Tag: pine

O Christmas Tree

  • Lauren and her potted tree. It will stay outdoors until Christmas Eve, when it will be brought in for 14 hours. (Photo by Jennifer Guerra)

It’s the holidays… which for some
of us means time to deck the halls
with boughs of holly and, oh yeah,
pick out a Christmas tree. We sent
reporter Jennifer Guerra to find out which tree is greener –
real or artificial:

Transcript

It’s the holidays… which for some
of us means time to deck the halls
with boughs of holly and, oh yeah,
pick out a Christmas tree. We sent
reporter Jennifer Guerra to find out which tree is greener –
real or artificial:

Lauren Northrop and her husband Tom are big fans of Christmas.

“We love celebrating it, I love decorating, but we always have this dilemma: what do we do about a tree?”

They didn’t want a plastic tree because it’s, well, plastic. And they didn’t like the idea of bringing a live tree into their house, only to have it die and then drag it out to the curb to be recycled.

So they skipped the Christmas tree thing altogether for the last four years. But then, their son Will was born in January.

“We decided that we have to have a tree because it’s, like, his first Christmas, and we want to have those family videos of him having his Christmas morning by the Christmas tree and opening his gifts, and just the whole experience because that was important to us growing up and we always had that.”

They bought a live, baby Christmas tree with its roots still intact. That way, when Christmas is done and the ground thaws, they can plant it in their backyard.

“I was planning to keep the tree inside until December 25th so that we could decorate it and put lights on it. When we went to buy it they said if you do that, it probably won’t survive. So keep it outside so the temperature is more consistent, bring it inside only for a short period of time. (Like how short?) As in December 24th. Will goes to bed, Tom and I are gonna be up decorating that tree and bringing it inside for about 14 hours.”

That’s probably way too much hassle for 14 hours of Christmas cheer. So a lot of people go for real, cut trees. Pat Fera would love to have a real cut Christmas tree in her house.

“But I’m very afraid of them. I had a friend of mine, this was back in the 60s, and she and her mother had gone to midnight mass and her father was home and he was sleeping on the couch and what woke him up was the sound of the tree just going wooosh.”

Apparently the TV shorted, it ignited the tree, tree caught on fire and the dad just made it out of the house. Fera says the ceiling was charred black and the whole place was smoke-damaged.

“Well yeah, if you’re not careful that’s certainly, yeah, a real tree is a hell of a fire hazard!”

That’s Bob Schildgen. He writes an environmental advice column for the Sierra Club called Hey, Mr. Green. So I called him up and asked him…

Guerra: “Hey, Mr. Green. Which is more environmentally friendly? Why don’t we tackle one at a time: let’s go with plastic trees. What do you think about those”

Schildgen: “Well, I don’t think they’re environmentally friendly for a number of reasons. One is that they’re made out of materials that use petro chemicals and metals and so forth. They get eventually tossed in the landfill, they have a life of about 9 years and then they’re tossed. They can’t be recycled.”

And since most plastic Christmas trees are made in places like China, they have to be shipped a very long way to end up in your family room.

So plastic is out.

Schildgen does like the idea of live bulb trees, but their survival rate once you plant them in the ground isn’t that great. So he says – aside from the fire hazard mentioned – real cut trees are a much greener option than plastic. With a real tree you’re using a renewable resource; the trees are raised on tree farms, so you’re not contributing to any deforestation. And they’re completely recyclable.

“I think another feature that I like about them is that, and this is not exactly an obvious environmental issue, but I think it’s very good for children to see something fresh, green, real, alive, and then watch it cycle as the needles fall off and it goes into its natural demise. I think that’s good for people.”

Schildgen says some farmers use pesticides on their tree, so if you’re concerned about that, you should look for local organic trees.

For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

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Furry Critters and Chanel No.5

  • Jeff Wilson and Dan Haskell are trapping pine martens in Minnesota for relocation to northern Wisconsin. (Photo by Barbara Jean Johnson)

There are places where some wildlife
that once thrived, are now gone. In
Wisconsin, the Pine Marten has been
wiped out. The shy animal looks a bit
like a ferret. Pine Martens are members
of the weasel family. Barbara Jean Johnson
went out with researchers to see how
they’re bringing Pine Martens back to
northern Wisconsin:

Transcript

There are places where some wildlife
that once thrived, are now gone. In
Wisconsin, the Pine Marten has been
wiped out. The shy animal looks a bit
like a ferret. Pine Martens are members
of the weasel family. Barbara Jean Johnson
went out with researchers to see how
they’re bringing Pine Martens back to
northern Wisconsin:

You probably have never seen a pine marten. But I’m spending the day with two guys who spend weeks at a time looking for them. They work for the Wisconsin DNR. We’re actually in a county in northern Minnesota. We’re crammed into a Ford Ranger pickup, driving on the back roads to check trap lines. We’re looking for Pine Martens in Minnesota that will be released in northern Wisconsin.

Pine Marten’s were wiped out or extirpated in Wisconsin over the last hundred years. The Marten’s were in trouble once European settlers moved in. A combination of forest fires reduced animal habitat. Already too many of the animals were trapped for their pelts. But then the Great Depression hit.

“Trapping was a valuable commodity. Fur prices were high and many farmers and farm boys feed their families off their trap lines, and given that there’re weren’t many regulations, or limited regulations, and the high value, I don’t doubt that they over harvested, as well.”

That’s Jeff Wilson. He’s on the frontlines of this varmint capture mission. He and his partner Dan Haskell are seeking to right some of the past wrongs. Dan and Jeff are fun guys. They love the wilderness and they like to chat. The only downside to our little expedition is the smell that permeates the cab. I didn’t say anything, but it smells like skunk.

“Now you do admit, you do smell a little skunk essence in here, do you not? We do our best you know. we shower everyday, but we have been getting a few looks at the grocery stores and the places we’ve been shopping in your Grand Marais community. We hope we haven’t offended anybody.”

These guys us a skunk scent to lure Pine Martens to live-traps. They love the scent. And, they’re not the only ones. Apparently this skunk compound is used in the famous French perfume Chanel No. 5. Some of their colleagues have actually used the perfume as a lure when trapping lynx in Canada.

“However, Chanel No. 5 is like $90 an ounce. (laughs) So we don’t use it.”

Dan and Jeff don’t want just any kind of marten. They already have all the males they need. They want females. As we make our way from trap to trap we catch male after male – seriously, five males – and no females.

“My wife says it’s because they are smarter, but I think it’s because they have a much smaller home range – maybe a half a mile to a mile. In contrast, males cover around two to three miles. You’re just going to get more males. If you set a trap line and spread it out, there’s going to be about two or three times more possibility of a male capture than a female capture.”

(sound of animal screaming)

Catch six, and we’re all hoping it’s a girl. But they have to check to make sure. Marten’s may be small, but they’re certainly not known for being cuddly.

Jeff coaxes the marten head-first into the corner of a laundry bag. He puts a tight hold on its head while Dan peels back the bag to check the genitalia. Once they know they’ve captured a female, they sedate her and run through a series of basic tests to collect data. They also give each animal they take home a name.

“This one is obviously going to be called ‘Barbara’ after you, our colleague. (laughter) You’re a breath of fresh air – literally. (laughter)”

Yeah, they’re a little lonely out in the field. Not a lot of people spend much time with them – smelling a little like skunk and all. And they’re away from home for extended periods of time. But, all in all, they both enjoy what they do and find real meaning in it.

“We can restore what we’ve mismanaged in the past and it’s inspirational for me to see there’s no doubt there’s a niche for this animal there. This animal is a really important part of biological diversity and I’m really happy I can participate in that.” For The Environment Report, I’m Barbara Jean Johnson.

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Destructive Beetle Creates Blue Wood

  • These mountain pine beetles are very destructive, killing millions of trees (Photo courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Research Station)

For more than a decade, mountain pine beetles have been devastating

forests in Canada and the Western United States. Colorado
has been hit especially hard. Millions of dead pines are creating the potential for huge forest fires. So, the trees are being cut
down. Conrad Wilson reports, some business are using that
timber:

Transcript

For more than a decade, mountain pine beetles have been devastating

forests in Canada and the Western United States. Colorado
has been hit especially hard. Millions of dead pines are creating the potential for huge forest fires. So, the trees are being cut
down. Conrad Wilson reports, some business are using that
timber:

(sound of a beetle)

That’s the sound of mountain pine beetles hard at work, laying
eggs beneath a tree’s bark. That kills the tree.

Here in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains,
two million acres of pine trees have been killed.

But the same destruction caused by the bugs has also created an
opportunity.

The beetles introduce a fungus that stains the wood a unique
blue. And that’s caught the attention of Colorado’s woodworkers. They’re using the wood for everything from furniture to decking.

(sound of sawing and pounding)

Outside Boulder, a company called Kitchens by Wedgewood is using the wood for
cabinets.

Wedgewood President Jim Ames says his company started working
with the timber three years ago.

Despite the drop in the housing market, Ames says customers like the blue stained finish.

“People are starting to ask for it more and more. Again, as
we get into this green movement, everybody wants to see what all those
dead trees in Colorado look like when they’re turned into a cabinet door.”

Ames says, with so many trees being killed, there will be enough timber to make beetle
wood cabinets for the rest of his lifetime.

For The Environment Report, I’m Conrad Wilson.

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From the Trees to the Tank

  • Chuck Leavell plays keyboards for the Rolling Stones. But he also owns a plantation outside of Macon, Georgia, with 2500 acres of pine trees. (Photo by Susan Mittleman)

Finding alternative fuel sources in our country involves looking at what nature has to
offer. In the West, they’re harnessing wind and solar energy. In the Heartland, it’s sweet
crops like corn. Susan Mittleman reports, in the South, they’re looking to their forests to
make cleaner, greener fuels:

Transcript

Finding alternative fuel sources in our country involves looking at what nature has to
offer. In the West, they’re harnessing wind and solar energy. In the Heartland, it’s sweet
crops like corn. Susan Mittleman reports, in the South, they’re looking to their forests to
make cleaner, greener fuels:

Chuck Leavell plays keyboards for the Rolling Stones. But when he’s not on the road, he
spends his time on his plantation outside of Macon, Georgia, tending to some 2500 acres
of pine trees.

“This is our tree farm here.”

From this tranquil refuge of nature and wildlife, he sees these trees as a possible way to
reduce our dependency on foreign oil.

“The fact that we have such wonderful resources, our forest, and that we are
looking for new markets, gives us a lot of hope to be able to use our trees to make
energy products, whether its electricity or gasification processes or any matter of
liquid fuels.”

Cutting down trees and turning them into fuels might not seem like the greenest thing to
do.

But people like Jill Stuckey, insist it is.

Stuckey heads Georgia’s Innovative Center for Energy, and says there’s no better source
for clean fuel here, than the state’s 24-million acres of forest land.

“We grow pine trees like Iowa grows corn. And it’s a renewable source of energy.”

Stuckey says trees grow faster and are more accessible in Georgia than any place else in
the country.

“It’s a good thing. Because trees sequester carbon. And we harvest these trees and
plant new trees, so we’re continuously replenishing our supply.”

She says an acre of pine trees can yield about seven tons of biomass per year.

Biomass is basically any living thing that grows and then can be harvested.
And that stuff can be used to make ethanol, electricity, and bio-diesel.

(sound of a factory)

At a small factory down in Albany Georgia, that’s what John Tharpe is making here.

Tharpe is semi- retired electrical engineer, and has designed a machine that converts
pine-tree chips into bio-diesel. The fuel can be burned to power and heat homes and
businesses.

“We’re using biomass. We make an oil and a char and then we are also looking now
at making electrical energy. You can use it in any commercial burner, such as
steam, boilers, those types of things.”

He’s already begun selling his biodiesel technology to people around the world.

So, Tharpe is making for electricity and heat. Other companies are making plans to use
trees to run our cars.

Range Fuels is building the ‘first-of-its kind’ bio-fuels plant in Soperton Georgia – which
will convert wood chips into green transportation fuels, things like ethanol and methanol.

Ron Barmore is the company’s project development director.
He says their facility is designed to produce upward of 100-million gallons of fuel a year.

“Our belief is that we’ll be able to compete with fossil fuels, with oil prices in the 70-
80 dollar a barrel range. We think long term that’s a viable place to be.”

And long-term sustainability is what tree farmers and environmentalists like Chuck
Leavell are looking for, not just for green energy, but for other reasons as well.

“These trees, in the period we plant them and their growing, they’re cleaning our
air, our water, providing home and shelter for wildlife, that helps everyone.”

More than 100 companies are looking at ways to use Georgia’s trees, in some form or
another, to produce greener, cleaner energy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Susan Mittleman.

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A New Threat to Grizzly Bears

  • The grizzly bear has a new threat - the Mountain Pine Beetle that's wiping out its food source (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

We’ve heard about a warmer climate affecting polar bears. Now, warmer weather seems to be threatening another kind of bear. Mark Brush reports on some tough times for Yellowstone’s Grizzly bears:

Transcript

We’ve heard about a warmer climate affecting polar bears. Now, warmer weather seems to be threatening another kind of bear. Mark Brush reports on some tough times for Yellowstone’s Grizzly bears:

Researchers say warmer temperatures in the last ten to fifteen years have been messing with the ecology in Yellowstone National Park.

In the fall, the grizzly bears eat pine cone nuts from white bark pine trees. It gives them a lot of nutrition before they curl up for the winter. But those trees are dying.

Mountain pine beetles are killing them. The beetle populations usually get knocked back by cold weather. But it hasn’t been getting as cold. So, there are more beetles killing more trees.

Doug Peacock lives near Yellowstone and has written several books on grizzlies.

“The white bark pine trees, this is the most important grizzly food of all in Yellowstone, they are gone. And we will not see them come back in our lifetime.”

And when the trees are gone, the bears get hungry – they go looking for food – and they run into people.

48 grizzlies out of the 600 in the region were killed last year.

Some environmental groups are suing the government to get the bear back on the endangered species list.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Recycling Your Christmas Tree

  • (Photo courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol)

Most cities discourage you
from throwing your Christmas tree
away. Rebecca Williams takes a look
at what you can do with your tree:

Transcript

Most cities discourage you
from throwing your Christmas tree
away. Rebecca Williams takes a look
at what you can do with your tree:

In a lot of cities you can drop your tree off, or a city truck will come and
pick it up. Then they’ll run it through a big chipper and make mulch. Cities
use the mulch for parks or zoos. And sometimes you can buy some of that
mulch for your own yard.

Bryan Weinert is a solid waste coordinator in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He
says you’ve got to make sure you take all the ornaments and tinsel off the
tree before you put it at the curb.

“You know that compromises the quality of our finished product and in
some cases can actually damage our grinding equipment.”

Other places use the trees to create fish habitat. And this year, when the
Vatican is done with its 108 foot tall Christmas tree, it’ll use it to make
wooden toys.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Up Close and Personal With a Prairie Fire

  • Park managers determined that this area of land in southeast Michigan was historically a prairie. They're using fire to return it to that state, and to keep invasive plants and shrubs in check. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Some natural areas need fire. A number of prairie plants and pine trees must have fire for their seeds to pop open or germinate. But burning a natural area can quickly turn into a wildfire without a team to keep it under control. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush spent a day with a burn crew… and brings us this audio postcard:

Transcript

Some natural areas need fire. A number of prairie plants and pine trees
must have fire for their seeds to pop open or germinate. But burning a
natural area can quickly turn into a wildfire without a team to keep it
under control. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush spent a day
with a burn crew… and brings us this audio postcard:


(sound of walking through dry grass and birds)


“Good morning, Hi, How’s it going?”


“Little dry?”


“It’s pretty dry, it’s forecasted, I think to be twenty one percent humidity…”


“My name is David Mindell, and I am the burn boss for this project. I’m a contractor that does ecological restoration. The first step is we’ll take a quick walk through and rake some of the fuel around stuff we don’t want to burn. This is the kind of thing if fire got in here, it’d burn for hours and hours and just put out a lot of smoke…”


“My name is Lee Root, and I just am a burn crew member. I’m filling up what’s known as an ‘Indian tank. It’s a backpack frame that has a water tank and a hand pump. This is our little portable fire engine, is what it is. So, you see where the black top is? If that was our fire, and we didn’t want the fire to come onto the grass, we would just…


(sound of squirting)


“…spray like that, and that would prevent the fire from crossing over.”


“Well, my name is Ross Orr, and I’ve been working with David for a couple of years, and um, we’re wearing these crazy, screaming yellow body suits that are flame-retardant fabric, and also helps keep us cool from the radiant heat of the burn, and big, big cumbersome helmets with visors that flip up and down…


(Sound of visor plastic clacking)


“…we’ll ingite using drip torches, which are these canisters filled with a mixutre of diesel and gas. It’s got a wick on the end, a burning wick, and as you tip the canister, it dribbles gas-diesel mix across the wick, and trails fire as you go.”


(sound of fire crackling and wind)


“Okay, I’m gonna burn it up right next to you Lee. All right, here we go.”


(sound of crackling and walkie-talkies)


“Catherine, keep coming right around.”


“Is this one of the crabapples we wanted to save, or they’re on the other end?”


“I believe they’re on the other end, unless they’re crabapples there?”


“Nope, it’s a hawthorne.”


“My name’s Catherine Marquardt, and I do whatever they tell me to do…


(sound of laughter)


“…whether it’s lighting fires or putting them out. Um, I think it looks like a Dr. Seuss story, actually, sometimes when you burn and it’s all black. You don’t get to see this very often, it’s very cool. And then it greens up so quickly, that’s the other amazing thing, is that if you come back here in a couple of days, it’s already getting green. So, it changes so quickly.”


“You know, I’m guessing it took probably forty-five minutes for the backburn to go a third of the way through the unit, and I think the headburn will run through the other two-thirds in about three minutes.”


(sound of large flames fading out)


(sound of walking, rubber squeaking and metal clanging)


Mindell: “And we’re, basically just walking around looking for things that are still smoking. Got a juniper that’s smoking at the base…


(sound of spraying)


“And just spraying out the smoldering bits.


“Burning is extremely fun, but it’s also a great management tool for improving the ecological quality of natural areas.”


(sound of wind and bird chirping)


HOST TAG: “This audio postcard of a prairie burn was produced by the
GLRC’s Mark Brush. To see photos of the burn and learn more about fire
as a management tool, you can visit glrc dot org.”

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Living Out Aldo Leopold’s Legacy

  • Aldo Leopold found fame by writing "A Sand County Almanac"... but even sixty years after his death, scholars say his theories about living in harmony with nature are influencing conservation practices today. (Photo courtesy of the Aldo Leopold Foundation Archives)

If you feel you just cannot live without wild things, you have something in common with a conservationist who’s still influencing conservation practices almost sixty years after his death. Scholars say the theories of Aldo Leopold continue to help shape wildlife management and land preservation, especially in the Upper Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

If you feel you just cannot live without wild things, you have something in
common with a conservationist who’s still influencing conservation practices almost
sixty years after his death. Scholars say the theories of Aldo Leopold continue to help shape wildlife management and land preservation, especially in the Upper Midwest. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Aldo Leopold is probably best known for writing A Sand
County Almanac. That’s a collection of essays about finding harmony
with nature. His ideas about preservation changed while working for the
Forest
Service in the southwestern U.S. Rick Stel of the Aldo Leopold
Foundation
says one day in the early 1900’s Leopold shot a wolf thought to be a threat
to
cattle. The female had pups with her.


“And he says he got there in time to see the
fierce green fire die in her eyes… and it was at this time he realized
we’re going about this in the wrong way… we really need to look at all
creatures and everything as a community.”


Leopold’s epiphany led to writings that won him national attention. he
eventually moved to Madison, Wisconsin – first to work in forest
research and later at the University of Wisconsin. There, he taught the
nation’s
first course in game management.


In 1935, he bought an abandoned farm in the sandy floodplain of the
Wisconsin River. It became the inspiration for many of the essays in A Sand County
Almanac.


(sound of unlocking door)


Most tours of the site start at an old chicken coop that was the only
building left when Leopold bought the place and is the only structure
now. The shack, as Leopold called it, has no electricity or furnace.


(sound of fire)


On chilly days tour guides light a fire in the fireplace and talk about
the ideas Leopold developed while visiting the shack with his family.
The Leopold Foundation’s Buddy Huffaker says Leopold worried about
becoming disconnected from nature.


“His February essay talks about the two spiritual dangers of
not owning a farm. One is to assume food comes from a grocery store, and the second is that heat comes from a furnace.”


Outside the shack Leopold and his family worked to return the land to its
pre-agricultural state. They planted thousands of pine trees. The also undertook
one of
the first prairie restorations. The Leopold family spent a lot of time
discussing how
people were damaging the environment.


(sound of brushing)


About one hundred yards from the shack Buddy Huffaker brushes off
a plaque that’s set in the ground. at this spot, Leopold sawed apart a
lightning-damaged oak tree that he called the good oak. He wrote
about the experience in a famous essay that Huffaker says is really
about natural history.


“As he and his family saw through the growth rings of the oak, he
goes back in time to see how people have disregarded other natural
elements in the landscape – the decimation of turkeys and other
species that we hunted into extinction locally or entirely.”


But turkeys, sandhill cranes and a few others species have come
back–in part because of Leopold’s conservation ethic. Now his
followers are trying to protect more things.


To spread Leopold’s message some groups have started sponsoring
readings of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac. At a library in Lake
Geneva
Wisconsin Jim Celano reads from the essay about the good oak.


“Now our saw bites into the 1920’s the Babbittian
decade when everything grew bigger and better in heedlessness and
arrogance – until 1929 when stock markets crumpled. If the oak heard them
fall, its
wood gives no sign.”


Celano is a former commerical real estate developer who now heads
a land conservancy group. He says he’s trying to convey Leopold’s
ideas to other developers.


“That we’re not here to say no to development… but to ask
they be sensitive to what they’re developing. And when you step on
their parcel, after their development is done, that the first thing you
notice is what they’re preserved and protected.”


(sound of woodpecker and traffic)


But even Aldo Leopold’s famous land around the shack is not immune
from modern threats. As a woodpecker hammers overhead, the noise
from a nearby interstate highway intrudes into the scenery. The
Leopold foundation’s Buddy Huffaker says Aldo Leopold knew the future
would bring new threats to the natural world.


“But I think that’s Leopold’s challenge to us. He
understood progress was going to continue. He just wanted us to
contemplate what we wanted that progress to be. And how far it
should go.”


And with sales of A Sand County Almanac bigger now than when it was
published in 1949, it ‘s a future Aldo Leopold might be helping to
shape.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Gum-O-Flage Cloaks Hunters This Season

  • Deer hunters try their best to prevent deer from sensing their presence - from hiding atop platforms to wearing camouflage clothing. (Photo by Alan Mead)

In much of the region, deer hunting season is in full swing. Hunters are taking to the woods doing their darndest to keep deer from spotting them. Now, an avid deer hunter has taken camouflage to another level. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley explains:

Transcript

In much of the region, deer hunting season is in full swing. Hunters are taking to the
woods doing their darndest to keep deer from spotting them. Now, an avid deer hunter has
taken camouflage to another level. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley
explains:


Neil Brentl says hunters know when a deer smells you.


“They make a very, very distinct like, huff sound, and you know. Every hunter knows
the sound. When you hear it, you almost wanna get out of your tree because you’re done.”


Brentl says that powerful sense of smell is a deer’s first line of defense. A few years
ago, Brentl’s brother suggested that perhaps the deer were sensing Brentl’s breath. The
idea for “gum-o-flage” was born.


“I took, like a regular gum, actually, like Bubble Yum, and chewed all the flavor out of
it, and added pine needles to it believe it or not. And I found that it was working.”


Brentl says the gum isn’t scientifically proven to work. But he says he hopes to have some
tests done soon. He says so far, “gum-o-flage” has been a hit with hunters in Upper Wisconsin.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Christina Shockley.

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Outdoor Lab Forecasts Global Warming Effects

  • Mark Kubiske checks the valve that controls the flow of greenhouse gases to a stand of sugar maples, birch and aspen. (Photo by Jennifer Simonson)

Scientists from around the world are studying how higher levels of carbon dioxide will affect forests 100 years from now. They’re doing that by pumping higher levels of CO2 and ozone into stands of trees. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson visited the experimental forests and has this story:

Transcript

Scientists from around the world are studying how higher levels of carbon dioxide will affect forests 100 years from now. They’re doing that by pumping higher levels of CO2 and ozone into stands of trees. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson visited the experimental forests and has this story:


(sound of “quiet area”)


The north woods of the Great Lakes states are stands of millions of acres of pine, maple, birch, and aspen forests. It’s a perfect place to try to figure out how trees will react to the higher levels of ozone and carbon dioxide scientists expect in the future.


(sound of beeping fence gate)


The first thing you notice at Aspen Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment Project – Aspen FACE for short – is two huge tanks inside the fenced in enclosure. Each one is bigger than an 18-wheel tanker truck. They’re full of carbon dioxide… CO2. So much CO2 is used in this experiment, the tanks are filled twice a day.


(sound of filling tanks)


If you looked at the site from an airplane, you’d see 12 circular tree stands surrounded by 30 foot high pipes. Those pipes pour CO2 or ozone gases or both into the air surrounding birch, sugar maple, and aspen trees. The scientists know that greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere have been increasing. They believe two centuries of industrial pollution has contributed to the problem. And they expect the CO2 and ozone levels to double by the end of this century. They’re raising the level of greenhouse gasses in different mixes to see what the predicted levels will do to forests.


This open air project is different than previous experiments. David Karnosky is with Michigan Tech. He’s the Project Manager for Aspen FACE. He says before these kinds of projects, they just tested trees inside places like greenhouses.


“We needed to get out of those chambers. We needed to have a more realistic, real world sort of situation where we had multiple trees. We wanted real intact forest communities. We didn’t want to have just a small number of trees inside of a chamber.”


The United States Department of Energy launched this experiment in Wisconsin’s northwoods seven years ago. Karnosky says they’re learning how the trees react to the higher CO2 levels, and that could shape the future of the world’s timber industry.


“Who will be the winners? Who will be the losers? Will aspen or birch or sugar maple? In northern Wisconsin here we’ve got probably 40 million acres of those species mixes. What’s going to happen under elevated CO2 in the next 100 years? Will these forests remain as they are?”


(sound of driving on gravel)


Driving to one of the experimental circles, we pull up to a ring of trees. Mark Kubiske is one of the two full-time on-site researchers.


“Now this particular ring is an elevated CO2 plot. CO2 is delivered through this copper pipe. It runs to that fan, there’s a large fan right on the end of that gray building.”


The scientists have found that trees in the CO2 circles grow 30 percent faster than trees without the gas.


“The trees are larger in diameter, they’re straight, they have lots of leaf area, they just look very healthy. That is just in tremendous contrast to the ozone ring. We’ll go up around the corner and look at one.”


Nearby another circle of trees is not doing nearly as well. The trees are skinny, twisted not as tall as the other sites. Higher ozone levels are hurting the trees.


At the sites where pipes emit both ozone and CO2, the tree growth seems normal – except for some stunted maple trees. The leaves of the aspen and birch take in much of the CO2, convert it to sugar which goes to its roots, eventually becoming a natural part of the soil. That suggests forests may help alleviate gases that cause global warming. The Project Director, David Karnosky says CO2 and ozone appear to cancel each other out. But he says it’s too early to draw any firm conclusions. Ultimately, he says governments will be able to look at this glimpse into the future and try to come up with emissions policies that help.


“The whole issue of the Kyoto protocol, our government not signing off on that. There’s been some relaxing of the feelings from what I’ve seen from the President’s report now that they’re beginning to realize that elevated CO2 is having an impact on global warming and could be impacting our plant communities.”


Karnosky says it’s possible that besides reducing emissions, governments might determine that planting more trees might be very helpful in reducing greenhouse gasses worldwide.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

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