Trees in Trouble: Wildfires, Infestations, and Climate Change Hit the West

Natural historian Matthews (Natural History of the Pacific Northwest Mountains) vividly relates the complex environmental situation facing America’s western pine forests in this fascinating account. He draws in his audience from the opening line, noting that in “western North America there are living pine trees older than the Egyptian pyramids,” thanks to several millennia of fairly consistent temperatures. In contrast, he sees the current era of global warming bringing dramatic and rapid changes, including the disappearance of entire species of trees from these forests. Mathews also illuminates other existential threats facing the landscape, including from devastating wildfires and insect infestations. He is particularly good at articulating why environmentalists should “enthusiastically accept... low- to moderate-severity fires” that thin out overgrown forests and reduce the fuel available for more serious blazes which humans have more difficulty controlling, and from which forests have difficulty recovering. Mathews also analyzes the fascinating biological measures and countermeasures developed by certain trees and the beetles which feed off of them, and explains how the decrease in cold snaps caused by global warming makes mountain pine beetle outbreaks unstoppable. Eco-conscious readers, even those unversed in this seemingly niche subject, will be intrigued and enlightened by Matthews’s thoughtful work. (Apr.)