{"id":119348,"date":"2014-06-26T20:58:35","date_gmt":"2014-06-27T02:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/biologist-climate-spells-grim-fate-for-states-trees\/"},"modified":"2014-06-26T20:58:35","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T02:58:35","slug":"biologist-climate-spells-grim-fate-for-states-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/biologist-climate-spells-grim-fate-for-states-trees\/","title":{"rendered":"Biologist: Climate spells grim fate for state\u2019s trees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Evolutionary
Evolutionary biologist Connie Barlow predicts climate change could devastate Colorado\u2019s trees before the end of the century. In 2012, Steve Colburn of Laser Technology Inc. measured the ponderosa pine named \u201cFaye Schrater.\u201d About 175 years old, the tree, which stands adjacent to the Hermosa Creek Trail, is more than 160 feet tall with a girth of at least 9.5 feet. The tree is believed to be the tallest of its species in the Rocky Mountains.<\/span>Durango Herald file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite decades of increasingly urgent warnings from scientists about human-caused global warming and overwhelming evidence that industrialization has heated our planet, governments have not gone far enough to curb carbon emissions.<\/p>\n

At Durango\u2019s Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on Tuesday, evolutionary biologist Connie Barlow began her talk about climate change\u2019s effect on wild trees in Colorado by telling the crowd: \u201cThis is the next step in sadness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judging by the 40-strong crowd\u2019s reaction to her slides, which included sharp intakes of breath, mournful sighing and head shaking, Barlow made good on her promise to devastate the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrees are the most vulnerable of any life form. Yet when we think about it, they provide the scaffolding for everything that is in a wild land, or it becomes a desert,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

One by one, Barlow presented scientific modeling on 10 species of wild trees in growing in Colorado: the Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir, whitebark pine, limber pine, lodgepole pine, pi\u00f1on pine, ponderosa pine, Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine and white fir.<\/p>\n

Each species was all but decimated by 2090.<\/p>\n

As temperatures rise over the decades, trees will become more vulnerable to fire, disease, drought and pests. Unlike other species such as rabbits, which can move of their own will and reproduce frequently, trees regenerate on average every 30 years and cannot seek hospitable lands.<\/p>\n

She pointed to pi\u00f1on pine. By 2060, the model showed pi\u00f1on pine all but disappearing from Colorado.<\/p>\n

Barlow\u2019s presentation relied on data about tree species collected by the Forest Service and used the well-established climate-change forecast produced by the Canadian Center for Climate Modelling and Analysis.<\/p>\n

For perspective, Barlow quoted an academic paper, the obscurely called Cenozoic Climate Change Shaped Evolutionary Ecophysiology of the Cupressaceae Conifers, about climate change that may have killed the dinosaurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlobal climate change underwent dramatic changes 33.7 (million years ago) when a warm and almost universally equable world rapidly became much colder and drier,\u201d the paper says. \u201cThis shift is attributed in part to a dramatic decrease in atmospheric CO2 that caused global mean temperatures to drop 3 to 4 degrees Celsius (5.5 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in only 300,000 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barlow said, to put that in perspective, \u201cToday, with global warming, we\u2019re talking about a three-to-four degree (Celcius) temperature shift in the course of 200 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the life-killing effects of global warming will have on the environment are routinely ignored by the media.<\/p>\n

She pointed to a rare exception, a recent New York Times op-ed by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who oversaw the bailouts during the financial meltdown in 2008.<\/p>\n

She read aloud:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too many years, we failed to rein in the excesses building up in the nation\u2019s financial markets. When the credit bubble burst in 2008, the damage was devastating. Millions suffered. Many still do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re making the same mistake today with climate change. We\u2019re staring down a climate bubble that poses enormous risks to both our environment and economy. The warning signs are clear and growing more urgent as the risks go unchecked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a crisis we can\u2019t afford to ignore. I feel as if I\u2019m watching as we fly in slow motion on a collision course toward a giant mountain. We can see the crash coming, and yet we\u2019re sitting on our hands rather than altering course.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evolutionary biologist Connie Barlow predicts climate change could devastate Colorado\u2019s trees before the end of the century. In 2012, Steve Colburn of Laser Technology Inc. measured the ponderosa pine named \u201cFaye Schrater.\u201d About 175 years old, the tree, which stands adjacent to the Hermosa Creek Trail, is more than 160 feet tall with a girth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[551],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-119348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-feature-box"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119348"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=119348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}