Tag Archives: Pine Beetle

Climate Change

Aspen symposium hosts global warming cheerleader Al Gore

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Despite having been proven wrong in the past, at a symposium in Aspen this weekend Al Gore once again tried to tie recent severe weather to global warming.

Former Vice President Al Gore spoke at the “Forests at Risk: Climate Change and the Future of the American West” symposium in Aspen this weekend issuing a dire warning about global warming. Gore told the crowd, “It’s unprecedented and we really have to face up to it.”

The Nobel Laureate and author of the book and movie “An Inconvenient Truth” warned that the pine beetle infestation striking Colorado forests was caused by manmade climate change.  “If you love the forest and you care about what’s happening to them, the No. 1 connection that’s happening to them is warmer temperatures,” Gore told the compliant crowd.

The Denver Weather Examiner reports:

Utilizing a slideshow to demonstrate his point, Gore said, “The linkage these scientists have referred to over and over again with global warming is something some people resist but it’s a fact.”

Using the common refrain that significant weather events are related to man’s actions affecting the climate, Gore pointed to recent flooding in Brazil and Australia and last year’s flooding in his home state of Tennessee as evidence of this.

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Gore’s attempts to draw parallels between weather and climate change have gotten him into trouble in the past.  He was forced to pull images from his popular presentation two years ago that showed an increase in natural disasters when it was found it could not be proven.  NASA’s top climate scientist Dr. James Hansen has rebuked Gore saying he needed to be more “careful” in his claims.

The claims that Gore made at the symposium have been refuted in the past but he remains undeterred.  Get more details on what the former VP said as well as counter arguments on the Denver Weather Examiner.

Climate Change

Pine beetles as global warming warning? Not so much.

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Is global warming responsible for the pine beetle spread or is it something else?
Is global warming responsible for the pine beetle spread or is it something else?

Much has been said here in Colorado about the pine beetle outbreak in the beautiful mountains west of Denver.  Anyone who travels in the high country has seen and most likely taken note of the patches of dead, brown pine trees. 

More than one news story has reported that the beetles were a harbinger of things to come as a result of global warming and manmade climate change. 

Interestingly enough, that isn’t necessarily the case.  As reported in the Climate Change Examiner, man may be partially responsible but it isn’t CO2 emissions that are to blame.  Mismanagement of forests and a ‘perfect storm’ of other items can be fingered as well.

From the Climate Change Examiner:

A tiny little bug about the size of a grain of rice has become a focal point in the debate about manmade climate change. Over the last 12 years, the mountain pine beetle has spread quickly through the Mountain West and Canada killing millions of acres of pine trees.

The beetle thrives when conditions are drier and warmer than average and some experts have blamed its spread on manmade climate change and a warming environment. From Canada south to Colorado, images of acres of dead, brown trees amongst their healthy neighbors make for a stark picture of what may be forests in decline.

Global warming activists have been quick to seize on the pine beetle ‘epidemic’ as a sign of things to come and an impending ecological disaster. In truth, drawing the line between manmade climate change and the pine beetle outbreak is a stretch that few experts make. Rather, most see the outbreak as a natural function of forests and in many ways it is Mother Nature correcting man’s previous mistakes.

There's more to this story on the Denver Weather Examiner's site!Get the complete story on Examiner.com and find out why even state foresters aren’t blaming man entirely.