of more than 2 degrees C (3.6 F). This strategy would have likely worked when it was…

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The Beetles: 6,000 Miles of Climate Change — Long Version

By Abrupt changes, Drought, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, pine beetle, Shifting Ecology, Vegetation Response

This is the original long version with much more detail and all of the destinations and forest health descriptions along the 6,000 mile route. The abbreviated  2,000 word version was published on Truthout on February 16, 2016 is here. We were awash for 19 days in a tumultuous sea of mountains and forests, drifting a course through the heart…

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Temperature Changes: It’s Not All About the Average Global Temperature

By Extreme Weather, Forest Mortality, Impacts, pine beetle, Temperature

Earth has warmed about 0.9 degrees C on average and the Arctic on average has warmed two to three times as much as the average. Daily temperature variation and annual temperature variation make a difference. Climate scientists have been warming us for over a generation that climate change would mean greater insect infestations on a…

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